The Bible uses several titles in referring to Jesus. The most prominent is ‘Christ’, but it also uses ‘Son of God‘ and ‘Lamb of God‘ regularly. However, Jesus often refers to himself as ‘Son of Man’. What does this mean and why does he use this term? It is in the trial of Jesus that the irony of his use of ‘Son of Man’ really stands out. We explore this here.
Many are somewhat familiar with the trial of Jesus. Perhaps they have seen the trial depicted in a film or read it in one of the gospel accounts. Yet the trial that the Gospels record brings forth profound paradoxes. It forms part of the events of Day 6 in Passion Week. Luke records the details of the trial for us.
At daybreak the council of the elders of the people, both the chief priests and teachers of the law, met together, and Jesus was led before them. “If you are the Christ”, they said, “tell us.”
Jesus answered, “If I tell you, you will not believe me, and if I asked you, you would not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God.”
They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?” He replied, “You are right in saying I am.”
Then they said, “Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips.”
Luke 22: 66-71
Notice how Jesus does not answer their question whether he is the ‘Christ’. Instead, he refers to something totally different, the ‘Son of Man’. But his accusers don’t seem puzzled by that abrupt change of topic. For some reason they understand him even though he does not answer if he was the Christ.
So why? Where does ‘Son of Man’ come from and what does it mean?
The ‘Son of Man’ from Daniel
‘Son of man’ comes from Daniel in the Old Testament. He recorded a vision explicitly about the future, and in it he references a ‘Son of Man’. Here is how Daniel recorded his vision:
Daniel lived ca 550 BCE, long before Jesus
“As I looked,
“thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. 10 A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened….
Daniel 7:9-10
13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
Now reflect on the irony of the situation at Jesus’ trial. There stood Jesus, a peasant carpenter living in the backwater of the Roman Empire. He had a ragtag following of lowly fishermen. At his recent arrest, they had just deserted him in terror. Now he is on trial for his life. By calling himself the Son of Man he calmly claimed before the chief priests and other accusers to be that person in Daniel’s vision.
But Daniel described the son of man as ‘coming on the clouds of heaven’. Daniel foresaw the Son of Man taking worldwide authority and establishing a never-ending kingdom. That could not be more different from the actual situation that Jesus found himself in at his trial. It would seem almost ludicrous to bring up that title with him being in that situation.
What was Luke thinking?
Jesus is not the only one behaving strangely. Luke does not shy away from recording this claim and putting it on record. However, when he did so (early 60s first century CE) the prospects for Jesus and his fledgling movement seemed laughable. His movement was ridiculed by the elite, disdained by the Jews, and ruthlessly persecuted by the insane Roman Emperor Nero. Nero had the Apostle Peter crucified upside-down and Paul beheaded. It should seem beyond sane reason that Luke would keep that fantastic reference in the mouth of Jesus. By writing it down he made it public for all their detractors to scoff at. But Luke was confident that Jesus of Nazareth was this same Son of Man from Daniel’s vision. So, against all odds, he records Jesus’ irrational (if it were not true) exchange with his accusers.
Now consider this. Only after Jesus gave his reply, and centuries after Luke put it on record, some significant parts of the Daniel Son of Man vision have been fulfilled by Jesus. Daniel’s vision of the Son of Man stated that:
“all peoples, nations, and men of every language worshiped him”.
That was not true of Jesus two thousand years ago. But look around now. People from every nation and practically each of the thousands of languages do worship him today. This includes former animists from the Amazon to Papua New Guinea, the jungles of India to Cambodia. From East to West and North to South people worship him now on a global scale. For no one else in all of recorded history is this even remotely plausible. One may dismiss this with a ‘yes well that is due to the spread of Christianity’. Sure, hindsight is 20-20. But Luke had no human way of knowing how things would unfold in the centuries after he recorded his account.
How could the Son of Man get worship
And worship, to be real worship, can only be given by a free will, not under coercion or by bribery. Suppose Jesus was the Son of Man with the powers of Heaven at his command. Then he would have had the might 2000 years ago to rule by force. But by force alone he would never have been able to get true worship out of people. For that to happen people must be freely won over, like a maiden by her lover.
Asbury Revival- nonstop, two-week prayer and worship session that took place at Asbury University (2023) Mollie Landman Hunker, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Thus to reach fulfillment Daniel’s vision required, in principle, a period of free and open invitation. A time when people could freely choose whether they would give the Son of Man worship or not. This explains the period we now live in, between the First Coming and the Return of the King. This is the period when the Kingdom’s invitation goes out. We can freely accept it or not.
The partial fulfillment of Daniel’s vision in our times provides a basis to trust that the remainder will also be fulfilled someday. At the very least it might raise our curiosity about the truth of the overall Biblical story.
In his first coming he came to defeat sin and death. He achieved this by dying himself and then rising. He now invites everyone thirsty for everlasting life to take it. When he returns as per Daniel’s vision he will fully establish the ever-lasting Kingdom with its ever-lasting citizens. And we can be part of it.
But what about the books of the Old Testament? Are they as reliable and unchanged as the New Testament? What role do the Dead Sea Scrolls play in this?
The Old Testament: An Ancient Library
The Old Testament’s uniqueness comes in several ways. First it should be thought of more as a library since many authors wrote the various books of the Old Testament. Second, they wrote them a very long time ago. To appreciate the immense antiquity of the Old Testament writings, we compare them in a timeline with other ancient writings:
Historical Timeline with Major Biblical Characters
The timeline above places Abraham, Moses, David and Isaiah in history. They are the major characters of the Old Testament. Compare where they sit on the timeline with Thucydides and Herodotus, whom historians consider the earliest ‘Fathers of History’. Herodotus and Thucydides only lived when Malachi wrote the final Old Testament book. Their writings only looked back about 100 years before their time to conflicts between Greek city states, and between Greece and Persia. Other important historical persons and events like the founding of Rome, Alexander the Great, and the Buddha all come much later than the Old Testament characters. Essentially, the rest of the world only woke up to history when the Old Testament added its final books to its rather extensive collection.
Textual Criticism of the Old Testament Masoretic Text
The authors of the 39 Old Testament books wrote between 1500 BCE and 400 BCE. They wrote in Hebrew with small portions in the later books written in Aramaic. The blue band shows the 1100 year period when the various Old Testament books were written (1500 – 400 BCE):
Timeline of the Old Testament Masoretic Manuscript
These original writings are preserved today in Hebrew manuscript copies known as the Masoretic Text. Modern Bible translators use the Masoretic Text to translate the Hebrew Old Testament into today’s languages. So using the principles of Textual Criticism (see here for details), how reliable is the Masoretic Text?
So you can see that the earliest existing Masoretic manuscripts date only starting from 895 CE. If we put these manuscripts in a timeline with the original writings of the Old Testament, we are given the following:
Timeline of the Old Testament Masoretic Manuscript
You can also see that the interval between the date of composition and the earliest existing copies (the primary principle in Textual Criticism) exceeds 1000 years.
Codex Cairensis ישראל קרול, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Codex Sassoon Ardon Bar-Hama, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Qumran Caves (Cave #4) Effi Schweizer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In 1948, Palestinian shepherds discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls hidden in caves by the shores of the Dead Sea in Qumran. A shepherd boy had thrown some stones into the mouth of a cave higher up in the face of a cliff. He then heard the sound of clay jars breaking from the impact of the stones. Intrigued, he climbed up the cliffs and found the sealed clay jars with the Dead Sea Scrolls inside. The Dead Sea Scrolls contained Hebrew manuscripts of all the books of the Old Testament, except the Book of Esther. Scholars date their composition between 250 and 100 BCE.
Dead Sea Scrolls in the Timeline of the Old Testament Manuscripts
Short Video on Textual Criticism and Dead Sea Scrolls
Significance of Dead Sea Scrolls for Textual Criticism
With the discovery and publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid-twentieth century the whole world witnessed a monumental event in Textual Criticism. In basically one instant, the Dead Sea Scrolls pushed the Old Testament Hebrew text 1000 years back in time. This raised the intriguing question: Had the Hebrew text of the Old Testament changed during this 1000 year period from 100 BCE to 900 CE? Europe at this time had built its civilization over the preceding 1500 years based upon the Old Testament. Had that text been changed or altered during its history? The Dead Sea Scrolls could shed light on this question. So what did they find?
“These [DDSs] confirm the accuracy of the Masoretic Text… Except for a few instances where spelling and grammar differ between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text, the two are amazingly similar.”
M.R. Norton. 1992. Manuscripts of the Old Testament in The Origin of the Bible.
Dead Sea Scrolls in the Timeline of the Old Testament Manuscripts
Scholars found almost no change in the Hebrew between the Masoretic Text and the Dead Sea Scrolls, though they jumped back 1000 years. In comparison, consider how much the English language has changed in the last 700 years, yet the remarkable Hebrew text remained static over such a great length of time.
Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the Bible’s Integrity
The Dead Sea Scrolls support the Bible’s primary claim to authenticity. The New Testament claims that Jesus fulfills God’s Plan announced since the beginning of human history. The many Old Testament prophecies fulfilled by him throughout his life provides a central proof, or evidence, for this claim. The reasoning is as simple as it is logical. No human, no matter how clever, educated, or knowledgeable knows the future, especially when looking hundreds of years ahead. But God does know, and even sets up, the future. So if we find writings that correctly prophesy minute details of monumental events hundreds of years into the future they must have been inspired by God rather than merely thought up by men. You can think of the Old Testament prophecies forming a lock, waiting for a key to ‘fit’ into the lock to open it. Jesus claimed to be that key.
However, before the Dead Sea Scrolls, we did not have definitive proof that these prophecies were actually in writing before the events that they foresaw. Some dismissed them by arguing, for example, that perhaps the Old Testament prophecies of Jesus were ‘inserted’ into the Old Testament say in 200 CE. Since no Hebrew Old Testament text before 900 CE existed, that objection could not be quickly refuted. But with the Dead Sea Scrolls we find these prophecies had indeed been written down at the very latest by 100 BCE, 130 years before Jesus taught, performed miracles, and resurrected from the dead.
The Old Testament Prophecies in the Dead Sea Scrolls
So the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the prophecies were in print before Jesus fulfilled them. The prophecies found in the Dead Sea Scrolls include:
The world discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948. This was the same year as the modern revival of Israel into a nation after almost 2000 years of Jewish exile. The timing of these two central events of the 20th century, being the same year, makes their remarkable re-entry to our world even seem scheduled by a Higher Power. Even just in their discovery, the Dead Sea Scrolls hint that The Mind foreordaining Jesus’ coming thousands of years ago seems to be still organizing events today.
If you were to name some classic love stories you might suggest Helen of Troy & Paris (igniting the Trojan War dramatized in the Iliad), Cleopatra and Mark Antony (whose love entwined Rome in a civil war with Octavian/Augustus Caesar), Romeo & Juliet, Beauty & the Beast, or perhaps Cinderella & Prince Charming. In them, history, pop culture, and romantic fiction come together in offering passionate love stories. These easily captivate our hearts, emotions, and imaginations.
Amazingly, the love that sparked between Ruth & Boaz has proved far more enduring than any of these love affairs. It still affects the lives of all the billions of us living today. Its ramifications live on more than three thousand years after these lovers met. Rather than the tabloid love stories that last only a fleeting moment their love has outlasted all the classics mentioned above. Their romance is also a picture of a mystical and spiritual love offered to you and me. The story of Ruth and Boaz deals with cross-cultural & forbidden love. It models a healthy relationship between a powerful man and a vulnerable woman. Thus it speaks to today’s #MeToo generation. It becomes a blueprint for us on how to establish a healthy marriage. By any of these measures, the love story of Ruth & Boaz is worth knowing.
The Book of Ruth in the Bible records their love. It is a short book with only 2400 words. It thus makes a quick read (here). The setting happens around 1150 BCE, making this the oldest of all recorded love stories.
Hollywood movie depicting the Ruth Love story
The Love Story of Ruth
Naomi and her husband with their two sons leave Israel to escape drought. They settle in the nearby country of Moab (today’s Jordan). After marrying local women the two sons die, as does Naomi’s husband, leaving her alone with her two daughters-in-law. Naomi decides to return to her native Israel and one of her daughters-in-law, Ruth, chooses to accompany her. After a long absence, Naomi is back in her native Bethlehem. She has become a destitute widow and is accompanied by Ruth, a young and vulnerable Moabite immigrant.
Ruth & Boaz meet
Much art has been done depicting the meeting of Ruth and Boaz
Bereft of income, Ruth goes out to gather grain left behind by the local harvest crews in the fields. The Law of Moses, as a social safety net, had ordained harvesters to leave some grains behind in their fields. Accordingly, the impoverished could gather food and survive. Randomly it would seem, Ruth finds herself picking grains in the fields of a wealthy landowner named Boaz. Boaz notices Ruth among the others working hard to gather up the grains left behind by his work crews. He instructs his foremen to leave extra grain behind in the field so that she can gather more.
Because she can gather plentifully in his fields, Ruth comes back to Boaz’s fields every day to gather left-over grain. Boaz, ever the protector, ensures that his crews do not harass or molest Ruth. Instead, he commands them to leave more grain behind for her to gather. Ruth and Boaz become interested in each other. But because of differences in age, social status, and nationality, neither makes a move. Here Naomi steps in as match-maker. She instructs Ruth to boldly lay down by Boaz’s side at night after he has celebrated the harvest gathering. Boaz understands this as a marriage proposal and decides to marry her.
Kinsman Redeemer
But the situation is more complicated than simply love between them. Naomi is a relative of Boaz, and since Ruth is her daughter-in-law, Boaz, and Ruth are kin by marriage. Boaz must marry her as a ‘kinsmen redeemer’. This meant that under the Law of Moses, he would marry her ‘in the name’ of her first husband (Naomi’s son). In this way, he would provide for Naomi also. This would entail that Boaz purchases Naomi’s family fields. Though that would prove costly to Boaz it was not the biggest obstacle. There was another closer relative that had first rights to buy Naomi’s family’s fields (and also thus marry Ruth).
So the marriage of Ruth to Boaz hung on whether another man wanted the responsibility to care for Naomi and Ruth. At a public meeting of the city elders, this first-in-line declined the marriage. He did so because it put his estate at risk. Boaz was thus free to purchase and redeem Naomi’s family estate and marry Ruth.
Legacy of Ruth & Boaz
In their union, they had a child, Obed, who in turn became the grandfather of King David. God promised David that ‘a Christ’ would come from his family, with further prophecies following. Centuries later, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the same town that Ruth and Boaz had met in long before. Their romance, marriage, and family line resulted in offspring that today is the basis for the BCE and CE calendar. Global holidays like Christmas & Easter also count among the by-products of that love. Not bad for a romance in a dusty village over 3000 years ago.
Picturing a Greater Love Story
The rich and powerful Boaz treated Ruth, the destitute foreign woman, with chivalry and respect. This speaks against the harassment and exploitations now common in our #MeToo day. The historical impact of the family line which this romance and marriage produced, detectable every time we note the date on our devices, gives this love story an enduring legacy. But the Ruth & Boaz love story is also a picture of an even greater love. You and I are invited to this one.
The Bible describes us in a manner evoking Ruth when it says:
I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’
Hosea 2:23
The Old Testament prophet Hosea (ca 750 BCE) initiated reconciliation in his fractured marriage. The scripture used this reunion to picture God reaching out to us, the unloved, with His love. Ruth also entered the land as one unloved but then was shown love by Boaz. Likewise, God desires to show His love even to those of us who feel far from His love. The New Testament (Romans 9:25) quotes this to show how God reaches wide to love those far from Him.
How is His love shown? Jesus, that descendant offspring from Boaz & Ruth, is God come-in-the-flesh. Therefore he is our ‘kinsman’, just as Boaz was to Ruth. Thus, as Boaz paid to redeem Ruth, Jesus paid for our debt to God on the cross, and thus he…
Jesus paid our price
gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
Titus 2:14
Boaz was a ‘kinsman-redeemer’ who paid a price to redeem Ruth. This explicitly illustrated, how likewise, Jesus our ‘kinsman-redeemer’, paid (with his life) to redeem us.
A Model for our marriages
The way Jesus (and Boaz) paid to redeem and then win his bride models how we can build our marriages. The Bible explains how we establish our marriages:
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wifeas he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 5:21-33
Boaz and Ruth established their marriage on love and respect. Jesus’ care for his church is a model for husbands to love their wives sacrificially. So we do well to build our marriages on these same values.
A Wedding Invitation for you and me
As in all good love stories, the Bible concludes with a wedding. The price that Boaz paid to redeem Ruth paved the way for their wedding. Likewise, the price that Jesus paid has paved the way for our wedding. That wedding is not figurative but real, and those accepting his wedding invitation are called ‘The Bride of Christ’. As it says:
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.
Revelation 19:7
Those who receive Jesus’ offer of redemption become his ‘bride’. This heavenly wedding is offered to all of us. The Bible ends with this invitation for you and me to come to His wedding
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.
Revelation 22:17
The relationship between Ruth & Boaz is a model of love that is still making itself felt today. It is a picture of the heavenly romance of God who loves us. He will marry as His Bride all who accept His marriage proposal. As with any marriage proposal, His offer should be weighed to see if you should accept it. Start here with the ‘plan’ laid out from the beginning of human history and follow its development. Notice how it is all predicted long beforehand to prove it really is God’s Proposal.
The novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, emerged in China towards the end of 2019. Just a few months later it had raged around the world, infecting and killing millions while spreading to every country.
The lightning fast spread of COVID-19 created panic around the world. People were unsure what to do in light of this pandemic. But before vaccines emerged, medical professionals insisted that success in containing COVID-19 hung on one big strategy. Everyone on the planet practiced social distancing and quarantine. This caused authorities around the world to setup lockdown and isolation rules.
In most places people could not meet in large groups and had to keep at least two meters distance from others. Those who came in contact with someone testing positive for COVID-19 had to completely isolate themselves from contact with others.
Simultaneously, medical researchers raced to find a vaccine. They hoped that vaccinated people would develop resistance to the coronavirus. Then the spread of COVID-19 would be less fatal and slow down.
Covid -19 Vaccine
These extreme procedures to isolate, quarantine, and develop a coronavirus vaccine, provide a living illustration of another procedure to treat a different virus. But this virus is a spiritual one. That procedure is at the heart of the mission of Jesus and his Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven. The coronavirus was so serious that societies across the planet attempted drastic steps to protect their citizens. So perhaps it is worthwhile to also understand this spiritual counterpart. We do not want to be caught unaware by this threat like the world was with COVID. The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates abstract Biblical themes like sin, heaven, and hell, but also the mission of Jesus.
First how the infectious disease illustrates sin…
A Deadly & Contagious Infection.
No one really thought that COVID-19 is pleasant to think about, but it was unavoidable. Likewise, the Bible talks a great deal about sin and its consequences, another topic we prefer to avoid. An image the Bible uses to describe sin is that of a spreading infectious disease. Like COVID, it describes sin as going across the whole human race and killing it.
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.
Romans 5:12
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
Isaiah 64:6
Epidemics are diseases but are not the cause of the disease. For example, AIDS is the disease; HIV is the virus that causes the disease. SARS is the disease; SARS Coronavirus-1 is the virus that causes the disease. COVID-19 is a disease with its symptoms. SARS Coronavirus-2 is the virus behind it. In the same way, the Bible says that our sins (plural) are a spiritual disease. Sin (singular) is its root, and it results in death.
Moses & the Bronze Serpent
Jesus linked an Old Testament event connecting disease and death to his mission. This is the account of snakes infesting the Israelite camp in the time of Moses. The Israelites needed a cure before death overwhelmed them all.
They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”
6 Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
Numbers 21:4-9
Israelites being captured by snakes
Moses made the bronze snake
Throughout the Old Testament, one became unclean either by infectious disease, by touching dead bodies, or by sin. These three are associated with one another. The New Testament sums up our situation like this:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
Ephesians 2: 1-2
Death in the Bible means ‘separation’. It involves both a physical (soul separates from the body) and spiritual death (soul separated from God). Sin is like an unseen but real virus inside us. It causes immediate spiritual death. This then leads to a certain physical death over time.
Though we would rather not think about it, the Bible treats sin as real and deadly as the Coronavirus. We cannot afford to ignore it. But it also points to the vaccine…
The Vaccine – Through the death of the Seed
From its beginning, the Bible developed a theme of the coming Seed. A seed is essentially a packet of DNA that can unfurl and develop into new life. The DNA in a seed is specific information from which it builds large molecules of specific shapes (proteins). In this sense, it is similar to a vaccine, which are large molecules (called antigens) of a specific shape. God promised that this coming Seed, announced from the beginning, would solve the problem of sin and death.
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
Genesis 3:15
See here for details on the woman and her Seed. God later promised that the Seed would come through Abraham to go to all nations.
In your (Abraham’s) seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.
Genesis 22:18
In these promises the Seed is singular. A ‘he’, not a ‘they’ or an ‘it’, was to come.
The Gospel reveals Jesus as the promised Seed – but with a twist. The seed would die.
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
John 12:23-24
His death was on our behalf.
But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
Hebrews 2:9
Some vaccines first kill the virus in it. Then the vaccine with the dead virus is injected into our bodies. In this way, our bodies can produce the necessary antibodies. Our immune system can thus defend our bodies from the virus. Similarly, the death of Jesus enables that Seed to now indwell us. So now we can develop an immune defense against that spiritual virus – sin.
Covid -19 Antibodies
No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
1 John 3:9
The Bible continues to explain what this means:
Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
2 Peter 1:4
Though sin has corrupted us, the life of the Seed in us takes root and enables us to ‘participate in the divine nature’. The corruption is not only undone, but we can be like God in a manner impossible otherwise.
But, without an adequate vaccine our only option for Covid is quarantine. This is also true in the spiritual realm. We know that quarantine more commonly as Hell.
How is this so?
Quarantine – Separation of Heaven & Hell
Jesus taught on coming of the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’. When we think of ‘heaven’ we often think of its situation or milieu – those ‘streets of gold’. But the greater hope of the Kingdom is a society with citizens of completely honest and selfless character. Reflect on how much we build into the ‘kingdoms’ of the earth to protect ourselves from each other. Everyone has locks on their homes, some with advanced security systems. We lock our cars and tell our kids not to speak to strangers. Every city has a police force. We vigilantly protect our online data. Think of all the systems, practices, and procedures that we have put in place in our ‘kingdoms on earth’. Now realize that they are there simply to protect ourselves from each other. Then you may get a glimmer of the problem of sin in heaven.
Exclusivity of Paradise
A depiction of what heaven might look like
If God set up a kingdom of ‘heaven’ and then made us citizens of it, we would quickly turn it into the hell we have turned this world into. The gold on the streets would vanish in no time. God must root out the sin in us just like societies try to eradicate COVID-19 for society to be healthy. Not one person who ‘missed’ (the meaning of sin) this perfect standard could enter God’s kingdom. Because then he would ruin it. Instead, God needs to enforce a quarantine so sin would not wreck heaven.
What then for those whom God quarantines and denies entry? In this world, if you are denied entry to a country you cannot also participate in its resources and benefits. (You cannot receive its welfare, medical treatment ,etc.). But all in all, people around the world, even terrorists on the run from all countries, enjoy the same basic amenities of nature. These include such basic and taken for granted things as breathing the air, seeing light like everyone else.
What separation from God finally is
But who made light? The Bible claims
‘God said, “Let there be light” and there was light’.
Genesis 1:3
A depiction of what hell might look like
If that is true then all light is His – and it turns out that we are just borrowing it now. But with the final establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven, His light will be in His Kingdom. So ‘outside’ will be ‘darkness’ – just as Jesus described Hell in this parable.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Matthew 22: 13
If there is a Creator then most of what we take for granted and assume is ‘ours’ is really His. Start with such a basic entity as ‘light’, the world around us, and go on to our natural abilities such as thought and speech. We really did nothing to create these and our other abilities. We simply find ourselves able to use and develop them. When the Owner finalizes His Kingdom He will reclaim all that is his.
When COVID-19 breaks out bringing death and havoc among us all we hear no argument when experts insist on quarantine. So it is no surprise to hear Jesus teach in his parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus that
And besides all this, between us (in Kingdom of God) and you (in Hell) a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.
Luke 16:26
Taking the vaccination – Jesus’ explanation of the Bronze Serpent
Jesus once explained his mission using the story above about Moses and the deadly serpents. Think about what would have happened for the people bitten by the snakes.
When bitten by a poisonous snake, the venom entering the body is an antigen, just like a virus infection. The normal treatment is to try to suck the venom out. Then bind the bitten limb tightly so that the blood flow ebbs and the venom does not spread from the bite. Finally, reduce activity so that the lowered heart rate will not quickly pump the venom through the body.
When the serpents infected the Israelites, God told them to look at the bronze serpent held up on a pole. You might imagine some bitten person rolling out of bed, looking at the nearby bronze serpent, and then being healed. But there were about 3 million people in the Israelite camp. (They counted over 600 000 men of military age). This is the size of a large modern city. Chances were high that those bitten were several kilometers away, and out of sight from, the bronze serpent pole.
The Counter-Intuitive Choice with the serpents
So those bitten by the snakes had to make a choice. They could take standard precautions involving binding the wound tightly and resting to restrict blood flow and spread of the venom. Or they would have to trust the remedy announced by Moses. To do that they would have to walk several kilometers, raising the blood flow and spread of the venom, before looking on the bronze serpent. The trust or lack of trust in the word of Moses would determine each person’s course of action.
Jesus referred to this when he said
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15 so that whoever believes will in Him may have eternal life.
John 3:14-15
Jesus said that our situation is like that serpent story. The snakes that infested the camp are like sin in us and society. We are infected with the venom of sin and we will die from it. This death is an eternal one requiring Quarantine from the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus then said that his being lifted up on the cross was like the bronze serpent lifted on a pole. Just as the bronze serpent could cure the Israelites of their deadly venom so he can cure ours. The Israelites in the camp had to look at the raised serpent. But to do that they would have to explicitly trust the solution provided by Moses. They would have to act counter-intuitively by not slowing the heart rate. It was their trust in what God provided that saved them.
Our Counter-Intuitive Choice with Jesus
It is the same for us. We do not physically look at the cross, but we trust in that provision given by God to save us from the infection of sin and death.
However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.
Romans 4:5
Rather than trusting our ability to fight off the infection, we trust God who made the vaccine in the Seed. We trust him with the details of the vaccine. This is why ‘Gospel’ means ‘Good news’. Anyone who has been infected with a deadly disease but now hears that a life-saving vaccine is available and given for free – that is good news.
Come & See
Of course, we need a reason to trust both the diagnosis and the vaccine. We dare not give our trust naively. As one of the earliest discussions on this theme records
Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
46 “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.
“Come and see,” said Philip.
John 1:45-46
The Gospel invites us to come and see, to examine that Seed. Here are some articles to help you do that including:
Why do you clothe yourself? Not with just anything that fits, but you want fashionable clothing that states who you are. What causes you to instinctively need to wear clothing, not just to stay warm but also to express yourself visually?
Isn’t it odd that you find the same instinct across the planet, no matter what people’s language, race, education, religion is? Women perhaps more than men, but they also display the same tendency. In 2016 the global textile industry exported $1.3 Trillion USD.
The instinct to clothe ourselves feels so utterly normal and natural that many don’t often stop to ask, “Why?”.
We put forth theories as to where the earth came from, where people came from, why the continents drift apart. But have you ever read a theory as to where our need for clothing comes from?
Only Humans – but not just for warmth
Let’s start with the obvious. Animals certainly do not have this instinct. They are all perfectly happy to be stark naked in front of us, and others all the time. This is true even for higher animals. If we are simply higher than higher animals this does not seem to add up.
Our need to be clothed comes not just from our need for warmth. We know this because much of our fashion and clothing comes from places with almost unbearable heat. Clothing is functional, keeping us warm and protecting us. But these reasons do not answer our instinctive needs for modesty, gender expression and self-identity.
Clothing – from the Hebrew Scriptures
The one account explaining why we clothe ourselves, and seek to do it tastefully, comes from the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. These Scriptures place you and me into a story that claims to be historical. It offers insight into who you are, why you do what you do, and what is in store for your future. This story goes back to the dawn of mankind yet also explains everyday phenomena like why you clothe yourself. Becoming familiar with this account is worthwhile since it offers many insights about yourself, guiding you to more abundant living. Here we look at the Biblical account through the lens of clothing.
We have been looking at the ancient creation account from the Bible. We started with the beginning of mankind and the world. Then we looked at the primeval showdown between two great adversaries. Now we look at these events from a slightly different perspective, which explains mundane events like shopping for fashionable clothes.
Made In the Image of God
We explored here that God had made the cosmos and then
Biblical series, The Creation of the World, the sixth day, finally humans, made in the image of God were created
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27
In creation God fully expressed himself artistically through the beauty of creation. Think of sunsets, flowers, tropical birds and landscape vistas. Because God is artistic, you also, made ‘in his image’, will instinctively, without even consciously knowing ‘why’, likewise express yourself aesthetically.
We saw that God is a person. God is a ‘he’, not an ‘it’. Therefore, it is only natural that you also want to express yourself both visually and personally. Clothing, jewellery, colors and cosmetics (make-up, tattoos etc) is thus a prominent way for you to express yourself aesthetically as well as individually.
Male and Female
God also made humans in the image of God as ‘male and female’. From this we also understand why you create your ‘look’, by your clothing ,fashion, through your hairstyle and etc. This we naturally and easily recognize as male or female. This goes deeper than cultural fashion. If you see fashion and clothing from a culture you have never seen before you will generally generally be able to distinguish male and female clothing in that culture..
Thus your creation in the image of God as male or female begins explaining your clothing instincts. But this Creation account continues with some subsequent historical events which further explains clothing and you.
This tells us that from this point on humans lost their innocence before each other and before their Creator. Ever since then we instinctively have felt shame about being naked and have desired to cover our own nakedness. Beyond the need to stay warm and protected, we feel exposed, vulnerable and ashamed when naked in front of others. Mankind’s choice to disobey God unleashed this in us. It also unleashed the world of suffering, pain, tears and death that we all know so well.
Extending Mercy: A Promise and some clothes
God, in his mercy for us, then did two things. First, He uttered a Promise in riddle form that would direct human history. In this riddle He promised the coming redeemer, Jesus. God would send him to help us, to defeat his enemy, and to conquer death for us.
The second thing that God did was:
The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
Genesis 3:21
Adam and Eve being clothed
God provided clothing to cover their nakedness. God did so to address their shame. Ever since that day, we, the children of these human ancestors, instinctively clothe ourselves as a result of these events.
Clothing of Skin – A Visual Aid
God clothed them in a specific way to illustrate a principle for us. The clothing that God provided was not a cotton blouse or denim shorts but ‘garments of skin’. This meant that God killed an animal in order to make skins to cover their nakedness. They had tried to cover themselves with leaves, but these were insufficient and so skins were required. In the creation account, up to this time, no animal had ever died. That primeval world had not experienced death. But now God sacrificed an animal to cover their nakedness and shield their shame.
This began a tradition, practised by their descendants, running through all cultures, of animal sacrifice. Eventually people forgot the truth that this sacrifice tradition illustrated. But it was preserved in the Bible.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23
Sacrificed lamb
This states that the consequence of sin is death, and it must be paid. We can pay it ourselves with our own death, or someone else can pay for it on our behalf. The sacrificed animals continually illustrated this concept. But they were only illustrations, visual aids pointing to the real sacrifice that would one day free us of sin. This was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus who willingly sacrificed himself for us. This great victory has ensured that
The last enemy to be destroyed is death
1 Corinthians 15:26
The Coming Wedding Feast – Wedding Clothes compulsory
Jesus likened this coming day, when He destroys death, to a great wedding feast. He told the following parable
“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.
13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Matthew 22: 8 -13
In this story that Jesus told, everyone is invited to this festival. People will come from every nation. And because Jesus paid for everyone’s sin he also gives out the clothes for this festival. The clothing here represents his merit which sufficiently covers our shame. Though the wedding invitations go far and wide, and the king distributes wedding clothes free-of-charge, he still requires them. We need his payment to cover our sin. The man who did not clothe himself with the wedding clothes was rejected from the festival. This is why Jesus says later on:
I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
Revelation 3:18
God built on this initial visual aid of animal skins covering our nakedness by pre-enacting the coming sacrifice of Jesus in remarkable ways. He tested Abraham in the exact place and in a manner illustrating the Real coming sacrifice. He also instituted Passover which indicated the exact day and also further illustrated the Real coming sacrifice. But, given how we have seen clothing first come up right in the creation account, it is intriguing that creation also pre-enacted Jesus’ work.
People often mentally categorize others by race. Physical features, like skin color, that distinguish one group of people, a ‘race’, from another, are easy to notice. So Caucasians are ‘white’, while those of Asian and African decent are darker.
These traits distinguishing groups of people from each other easily leads to racism. This is the discrimination, ill-treatment, or enmity towards other races. Racism has contributed to making societies today more caustic and hateful, and it seems to be on the rise. What can we do to combat racism?
The question of racism begs a related question. Where do races come from? Why do race differences among humans exist? Additionally, since race has a strong correlation with ancestral language; Why are there different languages?
The ancient Hebrew Scriptures record a historical event in early human history explaining both the diversity of languages we hear, and the different ‘races’ that we see today. The account is worth knowing.
Genetic Similarity in the Human Species Leading To Our Genetic Ancestors
Before we explore the account there are some basic facts we should know about the genetic makeup of humanity.
In fact, humans are so genetically uniform that we can trace the line of descent from all women alive today back through their mothers, and their mothers, and so on. Doing so shows all lines converging to one ancestral genetic mother, known as Mitochondrial Eve. There is also a male equivalent known as Y-Chromosomal Adam. He is the most recent ancestral male from whom all humans living today have descended. There exists an unbroken line of male ancestors going back to him. The Bible does state that all humans alive today descend from an original Adam and Eve. So genetic evidence is consistent with the Bible’s account of the origins of humans. Not only the ancient Chinese, but modern genetics testify to an Adam as our common ancestor.
Origin of Human Races According to the Bible
But then how did the different human races arise? The ancient Hebrew Scriptures describes, just a few generations after the flood, how people were scattered across the earth. With only some basics in genetics, we can see how such an event would give rise to today’s races. The ancient account reads:
1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
Genesis 11:1-4
The account records that everyone spoke the same language. With this unity they devised new technologies and started to use them to build a high tower. This tower was to observe and track the movement of stars, since astrology was keenly studied in that time. However, the Creator God made the following assessment:
6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Genesis 11:6-9
History records that civilization began in ancient Babylon (modern-day Iraq) and that from here spread across the planet. This account records why. Because the languages were confused this ancestral population was split into various language groups along clan lines.
The various sub-clans could no longer understand one another. Since kleshas and other negative attachments came naturally to people since sin and karma had entered the world, these various clans quickly became distrustful of each other. As a result they withdrew from other clans to protect themselves and they did not inter-marry across the language groups. Thus, in one generation the clans became genetically isolated from one another and dispersed.
Punnett Squares and Races
Consider how races arise from such a situation, focusing on skin color since that is a common marker of race. Skin color arises as a result of different levels of the protein melanin in the skin. White skin has less melanin, darker skin has more melanin, while black skin has the most melanin. All humans have some melanin in their skin. Darker people simply have more melanin, giving rise to darker skin. These levels of melanin are controlled genetically by several genes. Some genes express more melanin in the skin and some express less. We use a simple tool, called a Punnett square, to illustrate the various possible combinations of genes.
Punnett Square of Melanin
For simplicity assume only two different genes (A and B) that code for different levels of melanin in the skin. The genes Mb and Ma express more melanin, while the alleles mb and ma express less melanin. A Punnett Square shows all possible outcomes of A and B that can arise by sexual reproduction if each parent has both alleles in their genes. The resulting square shows the 16 possible combinations of Ma, ma, Mb, and mb that can occur from the parents. This explains the diverse range of skin color that can result in their children.
Punnett Square Demonstrated
Tower of Babel Scenario
Assume the Tower of Babel event occurred with parents who were heterozygous as in this Punnett square. With the confusion of languages the children would not inter-marry. Therefore each of the squares would reproductively isolate from the other squares. So the MaMb (darkest) would now only intermarry with other MaMb individuals. Thus all their offspring will only remain black since they only have genes expressing greater melanin. Likewise, all the mamb (white) would only intermarry with other mamb. Their offspring would always remain white. So the Tower of Babel explains reproductive isolation of the different squares and the emergence of different races.
We can see diversity like this arising from families today. Maria and Lucy Aylmer look like they come from different races (black and white), but in fact they are twin sisters from heterozygous parents. Diversity like this arises simply by genetic shuffling. But if diversity like this arises and then these offspring are reproductively isolated from each other, then their skin color distinctiveness will persist in their offspring. The Tower of Babel is that historical event explaining how clans retained their isolation from other language clans. Thus what we call ‘races’ today have persisted since then.
Twin Sisters Lucy and Maria Aylmer
One Family – No Race Distinction
But once we understand how races arose then we realize that all diverse races are simply part of the same human family. There is no basis for racism once we understand where race differences really come from.
As the Bible states:
26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.
Acts 17:26-27
All people today, no matter what their race, skin color, or other distinctive features, descend from the same original couple. In that case we are simply one large and diverse family. The Bible says that God established the diversity of nations so that we would reach out to find Him. He unfolds His way for us to reach Him by begetting one special nation out of all the nations. We look at how this nations finds its beginning next.
What can we do about racism?
Here is a list of some things we can do towards eliminating racism and combating it day-by-day:
Educate ourselves: We must educate ourselves about racism and the effects it has on people and society. For example, we can do research on racism in the past and present and its impact of people.
We should speak out against racism: Whether it occurs in our daily lives, places of employment, or communities, we must always speak out against racism. This entails rejecting racist humor, epithets, and stereotypes and the institutions and practices that uphold racial inequity must be held accountable for their systemic racism.
We can support anti-racist initiatives: We may assist groups like civil rights organizations, community-based groups, and advocacy groups in their efforts to combat racism and advance racial justice.
Look at our own biases: Implicit biases might be a factor in racism. We need to look at our own biases and make an effort to get rid of them.
The Day of Pentecost always comes on a Sunday. It celebrates a remarkable event. But it is not only what happened that day but when and why it happened that reveals the hand of God. It also offers a powerful gift for you.
What happened on Pentecost
If you heard of ‘Pentecost’, you probably learned that it was the day when the Holy Spirit came to indwell the followers of Jesus. This is the day that the Church, the “called-out ones” of God, was born. Acts chapter 2 of the Bible records the event. On that day, the Spirit of God descended on the first 120 followers of Jesus. Then they started proclaiming loudly in languages from around the world. It created such a commotion that thousands in Jerusalem at the time came out to see what was happening. In front of the gathered crowd, Peter spoke the first gospel message. The account records that ‘three thousand were added to their number that day’ (Acts 2:41). The number of gospel followers has been growing ever since that Pentecost Sunday.
That day happened 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection. It was during these 50 days that Jesus’ disciples became convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead. On Pentecost Sunday they went public and changed history. Whether you believe in the resurrection or not, the events of that Pentecost Sunday have affected your life.
This understanding of Pentecost, though correct, is not complete. Many people want a repeat of that Pentecost Sunday through a similar experience. The first disciples of Jesus had this Pentecostal experience by ‘waiting for the gift of the Spirit’. So today people hope that likewise by ‘waiting’ He will come again in a similar way. Therefore, many people plead and wait for God to bring about another Pentecost. To think this way assumes that it was the waiting and praying that moved the Spirit of God back then. To think this way is to miss its precision. In fact, the Pentecost recorded in Acts Chapter 2 was not the first Pentecost.
The second festival was the feast of Firstfruits. The Law of Moses commanded its celebration on the ‘day after’ Passover Saturday (=Sunday). Jesus rose on Sunday, so his resurrection occurred exactly on the Firstfruits Festival. Since his resurrection happened on ‘Firstfruits’, it Promised that our resurrection would follow later (for all those who trust him). His resurrection is literally a ‘firstfruits’, just as the festival name prophesied.
Precisely 50 days after the ‘Firstfruits’ Sunday the Jews celebrated Pentecost. (‘Pente’ for 50. It was also called Feast of Weeks since it was counted by seven weeks). Jews had been celebrating Pentecost for 1500 years by the time the Pentecost of Acts 2 happened. The reason that there were people from all over the world that Pentecost day in Jerusalem to hear Peter’s message was precisely because they were there to celebrate the Old Testament Pentecost. Today, Jews still celebrate Pentecost but call it Shavuot.
We read in the Old Testament how Pentecost was to be celebrated:
Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD. From wherever you live, bring two loaves made of two-tenths of an ephah of the finest flour, baked with yeast, as a wave offering of firstfruits to the LORD.
Leviticus 23:16-17
Precision of Pentecost: Evidence of a Mind
The Acts 2 Pentecost events precisely coordinate with the Old Testament Pentecost (The Feast of Weeks). We know this since they occurred on the same day of the year. The crucifixion of Jesus occurring on the Passover, the resurrection of Jesus occurring on FirstFruits, and the Acts 2 Pentecost occurring on the Feast of Weeks, points to a Mind coordinating these through history. With so many days in a year why should the crucifixion of Jesus, his resurrection, and then the coming of the Holy Spirit happen precisely on each day of the three spring Old Testament festivals? Unless they were planned. Precision like this happens only if a mind is behind it.
Events of New Testament occurred precisely on the three Spring Festivals of the Old Testament
Did Luke ‘make up’ Pentecost?
One might argue that Luke (the author of Acts) made up the Acts 2 events to ‘happen’ on the Feast of Pentecost. Then he would have been the ‘mind’ behind the timing. But his account does not say that Acts 2 is ‘fulfilling’ the Feast of Pentecost. It does not even mention it. Why go to such trouble of creating these dramatic events to ‘happen’ on that day but not help the reader see how it ‘fulfills’ the Feast of Pentecost?
In fact, Luke did such a good job of reporting events, rather than interpreting them, that most people today do not know that the events of Acts 2 fell on the same day as the Old Testament Feast of Pentecost. Many people think that Pentecost simply began at Acts 2. Since most people today are not aware of the connection between them, Luke would be in the impossible situation of being a genius to invent the connection but utterly inept in selling it.
Instead, Luke points us to a prophecy from the Old Testament book of Joel. This predicted that one day the Spirit of God would pour out on all peoples. The Pentecost of Acts 2 fulfilled that.
One reason that the Gospel is ‘good news’ is that it provides power to live life differently – better. Life is now a union between God and people. And this union takes place through the indwelling of the Spirit of God – which began on the Pentecost Sunday of Acts 2. The Good News is that we can now live life on a different level. We live it in a relationship with God through His Spirit. The Bible puts it like this:
And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.
Ephesian 1:13-14
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
Romans 8:11
Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
Romans 8:23
The indwelling Spirit of God is another firstfruits, because the Spirit is a foretaste – a guarantee – of completing our transformation into ‘children of God’.
The gospel offers an abundant life not through possessions, pleasure, status, wealth and all the other passing trifles pursued by this world. Solomon found these to be such an empty bubbles. But rather the abundant life comes by the indwelling of the Spirit of God. If this is true – that God offers to indwell and empower us – that would be good news. The Old Testament Pentecost with the celebration of fine bread baked with yeast pictured this coming abundant life. The precision between the Old and New Pentecosts is perfect evidence that it is God who is the Mind behind this precision. Thus He stands behind this power of an abundant life.
Christ’s “cut off” Detailed Hundreds of Years Beforehand
Previously we looked at Daniel’s prediction of the coming Christ’s ‘cutting off’ after a specified cycle of years. Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem (often called Palm Sunday) fulfilled Daniel’s prophecy exactly 173,880 days after the Persian Decree to restore Jerusalem. The phrase ‘cut off ’ referred to Isaiah’s imagery of the Branch shooting up from the seemingly dead stump. But what did he mean by it?
Isaiah and Daniel shown in historical timeline.
Isaiah had also written other prophecies in his book, using other themes as well as the Branch. One such theme was about the coming Servant. Who was this ‘Servant’? What was he going to do? We look at one prophecy passage in detail, reproduced in full below, with only some comments inserted.
The Coming Servant Introduced
See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. 14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him— his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness— 15 so he will sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.
Isaiah 52: 13-15
Isaiah describes a human male since he refers to the Servant as ‘he’, ‘him’, and ‘his’. Isaiah prophetically predicts the future (from the phrases ‘will act..’, ‘will be raised up…’). But what was the prophecy about?
Sprinkling – The Priest’s Job
When the ancient Temple priests offered sacrifices for the Israelites, they sprinkled blood on them. This symbolized the forgiving and covering of their sins. But Isaiah prophesied that the coming Servant would sprinkle ‘many nations’. So Isaiah saw that this Servant would provide forgiveness for non-Jews like those priests did for the Jewish worshipers. This is parallel to the prophecy that the Branch would be a priest since only priests could sprinkle blood. This global scope of ‘many nations’ follows those promises made centuries earlier to Abraham that ‘all nations’ would be blessed through him.
But in sprinkling the many nations, Isaiah foresaw the very ‘appearance’ and ‘form’ of the Servant disfigured and marred. He promised that one day the nations ‘will understand’.
The Servant Despised
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Isaiah 53:1-3
Jesus Suffered Rejection
Though the Servant would sprinkle many nations, he would also be ‘despised’ and ‘rejected’, full of ‘suffering’ and ‘familiar with pain’.
The Servant Pierced
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53:4-5
Jesus’ Pierced Hands
The Servant would take ‘our’ pain. ‘Pierced’ and ‘crushed’ in ‘punishment’ would also be his lot. This punishment will bring us (those of the many nations) ‘peace’ and healing.
Secular and biblical sources tell us that about 2000 years ago (but still 700+ years after Isaiah) Jesus was crucified. In that execution, the authorities literally pierced him with the nails of the crucifixion.
Our Sins – on Him
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
Isaiah 53:7
The Servant will be like a lamb going to the ‘slaughter’. But he will not protest or even ‘open his mouth’. Abraham had a ram substitute for his son and Abraham sacrificed the ram in place of Isaac. This coming Servant would carry a similar role as that ram.
‘Cut off’ from Living
By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.
Isaiah 53:8
The Servant dies (‘cut off’ from the ‘land of the living’). Daniel used this exact term (‘cut off’) in prophesying what would happen to the Christ after his presentation as Messiah. Isaiah here predicted in greater detail that ‘cut off’ meant ‘cut off from the land of the living’! So, on that fateful Good Friday Jesus died, literally ‘cut off from the land of the living’. This occurred just after he presented himself as the Christ in his Triumphant entry.
The Paradox of His Burial
Jesus buried in a rich man’s Tomb
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Isaiah 53:9
They executed Jesus as a criminal (‘assigned a grave with the wicked’). But the gospels record how a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea, buried the body of Jesus in his own tomb. Jesus literally fulfilled both sides of the paradox. Though he was ‘assigned a grave with the wicked’, he was also ‘with the rich in his death’.
God’s Plan all along
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
Isaiah 53:10
God’s will was for Jesus to die
This whole cruel death was not some terrible accident or misfortune. It was explicitly “the LORD’s will” to crush him.
But why?
Jews in Isaiah’s time brought lambs to sacrifice as offerings for their sins, so that they could receive forgiveness. So here the ‘life’ of this Servant would likewise also be an ‘offering for sin’.
For whose sin?
Considering that ‘many nations’ would be ‘sprinkled’ (see above), it is the sin of the peoples in the ‘many nations’. Those ‘all’ who have ‘turned away’ and have ‘gone astray’. Isaiah is talking about you and me.
Life after Death
After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
Isaiah 53:11
Jesus is Risen
Though the Servant’s ordeal is horrible, here the tone changes to optimism and triumph. After the terrible suffering detailed previously, this Servant will see ‘the light of life’.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Isaiah 53:12
Jesus of Nazareth ranks among the most influential, great people in history. But, unlike other great men of history, Jesus did not lead a mighty army or conquer large swaths of land. He did not write a great book or come up with a new philosophy. He did not amass a great fortune or make a brilliant scientific discovery or technological breakthrough. Unlike other great men of history, Jesus made his legacy through his crucifixion and the meaning people attach to his death. Isaiah could not have better predicted the reason for the coming Servant’s worldwide legacy than he did with this conclusion.
Fingerprints of God’s handiwork
Isaiah’s prophecy of the Servant points directly to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Therefore some critics say that the gospel writers made up their story specifically to ‘fit’ this Servant passage. But Isaiah’s conclusion also defies these critics. The conclusion is not a prediction of the crucifixion and resurrection as such, but of its impact many years later. And what does Isaiah predict? This Servant will die as a criminal, but one day he will be among the ‘great’. The gospel writers could not make this part ‘fit’ the gospel narratives. The gospels were only written a few decades after Jesus’ crucifixion. At that point, the impact of Jesus’ death was doubtful.
In the eyes of the world, Jesus was just the executed leader of a rejected cult when the gospels were written. We, 2000 years later, can see the impact of his death. We can understand how the subsequent course of history has made him ‘great’. With simple human foresight the gospel writers could not have foreseen that.
The only explanation is that God revealed it to him. Only God could conceivably know the future that far ahead. That Isaiah wrote this down, and that it was preserved, along with the other prophecies of Jesus, constitutes evidence that the purposes advanced in the Bible are His. It has the fingerprints of the Divine handiwork all over it.
We have gone through portraits of Jesus presented in the Gospels by looking at him through his Jewish lens. In doing so we have seen two over-riding themes.
Jews have led in making contributions to mankind in many fields of activity. However, their story is mixed with immense suffering and sorrow.
Jesus has participated, even headed, this totality of Jewish experience. We see this in the numerous parallel patterns. We review and look at a few more, including the modern revival of Hebrew and the Festivals prescribed through Moses.
But it is not as though Jews have had an easy time riding the wake of success. The stories of Anne Frank, Simon bar Kochba, the Maccabees, Richard Wurmbrand, Natan Sharansky, and the repeated expulsions of Jews across Europe culminating in the Holocaust illustrate this. Humankind has been beset with many problems of racism down through history. However, Jews are the only people for which a term for unsuppressed hatred and persecution specifically against them needed creating (anti-Semitism). Along with their propensity for innovation, an adversarial principle seems to continually confront them.
In fact, Jewish success often raises the fears of others that they control society, harboring sinister intentions to take over. These fears, though unfounded, seem to spread through many social sectors. Many times they have been the cause of anti-Semitic outbreaks.
So how to explain Jewish ability as well as their history of sorrows? We explored an adversarial spirit pitted against them here. The Bible presents their complete situation as even more complex than that.
2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Genesis 12: 2-3
Abraham and Moses in Historical Timeline with Jesus
Then five hundred years later (1500 BCE) this Same Presence, through Moses, pronounced Blessings & Curses. Moses predicted these would shape global history going forward, and they have.
Isaiah in Historical Timeline
Later (750 BCE), Isaiah, also in the name of that Same Power, predicted repeatedly that:
I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles,
Isaiah 42:6
Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Isaiah 60:3
These pronouncements line up with what we see recorded in history, and also happening in the world today. History did not have to follow the path of these decrees after Isaiah wrote them down thousands of years ago.
But it did.
It still does.
We should take note.
This shows a single-minded Intent, Purpose and Power behind these statements demonstrating itself through history. Intent and purpose come only from persons. Since this intent and purpose spans thousands of years it cannot come simply from human purposes. God shows His Hand through these Promises.
Light to the Nations
Jesus leads the Jewish Experience
We also saw that Jesus participated with his fellow Jews in the totality of their experience. He did so both in its heights and its depths. It is not just that Jesus’ career has similarities with that of some well-known Jews. But his experiences match that of the Jewish nation. He typifies national Israel.
Jesus’ Resurrection & the Jewish Hebrew Revival
For example, Jews underwent a national death when the Romans expelled them from the Biblical land. They remained exiled for 1900 years, during this period, their national language, Hebrew, died. For hundreds of years, Jews ceased to speak Hebrew in everyday conversation. People cannot live without their native language, but the Hebrew language recently revived.
Jews expelled by the Roman Empire
Hebrew
The revival of Hebrew began when the Russian-born Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, self-taught in Hebrew, chose to speak Hebrew with fellow Jews in Paris on October 13, 1881. This recorded the first time in hundreds of years that Hebrew had been spoken in everyday conversation. Shortly afterwards, moving to Jerusalem, Ben Yehuda tried to persuade other Jewish families to speak Hebrew. He developed dictionaries, wrote plays for children in Hebrew and published a Hebrew newspaper.
His efforts met with limited success since after ten years only four families spoke Hebrew conversationally. Obstacles loomed. Parents were reluctant to educate their children in Hebrew, an impractical language since no one spoke it. Hebrew schoolbooks did not exist. However, by the early 20th century Hebrew began to gain traction. Today over 9 million people speak it. As Wikipedia says of the revival of Hebrew:
The process of Hebrew’s return to regular usage is unique; there are no other examples of a natural language without any native speakers subsequently acquiring several million native speakers,
Jesus died and then rose from the dead, a one-of-a-kind event. In the same way, Israel died and then came alive again as a nation with the one-of-a-kind revival of Hebrew.
Jesus and the Torah Festivals
Jewish Festivals
Jews, as a nation, celebrate the festivals prescribed through Moses 3500 years ago. As a nation they celebrate Passover, Sabbath, First Fruits and Pentecost. These festivals partly embody and define them as Jews.
Thus, Jesus embodies, represents, and experienced all the spring festivals as no other Jew, Moses included, has ever done.
Jesus’ career did not embody the remaining autumn Feasts prescribed by Moses. These occur in September-October: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. However, Jesus announced that he would return again and that the time of his coming would be precisely planned. His First Coming precisely matched the timing of all the spring festivals. So it stands to reason that his Second Coming will precisely match the timing of these fall festivals.
Revived and Returning
Here again, in the mere expectation of his Second Coming, we see Jesus’ career, viewed through the span of history, typifying that of national Israel. During their long exile from the Biblical land they celebrated the annual Passover in exile with the phrase that became a tradition: “Next year in Jerusalem“. As a nation, they anticipated a return to the Land. As a nation, they have returned within our lifetimes. Jesus, likewise, has left the Biblical land and has been absent for over 2000 years. But, like his nation, he has promised his return. He said that the return of the Jews to the Biblical land was a sign that his return was ‘near’. So he linked the two returns.
Reach Out to the Presence at Work
Many think of Jesus solely through the stained-glass window of Christendom’s history in Europe and the Americas. Therefore he is often seen simply as a dusty, (somewhat) historical figure who lived long ago. Perhaps he is a cultural relic that has some traditional value, but little potent relevance to our lives today.
But the Bible, from its beginning and right to its end, appended thousands of years later, presents him as the Offspring of the Woman (Israel). It also presents him as the Christ, destined to return and reign.
From the Beginning…
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth…
5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.
Revelation 12:5 (written 1st Century CE)
We can see in the news headlines today that the ‘Woman’ is reviving. Since the Son is hers, tangibly linked to her, then we would not be foolish to reach out to Him. If we do, even without complete understanding, then we can experience his promise that
…he is not far from any one of us.
Acts 17:27b
and
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
What is dance? Theatrical dance encompasses rhythmic movements, meant to be viewed by spectators and to tell a story. Accordingly, dancers coordinate their movements with other dancers, using different parts of their own body, so that their movements generate visual beauty and accentuate rhythm. Usually this coordination occurs in a repeating time interval, called meter. Researchers have documented the crucial role that rhythm plays in our lives. So it is not surprising if we see a similar tilt to rhythm in God’s outworking since we are made in His image.
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspringand hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Genesis 3:15
The Woman’s Seed would trample the serpent’s head
So this foretold a coming struggle between the Serpent and the Seed or Offspring of the Woman. Jesus declared himself as ‘the Seed’ on Day 1 of Passion Week. Then he purposefully drove the conflict to its climax at the cross. Thus, Jesus allowed the Serpent to strike him, confident of his final victory. In so doing, Jesus trampled the head of the serpent, making the way to life. Summing up, the Bible describes His victory and our way to live like this:
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Colossians 2: 13-15
Their struggle unfolded like a dance, in a rhythmic meter of ‘sevens’ and ‘threes’. We explicitly see this by looking at the Passion Week events of Jesus through the lens of Creation.
God’s foreknowledge revealed from the beginning of Time
How can we know if this was God’s Plan instead of some random events with no ultimate purpose behind it? Alternatively, could the Gospel story have simply been human-engineered?
We know that no matter how clever, gifted, eloquent, powerful, or rich someone is, they cannot foresee the future. No one has the ability to coordinate with events thousands of years into the future. Only God can possibly foreknow and predestine far into the future. So, if we detect evidence of this kind of coordination through history we can prove that he choreographed this drama. Thus, it would rule out chance or clever people behind the gospel.
In the whole Bible there are, in fact, only two weeks where the events of every day in the week are narrated. The first week, recorded at the beginning of the Bible, describes how God created everything.
The only other week with every day’s events recorded is Jesus’ Passion Week. No other Biblical characters have daily activities detailed for one complete week. You can read the complete Creation Week account here. Correspondingly, we went through each day’s events in Jesus’ Passion Week. The table below places each day of these two weeks side-by-side. The number ‘seven’, which forms a week, is thus the base meter or rhythm. Observe how all daily events correspond to one another even though separated time-wise by millennia. At the very minimum, because the Creation Week is included in the Dead Sea Scrolls the creation account was already in writing hundreds of years before Jesus walked the earth. And textual criticism analysis of the New Testament reveals it has not been changed or corrupted.
Adam is warned away from the Tree of Knowledge with a curse.
Jesus is nailed to a tree and cursed. 13 But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” -Galatians 3:13
No animal is found suitable for Adam. Another person was necessary.
Passover animal sacrifices were not sufficient. A person was required.
4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; -Hebrews 10:4-5
9 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” -Revelation 21:9
Events for each day across these two weeks correspond to each other, resulting in rhythmic symmetry like in a choreography. Then, at the end of both these 7-day cycles, first fruits of new life bursts forth into a new creation. So, Adam and Jesus link together, creating a composite drama.
Significantly, the Bible says of Adam that:
… Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
Romans 5:14
and
21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
1 Corinthians 15:21-22
Days of Creation
By comparing these two weeks we see that Adam dramatized a pattern that prefigures Jesus. Did God need six days to create the world? Could He simply not have made everything with one command? Why then did He create in the order and with a structure that He did? Why did God rest on the seventh day when He cannot tire? He created in the timing and order that He did to demonstrate that He anticipated the events of Passion week from the beginning of human history.
This is especially true of Day Six – The Fridays of both weeks. Specifically, we see symmetry directly in the words used. For example, instead of simply saying ‘Jesus died’ the Gospel says he ‘breathed his last’, a direct inverse pattern to Adam who received the ‘breath of life’. Surely, such a pattern from Time’s beginning shows foreknowledge spanning time and the world. In short, it can only be a dance orchestrated by the Divine.
Subsequent Prophetic Events of the Divine Choreography
Subsequently, the Bible recorded specific historical events and festivals picturing Jesus’ coming. They were written down and recorded hundreds of years before Jesus walked on earth. Since humans cannot foreknow the future that far ahead, this provides further evidence that this was God’s drama, not man’s, nor simply random chance. The table below summarizes some.
Abraham’s sacrifice (2000 BCE) was on the same Mountain where thousands of years later Jesus would be sacrificed. At the last moment the lamb substituted for Isaac so he could live. This pictured how Jesus the ‘Lamb of God’ would substitute and sacrifice himself for us so we could live.
Lambs were to be sacrificed on a specific day – Nisan 14, Passover (1500 BCE). Those who obeyed escaped death, but those who disobeyed died. Hundreds of years later Jesus was sacrificed on this exact day – Nisan 14, Passover. Like those original Passover lambs, he died so we could live.
The ‘Christ’ would descend from King David, but would be born from a virgin the ancient prophets foretold. Prophecies given 1000 BCE and 750 BCE and fulfilled in Jesus.
The prophecy foretelling how this coming Servant would serve all mankind in his death – 750 BCE. Fulfilled by Jesus in the manner of his crucifixion and his resurrection.
The Prophetic Oracle foretelling when He would come, given through cycles of seven in 550 BCE. Fulfilled in Jesus by the precise timing to the day of his arrival to Jerusalem in 33 CE.
The vision of a Divine person coming on the clouds in the air is fulfilled in the only way possible by Jesus
Festivals & Oracles prophetically choreographed to Jesus
Your Invitation
The Gospel invites our examination. It also invites us to
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.
Revelation 22:17
The following are available to help both to examine and to ‘come’
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