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1 Corinthians 13:12
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. Measure for measure is so real. So much of what happens to us is the returning of our own actions. The dish life serves us often proceeds from the kitchen of our own cooking. The harvest we reap is surely the result our own sowing. By this standard a man’s life is easily assessed and his character revealed. If someone has many friends, he must have been friendly. If others are generous with him, he must have been sharing. By the same token, if someone finds the heart of others like desert sand or a sky of brass, closed to his needs and pleas, maybe he lived his life as selfishly as a closed book. We are all too often to blame for the hell we create with our own two hands. Jacob deceived his father Isaac by concealing his identity, several years later Jacob becomes victim of the same as Laban conceals Leah’s identity in the nuptial chamber. This would result in a family’s sibling rivalry that would cause Leah’s children to later try to kill Joseph. Joseph would later trick them by concealing his identity, appearing to them as an Egyptian viceroy (Genesis 40-45). When Leah’s children headed by Judah returned from pasture with the news about Joseph, Judah showed Jacob the ‘hard evidence’ of Joseph’s bloody coat to prove their case. Judah used the Hebrew words, ‘haker-nah’, meaning ‘Please, recognize these’. Many years later, Judah would be tricked and exposed by his own daughter-in-law using the very same words, ‘Haker-nah’. These must have pieced his heart as he remembered the treachery of lying to his own father (Genesis 37:32; 38:25)! The concealing identity theme is a common one throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Kings, queens and prophets used it, sometimes even under God’s own purpose. It could even be said that today Messiah hides His Jewish identity from both Israel/Jacob, and the Gentiles. To the Western world He conceals His Jewish identity appears and appears to them as a Westerner, thinking and dressing, eating and living as they do. This in turn makes Him unrecognizable to His people. But as with Joseph with His brethren, the day will come when Yeshua will throw off His ‘Egyptian garb’ and say to them, “I am Yeshua, your brother” (Genesis 45:3). At that time Yeshua will show the whole world who He really is: the King of the Jews. He will also reap the harvest of His own labor and doing. At that time He will reunite Rachel and Leah’s family (the whole twelve tribes) under one banner (Ezekiel 37), and rule over the whole world from His throne in Jerusalem (Revelations 19 and 20). In this day and in the World to Come we will each reap the harvest of the actions of our lives. What will it be for you?
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Romans 11:12, 18
Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!? Do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. “You find that as long as Sarah lived, a cloud hung over her tent … her doors were wide open … there was a blessing on her dough, and the lamp used to burn from the evening of the Sabbath until the evening of the following Sabbath …" In this scrap of tradition, Sarah’s tent is homiletically compared to Jerusalem typified by the Temple. The cloud is symbolic of the Shekinah of God’s presence, the doors of the temple being wide opened is an invitation to the world to the house of prayer (as Yeshua called it); the blessed dough is the showbread which miraculously never spoiled, and the lamp is the seven-branches candelabrum which burned continuously in the Holy Place. In the Book of Galatians Paul builds on this illustration. Using the concept that Judaism views Sarah as the great matriarch he says, But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. Then, using Isaiah’s allegory and adding the fact that that Sarah was barren (not Hagar) He quotes, "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor! Though Paul doesn’t quote it, the rest of the oracle says, Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes (Isaiah 54:1-2; Galatians 4:26).This is an illustration that Jerusalem, (the center of Jewish religion) is one day to open its doors to all nations. The next chapter of Isaiah goes on to call all nations to drink and be fed from the fountain of Jerusalem (Isaiah 55; Zechariah 14:16). Referring to modern history, I now will build on this concept. In their impatience while waiting on God to fulfill the messianic promise of the birth of Isaac, Abraham and Sarah brought Hagar into the picture. As Hagar bore fruit she despised and boasted against Sarah who was still barren and dry. In His own time, Hashem miraculously caused Sarah to bear the fruit of the messianic promise. In the end, though blessed by God because of beloved Abraham, Hagar paid for her attitude having to leave Sarah’s presence. For 2,000 years while waiting for the 19th century when Jerusalem would miraculously birth the present-day world-wide Messianic movement, the nations of the world, who did bear fruit unto Yeshua have done so while ‘boasting’ against the ‘natural branches’ in a doctrine called ‘Replacement Theology’, and even subjecting these ‘natural branches’ to horrible persecutions (or were silent in the face of it). Will the nations suffer the same fate as Hagar? The Text tells us that not, but that in the end Jerusalem will return to its rightful original owners, and that the nations will come and serve and worship God in Jerusalem, bringing in their glory (Isaiah 66; Haggai 2:7). For what it’s worth, there is an ancient Jewish teaching which suggests that Keturah, Abraham’s second wife after Sarah died, is actually Hagar returned (Genesis 25:1-6). 1 Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession… Whereas evolution wants to tell us that life started sporadically anywhere and at anytime, Hashem tells us that He is the author of life. He also tells us that He is the One who started life in one place, at one time, and that the earth populated from the one man: Adam (Genesis 1). In fact, we are all related to Adam through either sons of Noah; through Japhet who fathered the Caucasian race; Ham from whom came the black race, or from Shem from whom come all the Asian races including our father Abraham (Genesis 10). As it is in physical, so it is in the spiritual. Whereas New Age teachings try to teach us that all the gods worshipped on earth are local and cultural representations of the God above and should be respected as such, God teaches us that faith solely comes from the God of Israel, and that all the others are idols designed to snare the heart of man away from the One True God who created the Heavens and the earth. In fact, according to the text, the goal is that, as the tribe of Levi was established as the priesthood for Israel, Israel is eventually to be established as the priesthood for the whole world. God has even divided the world according to the numbers of the children of Israel (Deuteronomy 32:8). Jewish sages claim that number to be seventy, why? When the children of Israel entered Egypt, they were seventy Genesis (46:27). Also in Genesis 10, we read the list of the seventy sons (and grandsons) of Noah. This may be arguable, but the facts remain that as creation comes from one man, faith also comes from the one man Abraham solely through whom all the families of the earth are blessed (Genesis 12:3). This gives a whole new theme to the idea of being in Messiah. In the days of Yeshua there were only two types of people on earth: those who knew the God heaven and those who didn’t. The Children of Israel already knew God; they had been introduced to Him at Mt Horeb long before Yeshua’s manifestation on earth, while the rest of the world remained in the darkness of ignorance and idolatry. As Moses received the mission to Israel, Yeshua initiated the mission to the gentiles, which Paul successfully conducted. This all should give a new sense of mission to the idea of being grafted into the olive tree of Israel as Paul puts it (Romans 11). Before Yeshua, only people from Israel who knew God could exercise spiritual leadership within the congregation, but when one is grafted into Israel through Messiah he, along with Israel, becomes a recipient of the promise made to Moses to be part of a nation of priests (Exodus 19:6). In fact, anyone who through Messiah becomes grafted into Israel also becomes a part of God’s peculiar nation, what He called: His portion (Deuteronomy 9-10). May we be found worthy of the great calling whereas he has called us! Matthew 5:45
So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. A great ‘mixed multitude’ accompanied Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 12:38). These were non-Israelite people from different countries who saw the power of the mighty God El-Shaddai in Egypt and cast their lot with Israel. They were the ‘stranger’ in the midst of Israel. From the beginning of times God formulated a redemption plan for humanity. This plan implied for Israel to be chosen as a messenger and birth cradle for its own Redeemer who would also invite the ‘multitude ‘of the nations to come to ‘Mount Horeb’ and eventually to follow Him to ‘Mount Zion’. Israel had been an abused stranger in the land of Egypt and forever the Father wanted that experience to motivate His firstborn (Exodus 4:22) to never abuse the stranger living within its borders. It is actually a commandment for Israel to be loving to the stranger in its midst (Deuteronomy 10:19), and therefore a contingence to its acceptance in the Land of the Almighty. One who is kind to strangers, one who is hospitable imitates God and imitation is the core process of discipleship. On the other hand, the stranger who took refuge under the wings of the God of Israel was required to abide by the ‘Torah’ of the Land. He was not to bring other gods in the Land or to desecrate the Shabbat, the Temple or the holy days. He was also to be careful not to in any ways be a spiritual stumbling block to Israel. In the apostolic Scriptures a non-Jew, whether He is in Messiah or not, is called a Gentile. Today this word has obtained a negative connotation to some but it is because of the way people use it as it is not so in the Bible. The Gentile is simply someone who is not of biological Israelite descent. These come under the blessing of Abraham of whom it was said, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Genesis 12:3). That is why gentiles who became Jewish were called ‘Sons of the family of Abraham’ (Acts 13:26). There is actually a mighty blessing for the gentile/stranger who of his own volition adopts to live under the Torah covenant. Isaiah pronounces it in these beautiful words, “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, "The LORD will surely separate me from his people"; and let not the eunuch say, "Behold, I am a dry tree." For thus says the LORD: "To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. "And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant-- these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." The Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, "I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered” (Isaiah 56:3-8). |
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