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Replacement Theology and the End of Time
Translation by the New King’s James Version
By Robert D. Mock M.D.
July 4, 2001
God’s People, Hebrew God and the Trinity
Titles
God’s People at the time of Jesus and the Apostle Paul
The Grafting of the Wild Grafts - the Gentiles
Adventist and the Messianic Church
and the Reformation of Orthodox Roman Christianity
Jewish Monotheistic God and the Trinity.
Creation of the World - Creation ex Nihilo (out of nothing)
Creation of the World - Creation by the Attributes
The Hebrew God and the Nicean Creed on the Trinity
Jesus, the Messiah and the Sefirot.
God’s People at the time of Jesus and the Apostle Paul
The members of the early Jerusalem (Christian) Church were Torah believing Jews who believed in Jesus as the Messiah and as the Anointed One of Israel. The historical documentation of James the Just, the brother of Jesus, who was the first leader of the Jerusalem Church until 62 AD, when he was killed, is vast and conclusive. Within this context we see James the Just, holding such respect and power in the Jewish community that in every appearance they set up a non-animal sacrificial system in the Temple of God (Herod’s Temple) and James assumed the role as the High Priest wearing the High Priest diadem at the Day of Atonement.
The Orthodox Roman Christianity developed out of the Jewish Nazoraean (Jerusalem Church) and the Orthodox Jews (Rabbinic Judaism) out of the early Pharisee party of Judaism, came from the same roots (Hebrew-Judaic faith) but followed different pathways. The Orthodox Roman Christian in this era did not want to be recognized as having anything to do with the Jewish faith. This was the fertile grounds in which the idea that the Law (Torah) had been done away with, swept away by the ‘redeeming power of the risen Christ, who died in the flesh, and rose in the flesh.’ By 230 AD, the concept of One God (the Trinity), one church (the Universal Catholic Church), one faith (Jesus as the Ruler of the Church, whose keys of authority were given to Peter), one bishop (sole authority of Jesus on earth through the Apostolic Succession) was being firmly instilled in the consciousness of “true Christians”.
The Pharisees of Jesus’ day, after the fall of the Temple in 70 A.D., entrenched themselves in what became Rabbinic Judaism, setting up many introspective ‘walls’ around their religion, centering around the life of the synagogue. Paul, known as the ‘Pharisee of the Pharisees’, called the Pharisees and Rabbabim his “brothers”, when he said, they are “my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the Law (Mosaic Law), the Temple worship, and the promises (promise of a future nation ruled by a Messiah ben David in a renewed land of Eden)
Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God (We will later learn that Jesus is the Keter (Crown) over the all the Worlds of Creation) over all, forever praised! Amen. - Rom. 9:3-5)
Here is Paul stating the natural inheritance of the Jews and all Hebrew people, after the stoning of Stephen (36 A.D.). For most Christians today, after this date, 36 A.D., God turned away from His covenant with the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the remnant now the Jewish people, and abandoned his ‘Chosen People’ and chose a new people (Christians or Spiritual Israel) to represent him.
Let us continue on and watch Paul, known as a leader of the Nazoreans, develop this theme on the salvation of the Jews and the Gentiles. Who then was called or saved by God?
Romans 9:24-26 - “Such vessels are we (remember Paul was ½ Gentile and a Roman citizen and ½ House of Judah), whom He has called from among Gentiles as well as Jews, as it says in the Book of Hosea. “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is no my loved one,” and, “it will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’” - quoting Hosea 2:23 and 1:10
Wait a minute, do we not now have three parties involved, the gentiles, the house of Judah (Jews) and those who God will call My people but are not my people? Who are they?
This prophecy by Hosea was directed to the House of Israel, who was exiled. These are the very people Jesus said he came search and minister for, the “Lost tribes of the House of Israel”, or the “Lost Sheep”. The third party involved with salvation, is the House of Israel. Paul continues on noting that Isaiah, in reference to the House of Israel, recognized that only a remnant would be saved.
Romans 9:27 - “Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.”
Therefore, did Paul, after 36 A.D., feel that the House of Judah (Jews) and the House of Israel would not be saved? In the context of Hosea, the remnant of Israel would be the House of Israel and they would be saved. Paul later addresses this question,
Romans 11:1-2,5 - “Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. (Paul was half Jewish through his Jewess mother, a Benjamite) God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew…..So too at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace. ”
Paul then continues, the Jewish experience of not accepting the gospel of Jesus, that is “Salvation by faith in Jesus”, was foreordained by God. “What then?
Romans 11:7-8 - “What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened, as it is written: ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day.”
Does God take credit for the Jewish Sadducean hierarchy for rejecting Jesus? Yes! It was God’s intent that it should be this way. Why? So that the Gentiles may have access to salvation and the gospel of Christ and the House of Israel could be reunited with her brethren, the House of Judah. Here are Paul’s words:
Romans 11:25-27 - “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part (partial blindness) until the full number of Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel (House of Israel and the House of Judah) will be saved, as it is written;: ‘The delivered will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.’
Paul accepts that the future between the Jews and the gentiles (Christians) would be as though they are enemies. Above, he told the purpose of this enmity, yet God’s relationship with the House of Judah (Jews) is not changed. They are still loved by God and His call to them to be His chosen people is irrevocable.
Romans 11:28-29 - “As far as the gospel (salvation by faith in Jesus Christ) is concerned, they (non-believing Jews who do not have faith in Jesus) are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts (For by faith are you saved, it is the gift of God) and His call are irrevocable.
God does not, will not and cannot go back on His promises, His covenants and His calling. These promises, covenants and callings are not dependent upon whether certain Jews or Israelites accept or reject their God. They are not ‘conditional’. They are a promise to a nation, the covenant are a national covenant and the calling are for the entire House of Jacob, Judah and Israel alike. Let us take a deep breath here now. God’s relationship with the Jews has not changed! He still loves them. His election of them as His chosen people has not changed. His call to them to be His chosen people is irrevocable. God’s promise to Abraham, through God’s chosen seed, Isaac and Jacob is a promise forever.
Were the Jewish people rejected because they killed Jesus, the Son of God? No, responds Paul, they were not rejected, but they are stumbling over the mission and ministry of Jesus (Y’shua), who came as the anointed one (Messiah) to point them to the way of salvation.
1 Peter 2:8 - “What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they (Jewish People) pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the ‘stumbling stone’ (Jesus, the Living Stone)
Romans 9:30-33 - ‘See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that make them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
Why are the Jews stumbling all over in terms of their identity and their refusal to accept the precarnate Image of God in Jesus? Because God chose it to be that way! God was the one to ‘lay in Zion’ that stone, Jesus Christ, that will make them (the Jews) stumble and fall.
Is this stumbling and falling by the Jewish people means that they are not in covenant with God. No! Does it mean that they are not following the Torah (the teachings of God) and abiding by the ‘halachah’, the applications of keeping the Torah? No! There has always been an Orthodox Jewish remnant who has zealously followed all the commandments and teachings of the Law (Torah). They have remained a separate people, and kept themselves ‘Holy unto the Lord’. Anyone who seeks to suggest that the Jewish people, as a whole, were cut off from the ‘Vine’ or the ‘Olive Tree’ must receive the warning from Paul.
Rom. 11:17-21 - “You will say them, ‘Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.’ Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For, if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
The Grafting of the Wild Grafts - the Gentiles
Paul then discusses the grafting in of the wild grafts (Gentiles) to the places where branches of the natural branches (Jews) had been. Was this grafting of the gentiles because of the deliberate intent of the Jews to reject Jesus, as their Messiah (The Living Stone, the Stumbling Stone)? No, says Paul. He suggests that that ‘their rejection is the reconciliation of the world’ (Rom 11:15) and that when they do receive Jesus as their Messiah, it will be as though they have awaken from the dead. (vs. 17)
When will the Jewish people have their eyes opened? Even though they are in covenant with the Lord and following all of God’s way, halachah, when will they turn in faith to their Messiah and be saved? Once again, Paul is explicit in his answer:
Romans 11:25-27 - “Israel has experienced a hardening in part (partial blindness) until the full number of Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel (House of Israel and the House of Judah) will be saved, as it is written;: ‘The delivered will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
At this point, most of us Christendom will be shaking our heads. What is our concern? Are we really concerned about the Jews? No! We are really concerned about us, as Christians, because we have always thought we were the ‘Spiritual Jews’ who replaced the literal Jews, the House of Judah. Yes! Are we, Christians, not God’s chosen people? If they are still the ‘Chosen Ones’, holy unto the Lord, who are we?
Let us take another deep breath. The scripture is clear. Roman Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses or any other denominations are not mentioned in the scripture, the Old Testament or the New Testament. Who then are we? We are either gentiles, who are grafted into the ‘Vine’ as adopted sons of God, or we are one of the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel. From the beginning of scripture, Genesis, to the end, Revelation, the whole story of the ‘Conflict of the Ages’ is centered around the Land of Israel, Jerusalem and God’s chosen people plus those gentiles (saints) who have chosen to be grafted into the ‘Vine’.
Read, read, read! Houston, New York, Washington D.C., London, Tokyo, the United States nor even Takoma Park, Maryland, are mentioned or insinuated in the Bible. The Bible is centered around God’s people and God’s Land. Here lies the corruption of Orthodox Roman Christianity, to turn us away from God’s people and God’s Land and thereby turn us away from God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Adventist and the Messianic Church
and the Reformation of Orthodox Roman Christianity.
Remember our early statement, “The Orthodox Roman Christian in this era did not want to be recognized as having anything to do with the Jewish faith. This was the fertile grounds in which the idea that the Law (Torah) had been done away with, swept away by the ‘redeeming power of the risen Christ, who died in the flesh, and rose in the flesh.’ By 230 AD, the concept of One God (the Trinity), one church (the Universal Catholic Church), one faith (Jesus as the Ruler of the Church, whose keys of authority were given to Peter), one bishop (sole authority of Jesus on earth through the Apostolic Succession) was being firmly instilled in the consciousness of “true Christians”.
The process of de-Hebrew-izing our Christian beliefs have been continuous. The argument is not whether to use Christmas trees in our churches on Christmas, whether to preach special sermons on Easter. The whole Plan of Salvation was wrapped up in the entire liturgical process of the Hebrews as given on Mount Sinai. We as Christians artificially created a cycle of teachings in our Bible lessons and totally ignored the festival cycle of the Hebrews. We not only fail to honor the application of the festivals in fulfillment of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but fail to accept that the application of the festivals have a prophetic end time message. They are inter-dimensional in time. In other words, they look backwards in time, look forward in time and look outside our three dimensional world which has only one dimension in time.
From the historical perspective of the New Testament Church in Jerusalem with the Pauline Christian gentile church attached to the Mother Church in Jerusalem is a picture of the whole Olive Trees with the ‘natural branches’ (House of Judah (Jews) and the House of Israel (the Samaritans, the Galileans, the gentiles who were attracted to come to the festivals and worship in the House of the Lord) and the ‘wild branches’ the gentiles living in a relationship with their spiritual brethren of the Hebrews as stated by James the Just in Acts.
Seventh-day Adventists are so close yet so far away from their brethren, the Jews, because of one missing link. The Adventist church identity is closely wrapped around the ideology that they are “Spiritual Israel”. Adventists feel that they have taken the place of the House of Judah and the House of Israel in any future applications or interpretations of End Time prophecies. Their interpretation of the apocalyptic end times is ego-centric to Adventism. The end of times is a spiritual battle between the Adventist and the Catholics, the good versus the bad.
The Messianic Jewish Church has also become a progressive step in the reformation back to the Jewish roots of the original Jerusalem Apostolic Church. Yet many in the Messianic community feel that they have a duty to evangelize their Jewish brethren. The Jews must become one of them, rather than become a participant in the gospel saving mission of Jesus, who was their messiah (maschiach) and still retain their own ‘chosen’ identity.
Yet it was the Orthodox Roman Church, which planted the first seeds of “Spiritual Israel” or “Replacement Theology” during the 2nd century after the death of Jesus. The culmination of this replacement theology was found in the classic book of Augustine the Great, the great doctor of law, who proclaimed in his book, The City of God, that the Holy Roman Church was the spiritual ancestor of the Jews and the city of Rome was the New Jerusalem.
We don’t have to battle a future Orthodox Catholic Church, who many speculate will take away our Sabbath (Shabbat) keeping privileges by ‘Sunday Laws’ and hunt us through the ravines and valleys of wilderness areas. They, the corruptors of God’s people, don’t have to be the future re-players of medieval inquisitional history. They already have us in their camp.
Recently I read a small booklet on Seventh-day Adventists written by a non-Adventist which made the most interesting observation. Seventh-day Adventist, of all modern Protestant denominations, are the most catholic of all. It is as though the mother or the father that a child most despises, that child as an adult many times becomes the most like them. .
A careful reading and understanding of the growth and development of the Early Christian Church leads to a remarkable conclusion. The Roman Church took the ideas and concepts (ideology) of the Hebrew Jerusalem Nazorean Church under James the Just and the Apostle Paul, stripped away the Hebrew-Judaic philosophical base, and grafted non-Hebrew (non-Biblical) philosophical foundations to each of them. The process of the reformation , that Protestant reformation started in the 16th century, against the corruption of the Orthodox Roman Christian philosophy must continue unto God’s People have returned to the Hebrew-Judaic philosophy, the foundation of the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings, that is, ‘according to the Law and to the Prophets’.
Let us analyze this in two different ideologies: (1) The Nature of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the Christian Trinity vs. The Hebrew’s Monotheistic God and (2) the some models of the Apocalyptic End of Times.
Jewish Monotheistic God and the Trinity.
The development of the early Christians belief in an Eternal God came from Judaic-Hebrew roots but as noted above, they discarded their Hebrew philosophical root. We will start with the premise that our understanding about God in dependent upon our beliefs and understand about the creation of Man (Adam) and our world. We are created in the “Image of God” and therefore we are the closest representations, outside of Jesus, of the attributes of God put in three dimensional space and cloaked in flesh. The process of Creation will tell us a lot about the God we serve. The process of Creation will show us how God reveals and relates to His people. The following is a study of the Orthodox Roman concept of creation, Creation ex nihilo, and the Hebrew Judaic concept of Creation, the Worlds of Creation from the Emanation and the Attributes of HaShem (God, ‘The Name’).
Creation of the World - Creation ex Nihilo (out of nothing)
Most Christian believers believe in a creation of this universe and this world by a process called Creation ex nihilo. This suggests that the Eternal God created this universe (and earth) by speaking into nothingness (a void) and creation instantly occurred. This was creation out of nothing. This creation was by the design of the Godhead. It created a God (World of the Divine) out there in the vast reaches of somewhere else. It created a world here, a speck in the whole universe, the earth, who was alone, fragile, isolated in a sea of nothingness. Out of this comes a heaven who is out there (Nebulae of Orion, 93 million light years away). There is no way we can get there and does God really come here?
Most Christians believe the angelic kingdom already existed and were either a participant or observer in this creative process, including the arch tempter, Satan (HaSatan) This is the ‘Creation’ of Orthodox Roman Christianity amalgamated from many sources of non-Hebrew (pagan) philosophy. This is the ‘Creation’ accepted by most Protestant denomination, denominations called by some, the daughters of Rome.
Creation of the World - Creation by the Attributes
and Emanations of God.
The philosophical roots of the Jewish concepts of creation come from the 1st century Pharisees. These roots are ancient and consistent with the Torah (Laws of Moses), the Prophets and the Writings. They described a God (HaShem), not as having separate parts or separate beings, but actually saw one God who had several attributes or characteristics, and was multi-dimensional. This became the fundamental description of the Sefforah or Sefirot.
What is a Sefirot? The Sefirot is a description of the basic fundamental unit of how God creates. All creation is a duplicate design of the Creator. Yet only two creations are created in the Primary Image of God: God the Father, Jesus the first Begotten of the Father, and Adam the man called the Son of God.
Within the Sefirot are ten emanations. The Hebrews saw the One and Only One God as having His exclusive throne as the Keter (Crown) of all existence, and His exclusive domain within the top three attributes, the Crown or Kingship (Keter), Wisdom (Hokhmah) and Understanding (Binah). Yes, rulership and dominion was the exclusive domain of God, which He reserves for himself. A king or an emperor, according to the ancient Jews, only gains right to his power and authority by the Will of God. As such, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander the Great and even Bill Clinton were agents for the Divine.
The bottom seven characteristics or emanations from God were for the creation of man. They are a part of his (man’s) being and attributes for him to learn and to use. These seven emanations were called the Torah, the Word of God. These characteristics were for both male and female to embody in their lives. This was the blueprint of man’s creation. Within this blueprint, Adam and his descendents were created in the Image of God. As the World of the Divine was a Sefirot, God himself, so the Adam, and all mankind were created as a Sefirot, in the Image of their Creator. The Torah was what Adam lived in his perfect life. The Torah was what Adam had to teach to his children, until it became so corrupted that only Noah and his children carried enough of the legacy of God’s manifestation to be saved to a future world. They were a remnant.
The Hebrew God and the Nicean Creed on the Trinity
Let’s move ourselves to 320 AD, the Council of Nicea in Turkey, was convened under the supervision of the new emperor of Rome, Constantine the Great. It was this council that formulated the initial statement that eventually became famous Nicean Creed defining the nature of Jesus and God. This creed is accepted virtually by all Catholic and Protestants alike. Adventist doctrine of Jesus, in the Adventist’ 27 Doctrinal Beliefs, confirms the Nicean Creed. The original statement went as such.
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
maker of all things, visible and invisible,
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
The only-begotten of the Father,
That is, of the substance (ousia) of the Father,
God from God,
Light from light,
True God from true God,
Begotten not made,
Of one substance (homoousion) with the Father,
Through whom all things were made,….
And we believe in the Holy Spirit.”
(This statement which came out of the Nicean Council differs from the manifesto known as the Nicean Creed. The latter, the Nicean Creed, was actually composed in the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD)
Underlying this council was the raging theological conflict between two of the foremost theologians of the 4th century, Arius and Athanasius. Arius was a presbyter at Alexandria, described handsome, charismatic with a soft impressive voice and a melancholy face. Arius accepted Jesus as divine for he called him a ‘strong God’ and a ‘full God’. Yet this divinity was given to Jesus, by God as the ‘First Begotten’ or the ‘First Created’ of God’s creation.
Athenasius, was the brilliant assistant of the Bishop of Alexandria, Alexander became the fierce opponent of Arius, a theological battle that rages throughout the whole empire.
Let’s face the fact, this was not a theological argument held in ivory towers or cloistered monasteries. Rather it was discussed openly on the streets. Karen Armstrong, in “A History of God’ states that:
“Sailors and travelers were singing version of popular ditties that proclaimed that the Father alone was true God, inaccessible and unique, but that the Son was neither coeternal nor uncreated, since he received life and being from the Father. We hear of a bath attendant who harangued the bathers, insisting that the Son came from nothingness; of a money changer who, when asked for the exchange rate, prefaced his reply with a long disquisition of the distinction between the created order and the uncreated God, and of a baker who informed his customer that the Father was greater than the Son. People were discussing these abstruse questions with the same enthusiasm as they discuss football today. (Gregory of Nyssa as quoted in Armstrong, Karen, A History of God, the 4000-YearQuest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Alfred A Knopf, NY, 1994, p.107)
Was this an unusual debate? Not really. At no time in the history of Christianity has its theology been monolithic, that is made of one pillar of truth. Yet the amount of variety of thought in the first three hundred years though has never been replicated throughout the history of Christianity. The Pentecostal unity was but a stepping stone to a smorgasbord of theological ideas.
Arius, as we can see, was from a long line of divergent view. Arius is now known by the byword ‘Heretic’. At that day, there was not an orthodox position on the nature of God and Christ. Yet from the beginning there was an orthodox attitude. The classical view of orthodoxy is that it means ‘right opinion’ or ‘right thinking’. This represented the orthodox version of the teachings of Jesus and his disciples within the first generation after the resurrection. Therefore, according to the orthodox, the “heretics” were those who provided a ‘choice’. This choice was a though was a deviation from what the orthodox claimed was the truth, the right opinion. Heresy was a corruption, a contamination, a perversion of their reality. Where did these heretical ideas come from? You guessed it, pagan philosophers was one of the sources. What is more surprising, the other source was Hebraic-Judaic theology. That is correct, the orthodox church was now cut off from it religious and philosophical roots.
The Hebrew-Judaic philosophers were very careful to describe God as the One and only One God, who stood beyond the comprehension of man’s thoughts. He was a transcendent deity, who directed and guided man and the universe from above and without. It was after the fall of Jerusalem, the Rabbinic teachings developed a very close and personal relationship with HaShem (God) who was passionately involved with every aspect of their lives. Yet the Jewish Rabbis never did formulate an official doctrine about God. To them, He was a presence tangibly felt within their lives, and experienced in mysterious yet very physical phenomenon. Many Christians think that the Pentecostal experience, the tongues of fire and the swirling of wind, was unique to the followers of Jesus. On the contrary, this phenomenon was repeated on several occasions in mystical Jewish literature.
The theological battle between Arius and Athanasius raged for decades. Five times Athanasius was excommunicated and thrown out of his church office yet in the end it was Athanasius, representing the orthodox position that prevailed. What is interesting, all the heat and debate and all the lives lost over this debate, they both were arguing on the premise of a theological idea that was not Biblical or rooted in the Hebraic concept of Creation. They both believed the world and the universe was created ‘ex nihilo’ or from nothing. Therefore there was this big gap or chasm between God and man. The difference in their arguments was, which side of the gap was Jesus on? Athanasius said, Jesus stood on the God side. Arius said Jesus stood on the man side, the world of creation.
We no longer argue about the existence of Christ as our mediator instead of the Pope. We can still argue with Arius about the nature of Christ. How could Christ be created (ex nihilo) and still be Divine? Maybe the theological debate should be centered around whether there is a big gulf between God and man. If we abandon the concept of Creation out of nothing (ex nihilo), then maybe we should abandom the theological children of such a creation. What we must understand today, if we had retained the Hebrew concept of creation of emanation, this argument about the nature of Jesus, would never have existed in the first place.
Jesus, in his new found role in the Nicean Creed, was a physical entity whose origin was found with the Godhead and thereby recognized as not only as Divine but also as a Deity. God is there, way out there and we, the sinful ones are here and it appears so much to us to be alone. This was the Jesus of Athanasius. It became imperative that Jesus becomes our mediator, to bridge this vast gulf between the sinful world including us as sinners and the perfect world of the Divine. Not only that, Jesus had to appease the Divine One, the Father to accept us. Since we are so imperfect, we could not ever really be within the presence of the Almighty. Therefore, Jesus has to magically substitute himself for us. Now you see, now you don’t. We are covered by the righteousness of Jesus. The problem, this ‘cheap grace’, for many leaves a core of a being who is a sinner. A sinner who ideologically wants to be saved, but does not want the transformation needed to be saved.
If Jesus represents us to the Father, who represents us to Jesus? To the orthodox Christian, the bishop of Rome is the representative of all mankind to Jesus. This is the world of the confessions. It was on this point, which led to the Protestant reformation with Martin Luther. To many today, we cannot be represented as clean and holy to God, or saved, unless we belong to a church. We can be Baptist, ‘once saved, always saved’, or Mormans, ‘the literal Lost Tribes of the House of Israel’, or Seventh-day Adventist, the “Remnant Church” who ‘keep the commandments (only the 10 commandments) of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (writings of Ellen White) and with our membership in church, our way to salvation is more assured.
Jesus, the Messiah and the Sefirot.
The imagery of two worlds, the Divine and the Created world with a vast gulf between each is patently non-Hebrew and foreign to the Jewish ideology. To the Jew, there is one God and all things derive from Him. The Messiah (Moshiach) or the Anointed One is not God the Almighty, but clearly the One who represents all the attributes or emanations of God (Torah) capable of being represented in this three dimensional world. The Messiah is the most complete emanation of God on earth. The Messiah is the Torah made flesh. The Messiah is the part of God, which was put in another dimensional sphere, a dimension not able to contain the whole Image (Sefirot) of God
Let us now look at the Sefirot and discover the Jewish concept of the Creations of God and see if we can find the role of the Messiah, the pre-carnate Christ, the person of Jesus (Y’shua) as witnessed and believed to be the True Messiah by the Jewish believers of the Jerusalem Nazorean Church, under the leadership of James the Just.
First, the creation of God was envisioned by the Hebrews as beginning in the World of the Divine and radiating or emanating from there to three other worlds of creation.
These four worlds were seen as three worlds of emanating from the World of the Divine.
World of the Divine (Azilut). This is the divine world of the Trinity, called the Heavenly council of God.
World of Creation (Beriah) This is the Angelic Hosts headed by the Pre-carnate Christ, the leader of the Archangels, the most supreme angelic beings. This is the spiritual realm.
World of Formation (Yezirah) This is the world of the Garden of Eden and the World of Light Beings (part spirit and part material). Adam was made in this world in his sinless state, clothed with a ‘garment’ of light.
World of Action and Elements (Asiyyah) This is the material world, the literal world, the world of the flesh, the body of man, the elemental world, the world of animals, plants, rocks and the basic elements of life. The base of this world anchors on earth, the Land.
In the world of Einstein, where E=MC2, we now can image that each world above is a separate energy sphere. The unfathomable energy of the Divine One, radiating from the Throne of God, is funneled and focused through a central creative vortex (funnel) to a vast world of creation in this universe and multiple other universes; spirit beings, light beings (spirit and physical) and physical beings.
Here, using a philosophical basic understanding of the Trinity, the angelic hosts, mankind (Adams) and the material and animal kingdom, we can see a transfer of infinite energy across a dimensional barrier to a world of spirit (high energy) being called angels, then again across another dimensional barrier to a world of ‘light beings’, who are part spirit and part physical and then into our three dimensional world of physical beings and the elements.
In the physics lab, we experiment with ice, where the slow molecular structure of H2O, is energized and transformed to water and then the atoms are energized to a higher frequency and again transformed to steam and vapor. On the simple energy matrix, we see the unlimited energy of the Almighty God all the way down to the slow atomic vibrations seen in granite and sandstone.
Creation to the Hebrews was more than energy transfer. It had to do with a moral dimension, called emanations or attributes. All of these attributes were unified in the Being of God Himself, the Sefirot. It was this building block, blueprint, or image in which Jesus, in his pre-carnate state was Begotten of the Father. It is true, he was not created or made, yet the World of the Godhead had to put itself into another dimension, which included the lower seven emanation of the Sefirot. Here is where the person of Jesus beings. Herein is the difference between ‘begotton’ and created. Created suggests the Roman concept of creation ex nihilo, yet begotten suggests putting the same attributes in a different dimensional form.
What are the basic principles, we seek to identify in Jesus?
· God is One.
The World of the Divine is One. Every aspect of this world is one in design and purpose, yet only the Father is a complete sefirot in the World of the Divine. He is the Keter, the King, the Ruler, the unfathomable Other. The lower seven emanations of the World of the Divine were put in another dimensionable state. The lower seven emanations begins with the Tiferot or Beauty. The Tiferot or Beauty, the body of the Divine World, is Y’shua, known as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus the Nazorean.
Note how these seven emanations are embodied in the top three attributes of the next world, the first world of Creation, the angelic or world of the spirit beings. Here is the world of the angelic hosts. Beginning with the Body or Beauty, called the Tiferot , is the second complete sefirot, the sefirot of Metatron, or known as the “Little YHVH”, who is a First Creation of the Father. The Keter or crown of this second Sefirot is Y’shua ben Joseph (Jesus son of Joseph) and is identical to the Keter or the Crown of the Divine World. This part of the World of the Divine was witnessed by the angelic world and the lower creations.
· God is unity, not male or female but a union of all characteristics and attributes.
The oneness of the divine world was portrayed the clearest in the life of Jesus, when he said, “I and my Father are One”, yet there is a unity and oneness in all creation. Those who are in unity and in union with Jesus will align themselves with the Sefirot of Jesus. The blueprint he revealed in his life is a pattern for ours. His blueprint is our blueprint in our future ‘glorified’ bodies.
· Jesus, is a member of the world of the Divine, who was emanated and revealed in a different dimension outside the that vast Other, Unfathomable Dimension of God (Prov 8)
What Christians in the Nicean Creed correctly discerned, Jesus, as part of the world of the Divine, was of the same substance (ousias) as the Father, and that substance was one (homoousias). Yet the Father was greater that the Son. The Father was the Deity, the Keter, Crown, of the Divine world. Though Jesus, YHVH Elohim, was part of the divine world, he was not the Sefirot of that world, he was the Sefirot of the next dimensional world, the World of Creation, the world of the angelic kingdom.
·
Jesus is Divine. (Col 2:9)
Yes, he is divine. He is of the vine, de-vine. He truly is part of the world of the Divine, yet in the Hebrew model, he is not the deity or king of the world of the Divine. Only God the Father is the deity or king.
· Jesus was pre-existent to the creation of the world and called Wisdom. (Prov 8)
The world of the Divine existed from the beginning of time. In this world, time is endless and Jesus, in his pre-carnate state was part of the World of the Divine.
· Jesus is the Creator.
All the infinite forces of creative energy are funneled through the vortex of Tiferot, or YHVH Elohim. Note that Tetrammegon (YHVH) is portrayed in EHYEM, ELOHIM, YHVH and YHVH ELOHIM. In some literature, Metatron, or YHVH ELOHIM is called the ‘Little YHVH’. Whereas Jesus is called the Son of God, the Sefirot calls him the ‘Little YHVH’.
· Jesus is the only Begotten of the Father. (Prov. 8)
If, all of the substance of the Father, Keter of the world of the Divine, which was capable of being transferred to another dimensional (seven lower attributes) state was funneled through Jesus, then He truly is the only Begotten of the Father.
· Jesus is the First Born of the Creation. (Prov.8)
The first creative act of the Godhead was to create part of Itself in a new (and lower) dimension. Jesus was the First Born.
· Jesus is the Image of God. (Gen. 2, Prov. 8)
The “Image” is the Sefirot. As the Father is the King of the world of the Divine, Jesus is King of the rest of all creation, especially as the Lord of the Angelic Hosts, the World of Creation.
· Adam, when he sinned, was demoted into the World of Action.
The Sefirot of Adam was maintained but he now was trapped in three dimensional space. He still was made in the Image of God, yet he could no longer have personal communion with Father and Jesus, and could no longer witness the activities of the angelic hosts as they did their functions within God’s heavenly empire. His dominion as a ‘Light Being’ was taken away from him, and he had to be clothed in ‘skin’.
Direct communication with Adam went through the direct emissaries along the central Pillar of Grace, Michael and Gabriel. This is the separation away from God. This is where the ‘vast gulf’ between God and man came into being, as understood by Orthodox Christianity. When understood in the Jewish model of Sefirots, and not in the philosophical model of Creation ex nihilo, then we can see the role of Jesus in restoring man (Adam) to rightful role as King, Keter, of the World of Formation, and having dominion over the world of Action, the plants and animals of our present earth. Here we see Jesus as the ‘Way’ to salvation and restoration, since all creative energy was funneled through Jesus, in his pre-carnate state.
· Jesus is the Word (Torah) made flesh. (John 1:1)
The Word was with God and the Word was God”, yet God could not be reduced totally in other dimensions. Those emanations, the lower seven, which could be transmitted to the rest of the creation became the Word, or Torah. Torah was given at Sinai. The presence of Torah was witnessed in the Pillar of Cloud and the Shekinah Glory. The Torah became visibly present in human form in the person of Jesus (Y’shua ben Joseph). Jesus was Torah (Word) made flesh. Jesus was the most perfect representation of the World of the Divine that could be presented in our three dimensional world. By living a perfect life, as the New Adam, living trapped in this three dimensional world, Jesus, was resurrected as a “Light Being”, a model of that ‘glorified body’ we will assume at the resurrection or the second coming of Jesus. Jesus, that glorified being, that the disciples saw after the resurrection, who materialized at will in front of them, and disappeared equally fast, who walked through walls in the Upper Room, yet could eat fish and bread, yet the hands of Thomas appeared to go ‘into his wounds’ gives us a portrayal of what Adam was like in the Garden of Eden. Note, ‘flesh and bones’ can inherit the kingdom of God, but ‘flesh and blood’ will not.
· The Kingdom of God (The Malkhut or Kingdom)
The World of the Divine was anchored in the Malkhut or Kingdom. This is the Kingdom of God. It is the literal three dimensional world, and ‘all that in them is” Only Adam stood above this world. It is the Land. It is the world of our sensory system. Through the sin of Adam and Eve, the Land became cursed. Only through the actions of man can the Land once again be pure and be restored. If Eden is to be restored, then man must be involved in its restoration. As the Land did not sin, so the Land will not be restored or even partially restored until the agencies of sin are eliminated (Antichrist and False Prophet) or totally suppressed (Satan cast into the Abyss).
Let us consider the possibility that the ancient traditions of the Jews are correct.
“As the navel is set in the center of the human body,
so is the Land of Israel the Navel of the world…
situated in the center of the world,
and Jerusalem in the center of the Land of Israel,
and the Sanctuary in the center of Jerusalem,
and the Holy Place in the center of the Sanctuary,
and the Ark in the center of the Holy Place,
and the Foundation Stone before the Holy Place,
because, from it the world was founded.
Midrash Tanchuma, Qedoshim, http://www.foigm.org/IMG.timetemp.htm
If the Malkhut of the Sefirot is anchored at the site of the Creation of the World, then the Malkhut is the site of Creation, it is the site of where God resided in the Garden of Eden, it is the site of the Temple of the Lord, it is the site of the Most Holy Place, it is the site of the Shekinah Glory. When God returns, He will return to His Land.
Go to The Plan of Salvation and Models on God Restoring His People
Part Two
Topics
The Plan of Salvation and the Restoration of God’s People at the End of times
Adventist and Messianics vs. Dispensationists
Moses and the End of Times
God’s Plan in Deuteronomy 28
Gradual and Conditional Eschatology
The Millennial Kingdom according to the Prophets
In exile, the lost kingdom of Israel would be restored.
Israel would be transformed as a Nation.
A Davidic rule will be restored, and under the direct sovereign of God.
The Messiah will come with the Rod in his mouth.
A New Eden will accompany this Davidic Ruler
Exiles will be returned to a Messianic Kingdom
Before the End of Times, a Blood Covenant will exist
between the House of Judah and the House of Ephraim.
All nations will be blessed by Israel and come to know God
Israel will become an exalted centerpiece among all nations.
Israel will dominate all nations
Nations that were former enemies of Israel will become spiritually reformed because of Israel
The Kingdom or Malkhut will be restored with God’s covenant with His people.
“The curse of thorns (Eden’s curse) will be done away.”
“Heavenly bodies will be massively affected by this mighty transformation”
The War will take place after a time of great spiritual revival.
The War will define the end time Remnant who are trapped in Jerusalem
God calls the nations to judgment in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
God will act to protect his people.
The war is followed by a period of peace and security without fear of invasion and the Land will be restored to an Edenic condition.
The Nations of the world will be ruled from and will worship at Jerusalem
Sequence of Events in the Time of the End
Objection - The prophecies failed because Israel failed to obey or even to repent.
Objection - God meets people where they are and gives them a developing not full picture
of the time of the end.
Objections-Restoration will make place in history not in a New Earth
Objections - Old Testament prophecies on the end of times cannot be fit into contemporary Middle East settings.
Panorama of the Conflict of the Ages until the End of the Age