FINISHED
Jesus was about to be finished. The world had, had enough of
Him. Weakened from persecution, the “Almighty God’ was too exhausted to carry
His own Cross. Simon the Cyrenian was compelled to carry it for Him as he was
just passing by. He bore no more guilt than any other sinner, but he was
charged with the burden of Jesus. The Man who was about to die to set men free
was a burden to mankind, and rather than Jesus bearing that burden in life,
Simon picked up the Cross and followed Jesus. It was symbolic but it was real. One
last time, the world would diminish Jesus. Then they crucified a totally
innocent Man who had done no crime. He was to die merely because He Existed.
People cannot stand the notion that God Exists. People
cannot stand the idea that another “existence” has authority over themselves.
When Adam and Eve defied God, they took what was His, even when warned them not
to under the threat of death.
People have always misunderstood God and what death is! “Death”
is when mankind is separated from God. God would never do that, but people will.
God physically died that terrible day that is called “Good Friday” but Sunday
was the better day when he was resurrected. Jesus did not die; He did suffer
death, but He lives to this day! Who died on Good Friday? The world and its people
died that day. By grace, even those who killed Jesus were redeemed, but most
still remain in bonds. It seems that sinful men most often choose bondage over
freedom.
“Jesus died to make men free,” as the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” declares.
With that finished, most men and women remain in chains of their own choosing.
Simon voluntarily picked up the Cross and did what men wanted. All Jesus wanted
was to empty His “cup” and finish His Purpose. As he died, Jesus “gave up the
Ghost” and it was finished (John 19:30). Jesus had emptied His “Cup.”
The Holy Spirit had been exhumed from Him to redeem all mankind — to set them
free from sin.
Jesus was born to die. He was given His last rites at His
birth. Myrrh was provided when He was born as a symbol that by his stripes the
redeemed would be healed, as is written: “Who his own self bare our sins in his
own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto
righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Pet 2:24). Isaiah saw that so
long ago and it was prophesied in Isaiah 53:5.
Myrrh is harvested “by
repeatedly wounding the trees to bleed the gum” (Wikipedia 2020) . Stripes are cut
around the tree for the sap to flow and coagulate. The wise men of the East knew why Jesus was
born. Was Jesus finished? Never! His Purpose was not complete. Mankind was
freed from sin, and all they had to do was sojourn with Jesus to freedom. They,
like Simon, merely had to pick up the Cross and bear it with Jesus. They must sacrifice
themselves; not their bodies but their desires. Their will must be turned over
to God.
The human “will” is a strong thing. In Scripture, it is
called “the flesh.” Paul said, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”
(Mat 26:41). That is paradoxical. The flesh is weak in the battle against evil but
is strong in resistance to God.
Using a contemporary example, Kal El was weak
on Kryton, but he was Superman on Earth. On the other hand, earthly people are
weak in the World and supra-natural in Heaven. Like Superman and Lex
Luthor, there is a battle going on between good and evil here on Earth. Satan
endeavors to weaken God as Lex Luthor does Superman. Kal Els weakness was his
own world, Kryptonite. Human’s “Kryptonite” is the material world, just like Kal
El’s.
When exposed to his world, Superman became just another weak
man, but when in another world, he regained his strength. Jesus referred to
that in mankind as “born again.” Theologians call it “regeneration,” but it is
merely a new beginning. Indeed, regeneration is complete when the reborn person
is as he was in the beginning — at his genesis — which was entirely good.
Jesus allowed Himself to be diminished that humankind could
be strengthened. Unlike, Jesus, mankind tries to diminish Jesus so they themselves
seem strong. That is an illusion of the delusional. Men are made strong when
they pick up the Cross of Jesus. So long as they follow the world, they are
weak. Without Jesus, all people are slaves to the world.
Examine the exodus from Egypt: When the Hebrew people came
to Egypt, they were free, and some became nobility. With a change in Pharaohs,
the Hebrews were indentured into involuntary servitude. They seemed free
in that they could live in their own communities, have children, were provided
with nourishment, and cared for from birth to death by the Egyptians. However,
during the day they were forced to make bricks and work for free for the benefit
of the Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Egypt’s system was socialistic, but when the
Hebrews sought freedom, “communism” was revealed. Pharaoh was Egypt’s “Stalin”
and just like Stalin long after, the Jews went from indentured to living in
fear of death. Moses, symbolic of Jesus, came to set the Hebrews free.
Abraham Lincoln was a type of Moses. Both endeavored
to emancipate enslaved people from slavery. Both failed! All men were meant to
be set free, but most chose to remain in slavery. In the South, some former slaves
continued with their masters as if nothing had changed.
Not all the Hebrews exited with Moses. Some preferred slavery
under Pharaoh to freedom with Moses. Many trusted Moses until they found out
how hard life was outside their “socialist” state.
Freedom does not guarantee
prosperity. God promised the Hebrews prosperity in the land of Canaan. The
freed Hebrews thought only of milk and honey in that new “Paradise” but that is
not what God had in mind. The Hebrews sought a real socialist “Utopia” just as
the left does to this day. God’s idea was a spiritual “Utopia” called “Paradise.”
The reward would not be in earth but in heaven; not in the physical world but
in the hereafter. The difference between Christianity and socialism is mostly
on whether one’s eyes are on God or the government. The Hebrews, once freed, still
set their eyes on Pharaoh, and then Moses. They trusted the governments more
than God. That remains the problem of people.
For forty years, God endeavored to have the Hebrews shake
off the good memories of menial existence under Pharaoh. The wilderness of the
Exodus was the “Temptation of God’s People” and was very much like the “Temptations
of Christ.” All the while they were remembering life under Pharaoh, things got
worse. Just as they thought all was lost, God would revive them with some
miracle. That was his grace on a wondering people. However, they all failed
because their eyes were not on God but on Moses. They still depended on the “government”
and the Law for nourishment and safety, respectively. With that, they all died
without ever entering the Promised Land. They never made it to Utopia, and
certainly not to the real Paradise, because they, although free men and women, remained
in bondage to Pharaoh.
The problem with racial tension is that slaves, although freed,
seem satisfied with lives in bondage. Just as the Egyptians, some freed slaves
stayed with their old masters, but those who chose freedom sojourned to mostly
the northern big cities. What happened there? New slave masters cunningly got
them to build, not pyramids, but a new design of slave’s quarters wherein life
would be very much as they were before they were freed.
What is wrong with racial division to this day? The former slaves
still refuse freedom. It is just much easier to let the Democrats continue
their cradle-to-grave sub-standard care then to exodus away from that socialist
system. They keep looking back to antebellum times, not with wide-open eyes but
the way they think things were. Perhaps the colonial manors were theirs, in their
memories. They, to this day, still want to live in the white men’s mansions wherein
cunning Democrats connive for them to be satisfied with poverty.
“White privilege” is not the problem; “Democrat Cunning” is.
They still use the techniques that the Serpent used to undermine Adam and Eve.
Just as some blacks lived in the manor with the Democrat “gentlemen,” and
essentially, became like them, modern backs flock to the white Democrat
illusion in a futile attempt to prosper like them. The modern Democrat leaders
are largely millionaires. Forget it blacks; you will never be like them so long
as their system exists. The Civil War is not finished. Blacks have never
accepted their freedom. They still either live on the “plantations” in the big
cities or provide the power to grow the white Democrat man’s privileged system
of socialism. Socialism is just a coy way of keeping naïve people in bondage.
Reconstruction was a period in history when “progressive”
well-meaning Republicans became like the Democrats. Reconstruction was a training
period. It as much as taught freed slaves to relearn the new type of plantation
system. During Reconstruction, the government became the new masters on the
bureaucratic plantation, and many blacks to this day still long for Reconstruction.
Many blacks who have become Democrat office holders were as much as appointed
by the Democrat leadership. Joe Biden said it well when he commented on the
fine characteristics of Barack Obama, as if Obama was standing tall at a slave
auction. That black man would run the Democrat “plantation” quite well, and
under his misguided direction, all the big city “plantations” grew.
In In this era, many
white men and women prefer bondage under Marxism than freedom under God! Perhaps
the voters are stupid, as Jonathan Gruber believes!
Now back to apostolic times after considering ancient Egypt
and the antebellum South: Jesus redeemed sinful people. They were in bondage
and had the opportunity to follow Him to Paradise where no men work, but all men
are of one accord. One man bowed to Jesus as best as he could. He was nailed to
another cross and has went largely unnoticed. That day, he was with Jesus in
Paradise. One man accepted his freedom because, even in bonds, he bowed his head
to Jesus. Others took a knee, but a knee of disrespect:
28 And (the soldiers) stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe. 29 And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head. (Mat 27:28-30)
The soldiers took a Kaepernick knee to Jesus. Just as hundreds
of sportsmen take a knee against America in disrespect, those ancient “sportsmen”
took a knee in mockery of Jesus. Just as Kaepernick would not stand out of
respect for the country, soldiers would not stand out of respect to their
Savior. Jesus died to set even those soldiers free, but they, in mockery, preferred
to be indentured to Caesar. They were to give to Caesar what was his, and that
was security. But they should have given to God what was His. They should have
stood tall and saluted the Brave Warrior who won emancipation for all mankind through
His own suffering.
It was finished. Jesus’s “Cup” had been emptied and the Chalice
filled with blood but most refused to drink of His “living water.” Remember the
Tree of Life? Its roots typified the Father, the vine (trunk) Jesus Christ, the
branches mankind, and the fruits the twelve fruits of the Spirit. Living water
flowed from the Father through Jesus to bear good fruit for the healing of the
nations to come. The Tree of Life withered that day and Living Water flowed
from Him. One man drank of it that day. Several men realized that Jesus is God,
but only one drank of the Living Water. The rest remained in bondage until after
the Resurrection and the return of Jesus in Spirit as the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Ghost of Jesus is the Comforter (John 14:16) provided
by God. When Jesus “Cup” was emptied, His Holy Ghost went elsewhere. That day, “He”
accompanied the repentant thief to Paradise and deposited all the sins of
mankind into Hell to suffocate the Devil.
When Judas died, Satan had no place to go. He surely took
the plunge into Hell to receive those multitudes of sin. Jesus had not died, He
had, however, put the choke-hold on Satan and suffocated him with Himself as
the sacrifice. Just as God planned when that when He said, “I will put enmity
between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15), Jesus, when He set foot
on Calvary, accomplished that goal. Satan’s head was bruised when Jesus
redeemed mankind. [1]
Despite that, most men prefer bondage! They will never leave
Satan’s spot in the middle of the Garden. For their convenience, Karl Marx has
promised them a “garden” here on Earth, and it is in the progress of growing.
Christians should be able to see that the “garden” is growing in the best spot
on Earth. The “paradise” of the United States is smothering under Satan’s “kudzu.”
[1] As
a reminder, the author’s book, The Skull of Adam, is about that passage. The Edenic
Covenant was completed as Jesus’s Purpose was finished. What was finished? What
God said to the Serpent in the Garden.
(picture credit: Pintestest "Run to the Table 2020")
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