THE THIRD WORD OF JESUS

 

KEY VERSE: For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved. (Rom 10:13) 

  Paul’s letter was to the Romans, but it was about the Jews. Paul never gave up on the Jews although he switched his preaching to the Gentiles, and therein to the Romans. The key verse is a plea! It is never too late. “Whosever” — Jew or Gentile — can be saved. The “password” to the gate to Paradise is the “Name” of the Lord.

  What and where is the gate to Paradise? Jacob’s Ladder and the Holy Cross of Jesus. The path that Jesus led is the Way to Paradise, and the “ladder” thereunto is the Cross, not that the “Jesus Tree” is the gate, but entry into Paradise is by the spilt blood and water of Jesus when He died.

  Paradise has a “hedge” around it. It could be briars or perhaps bramblebushes, but regardless, Paradise is hedged-in for the safety of those within its hedge and to keep evil without! Just like walls between nations that have gates for legal entry, Paradise does as well. It even has “officers” to assure legal passage, to wit:

So He drove out the man (Adam); and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. (Gen 3:24)

 That “Way” remains kept by cherubim, as John saw unto Paradise: “And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind” (Rev 4:6). The “hedge” turns out that to be a barrier described as a transparent but impassible barrier guarded by those whose descriptions fit cherubim.” The Way to the Tree of Life” — Jesus — remains guarded to ensure legal passage.

  Passage is by One Way — Jesus’s Name — according to scripture, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Act 4:12). “The Name of the Lord,” is called Jesus, and that Name is the Way to salvation. The Cross is the Way and authority is through love: “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the City” (Rev 22:14). The “City” was the “Garden.” Paradise was prepared for two, but “whosoever” requires a “City” Paradise.

  The credential for passage is the Name of the Lord, and whosoever calls that Name to the cherubim that guard the Gate have the “right to the Tree of Life.” Those who cannot call that Name as theirs are forbidden passage because they have no right to enter. What commandments are the Way? The Great Commandment of love as enumerated by Jesus Himself — “the finger of God” — who wrote the Ten Words that we take as Commandments (Deut 9:10).

  The “Ten Words” are important because they are the metrics about how to love. Like God, Christians want that “none should perish” (John 3:16) and the Ten Words are how to assure that none perish, including each Christian.

  All of the Ten Words that Jesus said (Exod 20:1) are important, but the critical Word that Jesus wrote is, “Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain” (Exod 20:7; The Third Word of Jesus).

  Note that it is not “say His Name in vain” although that would be irreverent, but “take His Name in vain.” Compare that Word to the key verse: “For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved.” Just as in the Third Word, neither does the key verse use the word, “say” but “call” or invoke the Name of the Lord (Strong’s Dictionary).

  Now envision climbing Jacob’s Ladder from the directional signpost, or the Cross. You get to the transparent barrier and scary heavenly creatures ask for your credentials to continue the Path to the Tree of Life. They check your right to passage. What shall you do? Invoke the “Name” of the Lord by crediting Jesus for safe passage!

  Not that saying His Name gives right of Way but invoking His Name. What is in the Name? “Who (Jesus) gave Himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Tit 2:14). (And you thought that the Book of Titus had little to say!)

  Now look again at the Third Word of Jesus. “Not taking the Name of the Lord” Jesus without purpose (vain) is the right of Way to the Tree of Life. Those that Jesus do not know may try to climb Jacob’s Ladder, but will not be allowed to enter Paradise. Those shall have no right to the Way to the Tree of (Eternal) Life. “The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His Name in vain,” or without purpose.

  For them, Jesus died without a cause, and what will God say? “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Mat 7:23). “Iniquity” is living the law of sin rather than the conditions of God’s Covenant with Abraham, better known as the “Ten Commandments,” and given to Moses for what purpose? Safe passage to the earthly Paradise, the “Promise Land.” The Ten Words that Jesus wrote are the One Way to Heaven, and that Name referenced in them is “Jesus.”

  Again, it is not “saying” the Ten Commandments or even doing them; it is welcoming and honoring them as Ways to say, “Thank you Lord Jesus for dying for me.” The Third Word is all about that Purpose. It recognizes that it is not the Cross (or Tree) that saved, but the blood and water than set apart that particular “Tree” and was spilt from the Throne of God in heaven onto His “footstool” in earth — onto the pedestal that supported God’s Flesh on that Tree!

  When Jesus wrote the Words of the Ten Commandments, and said them out loud as well, he fulfilled them, as He said He did, with the Third Commandment:

And he said unto them, These are the Words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses (Luke 24:44)

  When was Jesus “with you?” He was always with you in Holy Spirit and will always be with you as His Holy Ghost. Those Words that Jesus spoke and wrote on stone, were fulfilled when He spoke them in the Flesh of God. For the Hebrew people of Moses’s day, they thought that they were commands, but the Ten Words of Jesus were always the Ten Prescriptions (precepts) for eternal health (life). The Third Commandment reveals the “password” to enter into Paradise to live gloriously and forever!

  In conclusion, the Old Testament is not “old” nor worn out but is the preamble to the New Testament. The former is about what Jesus will do, and the latter about what He did do. Genesis is about what Satan did against God and man in the beginning and the Revelation of John is about what Jesus will do to Satan in the end for what he did back in the Garden.

(picture credit: Written In Stone)