SEEING JESUS IN YAHWEH

  I was speaking with a Jewish friend yesterday. I described to her why I believed that Isaac was conceived in the same manner as Jesus. She said, “We do not believe in Mary and Jesus.” I replied, “I know that” and went on with my explanation.

  As a Jew, she did not believe in Jesus. She didn’t, but the Hebrew priests did at one time. Today, I will reveal to her and other Jews what their priests were doing when they waved and heaved… just what they were doing behind the veil in the Tabernacle, and later the Temple. They need to see who their priests saw. Today’s commentary is more for the Jews but for those who are Jews inwardly as Christians are called (Rom 2:29).

  The Aaronic priests cut up the flesh of bullocks and rams for Tabernacle worship. Their own flesh was cut up for them long before with circumcision for cleansing. That was the best sacrifice that they had at the time short of suicide. They gave up their flesh, some of it, for God. However, God wants all the “flesh” which encompassed mind, body, spirit, and strength which is described as one organism — the heart.

  The congregation sacrificed their livestock and firstfruits. It was their faculty of the will that was burned at the altar because it was their work that was either discarded or the best portions given to God. That was their way of giving from the heart more so than circumcision.

  But to whom were they giving? The congregation gave by faith, but the priest presented it person to Person. Now consider today's thought.

  God described the Law, the Tabernacle, the utensils of the of the Tabernacle, the priestly garments, and finally the offerings to the LORD. Hidden inside all those rituals and things were proper worship for that time. It was a way to worship the unseen God whenever He made Himself manifest. God would appear on the Mercy Seat at different times. Imperative was when they came unto the land to which God brought them.

  Whenever God appears, that is Yahweh manifesting Himself to the world. John the Baptist explained that transformation:

³⁰ This is he of whom I (John) said, “After me cometh a Man which is preferred before me: for he was before me. ³¹ And I knew Him not: but that He should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.” ³² And John bare record, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.” (John 1:30-32)

   John explained the Spirit of God’s motion as “like a dove.” The Spirit of God glided onto the Man, Jesus with wings flapping and waving. The Spirit was not a dove but had that same motion. Luke added to that: “And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a Voice came from heaven, which said, ‘Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:22).

  So, God manifested Himself three ways: (1) by Voice, (2) by Flesh, and (3) by Spirit. His Voice was audible, His Flesh visible, and His Spirit real.

  When God sat on the Mercy Seat of the Ark, cherubim were situated above to guard the Way to the Tree of Life (Gen 3:24). When God appeared to the Hebrews the proverbial Tree of the Garden was manifested as a Spirit. The priest who was chosen to enter the Holy of Holies behind the veil could see what Moses would not see: The priest would stand there face-to-face with God. Outside the Tabernacle He would appear as a cloud by day and fire by night, but in the Holiest place he was seen by one priest as He was.

  What did God look like on the Mercy Seat? John and Luke described how God manifested himself to His followers — a Spirit in bodily shape. Thus, the Ghost of Jesus looked like Jesus but was of a different substance.

  The substance of the Holy Ghost was immaterial but real. When the priest looked on the Mercy Seat, he saw Jesus manifested in a real but intangible substance.

  All the while that the Jews were worshiping an invisible God, God showed them the Person, Jesus in a substance only describable as “glorious.”

  The priest could hear the Voice of Jesus, see his Person, and perceive the Thoughts of God. In theological terms, God was manifesting Himself to the Priests just as he did to the world when Mary revealed the Savior to mankind. They saw God in three substances there on the Mercy Seat in homeostasis — all the “elements” of God in one Existence (The Holy Trinity).

  They did not see God in three persons but one “organism” (person) of three substances: Mind, Body, and Spirit. The priests were inside the curtains worshiping Jesus, and the congregation was outside in blind faith with the understanding that the real Person of God was inside that veil.

  When Jesus was crucified, it was a revealing to the congregation what the priests knew all along:

⁵⁰ Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the Ghost. ⁵¹ And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; ⁵² And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose.  (Mat 27:50-52)

  Matthew saw the Ghost of Jesus. How does he know what he saw to write that? Matthew would have seen the bodily shape of the Spirit of God being yielded. Someone reported that the veil of the Temple was torn down, or perhaps Matthew knew that from scripture. Or possibly, Matthew spoke theologically; that he knew it was Jesus behind the veil all the time!

  Few preachers focus on the opening of the graves. Many bodies of the saints arose, not right then, but when Jesus arose soon after His death. As Jesus arose, His Ghost would come back later to snatch up the dead saints. The question therein is What is a “saint”? The Greek word is hagios — specifically “an awful thing” and a “sacred” and “holy thing” (Strong’s Dictionary).

  A saint, therefore, is an awful thing — a sinner — that God has made holy. God had told the Israelites to do certain offerings as they entered the Promise Land. The “congregation” of the Israelites would gather around the Tabernacle and believe in Jesus as if He was there, and there He was! Perhaps those saints who arose were those who had been outside the veil who understood just who it was on the Mercy Seat.

  Assume that those saints that arose from the grave were the same saints that long ago were around the tabernacle. Finally, the Face of God would be revealed to them just like God would reveal His Face to the priests who were cleaned and set apart.

  The first thing the Holy Ghost of Jesus did is significant. Before He had promised the repentant thief (Dismus) Paradise that day. But before the Ghost of Jesus escorted Dismus to the Promised Land in another realm, the Holy Ghost in bodily shape went to the Temple and torn down the veil. How is that known? Matthew my have followed the Holy Ghost there because how else would he have known that to write about it?

  So, it is extremely important that the veil surrounding the Holy of Holies was torn down to reveal the One True God in Spirit and Truth. Those saints who were dead in Christ finally saw the Face of God and His Spirit at the same time. God revealed Himself to the “congregation” that was around the Tabernacle or even the Temple when they resided in the Promise Land.

  Most dispel the minute instructions of the Pentateuch as merely ritual. Now, take the time to consider this passage:

And thou (the priest) shalt sanctify the breast of the wave offering, and the shoulder of the heave offering, which is waved, and which is heaved up, of the ram of the consecration, even of that which is for Aaron, and of that which is for his sons. (Exod 29:27)

  There were two rams that they were to sacrifice. One, I believe, represents Judas on his “cross” and the one in verse 27, Jesus the Christ on His Cross. The first ram was burnt up and that was a sweet savor to the LORD. That would represent Judas’s burial in the valley of Gehenna after his flesh was parted when his flesh was rent and his bowels dashed out.

  The second ram symbolized the Flesh of God (Jesus). For now, we will not consider the breast and the shoulder, but the motion.

  The wave offering was a lateral movement, and the heave was vertical. The movements represent the motion of threshing grain. Find that in the following passages:

¹⁸ Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, “When ye come into the land whither I bring you, ¹⁹ Then it shall be, that, when ye eat of the bread of the land, ye shall offer up an heave offering unto the Lord. ²⁰ Ye shall offer up a cake of the first of your dough for an heave offering: as ye do the heave offering of the threshingfloor, so shall ye heave it.” (Num 15:18-20)

 

⁹ And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, “¹⁰ Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, ‘When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: ¹¹ And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.’” (Lev 23:9-11)

  Both offerings were done when they came unto the land that God would give them. That “land” was Israel, but God was also referring to His Estate in Paradise — the place He took Dismus that day.

  No longer would meat be required after they entered, but only wheat and bread. Why would that be? Because like any church, the Head of the Church provided the “Meat” as the Flesh of Jesus. He was the “ram” that day as the Lamb of God!

  What did the priests do? They waved and heaved. Do that right now. Your motion is two: as a dove, but also as the Holy Cross. The priests, given directions from God, were describing the Spirit of Jesus and the Holy Cross as Jesus gave it up. In their minds’ eyes did they see the Holy Ghost of Jesus floating from the Cross with the motion of a dove? I believe that is exactly what the priests saw when God revealed His Identity to them!

  We are now the “congregation.” Neither do Christians see God face-to-Face but we believe Jesus is the Savior because scripture reveals the Essence of God to us. Just like the saints of the  congregation was raised from the dead when Jesus revealed Himself to them, someday the Person Jesus shall be revealed in the sky, and our congregation will raise from the world and the saints raise from the earth again.

  It is not known who was resurrected with Jesus but bet on one of them would surely be Adam.  Perhaps 5500 years (as promised to Adam; Book of 1 Adam and Eve) elapsed from the time of original sin until Jesus redeemed him on the Cross and Adam arose with Him. Not only Adam but some of His kind who had faith in Jesus before God manifested Himself in the Flesh.

(picture credit:  istock)