Have you ever wrestled? If you have and it was with one whom you love, the match ends when one yells “uncle” for some reason or another. That means that you are beaten and have had enough.
Have you ever wrestled with God? If you are still alive
and well, God let you win. He did not cry “uncle” but He did call “Father” for
you, once and for all, or specifically, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?” (Mat 27:46).
When Jesus wrestled with mankind, he could have kneed us
and brought us down. Rather, mankind took a knee to him in mockery (Mat 27:29)
and He let us take Him down (John 19:11).
As if men had won the match by their own right, they dressed
Jesus in royal garb and placed a crown of thorns on His head as if he had lost
due to weakness. Jesus let them do that, although He had the power to intervene
at any time!
The crucifixion was a wrestling match between good and
evil. Although Jesus, on that day, appeared to be the biggest loser ever, not
far away on his tree, Satan in Judas was defeated. Nobody notices that to this
day, even though Jesus pointed it out in advance (John 3:14).
Jesus wrestled with the best that Judea could find. They
had defeated Goliath in days past; would they be able to defeat one even more
endowed with power than that giant?
At the end of the match, Jesus was carried a loser to the
borrowed tomb of another man, but the wrestling match had not stopped with the
death of Jesus. Even in death, Jesus demonstrated the most significant power
ever, and lost all His virtue in doing so. That Dynamo (Virtue) became a “weakling”
for you and me, or so it seemed.
The first thing Jesus did in death was to overcome the
world (John 16:33) when He escorted Dismus (the repentant thief) to His Kingdom
in another world that day (Luke 23:43). He had the wings of a dove that could cross
the uncrossable gap in less than an hour. He was secretly a “Superman” who
would save the damned!
Then, the Superman, even with His Dynamo about
diminished, came back to Jerusalem and fought the good fight with Satan, even
with all the sins of the world on His shoulders (2 Cor 5:21) and with both
hands figuratively tied behind His back because of the nails that had been
driven into them.
Judas had tried to kill Satan, ironically, by killing the
“cup”
of Satan — the vessel, Judas. As Jesus
understood it, only He could pass the cup (Mat 26:39) and Judas would not be
the one to kill Satan.
He tried; he failed; and then Jesus brought down the tree
on which Judas was hung and Satan was dashed out of the entrails of Judas.
Jesus did that; not Judas. It was Jesus, the mild-mannered “reporter” (Messenger
of God) who defeated Satan that day!
How did He do that as His body laid in the grave sound
asleep? The Holy Ghost of Jesus in bodily shape (Luke 3;22) was the
Super-Power within the man
Death was supposed to remove the Power of God from the
Earth, but when Jesus defeated death, Satan, and Hell; Jesus overcame the world
as soon as He was glorified. Upon death, the very Genome of God was presented
to the world as the Super-Power that once appeared so humble.
Jesus could not be arrogant. His nature was humility, but
inside, He was “King of King, and Lord of Lords” — He was Supra-Man who
had been cleverly disguised as a mere Carpenter.
Mankind had cut down the trees for the crucifixion, but
they would never be able to cut down the Tree of Life — the very Genome of God
within that little man — the “son of man.”
What is truth? Pilate found out. He was close to Jesus
when He was crucified.
Dismus surely saw it as well, and so would have Longinus,
the centurion who pierced Him. “And He hath on his vesture and on his thigh a
name written, ‘King Of Kings, And Lord Of Lords’” (Rev 19:16).
Pilate knew that this mild man was more than He appeared
to be. Pilate came to understand that when he looked at Jesus that He was
seeing Almighty God in the flesh.
He would wash his hands of blame because he knew that
that man would never be defeated, even in death. Pilate saw the truth, and
perhaps, Pilate was made free… From what? He had been blinded just like the
others, but when the Holy Ghost revealed Himself as the Power within the gentle
man, Pilate was set free from his misconception!
I called the crucifixion a “wrestling match,” but to be
honest, there was not much wrestling. Jesus cried, not “uncle,” but “Father”
very quickly. His death did not linger but was welcomed by God with outstretched
arms.
Did Jesus cry “My God, My God” in vain, or was it for a purpose?
Jesus, I believe, was welcoming death so that His hidden Power could be
revealed. His cry was not because of self-pity nor anxiety, but that God would reveal
His own identity; that He had not left the “Man” at all but was transfiguring
the Man a second time as Jesus was once more glorified as God in the flesh!
There was indeed a wrestling match, but it was spiritual
warfare, as Paul revealed in his deposition: “For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephes
6:12).
All those superpowers were on that high place (Calvary) that
day, but few saw the wrestling match as it progressed.
Satan would have been there himself, but he had another “appointment”
at the same time, as by “then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being
of the number of the twelve” (Luke 22:3). However, Satan would not escape the
match because he was the featured attraction to whom much money was paid by the
spectators… thirty-pieces of silver just to appear.
Back in the days of the prophets, Jesus had set the price
for that day’s admission: “And I (the Word) said unto them, ‘If ye think good,
give me my price; and if not, forbear.’ So they weighed for my price thirty
pieces of silver” (Zech 11;12), and thirty pieces of silver it was!
So, Satan may have showed up at Calvary, after all, to
defend his claim to “King of Kings, and Lord of Lords” (Isa 14:12-14).
I believe that Satan was forced to appear! “Now this man (Judas)
purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst
asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out” (Acts 1:18).
Did Satan, who was in Judas, burst out or did Jesus from
His perch on high release Satan to wrestle with Him? Satan is a coward as he fore-knew
who would win the match. I believe that Jesus freed Satan long enough to join
Him on Calvary and after Satan lost the match, Jesus took him back to Gehenna
where losers go to Hell.
My bet is that Satan was there that day, but nobody
noticed him at all. He would not fight the Mighty Man himself but would use
useful fools like Annas and Caiaphas to call for the nails to be driven.
Caesars would fight their battles alongside their
soldiers, and Satan may have been there but hidden perhaps in the vinegar and gall
that Jesus spat (Mat 27:34).
This was the featured match that mankind had awaited, and
the week before, it was announced with great fanfare. On that day, however, the
adveraries were bullish, not doing battle themselves, but with
anticipation, the good guys remained silent. The silence was more forceful than
words, so those who remained still were as guilty as the loudmouths. Jesus was
wrestling with the crowd as well as the spiritual forces that were encouraging
all to defect from the one in whom so many only the week before had had affection.
Satan was fighting by using apostasy by turning the crowd
against the innocent man, much as in the same way media propaganda does now.
His propaganda was successful because silence was not encouraging.
This was the main event, but God had a practice
session long before.
Jacob had feared battle with his violent twin brother Esau. Before the battle was to begin, Jacob rested on a high place when a certain “man” approached:
24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 25 And when He saw that he prevailed not against him, He touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with Him. (Gen 32:24-25)
One thing that Jacob received was courage. No longer
would he fear his brother because he had just outwrestled God!
Was Jacob as powerful as God? Not at all! Had Jacob outwitted God? Not at all; he had been the one outwitted; Jacob prevailed but God made him a marked man, to wit:
29 And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. 30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. 31 And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. 32 Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank. (Gen 32:29-32)
“Children” in the context above is “ben” in the
Hebrew. Ben is the gens, or family, of Jacob who was affected.
After Jacob won the wrestling match, he was renamed “Israel”
(verse 28), of which Israelites were his posterity, or progeny.
God did something inside the flesh of Jacob that made him
a different creature than he was before. As a result, Jacob’s tendon in his
thigh shrank. “Thigh” therein is modest; it could have been his loin
It may have been implied that the seed of Jacob was
changed, resulting in a new creature with a new God-given genome, in the same
fashion as the seed of Abraham was altered for Isaac to be different.
In other words, the genes within the flesh of Jacob were
corrected. He was no longer afraid but now prepared to face his adversary,
Esau.
In a sense, Jacob was “King of Israel” because of God’s
grace. Jacob had not defeated Jesus at all, but Jesus bowed to him in a humble
manner, just as He essentially bowed to mankind at the crucifixion when He
blessed those who persecuted Him by dying in their places.
Not only that, but as father to the twelve tribes in a genitive
sense (two were his grandsons), then Israel, rather than Saul, would have been
King, but not of the land, but of an invisible realm in the same manner as
Abraham was King of Paradise in another domain.
Jesus had written on his thigh, “King Of Kings, Lord Of
Lords.” As the seed, or ben of Israel, Jesus was in a spiritual sense,
Israel! He was one of the gens of Israel whose thigh has in it “King Of Kings,
and Lord Of Lords.”
Israel would have that same thing written on his thigh in
a code, and by that, I mean his genetic code wherein the Name of God was
written within the flesh, or “sinew” of his thigh.
Perhaps nobody but the chosen could read the message on the
thigh of Jesus. Perhaps Pilate understood it because he saw that Jesus was Lord
of Lords. Perhaps Dismus and Longinus read it the same way, but it may have
been that “King Of King, Lord Of Lords,” was encoded into the thigh of Israel
that remained recessive until the man “Israel” (Jesus) was conceived; and that
His Authority was encoded in the loins of Israel when pre-incarnate Jesus had
grace imbued within Jacob.
Maybe I have it right, or maybe I got it wrong. However, the
wrestling match did have something to do with Jesus or Jesus would not have
wrestled with Jacob to make a new man of him!
Jacob, now Israel, named that place where the wrestling
match occurred, “Penuel” meaning “Facing God.”
That Jesus is the Face of God was declared by Jacob (Gen
33:10) and that is what Moses finally saw at the transfiguration and also what
Pilate would see at the crucifixion.
Jesus demonstrated to all who dared look His way, that He
indeed is the very Face of God! That was what the trial and crucifixion was all
about, and Jacob knew that 1500 years or so before-hand, even before Moses!
Just as Israel wrestled with Jesus and won, such is the
case with the nation, Israel. Although, like the man, Israel, who wrestled with
Jesus but won, so did the nation who wrestled with Jesus during Roman times,
and they won as well because Jesus took a knee to them:
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
I wrestled with God. I wrestled hard because I did not
want Him to be master of my domain. That belonged to me, and I fought
hard to retain authority over my own flesh. I fought God but God won!
But by grace He planted a seed in me that finally took
root. His Authority is written on my “thigh” so to speak because Jesus in every
cell of my flesh. I belong to Him now and His genome — His Holy Ghost — is
figuratively in my loins because it is genetic.
Someday, that seed will be cashed in, and a new genome
acquired by me on the Day of the Lord.
Someday, perhaps in heaven, that Jesus is “My King
of Kings, and Lord of Lords” will be written in my genes. On that day, Jesus
will take a knee to me and regen me in much the same manner that He did Jacob!
(picture credit; Saint Elizabeth Covent Catalog; "The Holy Centurion; St. Martyr Longinus")
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