So far, it has been established that there was a full body covering over Jesus in the tomb. God, in His wisdom, provided evidence of His three-fold existence: (1) The object, Jesus; (2) the “negative,” the Holy Ghost; and (3) the Power.
Jesus was not a mere carpenter; He
was literally a highly intelligent technician (tekton in the Greek). He is
the omniscient (all-knowing) God. He had knowledge of all things before any
person ever thought of them.
Things often occur to me in
“dreams,” not in REM sleep but somewhere between the conscious and unconscious.
That stage is called the “hypnagogic state” wherein “spontaneously appearing visual,
auditory and kinesthetic images; qualitatively unusual thought processes and
verbal constructions; tendencies toward extreme suggestibility; symbolic
representations of mental and physiological processes; and so on.”
In scripture, many people, even
heathens, had pertinent dreams. A hypnagogic state is where a person is subject
to unusual thought processes. Much of my commentary occurs to me as I get
caught somewhere between sleep and awake. Perhaps that is how God shares His
divine Thoughts with people, especially Christians.
In the darkness in bed, the Thoughts
of God occurred to me early this morning. I was receiving thoughts that were
not my own. That agrees with scripture (Isa 55:8). God guides people by getting
into our minds. I am content with that. However, we must test all things and
hang onto what is good (1 Thes 5:1), so that process drives me toward evidence
of the truth. I believe the truth is that the shroud of Turin is a “photograph”
of Jesus that reveals the third “substance” of the godhead — His Power.
Luke wrote about how, “God
anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power” (Acts 10:38).
That occurred at the baptism of Jesus when the Holy Ghost came on Jesus and remained,
at least until the crucifixion where the Holy Ghost left Him. Perhaps it happened
again in the tomb. More on that later.
It came to me earlier in the year
that when Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” that God used Plato’s way — the Allegory
of the Cave — wherein in a cave chained men who could only see shadows issued
by the light on objects behind them were seeing a fragment of the real
thing. The crucifixion was an enactment of the Allegory of the Cave that God
revealed to me when half asleep.
That was “wisdom” from the
Divine. To save them that believe, Paul wrote, “The Jews require a sign, and
the Greeks seek after wisdom” (1 Cor 1:22). Many saw the “Shadow” of Jesus as
real as the “Object” Jesus. Hence, the Shadow, or Holy Ghost, was a fragment of
the Man.
That would satisfy Pilate who
seemed to be familiar with the Platonian question. Next, how to satisfy the
Jews? A sign. How about a photograph of the godhead in action? Let me explain
in the next few paragraphs.
I saw the tomb as a photographic
darkroom. God would be the Technician who took and developed the
photograph to present to the world to satisfy the Jews. So far, neither the Jews
nor the Gentiles are satisfied, even though the shroud may be the sign that
they needed. It is indeed forensic evidence that a dead man was crucified
during the right time (ascertained by the weave of the fabric), right place,
and right manner of death. That occurred to me half asleep when I was open to
suggestion, just as the Allegory of the Cave did some time ago.
But we must tackle the process; some
other things require examination. Paul wrote, “Walk in love, as Christ also has
loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a
sweetsmelling savour” (Ephes 5:2). Jesus was the sacrifice for all the sins of
all time, one time. He was the one satisfactory sin offering that was a onetime
event.
Would you not want a picture of
that? Of course, you would be standing there with your smartphones clicking
away! We all need evidence that things occur, and they were no different then.
So, God perhaps provided a picture for all of us for all time. His photograph
has faded, is worn and dirty, yet it remains a picture of the ultimate
sacrifice, if you accept it as evidence.
Josephus called the crucifixion a
“holocaust.” At one time, “holocaust” meant burning by fire. How was the death
and resurrection a “holocaust” for He did not seem to be burned by fire? He was
crucified but indeed His Body may have indeed been burned by fire in the tomb.
More on that shortly.
The Law was this: “You shall
offer every day a bullock for a sin offering for atonement: and you shall cleanse
the altar, when you have made an atonement for it, and you shall anoint it, to
sanctify it” (Exod 29:36).
Jesus was the substitute for the
bullock, or better said, the other way around. The crucifixion was a sin offering
and “it” had to be cleansed, anointed, and burned.
Calvary was the place of the
crucifixion. It was the altar. The Romans prepared the altar and hopefully it
was cleansed before it was used for the Law to be done.
When did the cleansing and
anointing of the “Bullock” occur?
Jesus prepared Himself. Dung
would not make a clean sacrifice, so the day before Jesus announced, “Verily I
say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day
that I drink it new in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:25). Jesus did not eat the
Last Supper. Supper was over and then came the last course after Jesus was
anointed (see Luke’s account). The Last Supper was the last meal of Judas wherein
he effectively dipped the body of Christ into the blood of Christ.
God is polite. The bowels of
Jesus would be empty just as the dung of a bullock would be emptied before a sacrifice.
(We don’t like to think about Jesus having biological functions but as a Man He
did.)
Next came the washing. Jesus said
about Mary, “She has done what she could; she is come aforehand to anoint my
body to the burying” (Mark 14:8). Mary with her ointment was preparing the
perfect sacrifice and as was pointed out, she went to great expense and used
the finest ointment there was — spikenard. That is important! That she was
preparing for His burial means that she was supplying something that would be
there when He laid in the tomb. Was she supplying the chemicals for some process?
Let’s see.
We are to hang onto what is good from all the information we dream. I asked myself about spikenard. It was used to perform the Law exactly; Jesus said so: “Let her alone; why trouble you her? she has wrought a good work on Me” (Mark 14:6). She had performed according to the Law, He was saying. The Law required both cleansing and anointing; spikenard did just that!
Spikenard
consists of many essential components it being an essential oil. The spike
prefix comes from the inflorescence, or stem of the plant that flowers. It represents
life giving power. Wikipedia Nard oil is used as a perfume, an incense, and in
Ayurvedic practices. Sesquiterpenes contribute to the
major portion of the volatile compounds, with the eponymous jatamansone (also
known as (-)-valeranone) being dominant. Many coumarins are also present in the
oil. The alkaloid actinidine has been isolated from the oil, and valerenal
alongside valerenic acid (formerly called nardal and nardin respectively).
Among the other phytochemical products are found in the rhizomes are:
nardostachysin, a terpenoid ester; nardostachnol; nardostachnone; jatamansic
acid and jatamansinone.lists the constituents of spikenard.
Thinking
thoughts does not make me a chemist, but alkalides stuck out. Alkali metals
have low ionization enthalpies and therefore, the electrons are easily ejected
when exposed to light. Light upon alkalides causes ionization — that is “any
process by which electrically neutral atoms or molecules are converted to
electrically charged atoms or molecules (ions) through gaining or losing
electrons”
The ionization of alkalides is a
photographic process. Such processes produce photogenic images; and what is
that? “A past concept that involves the production of images (and how
after-images can continue to produce affects, emotions, ideas, and wonder)”
Some of the other substances in spikenard
are alcohols — cleaning agents. Spikenard is a parfume — the most powerful of
the essential oils. I submit that spikenard may have been the photographic compound
that Mary used for the picture of Jesus made on the shroud.
Spikenard ointment used on Jesus contains alkalides. They are used to develop pictures, changing the color on the slide. Perhaps that process was used by the Great Technician to produce an image of Jesus in His covering.
Remember, that Mary was preparing
Jesus for his burial! That is significant as His burial place was a dark and
never used (clean) tomb. It would be the Great Tekton’s laboratory where the
greatest photograph ever taken was shot and the negative image of Jesus
revealed. (Yes, the Shroud is the negative of the Image of Christ. It is in a
sense, His “Shadow,” or Holy Ghost.
The Law, or the Word (pre-incarnate
Jesus), had great significance: “The Law having a shadow of good things to
come, and not the very image of the things” (Heb 10:1). The negative Image of
Jesus on the Shroud could represent the “backside” of God that Moses saw, and
the Object the Face of God (Jesus) that he could not see. Hence, the Image of
Jesus on the Shroud would be what Moses saw — Jesus in the negative image, or
His Holy Ghost.
So, what made the crucifixion a burnt
offering? The Shroud is evidence of that. The body of Jesus was burned on the
linen cloth by some Divine Power.
So far, the nard met step one of the
Jewish burial process. It cleansed and anointed the dead Jew. Step two was the clothing
for which the soldiers gambled. Step three was the full-body covering; what we
now say is His Shroud. Those have been explained.
Also, the chemicals and “dark
room” have been presented. Jesus asked, “And now, O Father, glorify You Me with
your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world was.” (John 7:5).
The photographic process is glorification and that implies that the Image of
God be exposed. What was that Image? “Selem” in the Hebrew, the “Shadow”
of God, or His Phantom Presence
The death and resurrection of
Jesus was His glorification (John 7:39). Glorification explains the source of
the Light that came on Jesus to make the photonic Image of the Savior.
(To be continued)
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