THE JOURNEY TO ETERNAL LIFE, OR NOT
As Jesus journeyed, He spoke of
esoteric things. After speaking of mending garments, Jesus spoke of wine-making,
apparently to get across the idea of something with deeper meaning when by “coincidence”
(sic), He was told that the daughter of Jairius was dead. However, Jesus
went about His business for quite some time before He acted.
Later, after doing several other miracles,
Jesus calmly came to the girl that had suffered death, and challenged those
around her:
Fear not: believe only, and she shall be
made whole, and when he came into the house, He suffered no man to go in, save
Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden, and
all wept, and bewailed her: but He said, “Weep not; she is not dead, but sleeps.”
And they laughed Him to scorn, knowing
that she was dead.
And He put them all out, and took her by
the hand, and called, saying, “Maid, arise”, and her spirit came again, and she
arose straightway: and He commanded to give her meat. (Luke 8:50-55)
Fore your interests, there were three
accounts of that miracle: Mat 9 (shortened version), Luke 8 (above) and Mark 5
(below). There were three writers that witnessed her life restored to her.
And (Jesus) came to the house of the ruler
of the synagogue, and sees the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly, and
when He was come in, He said unto them, “Why make you this ado, and weep? the
damsel is not dead, but sleeps.”
And they laughed Him to scorn, but when He
had put them all out, he took the father and the mother of the damsel, and them
that were with him, and entered in where the damsel was lying; and He took the
damsel by the hand, and said unto her, “Talitha cumi”; which is, being
interpreted, “Damsel, I say unto you, arise.”
And straightway the damsel arose, and
walked; for she was of the age of twelve years. And they were astonished with a
great astonishment. (Mark 5:38-42)
She had been dead quite some
time. In as little as two hours rigor mortis begins. If he had tarried
that long, and perhaps Jesus had, the girl would have been quite dead as
all life would have been gone.
What is “life”? Metabolism.
Metabolism is how the body of a person sustains itself and reproduces cells.
The girl was no longer alive and no longer metabolic. Only one thing could save
her and that was the life sustaining force from some other life-giver. As such,
Jesus gave some of His life to the girl for her to again sustain herself.
Within the same journey was the situation
of the woman with the issue of the blood, wherein the life force emanating from
Jesus was “virtue” (dynamos in the Greek).
Now recall the story of Adam; “The
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen 2:7).
Adam had been a lifeless image of
clay. He was firstly formed dead, then God breathed life unto him. (Where did
you think the story of Pinocchio originated?)
Adam had been rigid, literally a “firm
thing” that God made metabolic. The man, Adam, had the Essence of God breathed
unto Him, and Adam became a living soul. Adam was a newly formed vessel that
God had made. He was the “bottle” of the story of the new wine.
In the same three accounts, Jesus
spoke of wine-making, saying in one version:
No man puts new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles. (Mark 2:22)
No man does such a thing, but God
did! Jesus took the “old bottle” Jairus’ daughter and put new wine into her used
vessel. Jesus would have been making the point that He was not just any man but
God Himself, who put new wine into a “new bottle” (Adam). Jesus overcame the
world, doing things that any other person could not do!
However, rather than focus on the
impossible miracle, do so with the action surrounding that event.
They scoffed when Jesus said the
girl was not dead but “asleep”. Obviously, they had closely examined her for vitality.
She would have been dead, dead with the advent of rigor mortis. No
wonder they laughed because she was indeed like a tree.
“Tree” in the Hebrew is ‘es
(עֵץ): ayin – samekh.
Ayin, characterized by the eye, means observation, or consciousness. The
letter samekh, characterized by a support of some sort, represents
stability. In other words, ‘es are indeed trees but other “firm” things
as well. Adam was a “tree” of the Garden that God planted therein: “The Lord
God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had
formed” (Gen 2:8). Hence, the Garden of the Lord was not just the taxonomy “tree”,
but all firm things as opposed to phantom-like unseen things.
Adam was formed as a firm thing, and
Jesus saw the young girl just as another firm thing in His Garden to
make alive. To Him, the girl was just another vessel like a clay pot or a bottle
that He could fill with some of Himself. Jesus took the twelve-year old “bottle”
and breathed life unto her. That “life” was symbolized by the new wine.
What does new wine in it that old
wine does not? Fermentation. Remember the girl was no longer metabolic? Well,
fermentation is anaerobic metabolism.
Anaerobic is the absence of
oxygen. Rather than breathing oxygen in her to awaken her stiff, lifeless body,
the “new wine” with which Jesus replaced the lack of oxygen was His own “Breath”
(nesama; נְשָׁמָה), or literally a blast of life.
It was not air with which Jesus shocked her heart, but His Power. Like
Adam, long before, Jesus shared a part of His Dynamics to her; He have her a
portion of the Elohim (virtue) within Himself. Of course, the Power of
Elohim is like a spirit, or wind, that would have overshadowed the girl to make
her whole again.
She was not dead, dead… even as stiff as a board. She had only come apart. Jesus
said, “’Maid, arise’, and her spirit came again, and she arose straightway.”
“Arise” in the Greek is egeiro, meaning “to collect ones’ faculties”
New wine has life in it, and Jesus returned her soul still a brewing back
into her “bottle.” She was only twelve, and that was the age of accountability
in Jewish tradition. Her collecting her faculties would have been her bat mitsva
— the age of twelve for a girl’s spiritual maturity. In Jewish
tradition, Jesus, as the Rabii, was merely performing a bat mitzvah, bringing
her new wine into the old bottle for completion to become good wine, so to
speak.
The young girl’s soul had gone somewhere outside her body, had it not?
Souls go to heaven. Her soul, not yet fully grown (as with Adam), had gone to
Paradise in heaven, but not fully matured, it was not God’s time.
When the young girl gathered her faculties, it was Jesus who did the
gathering. Jesus stood above her with the Power of God, merely overshadowed
her, and she was made whole as her invisible soul returned to be finished by
the cross. The young girl had been born twelve years before, and then when
Jesus came to her, she was “born again” from God above her as the Greek
words indicate (John 3:7).
The soul of the girl had gone to heaven in a moment and in a moment had returned.
God had “blasted” her into heaven and then back in just a moment (atom
in the Greek).
Just as Adam had literally been thrust out of heaven (Gen 3:24), so the
girl would have been. Heaven is not a distant place, albeit it is not even in
this realm.
Death is the door to heaven whenever and wherever it is anyone dies. Her body
was indeed just asleep (katheudo) — at rest, awaiting the return of her
other faculty. She had not die but was resurrected in an old, used vessel to
await the general resurrection when she would have a new incorruptible vessel
(1 Cor 15:52).
Heaven seems far, far away but it is as near as death. Unfortunately,
heaven has two abodes: Hell and Paradise.
How far away is Hell? As near as death. Whenever the body is dead, dead,
the soul will be thrust as if from a rocket’s engine, suddenly to be in either Hell
or Paradise in an instant. There is no Purgatory to await the trip and no reprieve
during the journey. Once you are dead the trip is over and there is no turning
back except for possibly some of the souls that have not yet fully matured, as
the story of the girl reveals.
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