2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our Righteousness, made the Son a sin sacrifice for us. Now, that may not be something new to us, but it bears some of our thoughtful consideration so we can truly appreciate the depth of the love that was behind this act. Imagine if you are the parent of one child, a child who you absolutely adore. You are surrounded by enemies who don’t know you, and you know that the only way these enemies can become friends is for you to subject your adored child to pain and suffering beyond that anyone has ever experienced. We might ask the question: Would we do that for a friend, much less for an enemy? That is the place in which our Jehovah Tsidkenu found Himself when before the earth was created, He had to make the decision to send His son to earth to be incarnate and then to do the work of the cross [COL. 1: 15-20; 1 PET 1: 20-21]. The previous citations tell us that God knew all along about what He had to do in sending His Son to the cross.
Mankind’s knowledge of this did not just come with Christ’s words to His disciples about His impending crucifixion either [LK 18: 31-34]. IS 53, which is the chapter about the Suffering Servant, revealed what would happen as far back as 740-692 BC. IS 53: 2, 6, “It is the will of the Lord that His Servant grow like a plant taking root in the dry ground. He had no dignity nor beauty to make us notice Him. There was nothing attractive about Him, nothing that would draw us to Him…all of us were like sheep gone astray, each one going his own way. But the Lord would cause the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” One question that might arise out of this is: Why would God make this knowledge available to mankind, but mankind would not understand it? I don’t know if the answer that occurs to me is correct, but I will share it for your consideration. I believe it has to do with both weak faith on man’s part and the perfection of God’s timing. We need to learn a lesson from the delay in Christ’s own disciples understanding the Lord’s own prophesy of His death on the cross until after the event actually happened. That lesson is our need to understand the Lord and enable ourselves to quiet down enough to really listen to Him when He speaks to us. PS 46: 10, “Be still and know that I am God, supreme among the nations, supreme over the world.” Understanding the Lord can only come out of spending time with the Scriptures regularly, letting Jehovah Tsidkenu and the Son be the Lord of our lives, and allowing the Holy Spirit to give us that understanding by clearing away human agendas.
As believers in Christ, we have no excuse not to do that. The traditional Jews only have the explanation of the veil that God has put before their eyes (until all the Gentiles who are chosen to come to faith do so) for not knowing the truth at this time [RO 11: 25]. Once all the Gentiles come to faith, we have been told that one third of all the traditional Jews alive at that time will, indeed, come to faith [ZECH 13: 9]. If people had much deeper faith at the time of Christ’s birth than they did, they would have picked up on the truth about Christ’s work on the cross from MT 1: 21 when God’s angel spoke about Mary. “She will have a son, and you will name Him Jesus-because He will save His people from their sins.” Remember that in the Jewish culture, names had meanings which revealed something significant about their bearers. Jesus [a version of the name, Joshua] means “Jehovah is Salvation” or “Jehovah, the Savior.” MT 1: 22-23, “Now all this happened in order to make come true what the Lord had said through the prophet [IS 7: 14 & Micah 5: 2], ‘A virgin will become pregnant and have a Son, and He will be called ‘Immanuel,’ which means ‘God With Us.’” This last citation brings home the relationship between Jesus and Jehovah Tsidkenu. They are two of God’s three persons and are therefore forever connected. As JN 14: 9 and 11 put it, “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father…Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.”
The purpose of bringing all of this up is twofold. I am writing this message during Lent, which is a time in which we should reflect on the meaning of Jehovah Tsidkenu’s great sacrifice of His only begotten Son on the cross to our lives. The other purpose is to pay attention to our righteous Lord’s wake up call, given to us through the Scriptures cited here and our hindsight on human history, about learning a lesson from mankind’s lack of faithfulness in the past. When we open our spiritual vessels and let the Holy Spirit flow in and take over, we don’t have to have a delay in understanding what God is trying to teach us. Instead, we can enjoy the blessing of knowing that our faithfulness leads to eternal life with Him and in getting a better idea of His perspective on our lives on earth as we proceed forward through the process of sanctification. In addition, we allow His work to get done through us. This latter issue is an awesome blessing not just for us, but for God and for others who are brought to faith. In my book, these are convincing arguments for making the choice to lead our lives loving others and demonstrating the righteousness that Jehovah Tsidkenu urges us toward, that righteousness modeled by His Son, Jesus Christ. That is why the Son is my Yeshua Ha-Mashiah Adonai [Jesus Christ, Messiah and Lord] and I pray He is yours!
PRAYER: O Lord, since before the creation of the world, You have demonstrated how valiant and loving Your heart is. We are imperfect, made that way not by You but by the original sin of Adam and Eve. And yet, Your love for us is so great that You were willing to offer up Your beloved and only Son on the cross. You stood by knowing that He would endure pain and suffering unlike any ever endured before or since. For a short while, You must have suffered when You had to cut off communication with Him to allow this sacrifice to be made. Those must of have been the most painful moments either You or He experienced. You brought Him back to You in heaven and told Him, “Sit here at My right side until I put Your enemies as a footstool under Your feet.” [PS 110: 1]. In making this sacrifice the way You did and in bringing Him to You afterward, You left us with the chance to escape the binds of spiritual death and to follow “the First among many brothers” [RO 8: 29] to an eternal life of joy and fellowship with You in heaven. As if that was not enough, You qualified Him to be our High Priest in heaven, to personally open the heavenly Holy of Holies to us [HE 9: 12] and take our prayers to You in intercession [HE 4: 14-15; HE 8: 1-2]. We stand in awe of You, Dearest Jehovah Tsidkenu, and humbly offer You our worship, adoration, trust, obedience, loyalty, honor, glory, praise, and thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
All that Jehovah Tsidkenu leads me to say about His Son is not done yet. So, with your permission and His, I will continue in tomorrow’s message during this season of Lent to focus on Him. It occurs to me that when someone loves you, he is more likely to confide the details of his life and his thoughts with you. That is what our righteous Lord is doing with us when we are willing to study the His word this way. No human can quite duplicate the depth of the love He has for each of us. Take comfort in knowing that, Dear Ones, just as I do. Peter and I also send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn