Passover

So in Hebrew class the other day we had a fun little discussion about the word and idea of passover. Now this deals more with the actual event of Passover and not the celebration of Passover. Or in other terms, the verb “to passover” and not the noun Passover.

The verb form of passover shows up only a few times. In Exodus 12:13, 23

The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, so that when I see the blood I will pass over you, and this plague will not fall on you to destroy you when I attack the land of Egypt.

For the Lord will pass through to strike Egypt, and when he sees the blood on the top of the doorframe and the two side posts, then the Lord will pass over the door, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.

When I normally look at this story I think about Prince of Egypt with the cool smoke going through the land of Egypt and striking down all those heathen children, while passing over the houses of the Israelites, sort of excluding the Israelites from anything that is going on. But looking closer I found it interesting that the end of verse 23 has this little inclusion in it: “the LORD will pass over the door, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.” God passes over the door so that the destroyer will not enter. He is passovering, if you will, so that the destroyer doesn’t come in. That seems like an interesting little tidbit. So instead of excluding the doors of the Israelites, God is actively passovering the door.

So in class Dr. Kutz drew us to the other place where pass over is used as a verb in Isaiah 31:5

Like birds hovering overhead, the LORD Almighty will shield Jerusalem; he will shield it and deliver it, he will ‘pass over’ it and will rescue it.”

So passing over isn’t this thing where God just ignores the door, or Jerusalem, but is an active verb, not an excluding thing. It is something he is doing, like being a shield and a deliverer, a rescuer and a passoverer. So in our normal context we thing that during passover the LORD just ignores the doors of the Israelites, but instead with this active verb idea we see that the LORD is standing in the doorway, passovering the door so that the destroyer cannot enter the house of the Israelites. We are not excluded in passover but included and protected by God. And when we see Jesus as the passover lamb, the one who stands before the judge, it is not that Christ’s blood just merely makes God glaze over our sins and exclude us from punishment, but instead we are actively passovered by Christ and His sacrificial blood. Christ stands before the judge and does not permit the judgment we deserve to strike us down. Oh what joy! What amazing power this blood of our saviour!

And to make a little side tangent as well, with my little exegesis I did on Numbers 16, there is this cool little thing with plagues and priests standing in the way, making these plagues pass over the people. The priest stands in the way of the plague, much as the LORD stands in the way of the destroyer, and Christ stands in the way of our judgment. It’s everywhere!

Passover is active!

Numbers 16 Exegesis

Here is another epiphany I had while writing another paper for school. I was looking through Numbers 16, with heavy emphasis upon the last six verses or so. (I also found out that some versions of the bible have these verses at the beginning of the 17th chapter.) A brief overview of the context of this passage. The Israelites have left Egypt in the Exodus and are now on their way, sort of, to the Promise Land. They are in the Sinai wilderness and as they go along they decide to send out some spies to check out the land. The 12 spies come back, 10 of them say they can’t possibly take over the land from the giants residing there. Joshua and Caleb of course say, “Hey, YHWH is with us, we can do it.” No one listens, YHWH says fine, they won’t get to go in and they’ll die in the desert. Then Korah, a levite, brings some dissenters with him and confront Moses about who should be High Priest, Aaron or someone else. So first the people rebel, now the Levites are raising a rebellion. Moses reminds them that they are already set apart for the Lord so why dissent? But they have a little contest with censers and incense to see who is really the High Priest. Korah and his friends get burned up and Aaron is left standing, proving his High Priestly-ness. Then the people, angry that Korah was killed, come to the Tabernacle in rebellion, again, and so the Lord brings a plague upon the people. Here we pick up with:

The Lord spoke to Moses:  “Get away from this community, so that I can consume them in an instant!” But they threw themselves down with their faces to the ground.  Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take the censer, put burning coals from the altar in it, place incense on it, and go quickly into the assembly and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord – the plague has begun!”  So Aaron did as Moses commanded and ran into the middle of the assembly, where the plague was just beginning among the people. So he placed incense on the coals and made atonement for the people.  He stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.  Now 14,700 people died in the plague, in addition to those who died in the event with Korah.  Then Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and the plague was stopped.

What is so cool about this part is that here we sort of have this refining of what Aaron’s role is as High Priest. It isn’t Moses or any of the other priests that makes the atonement for the people but Aaron himself is the only one. We see this solidified as Aaron is the only one who is allowed to offer fire to the Lord (just previously with Korah and his rebels but also as we saw with Aaron’s sons in Lev. 10). We also learn in Lev. 16 the use of the censer and incense to cover over Aaron so that he does not die when in the presence of God. Building upon this we see Aaron running among the crowd of Israelites using the incense as a cover of the community that they might not die, an act only the High Priest can do. One commentator (Noordtzij) mentioned that Aaron uses the censer for atonement, in this context atonement means not just to make things right between two parties but also to be a cover, a masking over of the sin that had been committed. So the incense acts as a cover over the people of Israel.

So to expound upon this we see how Christ in a way fulfills these same things in his atoning act on the cross. He stands between the living and the dead as High Priest of the rabble that is in opposition with God. I think it is important for us to understand what it means for Aaron to be High Priest as it also defines for us what the role of Jesus being priest means. Aaron’s priesthood is mimicked by Christ in the later part of the Bible. Christ as High Priest means that it is his offering that is able to cover us and bring atonement from the plague that seeks to destroy us.

I was pretty blown away when I saw this. It also made me interested in doing a series in which Christ roles of Prophet/Priest/King are defined in what the OT defined them as.

Cameron

Ephesians thoughts (and all that jazz)

So I thought I’d actually write about the stuff I’ve been hinting at that I may have seen vaguely in Ephesians like a mystery of complexity upon the brow of inversion. This sentence makes no sense. And that is how we all like it. But the thing is, I was writing a paper for Ephesians and came across this interesting thought/epiphany that I had concerning the ending of Ephesians. Here is the section (we all know it):

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord,  because the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church – he himself being the savior of the body.  But as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.  Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her  to sanctify her by cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word,  so that he may present the church to himself as glorious – not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless.  In the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one has ever hated his own body but he feeds it and takes care of it, just as Christ also does the church,  for we are members of his body.  For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This mystery is great – but I am actually speaking with reference to Christ and the church.  Nevertheless, each one of you must also love his own wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.  Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.  “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment accompanied by a promise, namely,  “that it may go well with you and that you will live a long time on the earth.”  Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but raise them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.  Slaves, obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart as to Christ, not like those who do their work only when someone is watching – as people-pleasers – but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart.  Obey with enthusiasm, as though serving the Lord and not people,  because you know that each person, whether slave or free, if he does something good, this will be rewarded by the Lord.  Masters, treat your slaves the same way, giving up the use of threats, because you know that both you and they have the same master in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

So my grand epiphany is that women should submit to men.

Anyways, I was thinking about this in the context of the whole book of Ephesians, and if Paul is pointing out that the whole church is like a body, with Christ at the head, why would he then divulge into just small social things like roles of men/women, masters/slaves, fathers/children? Now I do not mean to say that what Paul tells us can just be ignored in the context of these social matters; men and women should act in such a way, as should slaves and masters, fathers and children. But if Paul is really talking “with reference to Christ and the church,” maybe this all makes more sense now. If we are to be children (5:1, 5:8) to our Father (5:20), and if we are His possession (1:11), and when Paul speaks of husbands and wives he speaks of the church and Christ, we begin to see that Paul is in a larger context talking about the church in relation to Christ and the Father. As the wife of Christ we must submit to Christ, as the possession of the Father we must obey, and as children of light, children of the Father, we must honor our Father who is in heaven.

Now I do believe Paul is talking about real masters and slaves; it isn’t just all an allegory. But he also is telling the church to live as one body, submitted to Christ and the Father. And Paul builds upon this earlier in his letter by showing how we are the body, children of light, and possessions of God. So it isn’t just to give us social actions but also how the church must act in context to Him.

Be a wife to the Husband.

Be children to the Father.

Be slaves to the Master.

Cameron

Shekinah

So the other day in class we were talking about the glory of God talked about in John 1 and how that is like the shekinah that had descended upon the temple. Or something of the sort. I can’t remember exactly what we were talking about because my mind was wondering and captured by bigger things. But also, I have a feeling what I’m about to share is going to be one of those, “duh, Cam.” moments, but for some reason it all finally came together in my head for me. Sort of like I put all the puzzle pieces in the right place, I just never actually connected them.

So we’re talking about God and how in the wilderness his glory would descend upon the tabernacle, and when Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem the cloud once again descends upon the temple. Then the temple is destroyed, Israelites go into captivity (suck!), and then they are released after 70 years and they start to rebuild the temple. Now this bit of the story is what started to capture me. They finish the temple and……..

And…….

Nothing happens. No cloud. No shekinah.

Okay, we get that. So fast forward a few hundred years. Jesus is walking around, as John tells us, gets baptized by John the Baptist who says,

1:32 Then John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained on him [Jesus]. 1:33 And I did not recognize him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining – this is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 1:34 I have both seen and testified that this man is the Chosen One of God.”

So now, as it did not happen at the rebuilding of the second temple, the spirit of God descends upon a “temple.” But this temple is not of mortar and brick and metal, but instead a temple of flesh. And then you jump ahead a couple of chapters and John has this little story:

2:12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there a few days. 2:13 Now the Jewish feast of Passover was near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2:14 He found in the temple courts those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting at tables. 2:15 So he made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the temple courts, with the sheep and the oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.2:16 To those who sold the doves he said, “Take these things away from here! Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace!” 2:17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will devour me.” 2:18 So then the Jewish leaders responded, “What sign can you show us, since you are doing these things?” 2:19 Jesus replied, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.” 2:20 Then the Jewish leaders said to him, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and are you going to raise it up in three days?” 2:21 But Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body. 2:22 So after he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the saying that Jesus had spoken.

Some of that story didn’t need to be told, but I thought I’d just throw the whole thing up there so we get the context of it all. Unlike what I just said though, this story really isn’t a few chapters ahead, it is actually the chapter right after the baptism account. Now the Jewish leaders, not being aware of what is going on, scoff at Jesus when he talks about the temple, and John lets us know that Jesus meant his body. But why does John know it is his body? Is Jesus just talking in riddles? I always thought Jesus was just saying his body is a temple, or using allusion to temples and such. But then I got it; and had I been a good reader I would have gotten it a long time ago. Jesus refers to his body as the temple because it is the temple in which the shekinah had come to rest. And the Jews should have known that though they had a building that they called the temple, it was not the temple. It was not where the shekinah rested, but Jesus is saying that his body is where the shekinah now rests. He is the temple.

Once I realized that I felt like an idiot to some extent. There it was before me this whole time, and yet I never really caught why Jesus would refer to his body as the temple. Duh! Because that is where the spirit of God now rests: not in the temple that the Jews had built but now in the body of Christ. Ha! John was telling me all along and I was just blind to it. What a fool I am!

Cameron

The Sign of Jonah

Sorry for the long radio silence. I’ve been busy.

So I was browsing around in Matthew today, partially because I have to for my gospels class, but also because Bill was discussing it today in his sermon, and I came upon another instance of the Sign of Jonah that Jesus mentions a couple of times.

 Now when the Pharisees and Sadducees came to test Jesus, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.  He said, “When evening comes you say, ‘It will be fair weather, because the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, because the sky is red and darkening.’ You know how to judge correctly the appearance of the sky, but you cannot evaluate the signs of the times.  A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” Then he left them and went away.

And just previously in Matthew:

12:38 Then some of the experts in the law along with some Pharisees answered him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” 12:39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 12:40 For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. 12:41 The people of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented when Jonah preached to them – and now, something greater than Jonah is here!12:42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon – and now, something greater than Solomon is here!

In both instances there are Jews asking Jesus for a sign and in response Jesus calls them an adulterous nation and tells them about the sign of Jonah, and in chapter 12 Jesus talks about himself, calling himself the Son of Man. So I was looking at that today and kept reading in chapter 16 and thought this was pretty curious. It’s right after the quoted section above:

16:13 When Jesus came to the area of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 16:14 They answered, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 16:15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16:16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 16:17 And Jesus answered him, “You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven!

What I was interested in was that a sign of Jonah is brought up twice, and usually involving the Son of Man, and when Jesus asks the disciples who they think he is, Simon, son of Jonah, properly reveals who Jesus is, a fact not revealed by any person but from God. What do you guys think? Coincidence that both names happen to be Jonah? Seems pretty particular that the title son of Jonah is stated here. Could the author be trying to show us that the sign they are looking for doesn’t come from the sky, from a miraculous act, but from Simon, a fisherman, not a teacher of the Law.