In honor of the Passover this week, I am going to leapfrog over the next two accounts in Mark to tackle the third Passion Prediction in light of the first two, which we have already covered. It is important to explore them as a unit in order to learn how Yeshua was revealing, step by step, the fate that awaited Him in Jerusalem.
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Because this is the Passover week, I am leapfrogging over the next two sections and jumping right into the third Passion Prediction and, actually, we are going to cover all three to get a bigger picture. Of course, each one of the predictions is made by Yeshua/Jesus “on the way” which takes us back to Isaiah 42 and is followed by the disciples (specifically, one of the three) not getting it and to some extent or another, giving us a real hard lesson in the difference between the politics of the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the Beast. And why do I say “kingdoms of the Beast” instead of “kingdom” singular as with the Kingdom of God? Because, frankly, the kingdoms of the Beast are divided and the Kingdom of God is One as He is One. It is only as we are still collaborators with the Beast kingdoms that the Kingdom of God seems divided but it is really just evidence that our feet are not firmly planted in His worldwide Body, that we see and even desire divisions and hey, I am not immune to that but God is working it out of me more and more. In fact, I want to recommend a book I just finished by Professor Michael Battle called Heaven on Earth: God’s Call to Community in the Book of Revelation. Life-changing and very challenging.
8: 31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.
9: 30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”
10:32 And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33 saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. 34 And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”
Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that teaches them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.
All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. A list of my resources can be found attached to the transcript for Part two of this series at theancientbridge.com.
So, blessed Passover week, everyone! It’s strange, this year, having the beginning of the Passover at the end of the Sabbath so that’s going to take some significant planning on my part. My son Matthew is on Spring Break from college, although he lives at home—he’s getting his criminal justice and criminology degree from Missouri State online. He and Andrew will have turned twenty years old on Monday, and I hope that went well as I am recording this in February. It’s nice having grown-up sons. Andrew works at Sam’s Club and so I rarely have to go there anymore—I just ask him to shop for me before he goes home. Life is good and Andrew has gone all this time since his three surgeries in the fall, two neurosurgeries, and one surgery on his lungs, without a hitch. He feels great. I don’t think about it constantly anymore. He really likes his new job. Mark and I will be celebrating thirty years of marriage in three weeks and so I am taking him hiking in Tennessee—Great Smokey Mountain National Park, where neither of us has been. We’ll be a week in Gatlinburg and if anyone knows a great restaurant there for the big day, I’d love to hear it. We always just get a vacation rental and cook for ourselves, but we can splurge for the actual anniversary. So, we have a lot to celebrate this Passover on the home front. But even with all our blessings, they pale in comparison to what our Messiah accomplished on behalf of the world on that day. On my last Passover program, I focused on the horrors, but we can never forget that He is now victorious and seated at the right hand of the Father. He won. It was evil and horrifying, but He has the victory. We can’t forget the Cross but we can also not afford to forget the victory. So, let’s get to it.
The Passion predictions were a terrible shock for the disciples. Once Peter correctly identified Yeshua as the Messiah, the gloves had to come off as well as the veil. They had to understand exactly what the word Messiah means because, like the word “gay”, it had come to take on a lot of meanings that were not in line with God’s plans. We see the same thing with the book of Revelation, where our current understandings of how the book originally read are now warped by futuristic dispensationalism focused on violence when Yeshua everywhere is portrayed as the Lamb who conquers through His testimony (the sword of His mouth) and His own blood. And because we don’t know how to read it, we read things back into some parts of the Gospel that aren’t really there. But, I will cover Revelation after we cover Matthew. We need the teachings in both Mark and Matthew so that Revelation will make more sense.
But, as I was saying, the word Messiah was full of a lot of hopes and dreams for the violent conquest of their enemies. They wanted revenge. Yeshua had to speak clearly and tell them that there would be no revenge against worldly authorities but against the demonic authorities behind them, who had all mankind held captive to sin and death. Yeshua was going after the real enemy. It would be like our going after gang members and expecting that to solve the problem while ignoring fatherlessness, poverty, racism, and the inherent hatred between groups. Yeshua would tell us that what they need is deliverance from the Beast system, whereas we want to punish their way out of it. Which, of course, never works. Yeshua came to destroy the root of the problem. He came to save people. He came to save the vulnerable and their oppressors. But that isn’t anything that the first century Jews want—heck, looking on social media it isn’t what believers want either. When I see people who hate abortion saying, “Well, at least the babies who are being aborted would probably be democrats, so it isn’t all a loss.” It isn’t much different. When we want to see our enemies burning in hell instead of coming to faith, that’s no different than the false Messianic expectations of the first century. Yeshua came to save. Each person unsaved is a net loss for the Kingdom and a net gain for the Beast system. We shouldn’t want the Beast system to win just so that we can get revenge. We should be focused on looting the Beast kingdom, not wishing people into it.
And so, Yeshua has been (all this time) leading His blind disciples on the way they have not known or suspected. Let’s look at Isaiah 42:16, 18-19
16 And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them… 18 Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see! 19 Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord?
Here, Yahweh is saying that He Himself would lead the blind in a way they “do not know” and we’ve been seeing these references since Mark 8 to Yeshua and the disciples being “on the way” or “on the road” or on a “journey” and the word for that is hodos, and it is the same word here in Isaiah 42:16. Mark is continually revealing Yeshua to be the Yahweh warrior of the Prophets, the arm of the Lord in Isaiah, and the Servant of the Servant songs. That’s one of the reasons why we see things like the two-part healing of blindness in Bethsaida, and we will see the healing of the blind man coming up in a few weeks after James and John respond to this latest Passion prediction with a shameful request to be the two top men in the Kingdom of God. Before the first Passion prediction, which we will review in just a moment, they were totally blind as to the way in which they were being led. Even after the rude shock of the first announcement, they remain blind as to the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven and they keep making requests revealing just how clueless they are. So, let’s look at the three predictions and how they develop, and what they increasingly reveal about the fate of the Messiah.
8: 31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.
“And He began to teach them” is a common expression in Mark for Yeshua branching out into new material. Although Peter called Him the Messiah, properly, Yeshua still refers to Himself as the Son of Man and I believe it was to distance Himself from the Second Temple Era Messianic expectation baggage. What does He specifically introduce to them? (1) Suffering is His immediate future, not glory and victory; (2) He will be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes—not anointed as king by them; (3) He would actually be killed, formally ending their Messianic hopes, and (4) After three days, He would rise again.
Of course, as you recall, they flipped out and Peter actually rebuked Him—which was a huge cultural no-no. No student rebuked their teacher or embarrassed them in any way, on purpose, ever. This was beyond unthinkable but I think that after they heard Yeshua announce His actual death that after that they just didn’t hear anything else. This prediction was specifically aimed at the fact that they had just all realized that they were following the Messiah and were all expecting not only a triumphant entry into Jerusalem but a war to rout and destroy the Romans and a return to what the Kingdom had been like under the leadership of David and the early days of Solomon. That had to be crushed, immediately. Yeshua specifically warns them that if their goal is to live, then they will lose their lives. But if they are willing to lose their lives for His sake, they will save it. Such is the upside-down Kingdom of Heaven compared to the ways of the Beast kingdom.
There is also a mini-prediction spoken just to Peter, James and John after the transfiguration in chapter nine: 9 And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.
Despite Yeshua speaking clearly the first time, they are really confused about the idea of rising from the dead. As typical first-century Jews, they firmly believed in the resurrection from the dead and as far as I know, only the Sadducees didn’t believe it. But they had expectations that everyone would raise up in order of precedence, starting with Abraham, at the ushering in of the World to Come. The natural question would be, “Are we that close to the end of the age and the resurrection of the dead??” If so, then this got a lot more interesting and a lot more hopeful. Our next prediction comes on the heels of their failure to cast the deaf-mute spirit out of the boy in Caesarea Philippi:
9: 30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” 32 But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.
After this prediction, they aren’t even willing to ask Him for an explanation. Safe to say, they’d prefer their own fantasies of future greatness as gatekeepers to the presence of Yeshua in the future. What is the same here? Still no location is given, but He uses a familiar Biblical idiom for suffering under a divine judgement—namely, being “delivered into the hands of men.”
2 Sam 24 13 So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall three years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now consider, and decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.” 14 Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.”
Ez 21: 31 And I will pour out my indignation upon you; I will blow upon you with the fire of my wrath, and I will deliver you into the hands of brutish men, skillful to destroy.
Ps 140:4 Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men, who have planned to trip up my feet.
There was nothing more fearful than being delivered into the “hands of men” because, unlike Yahweh, they will not relent nor show mercy. Handing people over to men is what Yahweh did when serious judgment was required—as during the time of the Judges, and when the Northern Kingdom was handed over to the Assyrians and the Southern Kingdom to the Babylonians. Although nothing is said formally about it in the Bible, it is clear historically that the Jews were handed over to the Romans because of the wickedness of the grandsons and great-grandsons of Simon Thassi, who declared themselves kings and were just as, if not more, brutal than the Gentile king they had overthrown. So, this is not good news (well, I mean, it is with respect to the Gospel, but you know what I mean) because there will be no mercy, no relenting. This is going to happen and it is going to be ugly. But there is more here—He will be “delivered” and delivered, in this sense, is language related to actual betrayal. Enemies will just take you but to be delivered into their hands requires a closeness. Someone among them is going to instigate this. No wonder they didn’t want to ask any questions. None of them wanted to be singled out as the cause of their Master’s downfall. And again, He declares that he will be killed and will rise three days later. That’s the common denominator of both predictions—death and resurrection. We can also include suffering if we extrapolate from the “hands of men” saying, which is fair to do given the context.
Now, let’s cover some new ground, and this account will follow Yeshua’s teaching on divorce, and His encounter with the rich young man, where the disciples will point out that they have given up everything to follow Him and He will counter that following Him will come with persecutions in this life and eternal life in the World to Come.
10:32 And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33 saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. 34 And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”
This third prediction is a game-changer. We have a location. It’s Jerusalem…and they are heading there for the Passover. You can just feel their hearts sink at the news. As I mentioned before, with the “on the way” references using hodos in the Greek both in the NT and in the Septuagint, translating the Hebrew derech—we see them “on the road” using the same language. Yeshua is walking ahead of them, and this is not only positional but prophetic. They are all going to walk this same way to their deaths—not in Jerusalem but all over the world. I believe that only James, the brother of Yeshua, will die in Jerusalem but I could be wrong about that. Also, this is the most direct reference to Is 42:16 where Yahweh says that He will lead His blind people on a way they do not know and will guide them on paths they have not known. So, this is new territory never walked before—this walk of a Messiah going willingly to His death even though, at this precise point, they do not know the exact day yet.
And you are probably aware that you always say, “going up to Jerusalem” regardless of how you approach it. Even if you are at the top of Mt Everest and leave from there to go to Jerusalem you are still going to say you are going up to Jerusalem. Down to the base of the mountain but up to Jerusalem. It’s a matter of priority and holiness. So, the disciples are amazed that He is going boldly even though He says He will be killed. But it also says that those who followed Him are afraid. And that’s really interesting. Certainly, they knew they were following a miracle worker and they had to be apprehensive as to what was going to happen in Jerusalem. It was not unheard of for rebellions and false Messiahs to spring up during Passover season and that would result in the deaths of innocent bystanders as the Romans cracked down hard on any so-called “king” who would exalt himself against Caesar and mighty Rome. Rome expected her subjects to be grateful for the peace they brought to the “whole world” through their conquests. And they were paranoid as all get out and Judea was a problem spot for revolutionaries. The overwhelming majority refused to go along with the Greco-Roman way of life and although they were left to live by their own laws, they were considered to be difficult, elitist, and lazy (specifically in reference to refusing to work on the Sabbath).
So, He specifically takes aside the Twelve, which couldn’t have been easy considering the fact that they were now traveling with a larger group of Passover pilgrims. And He teaches them about this one last time. What is detailed here?–(1) Jerusalem is ground zero for the terrible events He is predicting; (2) the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes—and this is a bit different from the first prediction where it said He would only be rejected by them but, again, we have the language of being delivered over to them. So, any hopes that the leadership would be the ones delivering Him over to death are now off the table—there would be a more intimate middle-man and maybe even one of the Twelve. (3) New detail in that the chief priests and scribes will condemn Him to death, but as they cannot kill anyone (their right to enact the death penalty had been stripped from them fairly recently historically), this would have likely just been confusing if not for; (4) they would deliver Him over to the Gentiles. So, the language Yeshua is using here is speaking or not just a first betrayal but also a second. The leadership would also betray Him but their betrayal is worse than the first because for one Jew to turn over another Jew to the gentiles for punishment was unthinkable and unheard of. I can’t even begin to tell you how utterly astounding this accusation would be. They must have been thinking, “No one can hate anyone enough to collaborate with the Romans to have them killed.” The Romans were so brutal, so merciless, and took such pleasure in inflicting pain and suffering that it can only be described as an outpouring of hatred upon Yeshua for them to resort to it. But then, Yeshua wouldn’t have used the term “delivered over to the chief priests and scribes” unless they were going to show just as little mercy as the Gentiles. (5) The Gentiles will mock Him, spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him. As all of these torments were associated with the sentence of crucifixion, Yeshua really didn’t have to specify the manner of His ultimate death. Mocking and spitting were all about humiliation and of course, in the ancient world, loss of honor was far worse than any pain that could possibly be inflicted. Crucifixion, the entire process from arrest to death, was designed to utterly destroy a man’s memory. Flogging always preceded crucifixion and was performed front and back, the victim absolutely naked, and the pain was so over the top that the victim would defecate and urinate all over himself either there or on the actual cross. Again, this was about utter humiliation and absolute ruin of a man at all costs. He had to be shown to be nothing compared to the power and authority of mighty Rome. (6) After three days, He would rise. This, plus the suffering and being killed, are the common features of all three predictions.
At this point, they seem to be accepting His death. I mean, after the second passion prediction they were arguing about who would be His replacement which is, yes, just as ghoulish as it sounds. This time, James and John aka the genocide twins (I call them that because of what they wanted to do to the Samaritans) are now asking for positions of power in “His glory” meaning in the World to Come. So, a bit more reality going on in their heads but still not clear on the concept.
And, of course, all this is to prepare them for what is to come. But, as we will see, knowing is not enough. They will be terrified and will run—all but the one who betrays Him and I think I see in the predictions that these revelations and the realization became too much for Judas. He decided there was only one way to get on top of this situation and that was to be the one to deliver Him over to the leadership, in exchange for money. He’d given a lot of His life up and He wasn’t about to walk away empty-handed. Nor was He willing to die along with the others. The rising from the dead stuff must have seemed ridiculous and like the rantings of a madman at this point because, despite everything, it would seem that Judas never truly believed in God’s ultimate purposes through the Messiah. But, that will come later on in the series. Just putting a bug in your ear for the moment.
So, why on earth was it important for Him to be handed over not only to the Jewish leadership, but for them to hand Him over to the Romans? Jews and gentiles united to kill the Messiah so that Psalm 2 could be fulfilled and He could die on behalf of the entire world. Let’s read the pertinent verses from Psalm 2 here really quick:
2 Why do the nations (goyim) rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed (maschiach), saying, 3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” 4 He who sits in the heavens laughs (yitzach); the Lord holds them in derision. 5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, 6 “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” 7 I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” 10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. 11 Serve (‘ebed) the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way (derech), for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Although this is seen as a violent Psalm, and in some ways it is, I am not inclined to read it the way that a lot of people preach this. Yes, we see the nations conspiring here with the rulers of the Jews, I believe, to throw off the shackles of the Messianic Kingdom because it is not compatible with the way things are, in the case of the Gentiles, or the way things “should” be, in the eyes of the Jewish leaders who want a violent overthrow of the powers that be. But, as Psalm 2 tells, us, not only are they against the Messiah but also against Yahweh—you can’t be for Yahweh and against His Messiah. In the first century, most but certainly nowhere close to near all of the Jewish people (maybe 80%) didn’t want the Yeshua version of the Messiah, but people would flock to Simon bar Kochba a hundred years later because He did fit that violent, revenge-laden profile that would put them on top and in control again. That’s not just them, mind you, that’s a common human desire—to be on top. But Yahweh is laughing here, yitzach, not because He is particularly thrilled but because no one can stand in His way and He will have His plans come to fruition even though His own self-appointed (Pharisees and Scribes) and Roman appointed (Chief Priests and Herodians) are in fact conspiring with the Romans to thwart Him, whether they understand it or not. He is moving in wrath, and not only will His wrath be poured out within 40 years on the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, but also on the Herodians, but also, the Roman Empire will fall because of the uncontrollable influx of faith in Yeshua. You cannot control or intimidate people who are not afraid to die and who will not fight back. They can’t ever truly be crushed and when you try, the numbers increase. Wrath will also be poured out, whether they like it or not, on the powers of sin and death as Yeshua absorbs the worst that they have to offer in terms of injustice and cruelty and, because He is innocent and more than that, the author of life Himself, death exhausts itself trying to hold Him and has to give Him back up again. He is risen because death could not hold Him. This was no magic trick.
And through this act, Yahweh declares Yeshua King and sets Him on Zion, which is traditionally the space where Heaven and Earth overlap but now they overlap in Him, and in everyone who is part of His Body, His Temple. Far from a bloody slaughter of the Gentile nations in revenge, this hearkens back—or forward, actually– to Isaiah 49:6 he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” The nations are not doomed to destruction, per se, but are to become the inheritance and possession of the Messiah. Nations, plural, will begin to be obliterated under the banner of one Messianic Kingdom that spans all “nations” and “all peoples”—Jews and Gentiles as one. He shall break down these national barriers in His own body, and we become one—which is why Yahweh laughs because His wrath serves the purpose of restoring Eden, bringing forth that worldwide community under His King. Sin and death will meet a violent end, beginning at the crucifixion and continuing as the Gospel further and further infiltrates the kingdoms of the Beast. Therefore the kings of the earth are commanded to be wise and to embrace the work of the Son, to kiss Him but not as Judas did, and to embrace the invasion of the Kingdom of Heaven which is no longer contained within that small bit of real estate. Serve Him, that’s Garden language. Fear Him, that’s vassal language—as in we are subjects of the great King of the earth and not powers in our own right, and these worldly kings must acknowledge it just as their own subjects acknowledge them. They are also called to rejoice. This is not bad for them. This is a cause for rejoicing. This word gets missed in the mash of seemingly violent and wrathful language—when we see it as against people and not against powers and principalities and places.
We are commanded to kiss the Son, as I already mentioned—acknowledge Him as God’s anointed King, lest He be angry—yes, Yeshua can be angry, and we perish “in the way.” In the way, we’ve been talking about that—same language as Is 42:16 and as in the Gospels according to how it was translated into the Greek in the Septuagint: 16 And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them… Why do they need to embrace the Son “in the way?” Because blind people can’t lead themselves along a path they do not know. If a blind person knows the way, they do not need a guide but if the way is new, they absolutely do. We all do. Sometimes we put too much stock in our ability to see with our eyes and think that, as Paul says, we are guides to the blind in Romans 2:18 but the context on that is too much material for the time we have left, for me to dig into that here.
Back to my question, “Why did the Jews and Gentiles both need to conspire against the Messiah? Why couldn’t it be one or the other?” Because if you are going to die on behalf of the world it has to be everyone represented in your betrayal, through their leadership—so all the leaders of the Jews were represented and the Gentiles were represented by mighty Rome, who considered herself “the world.” Jew and Gentile both had to judge Him, condemn Him, brutalize Him, commit gross and utter injustice and destruction against Him, in order for Him to completely gut their right to ever unilaterally condemn anyone a transgressor ever again. Yeshua became King of the world because He proved His supremacy over the world’s system of injustice and brutality. He fought the Beast, seemed to have been defeated, and then rose again to humiliate and ultimately destroy the Beast system by removing our need to fear death. The Beast system no longer has the upper hand, despite appearances. It can only hurt us in this life but is powerless in any real way. As long as we stand fast, the Beast stands condemned and castrated.
I got an email this morning about my assertion that Yeshua is Yahweh in the flesh in my latest broadcast and I want to post my answer here because it is a good question. I realize that it is a confusing issue and people have different opinions on it (because Scripture really rarely, if ever, gives us ABC and 123 answers to anything where things are easy–because we are required to be humble about our limitations to understand and to just trust Him) and it is okay to have different opinions. But we have to understand that the Bible is a huge book and people who tend to say, “This is how it is” often don’t understand enough of the Bible to see that there are seemingly conflicting messages. I say “seemingly conflicting” because our brains are so small and our experiences so limited that we cannot fully grasp the truth of the reality of God any more than an ant can understand what I am saying to it. So anyway, here is what I told them
“Well, it depends on how you define “Yahweh in the flesh” and a lot of people bring in a lot of baggage and assumptions into what that means and what other people mean when they say it. Sounds like you think I am saying that “Yahweh in the flesh” = “the Father.” I’m not. But, God’s Creative Word in the flesh, absolutely. Can we separate the identity of Yahweh from His Word and from His Spirit? No. They are One, Echad. Truth is that none of us understand exactly how it works, but we know it works. Deutero-Isaiah, the Psalms, and Yeshua’s self-manifesting miracles are very clear, as I have been teaching throughout the series–Yeshua does what only Yahweh can do. Therefore, Yeshua is Yahweh in the flesh. Does that equate with Him being the Father? Nope. I don’t know how it works. The truth is that it is never spelled out clearly anywhere exactly how this works. We want it to be clear and easy–we need less trust that way. But Scripture gives us very little in the way of clear explanations of the deep spiritual matters. This is one of those areas–like what happens between death and the world to come. Not clear–many different hints but they all seem to lead in different directions. Do we have to understand? No. We just want to.
So, is Yeshua Yahweh in the flesh? Absolutely, he has to be. Otherwise, He is just a human and the virgin birth is a lie, and what He did amounts to magic. But Yahweh is Spirit and not a physical entity that we can quantify–the way I can look at you and say, “You’re one of a kind and you cease existing at the limits of your physical body.” As complex as we are, we don’t even understand ourselves. God gives us ways of trying to grasp His reality but no definitive answers. Hope that helps.
In the end, we have to stop worrying about all this. Salvation is a matter of allegiance, not of having all the right understandings.
Blessed Passover, and blessed Resurrection Day–He is Risen…
