WEBVTT

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You really need to think like an Israelite
to get what's going on in the Old

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Testament.

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You need to think like a first century Jew
to process a lot of what's going on in

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your Bible.

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And that is really difficult for us
because, obviously, we're not first

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century Jews.

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We're not ancient Semites.

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And because we're not, there's a lot in
the text that just goes right over our

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heads.

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It just goes right by us.

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It's not because we're not good readers,
we're not smart.

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None of that.

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It's just we are not immersed in the
culture.

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We are not immersed in the way of
thinking.

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We haven't had traditions, accrued
traditions, rabbis, teachers, whatever,

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generations long, informing us how to
think about the text.

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Well, a Jew in the first century had that.

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An ancient Israelite had that.

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What they knew was passed on to them.

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And it was passed through certain filters.

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And those are missing for us.

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We have our own filters that don't really
help.

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We have filters like the Reformation.

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It's not that the Reformation was bad,
but it was the 16th and 17th centuries,

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which is considerably removed from what it
meant to be an ancient Israelite,

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an ancient Semite.

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And I'm saying all that to say this.

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I'm going to say some things tonight,
and I'm necessarily going to go quickly.

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But I'm going to say some things tonight
that are going to sound really strange.

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I'm forewarning you in a good way,
in a positive way, because there was a

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time in my own education, my own
self-education, that some of the things I

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will say tonight would have sounded really
strange to me too.

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But I want to try to show you enough that
you can sort of internalize the culture

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and internalize the mindset, the
worldview, that will help us become

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informed as to how an ancient reader would
have looked at this stuff.

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And by doing that, you will begin to see
patterns.

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You will begin to see connections.

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What you might have been thinking is that
we would talk about things like this.

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Yeah, I'll hit on some of these things.

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Maybe not tonight, maybe in successive
weeks.

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But these things, as familiar as they are,
are just a tiny, tiny portion of Jesus'

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relationship to the Old Testament.

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They're just a tiny portion of what an
ancient person would have been expecting,

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would have been thinking when a New
Testament writer wrote something,

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or when Peter or Paul or whoever it was
would have said something and quoted the

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Old Testament.

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There's a very wide context that I want to
use this session to sort of set and

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overview where we're going to go in the
process.

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Now, I put this passage up.

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You can find my Job reference here.

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These two verses, 7 and 8, you'd think,
why in the world would you start there?

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I think you'll be able to figure that out
after a few minutes.

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But these are, theologically, two of the
more theologically pregnant verses in the

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Old Testament.

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Are you the first man who was born?

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One of Job's friends asks him.

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This is in the dialogues about trying to
assess Job's situation and trying to pin

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down why he's suffering.

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Of course, he's defending himself.

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And they ask him, are you the first man
who was born?

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Well, who is the first man who was born?

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He wasn't born, but in their mind,
he had a beginning.

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Were you brought forth before the hills?

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Well, no, that's again creation language,
the mountains and the hills and all that

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stuff.

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Have you listened in the counsel of God?

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Do you limit wisdom to yourself?

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Now, next week, we're going to talk a lot
about wisdom.

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But you can store this reference away for
that time.

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There was this idea that the first man had
listened in the counsel of God.

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The first man was right there with God in
Eden.

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And this idea of being intimately related
with God begins all the way back with

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Adam.

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And that's where I'm going to begin
tonight.

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Some things going on in Eden with Adam.

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Believe it or not, I'm going to try to go
from there all the way to the end of the

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Old Testament in one hour.

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But I'm going to hit certain motifs,
certain threads that run through the Old

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Testament.

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All of which in some way relate to
national Israel and Jesus.

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And they get merged together in the end of
the story.

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So let's go back here and jump in here.

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Humanity and Eden.

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All the slides are going to look the same.

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At least for the first maybe ten or so.

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On the left hand, we have ruler or father.

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Who is in charge?

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Who is the ruler of everything that there
is to rule?

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Who is being ruled?

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And I'm using the words subjects.

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Because that denotes rulership above.

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But also family.

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God has a family.

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God is naturally going to be the ruler.

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He has a family.

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But he also has an administration,
a bureaucracy.

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We fit into both those categories.

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And then there is human mediation.

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I'm going to trace these three topics
through the Old Testament.

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And point out some things along the way.

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In the beginning, God who is a spirit.

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God is a spirit.

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Jesus tells us that.

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His present ruling.

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And I have the word embodied in purple
here.

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When I talk about divine embodiment,
that's going to be in purple.

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And I'm getting that from Genesis 3.

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And I'm going to go quickly.

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If you have questions, you can write them
down.

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And we'll take questions at the end.

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And I won't be able to really pause and
lay all this stuff out for you.

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At least in this week.

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But if you recall back in the garden in
Genesis 3.8.

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They hear the sound.

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It takes a physical object to make a
sound.

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Scientifically.

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They hear the sound of the Lord walking in
the garden in the cool of the day.

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There are certain terms in Genesis 3.

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Associated with just that simple verse.

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That show up later in the Old Testament.

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In the Theophany appearances.

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Who knows what a Theophany is?

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Right.

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It's some sort of appearance of deity.

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And in many cases, I know we don't often
think of it.

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But in many cases, there is actually
embodiment going on.

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There are some terms all the way back to
Genesis 3.

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That show up later.

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When God is in the whirlwind with Job.

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And God is on the mountain at Sinai.

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There are links.

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Believe it or not.

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That begin all the way back in Genesis 3.

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Humanity at this time.

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Well, yeah, we are servants.

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Because we are under God.

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And everybody is a servant under God.

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But we are also co-rulers.

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And I get that from Genesis 1.26 and 27.

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Humanity is created.

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Our translations say in the image of God.

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I think a better translation is as the
image of God.

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We are created as divine representatives.

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We are to represent him.

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We are to do what God wants us to do.

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As though he were physically there present
with him.

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Everybody is together though.

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There is no sort of negative connotation
between being a servant.

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You are a servant.

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But you are also a co-ruler.

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Theologians like to say that the original
humans were servant kings.

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Which I kind of like.

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It has a nice picture to it.

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That is the way everything starts out.

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We are, the humans were children of God.

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Sometimes because of the Old Testament
culture, the phrase is sons of God.

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Because it is patriarchal to that extent.

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But it is inclusive.

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It means children, male and female.

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He created them.

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Their task was to administer the kingdom
of God on earth.

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Think about Eden.

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Eden is where God lives.

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It is his address in the beginning.

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It is also where he issues decrees.

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He is there with his heavenly host.

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Who existed before humanity did.

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Elsewhere in the Bible, the heavenly host
is referred to as a council.

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A divine council.

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It is basically a bureaucracy.

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But it is also a family.

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We get plurals in Genesis 1, 26 and 27.

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Let us create humankind in our image.

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But then we also get singulars.

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So God, singular, created them in his
image.

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You get singular and plural.

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There is an interchange there between God
and this group, the heavenly host.

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And somehow humans come on the scene and
we are like them but we are different.

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But we are sort of doing the same kinds of
things.

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We are working for God.

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The kingdom of God is on earth.

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It is just situated in this place called
Eden.

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Because this is the beginning.

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The human mediator really is Adam.

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Because, frankly, at the beginning he is
the only one mentioned in that role.

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We go back to Job.

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Are you like the first man who listened in
the council?

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So Adam is attending the council meetings,
so to speak.

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He has access to wisdom.

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And a week from tonight we will talk about
wisdom in Proverbs 8.

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It gets personified, gets pictured as a
person who is a co-creator with God.

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That might be new to some of you.

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Look at Proverbs 8, verses 22 to 31.

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Wisdom is the co-creator with God.

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And the Old Testament authors do something
with that.

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And the New Testament authors do something
with that.

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I will preface next week's talk by asking
this question.

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Where did the New Testament authors get
the idea that Jesus was the co-creator?

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I mean, you look at Genesis 1.

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There is like nobody else there.

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You look at some of the other creation
passages in the Psalms.

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Where is anybody else?

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You look at that and you have to wonder.

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And people have asked.

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Where did they get that idea?

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Because it is in Colossians 1.

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It is in 1 Corinthians 8.

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It is in Romans 11.

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It is in John chapter 1, of course.

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Where did they get that?

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That is a little preview.

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They are getting it from their Old
Testament in some fairly cryptic ways.

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Now, there was a problem, of course.

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We have the fall.

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Humanity is removed from where God lives
and where God works.

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Where God and His heavenly host,
His counsel do their thing.

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Humankind is driven away.

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So we have a change in status.

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Human beings are, after this point,
they are not going to be co-rulers

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anymore.

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That has been disrupted.

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It has been ruined.

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It has been put on probation.

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What we have is we have a change in
status.

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But God forgives them.

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Forgives Adam and Eve.

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And says, amid the curses, You know,
what we are going to have to do here is

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someday, one of your seed, Eve,
somebody who is going to come from you and

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you are human, so that would be a human
being.

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Someday there is going to be a human being
that comes along that undoes what you have

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just done.

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It is going to reverse what you have just
done.

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But until that point, see you later.

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We have got to get out of here.

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We are not going to let you in Eden
anymore.

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But it is not the end of the story.

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So we have a sense of a deliverer who has
to be human.

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The deliverer is going to, again,
because they are human, they are going to

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be some kind of servant.

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I want you to tune into the language I am
using.

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Deliverer.

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Servant.

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Human.

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There is a bloodline.

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There is a royal bloodline.

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Because Adam was a co-ruler.

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Humans were initially, in the Old
Testament story, designed to be co-ruling.

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They had royal status with God,
with the king.

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So there is some sense of that going on
too.

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And we have the emergence of evil.

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We have a competing interest over against
the interest of God.

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If we move it up to Eden, from Eden to the
flood, we get some of the same things.

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Who is the ruler?

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Well, God.

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There is also the language of embodiment
here, very early in the Old Testament.

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And I have here Genesis 5, 22,
24, and 6, 9.

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This is going to sound really odd,
but go look it up.

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You are going to be a little surprised
like I was when I first saw this.

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These three references refer to people
who, quote, walked with God.

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Now, we use that phrase all the time.

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If you actually look that up, walk with
God, like in your Logos software,

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you are going to find that that phrase
only occurs three or four times in the

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entire Bible and none in the New
Testament.

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Zero.

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Nobody is said to walk or have walked with
God in the New Testament, even though we

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use that all the time.

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Now, humans are commanded in both
Testaments to walk before God and be

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obedient, but when God is doing the
walking, when he is participating in the

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walking, that is a really rare phrase.

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And since the first occasion of this was
Genesis 3, the sound of the Lord God

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walking in the garden, and that has
theophanic language that occurs elsewhere

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in the Old Testament.

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Scholars contend, and I would agree,
that this language here, walking with God,

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used twice of Enoch and once of Noah,
that that has something to do with a

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direct divine encounter and a direct
divine relationship.

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It's very unusual.

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But we have it in this period of these
three people.

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Deuteronomy 23, 14, I don't have a link to
it.

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You're going to see this language used two
more times here in Leviticus and

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Deuteronomy.

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And it refers to what's going on in the
camp of Israel, where God says,

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I'm walking, I will walk in your midst.

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Well, what was going on in the camp of
Israel during the Pentateuch period?

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You know, Moses, Sinai.

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Was God completely invisible?

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No, he wasn't.

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There could be a pillar of fire,
there could be a pillar of cloud,

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and even more dramatically, a human form.

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We're going to talk about the human form
tonight.

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But while all that's going on,
God refers to what he's doing there,

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or what the embodied Yahweh is doing
there, saying, I'm going to walk in your

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midst.

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So obey, that sort of thing.

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It's a very unusual circumstance.

16:10.840 --> 16:13.760
Humans, of course, are servants as a
result of the fall.

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We've lost sort of that upper status.

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We're still children, or the family of
God, because there aren't that many

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people.

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The population is growing, though.

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But it's becoming wicked in the wake of,
or in concert with, a divine rivalry or

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rebellion.

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Now that harkens back to Genesis 3.

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But it also speaks of Genesis 6.

16:40.180 --> 16:45.820
Regardless of what your view of Genesis 6
is, when the sons of God go into the

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daughters of men, and they father children
known as the Nephilim, the mighty men of

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renown, and so on and so forth,
from that point, that passage is going to

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get referenced in both Testaments.

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And when it does, it's the idea that you
again have a competing human and

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quasi-divine opposition to what's going on
with the human promise.

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Remember the human one that has to come
and fix all this stuff.

17:12.800 --> 17:15.100
And that bloodline...

17:16.420 --> 17:20.040
and human warfare that extends from it as
well.

17:20.480 --> 17:23.580
Because when you get to the wars of
Joshua, those things are blurred and

17:23.580 --> 17:23.920
mixed.

17:25.280 --> 17:27.480
So you have a competing interest going on.

17:28.500 --> 17:31.580
The interest now is preserving what we
have.

17:31.720 --> 17:33.000
Who are the human mediators?

17:33.240 --> 17:36.060
Well, it is anyone who can be defined as a
prophet.

17:36.980 --> 17:40.200
Anyone who... and I'm defining prophet
very loosely because Jesus does.

17:40.860 --> 17:45.960
Remember here in Luke 11, 51, Jesus refers
to the prophets all the way from righteous

17:45.960 --> 17:48.580
Abel to Zechariah, who was slain at the
altar.

17:49.680 --> 17:51.260
He goes all the way back to Abel.

17:52.120 --> 17:57.040
Basically, a prophet is someone who has
had a direct encounter with God and who

17:57.040 --> 17:57.880
speaks for God.

17:58.780 --> 17:59.440
That's it.

18:00.160 --> 18:01.560
Not somebody who predicts the future.

18:02.320 --> 18:03.880
It's very wide and open.

18:04.200 --> 18:09.140
And if you look at who we have here,
we have Abel, who is the one that Jesus

18:09.140 --> 18:09.900
starts with.

18:10.660 --> 18:13.380
We've already seen Adam when he was the
only one there.

18:14.660 --> 18:20.480
Seth, we've never... the text doesn't call
Seth this, but Seth is viewed as sort of

18:20.480 --> 18:28.720
an initial fulfillment of the seed promise
in Genesis because Abel was killed and God

18:28.720 --> 18:29.540
replaces him.

18:29.660 --> 18:31.280
Eve says, I've gotten another man.

18:31.460 --> 18:33.540
I've gotten a man with the help of the
Lord.

18:34.160 --> 18:38.180
Because for sure, the good line ain't
going through that cane.

18:39.620 --> 18:40.440
That ain't going to happen.

18:41.200 --> 18:43.840
So God replaces Abel with Seth.

18:44.260 --> 18:45.520
So I'm including him here.

18:46.120 --> 18:49.780
But we do have Enoch and Noah.

18:50.980 --> 18:52.500
Again, direct divine encounter.

18:52.660 --> 18:53.440
They speak for God.

18:53.660 --> 19:01.560
Both of them in Jude 4 and 2 Peter 2 are
called heralds or prophets.

19:01.560 --> 19:02.440
They prophesy.

19:03.280 --> 19:04.740
They speak for God.

19:05.560 --> 19:09.040
Again, I want you to start noticing
patterning.

19:09.900 --> 19:10.540
Patterns.

19:11.360 --> 19:13.520
The Bible is... I don't know if you know
what fractals are.

19:15.120 --> 19:20.860
But sometimes we get stuck in a real
simple sort of relationship like typology.

19:21.420 --> 19:22.480
Typology is interesting.

19:23.220 --> 19:24.680
It happens, of course, in Scripture.

19:25.740 --> 19:30.920
But what's even more deep and more meshed
and more... sometimes you got to dig for

19:30.920 --> 19:31.060
it.

19:31.160 --> 19:31.800
It's patterning.

19:32.840 --> 19:33.440
Vocabulary.

19:34.220 --> 19:41.180
Words, phrases, ideas that just pop up all
over the place throughout the history of

19:41.180 --> 19:41.680
the story.

19:42.980 --> 19:44.560
Of course, we have a problem here.

19:44.940 --> 19:46.360
We have Genesis 6, 5.

19:46.440 --> 19:47.800
Humankind is generally evil.

19:48.740 --> 19:51.060
There's a pollution of humanity's line.

19:51.260 --> 19:53.580
There's a reason why Noah is singled out.

19:54.280 --> 19:56.380
Because he walks with God.

19:56.920 --> 19:59.360
And he was pure in his generations.

19:59.520 --> 20:03.840
Whatever's going on in Genesis 6,
verses 1-4, Noah is not part of it.

20:04.620 --> 20:09.220
There's a reason why Noah shows up in the
genealogy of Jesus.

20:11.480 --> 20:17.600
Because Matthew, or Luke in this case,
wants to be very clear that Jesus not only

20:17.600 --> 20:20.400
goes back to David and back to Abraham.

20:20.680 --> 20:24.440
He goes through Noah and Enoch to Adam.

20:26.020 --> 20:28.160
You have to establish this line.

20:29.860 --> 20:31.060
There's a reason for that.

20:32.500 --> 20:32.940
Babel.

20:33.140 --> 20:36.280
This is one of the critical moments of the
Old Testament story.

20:36.880 --> 20:38.440
We have a state of chaos.

20:38.800 --> 20:40.480
There's no mention of divine embodiment.

20:42.620 --> 20:45.980
There is a divine sort of conversation or
decree to the council.

20:46.100 --> 20:49.560
This is the other passage where you get
plural language when God sees what's going

20:49.560 --> 20:50.060
on at Babel.

20:50.120 --> 20:51.820
He just told them to disperse and
multiply.

20:51.820 --> 20:56.140
You know, do that Noahic covenant thing,
like I told you.

20:56.940 --> 21:00.820
And God sees that they're not,
and he says, Yahweh goes down,

21:00.880 --> 21:06.380
and then he says to his council,
let us go down and put a stop to this.

21:07.760 --> 21:09.780
There's a little sense of urgency there.

21:10.700 --> 21:13.200
Because if we don't, nothing will be
impossible to them.

21:13.240 --> 21:18.660
It's just like Genesis 3 in some sense,
where the fallout as well is the knowledge

21:18.660 --> 21:19.420
of good and evil.

21:20.260 --> 21:24.140
We can talk about that a little bit later,
but basically it's a presumption of

21:24.140 --> 21:25.580
authority that you don't have.

21:26.320 --> 21:32.180
You're an imager of God, but you are not
at the status of those who decree fate and

21:32.180 --> 21:34.680
calamity, good and evil for humanity.

21:35.000 --> 21:36.280
You are not at that level.

21:37.240 --> 21:40.700
You share the authority given to you,
but you ain't got this.

21:41.680 --> 21:48.360
You are not, as Genesis 3.22 says,
when after the fall it says, now that the

21:48.360 --> 21:52.740
man has become as one of us, knowing good
and evil.

21:53.020 --> 21:54.100
It's the same thing here.

21:54.180 --> 21:59.700
If we don't put a stop to this,
humankind is going to be able,

22:00.100 --> 22:06.300
or they're going to try to assert this
authority before it's time, before God

22:06.300 --> 22:07.620
decreed when they should have it.

22:08.920 --> 22:13.580
So, we have a decision made by God to
disperse humanity, but that isn't all he

22:13.580 --> 22:13.840
does.

22:13.920 --> 22:15.420
That might be how we're familiar with it.

22:15.420 --> 22:19.380
Because there are other passages that talk
about what happened at Babel.

22:20.400 --> 22:22.340
Deuteronomy 32, 8 and 9.

22:23.100 --> 22:26.520
And I have here a note that I'm reading
with the LXX and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

22:26.560 --> 22:31.180
If you have an ESV, good for you because
you'll agree with me.

22:32.960 --> 22:36.960
The ESV says, when the Most High divided
up the nations, he divided them up

22:36.960 --> 22:39.680
according to the number of the sons of
God.

22:41.340 --> 22:43.380
Most English Bibles do not say that.

22:43.380 --> 22:45.040
Most of them have the sons of Israel.

22:46.000 --> 22:47.700
And there's a textual difference there.

22:48.520 --> 22:52.020
Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, which is the
Greek translation of the Old Testament,

22:52.900 --> 22:53.860
has sons of God.

22:54.140 --> 22:58.060
It has to be sons of God because if you go
back and look at the table of nations,

22:58.240 --> 22:59.080
Israel isn't there.

22:59.960 --> 23:01.160
It doesn't exist yet.

23:02.040 --> 23:03.660
It can't be sons of Israel.

23:04.780 --> 23:08.280
But there was a later change made to the
text in that tradition.

23:08.420 --> 23:12.320
But the correct text is preserved for us
by Providence.

23:13.200 --> 23:15.400
We also have Deuteronomy 4, 19-20.

23:15.560 --> 23:22.720
Basically, in a nutshell, what happens at
Babel is God says, look, we've tried to

23:22.720 --> 23:32.280
rule with human beings first as co-rulers
and then try to sort of reestablish my

23:32.280 --> 23:36.700
rule on earth and get back to Eden and it
just isn't working.

23:38.700 --> 23:40.360
You're disobedient again.

23:40.360 --> 23:44.920
And so what I'm going to do is I'm going
to confuse your languages and scatter you

23:44.920 --> 23:45.520
over the earth.

23:46.960 --> 23:53.160
And not only that, but I'm going to divide
you up and I'm going to assign you to one

23:53.160 --> 23:54.080
of the sons of God.

23:54.940 --> 24:00.560
I'm going to put lesser beings who work
for me, members of the heavenly host,

24:01.300 --> 24:03.780
you're going to report to them and they're
going to report to you.

24:03.880 --> 24:05.560
You're made for each other.

24:06.420 --> 24:08.600
I'm done being your sovereign.

24:09.620 --> 24:13.740
I'm disinheriting you from the family
because I'm going to start over.

24:14.900 --> 24:19.020
And that's why chapter 12 of Genesis right
after Babel is what?

24:20.100 --> 24:22.360
The call of Abraham.

24:23.840 --> 24:29.500
God disinherits the nations and this is
the Old Testament rationale if you go to

24:29.500 --> 24:33.700
Deuteronomy 4, 19 and 20, it says that the
nations were allotted to these other

24:33.700 --> 24:37.600
beings and they were supposed to worship
them not worship Yahweh.

24:37.820 --> 24:38.760
I've had enough of you.

24:39.960 --> 24:42.460
It's the Romans 1 event of the Old
Testament.

24:43.420 --> 24:46.520
God giving them up to their own desires.

24:48.380 --> 24:49.640
I'm going to start a new family.

24:50.040 --> 24:50.400
So long.

24:51.720 --> 24:52.160
Bye.

24:53.740 --> 24:55.580
Now you can have these for gods.

24:56.900 --> 24:59.120
And they work for me so I want them to do
a good job.

25:00.840 --> 25:05.900
And yeah, I can rightly say I'm the only
deity, I'm the only God who is preexistent

25:05.900 --> 25:07.540
creator, deserves to be worshipped.

25:07.940 --> 25:09.520
But you're under them now.

25:10.820 --> 25:11.760
I've had enough.

25:12.940 --> 25:18.140
Now in the back of God's mind,
God knows that the nations are rightfully

25:18.140 --> 25:18.600
His.

25:19.640 --> 25:21.720
And He's going to have a plan to get them
back.

25:22.580 --> 25:24.120
But for now, He's had enough.

25:25.100 --> 25:25.800
He's up to here.

25:27.000 --> 25:31.760
So God has no human heir at the moment.

25:31.760 --> 25:34.280
So there we have a issue.

25:34.980 --> 25:36.840
And there's no kingdom among men.

25:36.980 --> 25:37.860
There's no mediator.

25:39.020 --> 25:41.100
No one's a prophetic figure in the era.

25:42.280 --> 25:46.180
We have a divine disinheriting and God
decides to start over with Abraham,

25:46.340 --> 25:53.120
who not coincidentally the writer makes
sure to tell us that he comes from the

25:53.120 --> 25:55.480
line of Noah and Enoch.

25:56.400 --> 25:57.820
Just want to make that clear.

25:58.820 --> 26:00.840
Because we're still going back to Adam.

26:02.600 --> 26:03.120
Patriarchs.

26:03.240 --> 26:05.540
God again is the ruler, the father figure.

26:06.460 --> 26:08.400
And here you get a lot of divine
embodiment.

26:09.480 --> 26:13.500
God shows up in human form to the
patriarchs with some regularity.

26:14.680 --> 26:18.740
Either referring to Himself or He's
referred to as the Word.

26:19.440 --> 26:20.560
Doesn't that sound familiar?

26:22.020 --> 26:26.760
Or as some sort of man who we find out
later in the narrative isn't really a man.

26:27.380 --> 26:28.620
It's called Elohim.

26:29.280 --> 26:30.360
A couple of examples.

26:31.020 --> 26:32.500
With Abraham in Genesis 12.

26:33.980 --> 26:37.340
It says, The word of the Lord came to
Abraham.

26:38.060 --> 26:39.900
Now we think, Oh, Abraham must have heard
a sound.

26:40.360 --> 26:43.260
Well, if you read the rest of the
narrative, if you read Genesis 15,

26:44.060 --> 26:48.560
if you read some other passages that refer
back to that event, you find out that

26:48.560 --> 26:52.980
Abraham saw Yahweh.

26:53.780 --> 26:56.920
It wasn't just in his hearing,
it was seeing, it was visual.

26:57.660 --> 26:59.700
This happens to Isaac as well.

26:59.780 --> 27:05.120
In fact, in Acts 7.2 Stephen's speech,
Stephen says point blank that Yahweh

27:05.120 --> 27:06.740
appeared to Abraham.

27:07.960 --> 27:10.600
Just uses the point blank term,
appeared.

27:11.460 --> 27:12.480
Happens to Isaac.

27:13.000 --> 27:13.940
Happens to Jacob.

27:14.480 --> 27:16.120
The three patriarchal figures.

27:17.680 --> 27:19.440
So we have God ruling.

27:20.700 --> 27:22.320
Why do I keep referring to embodiment?

27:22.460 --> 27:23.840
Because God is there.

27:24.780 --> 27:25.820
He's supervising.

27:25.960 --> 27:26.680
He's the sovereign.

27:27.760 --> 27:34.880
But when God wants to interact with
people, He has to... He has a problem.

27:36.020 --> 27:40.280
God's problem is, well, you know,
if I really showed you what I am,

27:41.900 --> 27:43.600
you wouldn't know what to do.

27:44.460 --> 27:46.420
You wouldn't know how to process it.

27:46.860 --> 27:51.060
Because I am so other that it would just
be pointless.

27:51.060 --> 27:57.180
Not only that, but what else do we hear in
the Old Testament about if people really

27:57.180 --> 28:01.440
see the presence, if they really see the
glory, what happens to them?

28:02.220 --> 28:02.820
You die.

28:03.580 --> 28:04.560
So God has a problem.

28:04.640 --> 28:06.360
I don't want to kill you.

28:06.480 --> 28:08.120
I'd like to converse a little bit.

28:09.280 --> 28:12.040
And I'd like you to know that somebody's
there.

28:12.760 --> 28:14.940
But if I just kind of show up,
you're going to die.

28:15.560 --> 28:17.240
So that's just kind of pointless.

28:17.560 --> 28:24.280
So what God does is He appears in ways
that human beings can process with their

28:24.280 --> 28:24.660
senses.

28:25.760 --> 28:27.100
Sometimes it's a cloud.

28:27.580 --> 28:28.660
Sometimes it's a fire.

28:29.800 --> 28:32.320
In other cases, it's a human form.

28:34.180 --> 28:36.540
You know, this is different than the
Incarnation.

28:36.680 --> 28:38.640
But you can see where the relationship is.

28:39.220 --> 28:44.580
This is different from the Incarnation in
that the Incarnation has God upping the

28:44.580 --> 28:45.400
ante a little bit.

28:45.840 --> 28:52.800
God is actually born a human with all the
frailties associated thereof.

28:53.760 --> 28:59.280
This is why the Incarnation was such a
shock when the New Testament writers would

28:59.280 --> 29:00.420
speak of it.

29:00.960 --> 29:02.400
The Jews, they knew their own Bible.

29:02.640 --> 29:04.540
They're used to this idea of divine
embodiment.

29:04.640 --> 29:07.440
Yeah, God shows up as a person and there's
conversations.

29:08.040 --> 29:14.720
But the idea that God would, for lack of a
better word, risk actually being born as a

29:14.720 --> 29:15.360
human being.

29:16.200 --> 29:17.900
That was a little...

29:17.900 --> 29:19.700
That was kind of scary.

29:20.860 --> 29:23.840
But if they were tracking with the Old
Testament, when we get to the end of this

29:23.840 --> 29:28.420
tonight, you'll see why that was the only
way it could have happened.

29:28.540 --> 29:30.540
That's the only way all the things
converge.

29:30.640 --> 29:31.420
It was a necessity.

29:33.060 --> 29:35.080
But God comes to the patriarchs.

29:35.920 --> 29:38.740
He says to Abraham, guess what,
you're going to have a kid.

29:39.400 --> 29:40.380
Yeah, yeah, I know you can.

29:40.740 --> 29:41.520
Don't worry about it.

29:41.520 --> 29:42.220
I'll take care of it.

29:42.300 --> 29:44.140
So there's a miraculous birth with Isaac.

29:45.660 --> 29:48.240
Out of that comes Israel, the nation.

29:48.420 --> 29:50.080
Jacob's name change and all that.

29:51.040 --> 29:55.080
So in a very real sense, the Israelites
are God's children.

29:55.580 --> 29:57.400
He's responsible for them being there.

29:58.160 --> 30:00.040
And they're also spiritual children as
well.

30:00.860 --> 30:03.840
God now has a line on earth and a kingdom.

30:05.320 --> 30:08.000
Now our figures, of course, are the
patriarchs.

30:08.060 --> 30:08.860
It's kind of interesting.

30:09.900 --> 30:13.000
Who are the enemies that Abraham runs into
in Genesis 14?

30:14.760 --> 30:16.160
Come on, this is a Bible verse.

30:16.280 --> 30:20.360
I expect all of you to have memorized that
list of nations.

30:21.740 --> 30:22.620
Genesis 14.

30:23.600 --> 30:29.420
It's kind of interesting if it's weird or
boring, it must be important.

30:34.640 --> 30:37.420
In the days of Amraphel, so on and so
forth.

30:38.460 --> 30:40.180
Who does Abraham run into?

30:41.620 --> 30:43.020
Verse 5.

30:44.100 --> 30:54.300
The Rephaim, the Zuzim, the Amim,
and the Horites, the Amalekites,

30:54.420 --> 30:55.520
and also the Amorites.

30:56.000 --> 30:57.280
Are those names familiar?

30:58.980 --> 31:02.400
They're the same names that show up where?

31:03.880 --> 31:08.020
In the days of Moses and Joshua.

31:09.780 --> 31:14.580
And it turns out that there's something
unusual about those people groups.

31:15.860 --> 31:17.620
Something else happens to Abraham.

31:17.720 --> 31:19.000
He meets Melchizedek.

31:22.040 --> 31:24.300
Of course, we know Melchizedek from
Genesis 14.

31:24.760 --> 31:26.020
We know him from Psalm 110.

31:26.220 --> 31:26.960
That's pretty much it.

31:27.180 --> 31:27.820
Hebrews 11.

31:29.420 --> 31:33.120
Hebrews 8 actually throws a few things in
there about Melchizedek.

31:34.680 --> 31:36.500
Why is Melchizedek noteworthy?

31:37.240 --> 31:40.420
He is the priest of Salem.

31:41.380 --> 31:42.140
Salem.

31:42.720 --> 31:45.140
In Semitic it would be Shalem.

31:46.180 --> 31:47.040
What is Shalem?

31:48.640 --> 31:50.720
It means peace, but it's also Jerusalem.

31:53.100 --> 31:58.080
Hebrews 8 tells us, Psalm 110 says that he
was unique.

31:58.420 --> 32:02.060
He was noteworthy because he had an
eternal priesthood.

32:03.240 --> 32:07.560
To have an eternal priesthood,
I would suggest that you probably need to

32:07.560 --> 32:08.240
be eternal.

32:09.720 --> 32:15.420
And this is the way Melchizedek was taken
in 1st century Judaism and Middle Judaism,

32:15.620 --> 32:16.660
the 2nd Temple period.

32:17.760 --> 32:20.740
Melchizedek was viewed as a divine figure,
a divine being.

32:22.100 --> 32:26.520
Because we can't have all these other...
and when we get to the end, it will

32:26.520 --> 32:27.500
converge for you.

32:27.820 --> 32:32.060
But the fact that we have a priesthood
that is not from Aaron is important

32:32.060 --> 32:35.340
because Messiah is never connected with
Aaron.

32:35.540 --> 32:36.780
He's not from that tribe.

32:37.880 --> 32:43.340
He needs a priesthood that sort of
operates out here to do all those things.

32:44.300 --> 32:47.520
What does Melchizedek offer Abraham,
by the way?

32:49.000 --> 32:50.040
Bread and wine.

32:50.440 --> 32:51.020
What a coincidence.

32:56.400 --> 32:57.840
Moses, Aaron, and Israel.

32:58.000 --> 32:59.440
God is still the ruler.

32:59.700 --> 33:01.680
Again, lots of divine embodiment here.

33:02.440 --> 33:03.760
Exodus chapter 3.

33:04.120 --> 33:05.460
Who is in the bush?

33:09.310 --> 33:10.390
God's in the bush.

33:11.130 --> 33:11.350
Yeah.

33:11.570 --> 33:12.090
Who else?

33:14.090 --> 33:17.270
The angel of Yahweh is in the bush.

33:18.790 --> 33:21.590
And you go back to Acts chapter 7,
Stephen's sermon.

33:21.710 --> 33:24.610
He tells you the same thing because
Stephen's reading his Old Testament.

33:25.710 --> 33:27.250
The angel is in the bush.

33:28.190 --> 33:30.490
We get lots of appearances of the angel.

33:30.670 --> 33:35.170
Exodus 33 1-11 is kind of interesting.

33:38.070 --> 33:40.470
Moses used to take the tent, pitch it
outside the camp.

33:40.610 --> 33:42.690
Far off from the camp he called it the
tent of meeting.

33:43.650 --> 33:48.110
Again, Moses has lots of experiences here
with a direct encounter with God.

33:48.190 --> 33:51.830
When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of
the cloud would descend and stand at the

33:51.830 --> 33:52.370
entrance of the tent.

33:52.450 --> 33:53.570
The Lord would speak with Moses.

33:53.750 --> 33:56.050
When all the people saw the pillar of the
cloud standing at the entrance of the

33:56.050 --> 33:57.350
tent, all the people would rise up and
worship.

33:57.350 --> 33:58.270
Each at his tent door.

33:58.370 --> 34:02.890
Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face
to face.

34:03.250 --> 34:05.190
And here we have Joshua.

34:06.210 --> 34:09.710
When Moses turned again to the camp,
his assistant Joshua, the son of Nun,

34:09.770 --> 34:11.850
a young man, would not depart from the
tent.

34:12.990 --> 34:17.430
That's going to become important because
Joshua is going to have the same divine

34:17.430 --> 34:18.830
encounters that Moses did.

34:21.910 --> 34:25.930
Exodus 23 also associated somewhat with
the pillar.

34:26.850 --> 34:30.790
God tells Moses when they're heading out
into the wilderness after they leave

34:30.790 --> 34:35.590
Sinai, he says, I'm going to send my angel
with you.

34:37.010 --> 34:42.830
And you better listen to him because my
name is in him.

34:43.690 --> 34:45.270
He will not forgive sins.

34:46.510 --> 34:47.830
My name is in him.

34:48.350 --> 34:53.570
Deuteronomy 4 37 helps us understand what
that means.

34:55.810 --> 35:00.130
Because he loved your fathers and chose
their offspring after them and brought you

35:00.130 --> 35:02.270
out of Egypt with his own presence.

35:03.770 --> 35:06.370
The name is the presence of God.

35:06.570 --> 35:07.330
It is the glory.

35:07.590 --> 35:09.030
It is what God is.

35:09.370 --> 35:14.310
And that thing, what God was, was inside
this angel.

35:14.670 --> 35:17.870
The angel was the embodiment of Yahweh.

35:18.810 --> 35:20.570
And it went with Israel for the whole
trip.

35:21.570 --> 35:22.250
Every day.

35:23.330 --> 35:24.670
Everybody got to see it.

35:25.010 --> 35:26.670
At least if you could see the front of the
camp.

35:27.890 --> 35:29.250
Everybody got to see that.

35:29.670 --> 35:34.050
So much so when you get to the book of
Judges, Joshua's died and it's like,

35:34.090 --> 35:37.170
we still haven't taken the land like we
were supposed to.

35:37.730 --> 35:42.350
The angel shows up at a place called
Boquim, which means weeping.

35:43.330 --> 35:44.190
Why is it weeping?

35:44.270 --> 35:49.530
Because the angel says, you still haven't
done what you're supposed to do.

35:49.530 --> 35:51.430
I'm out of here.

35:52.450 --> 35:53.270
And he leaves.

35:54.510 --> 35:56.110
And the people sat there and wept.

35:56.690 --> 35:59.470
That's why the place is called Boquim unto
this day.

36:00.270 --> 36:03.910
Because they'd had it for 40 years.

36:05.470 --> 36:06.270
Every day.

36:07.030 --> 36:07.930
Divine embodiment.

36:08.550 --> 36:09.950
Yahweh in human form.

36:10.770 --> 36:11.910
Right there on the scene.

36:13.850 --> 36:15.270
And they still didn't do it.

36:16.270 --> 36:19.030
All this stuff happening again in Moses
and Joshua's day.

36:19.770 --> 36:21.490
Moses is called the servant.

36:21.770 --> 36:22.670
God's servant.

36:23.910 --> 36:25.870
He represented the nation at large.

36:26.310 --> 36:27.450
He was also a prophet.

36:28.230 --> 36:32.890
Remember Deuteronomy 18, prophesying that
there would be a prophet someday that

36:32.890 --> 36:34.810
would rise up to the level of Moses.

36:35.490 --> 36:37.770
Of course, the New Testament applies that
to Jesus.

36:38.550 --> 36:42.230
It's also during Moses' time that God
calls Israel as a whole, as a nation,

36:42.410 --> 36:43.090
my son.

36:44.170 --> 36:48.870
When they go into Pharaoh, God tells them,
when you go into Pharaoh, here's what you

36:48.870 --> 36:49.150
say.

36:50.150 --> 36:55.330
Let my son go into the wilderness that he
can offer sacrifice to me.

36:56.250 --> 36:57.430
Israel is called my son.

36:58.390 --> 37:00.390
Makes sense, because that's God's family.

37:01.610 --> 37:06.590
Israel is reborn and redeemed from Egypt,
which restarts the kingdom among men.

37:08.130 --> 37:09.890
Our mediator, again, is Moses.

37:10.250 --> 37:14.270
We're going to skip the whole law
dispensed by angels, which is mentioned

37:14.270 --> 37:17.570
four times, three or four times in the New
Testament.

37:17.850 --> 37:18.690
Where do they get that idea?

37:18.810 --> 37:19.990
They get it from the Old Testament.

37:21.750 --> 37:22.830
Kingdom of priests.

37:23.710 --> 37:26.250
Aaron gets to see divine embodiment as
well.

37:27.090 --> 37:30.230
So he becomes a prophetic figure of
importance.

37:31.250 --> 37:34.910
But God reminds them that, look,
what I really want you to do is,

37:34.970 --> 37:36.390
I want you all to be priests.

37:36.490 --> 37:37.950
I want you to be a kingdom of priests.

37:38.970 --> 37:41.550
I want you to all be this.

37:43.030 --> 37:43.430
Problem.

37:43.850 --> 37:45.010
They fail at Kadesh.

37:45.690 --> 37:49.750
This is when they're going to go into the
land and they send in the twelve spies.

37:50.050 --> 37:52.810
They come back and two of them say,
yeah, let's go get it.

37:53.590 --> 37:54.990
Ten of them say, forget it.

37:56.150 --> 37:57.650
Why do they get scared?

37:59.590 --> 38:02.070
Because the Anakim are in the land.

38:03.070 --> 38:04.770
Numbers 13, verse 33.

38:05.430 --> 38:07.570
The Anakim are descendants of the
Nephilim.

38:07.830 --> 38:08.690
Where do we get them?

38:09.470 --> 38:10.470
Genesis 6.

38:10.570 --> 38:15.930
Here the whole competing human and
quasi-divine bloodline thing starts to

38:15.930 --> 38:16.650
emerge again.

38:17.370 --> 38:19.510
They are standing in the way of the
kingdom.

38:20.030 --> 38:22.390
They are standing in the way of God's son.

38:22.850 --> 38:25.250
They are standing in the way of kingship.

38:25.610 --> 38:27.650
They are standing in the way of fill in
the blank.

38:27.830 --> 38:29.010
All these motifs.

38:30.310 --> 38:31.190
And they fail.

38:32.370 --> 38:33.370
We can't do it.

38:34.970 --> 38:37.200
So, they get sent out in the wilderness.

38:37.640 --> 38:38.940
Joshua is going to be the leader.

38:39.900 --> 38:41.260
God is still in charge.

38:42.360 --> 38:46.520
Joshua was with Moses on a few of the
divine encounters that Moses had.

38:47.220 --> 38:50.460
And in a few of them, God actually
commissions Joshua.

38:50.920 --> 38:54.700
Takes a portion of the spirit that's on
Moses, puts it on Joshua, tells Joshua,

38:54.860 --> 38:55.640
you're the next leader.

38:56.180 --> 38:59.480
But Joshua has his own special encounter
apart from Moses.

39:00.320 --> 39:01.900
Which is Joshua 5.

39:03.180 --> 39:04.960
The captain of the Lord's host.

39:06.100 --> 39:09.000
Now, I have angel here in the notes.

39:09.640 --> 39:14.020
Because I think it's pretty, at least it's
clear to me, that the captain of the

39:14.020 --> 39:15.600
Lord's host is the angel.

39:16.520 --> 39:18.680
That has been leading them for the whole
time.

39:18.860 --> 39:19.800
Why do I say that?

39:19.920 --> 39:23.800
Because the angel is described,
or excuse me, the captain is described as

39:23.800 --> 39:31.460
v 'karbo shel u'fa be'edo with his sword
drawn in his hand.

39:31.780 --> 39:37.520
That phrase, that concatenation,
occurs two times elsewhere in the Old

39:37.520 --> 39:37.960
Testament.

39:39.260 --> 39:42.260
I have the verses here, Numbers 22-23,
who's that?

39:44.220 --> 39:46.900
Numbers 22, Balaam.

39:47.000 --> 39:49.980
It's the angel of the Lord in the Balaam
incident.

39:50.660 --> 39:53.660
And 1 Chronicles 21-16 is also the angel
of the Lord.

39:55.600 --> 39:58.260
Joshua has the same, again, status.

39:59.120 --> 40:00.340
The same divine encounter.

40:00.480 --> 40:04.880
We have the same God's ruling,
God's observing, but God is meeting with

40:04.880 --> 40:07.060
Israel as an embodied human figure.

40:08.660 --> 40:12.200
Same as before, during Joshua's time.

40:13.180 --> 40:18.720
Joshua replaces Moses as the heir to the
servant prophet role, but not the ultimate

40:18.720 --> 40:20.300
fulfillment, and that was Jesus.

40:21.320 --> 40:23.980
Israel is still God's son, his children.

40:25.200 --> 40:28.960
That role, the role of, again,
the servant prophet, was supposed to be a

40:28.960 --> 40:33.900
king, and also the son of God role was
supposed to be filled by a king once they

40:33.900 --> 40:34.460
had kings.

40:34.520 --> 40:38.140
Once you get in the land and set up the
monarchy, we get kingships.

40:38.180 --> 40:38.860
How do I know that?

40:38.900 --> 40:41.540
Because when they actually get in there
and have a king, that's what the kings

40:41.540 --> 40:41.860
call.

40:43.960 --> 40:45.420
The Lord said unto my Lord.

40:46.520 --> 40:52.380
You have those passages, but you also have
psalms that refer to the king as my,

40:52.500 --> 40:53.900
God says, my son.

40:54.620 --> 41:03.280
Because the king now embodies,
the king sort of subsumes, he stands in

41:03.280 --> 41:05.000
the place of the entire nation.

41:05.880 --> 41:07.440
The king is the nation.

41:07.580 --> 41:08.640
The nation is the king.

41:08.780 --> 41:13.320
Yeah, God knows that there's corporate and
individual, but in the language that's

41:13.320 --> 41:22.340
used, we have a human being who's royal,
who is there to protect and establish

41:22.340 --> 41:26.100
divine kingship, the kingship of Yahweh
among the nations at a specific

41:26.100 --> 41:27.340
geographical place.

41:28.480 --> 41:33.200
He's supposed to be a servant,
and he's also supposed to rule according

41:33.200 --> 41:33.900
to the law.

41:35.040 --> 41:37.760
The king again becomes the new Moses.

41:39.260 --> 41:44.140
He replaces, you have Moses, you had Moses
over, and then underneath Moses you had

41:44.140 --> 41:47.000
prince for each tribe, you had 70 elders.

41:48.220 --> 41:52.460
70 is kind of an interesting number,
because that's the same number of nations

41:52.460 --> 41:54.380
that were disinherited back at Babel.

41:57.160 --> 42:02.340
God's son, God's family is replacing the
family he disinherited.

42:03.660 --> 42:05.120
There's 70 elders.

42:07.240 --> 42:10.800
Get to Jesus, Jesus does something
associated with that number too.

42:11.980 --> 42:16.920
But the king ultimately was supposed to
have all these things sort of fuse the

42:16.920 --> 42:19.280
prophetic figure, the person who spoke for
God.

42:20.120 --> 42:22.520
All these things were supposed to be
focused on the king.

42:23.440 --> 42:28.580
And the king was supposed to carry the
program through to its eschatological end.

42:29.000 --> 42:29.920
The king fails.

42:31.800 --> 42:37.480
Joshua, of course, goes in, does what he's
supposed to do, and if you actually look,

42:37.560 --> 42:40.460
I'm not going to, we don't have time to do
this, any one of these is like a two or

42:40.460 --> 42:41.160
three hour talk.

42:42.320 --> 42:47.480
If you actually plot the places,
there are only four, five, six,

42:47.480 --> 42:48.520
something like that.

42:48.980 --> 42:52.580
Places that are put under the param in the
Old Testament.

42:53.280 --> 42:57.480
That's when everything living,
every person living, sometimes even the

42:57.480 --> 42:59.340
animals, are to be killed.

43:00.760 --> 43:03.240
That isn't the usual mode of conquest.

43:03.500 --> 43:08.980
Usually the verb is drive them out,
possess their houses.

43:09.200 --> 43:11.360
God says, you're going to live in houses
you didn't build, you're going to have

43:11.360 --> 43:12.260
fields you didn't plant.

43:12.880 --> 43:14.120
Everything's there for you.

43:14.480 --> 43:17.660
But on a few occasions God said,
go in there, and they have to be wiped

43:17.660 --> 43:17.980
out.

43:18.520 --> 43:24.140
If you plot those cities on a map,
and then you go back to the list of people

43:24.140 --> 43:32.300
groups that are mentioned, I don't know,
seven, eight, nine times, Rephaim,

43:32.880 --> 43:39.640
the Amorites, the Zuzim, the Amim,
all these Im, that all of them trace their

43:39.640 --> 43:44.740
lineage back to the giant clans,
the Nephilim in Genesis 6.

43:45.000 --> 43:46.100
They live at those places.

43:47.300 --> 43:51.120
Those are population centers of those
bloodlines.

43:52.840 --> 43:57.720
Now, I've never seen that in print,
but just do it yourself.

43:58.020 --> 43:58.720
You will find out.

43:58.800 --> 43:59.660
Even the Amorites.

44:00.480 --> 44:09.100
The Amorites are kind of a generic term
when Joshua goes in to Ai, and they lose

44:09.100 --> 44:10.480
because of what Achan does.

44:12.360 --> 44:16.280
He laments, he tears his clothes,
and he says, we came all this way,

44:16.460 --> 44:19.380
and now we are going to get beat by these
Amorites.

44:21.840 --> 44:26.400
Amorites, according to the prophet Amos,
were unusually tall.

44:28.040 --> 44:28.700
Even them.

44:30.100 --> 44:31.140
It's a pattern.

44:31.520 --> 44:32.040
It's a pattern.

44:32.260 --> 44:38.900
In their thinking, there is something
demonic going on here.

44:39.780 --> 44:44.220
And God says, those are the places you go
in, and they are kerem.

44:44.880 --> 44:47.900
They are offered up as a burnt hole
offering to me.

44:49.600 --> 44:51.740
Other places, if they run out of time,
fine.

44:53.140 --> 44:54.940
These are the places that are put under
kerem.

44:55.800 --> 44:58.020
And it's about bloodlines.

45:00.020 --> 45:02.720
It sounds kind of weird, but that's what
it is in the Old Testament.

45:03.820 --> 45:05.040
So they don't complete the conquest.

45:05.460 --> 45:08.580
We finally get a conquest under David.

45:09.260 --> 45:11.440
Of course Samuel is around when David is
around.

45:12.100 --> 45:16.480
Divine embodiment continues into the time
of Samuel.

45:16.600 --> 45:17.600
Samuel is the last judge.

45:17.660 --> 45:22.720
There were a few judges that witnessed the
angel or again some form of divine

45:22.720 --> 45:23.320
embodiment.

45:23.760 --> 45:25.740
Gideon is probably the obvious example.

45:26.500 --> 45:30.760
The Gideon passage is interesting because
Yahweh and the angel are both in the same

45:30.760 --> 45:32.840
episode at the same time.

45:33.040 --> 45:34.100
So there are two individuals.

45:34.100 --> 45:38.220
In fact one leaves and the other is still
there at the end of the story.

45:39.240 --> 45:41.080
But with Samuel the same thing happens.

45:41.860 --> 45:45.580
This is one of my favorite passages in the
Old Testament.

45:47.040 --> 45:50.200
I can't resist skipping 1 Samuel 3.

45:51.980 --> 45:56.200
Now the young man Samuel was ministering
to the Lord, to Yahweh under Eli.

45:57.440 --> 45:59.660
And the word of the Lord... the what?

46:00.720 --> 46:06.420
The word of the Lord was rare in those
days.

46:07.020 --> 46:08.300
Oh you mean they just didn't hear God?

46:08.660 --> 46:10.460
No there was no frequent vision.

46:12.500 --> 46:13.340
First verse.

46:13.640 --> 46:14.740
It's something you see.

46:15.300 --> 46:16.860
Not just hear but something you see.

46:17.700 --> 46:21.020
At that time Eli whose eyesight had begun
to grow dim so he couldn't see was lying

46:21.020 --> 46:21.860
down in his own place.

46:22.000 --> 46:22.820
You know the story.

46:24.520 --> 46:29.620
Samuel goes to lay down and hears a voice
and he thinks it's Eli and he runs over

46:29.620 --> 46:33.600
there a couple times and Eli finally
figures it out and says well it's not me.

46:34.240 --> 46:39.720
So if it happens again you say speak Lord
for your servant hears.

46:40.940 --> 46:41.760
I'm all ears.

46:42.760 --> 46:43.740
I know it's not Eli.

46:45.080 --> 46:46.580
And that's what happens.

46:47.060 --> 46:47.940
We go down here.

46:49.360 --> 47:01.480
Verse 10 And the Lord came Yahweh came and
stood he stands in front of Samuel calling

47:01.480 --> 47:11.020
as at the other times Samuel Samuel Samuel
said speak for your servant hears and then

47:11.020 --> 47:13.660
Yahweh pronounces the judgment on Eli's
family.

47:15.100 --> 47:17.640
And you get to the end of the chapter it's
just great.

47:19.240 --> 47:25.420
And Samuel grew and Yahweh was with him
and let none of his words fall to the

47:25.420 --> 47:31.420
ground and all Israel from Dan to
Beersheba knew that Samuel was established

47:31.420 --> 47:33.120
as a prophet of the Lord.

47:33.240 --> 47:34.380
He had a divine encounter.

47:34.500 --> 47:35.240
Of course he's a prophet.

47:35.860 --> 47:36.920
That's what prophets are.

47:37.000 --> 47:37.920
That's what makes them prophets.

47:39.120 --> 47:43.400
They knew that he was established as a
prophet of the Lord and the Lord appeared

47:44.120 --> 47:51.820
appeared again at Shiloh which is where
Samuel and Eli were living for the Lord

47:51.820 --> 47:55.920
and the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at
Shiloh.

47:56.000 --> 47:56.240
How?

47:57.580 --> 48:00.500
By the word of the Lord.

48:02.880 --> 48:11.260
See the word sometimes in the Old
Testament is a human figure who is Yahweh.

48:13.000 --> 48:14.280
It's right there in the Old Testament.

48:16.240 --> 48:21.240
When John writes John chapter 1 he's not
like Now which Greek philosopher should I

48:21.240 --> 48:21.860
quote here?

48:22.680 --> 48:24.940
I need some help from pagans.

48:25.020 --> 48:26.360
How do they talk about God?

48:26.780 --> 48:27.020
No.

48:28.240 --> 48:29.280
He knows his Old Testament.

48:30.000 --> 48:31.740
But that's what you'll hear in a lot of
commentaries.

48:32.960 --> 48:37.380
John, heavily influenced by Greco-Roman
philosophy, writes his gospel.

48:37.620 --> 48:39.580
I'm not saying he was totally
uninfluenced.

48:40.460 --> 48:43.180
I am suggesting though that he knew his
Old Testament pretty well.

48:45.300 --> 48:47.340
David is called the servant.

48:47.980 --> 48:49.160
He's the king.

48:49.500 --> 48:50.580
The king is the servant.

48:52.200 --> 48:53.740
He's my son.

48:53.900 --> 48:54.900
He's the son of God.

48:55.940 --> 48:58.860
Israel is now a kingdom of God on earth.

49:00.100 --> 49:02.600
David himself had a divine encounter.

49:02.800 --> 49:05.020
You look at these passages up,
2 Chronicles 3.

49:06.400 --> 49:08.100
He meets the angel.

49:09.820 --> 49:15.000
The passage says that Yahweh appeared to
David, the father of Solomon.

49:16.160 --> 49:20.360
And it connects it with Ornan,
the Jebusite, back at the threshing floor.

49:20.500 --> 49:21.880
Go look at that passage.

49:22.000 --> 49:22.540
It's the angel.

49:23.360 --> 49:25.560
Solomon sees the same thing.

49:26.360 --> 49:31.400
Again, they're kings, but they're also in
this long line going all the way back to

49:31.400 --> 49:31.700
Adam.

49:33.740 --> 49:37.720
People who meet God and speak for God.

49:38.920 --> 49:40.700
Long line of the prophets.

49:42.360 --> 49:44.420
We have a failure under Solomon.

49:47.980 --> 49:50.340
Here, the word of the Lord is even rarer.

49:51.160 --> 49:55.500
Other than Solomon, we don't really get
too much divine embodiment.

49:55.620 --> 49:59.380
We don't get it with kings at all after
Solomon, because most of them are bad.

50:00.560 --> 50:02.160
But we do get it with prophets.

50:02.400 --> 50:04.520
What we think of as the classical
prophets.

50:06.400 --> 50:08.960
And the prophets are called servants.

50:08.960 --> 50:10.540
My servant, the prophets.

50:10.760 --> 50:11.980
My servants, the prophets.

50:13.040 --> 50:15.120
Look at that string of verses in Isaiah.

50:15.520 --> 50:22.480
Everywhere you see servant in Isaiah,
pretty much everywhere, it refers to the

50:22.480 --> 50:23.380
nation of Israel.

50:24.600 --> 50:29.940
It can refer to the prophet, which is why
Jewish interpreters think that the

50:29.940 --> 50:33.560
suffering servant of Isaiah 53 is probably
Isaiah.

50:34.100 --> 50:36.880
They don't want to see messianic overtones
there.

50:38.560 --> 50:40.420
So they're not making that up.

50:40.620 --> 50:43.960
They're using the precedent of the rest of
the book.

50:44.740 --> 50:49.720
But you also get a couple pagans referred
to as my servants.

50:49.860 --> 50:51.480
Cyrus and later Nebuchadnezzar.

50:52.040 --> 50:58.200
Isn't it ironic that when it's time for
Israel to get punished and it looks like

50:58.200 --> 51:04.120
the kingdom is over again, kind of just
like Babel, it's just not going to work.

51:05.020 --> 51:09.420
You know, I disinherited the nations back
then, now I got to disinherit my own kid.

51:11.120 --> 51:18.680
Isn't it ironic that when it comes to that
time, God calls two pagans from the

51:18.680 --> 51:23.700
foreign nations who had been disinherited
and said, get up on your horse,

51:24.020 --> 51:25.120
I have a job for you.

51:26.180 --> 51:33.600
What it told the astute reader of the text
is that, now wait a minute, that means

51:33.600 --> 51:35.880
God's still in charge of everything.

51:37.060 --> 51:41.360
Including the nations that they're telling
us that their gods beat our God.

51:42.360 --> 51:44.260
And we're in exile and they're not.

51:44.380 --> 51:45.120
They conquered us.

51:45.220 --> 51:46.500
And we're like, what are we doing here?

51:46.620 --> 51:47.720
The whole thing is over.

51:48.220 --> 51:50.220
You know, wearing a hand basket.

51:51.120 --> 51:51.900
It's over.

51:53.300 --> 51:57.540
And God says, well if you think that,
then figure this out.

51:58.100 --> 52:00.140
Why is it that I'm commanding them?

52:02.140 --> 52:05.660
They're the only ones around to do my work
that'll actually do it.

52:06.660 --> 52:10.920
So I gotta use them to bring you out of
the muck where you're at.

52:12.180 --> 52:13.900
So there's a lot of irony there.

52:15.720 --> 52:19.780
Even after the exile, Israel is still
called in Hosea the sons of the living

52:19.780 --> 52:20.200
God.

52:21.600 --> 52:23.000
They're still God's children.

52:23.140 --> 52:24.160
He accepts them back.

52:24.780 --> 52:26.480
But the kingdom is in exile.

52:27.280 --> 52:31.020
And the prophets get various messages to
the exiles.

52:31.900 --> 52:34.000
Isaiah is sent to Israelites.

52:34.800 --> 52:36.800
He sees the throne of God.

52:36.880 --> 52:38.100
It's a direct divine encounter.

52:39.000 --> 52:39.540
Jeremiah.

52:40.220 --> 52:41.360
Jeremiah chapter 1.

52:41.460 --> 52:41.700
Read it.

52:41.740 --> 52:42.360
Read it closely.

52:43.120 --> 52:44.980
The word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah.

52:45.820 --> 52:49.360
Then like two verses later, that word of
the Lord is called Yahweh.

52:50.060 --> 52:57.700
And then in verse 7 it says, and the Lord,
Yahweh, reached out His hand and touched

52:57.700 --> 52:58.020
me.

52:59.320 --> 53:00.300
He's embodied.

53:01.560 --> 53:09.460
And it's a literary, it's a theological
signal that I'm still here.

53:10.460 --> 53:12.960
Just like I was in the old, I'm still
here.

53:13.820 --> 53:14.220
Ezekiel.

53:14.340 --> 53:17.500
Ezekiel sees a man, a figure of a man
enthroned.

53:18.920 --> 53:22.300
All the weird stuff he sees, that's pretty
clear, that part.

53:24.040 --> 53:26.480
Now, where does this wind up?

53:27.820 --> 53:30.240
Here's the situation we have at the end of
the exile.

53:30.420 --> 53:32.680
You have the corporate servant dying.

53:34.680 --> 53:35.620
Israel's in exile.

53:36.600 --> 53:37.300
Israel's toast.

53:38.220 --> 53:39.440
Rightly punished for sin.

53:40.680 --> 53:45.580
The corporate servant, though,
is raised anew by anointed human agency,

53:45.960 --> 53:47.140
Cyrus in this case.

53:50.380 --> 53:51.500
Corporate resurrection.

53:52.120 --> 53:56.980
The nation, Ezekiel 37, goes through a
whole picture of how the nation,

53:57.120 --> 54:00.360
who is clearly dead, you're like really,
really dead.

54:00.900 --> 54:05.060
When the bones have to be reassembled and
the veins and all that stuff, you're dead.

54:05.920 --> 54:11.480
But the dead will come to life again in a
very vivid way.

54:12.480 --> 54:17.100
And we even have third day imagery in
Hosea, Hosea chapter 6, verse 2.

54:18.820 --> 54:21.060
Israelites are lamenting their situation.

54:21.280 --> 54:24.160
They say, well, even at the third day,
you can still raise us up.

54:25.560 --> 54:29.120
The corporate servant can be raised up
even on the third day.

54:29.960 --> 54:35.400
So you have the nation resurrected,
but the glory and the kingship have not

54:35.400 --> 54:35.860
returned.

54:36.900 --> 54:39.580
And so, you have more prophecy come.

54:41.080 --> 54:47.720
This time, of a single servant whose
ministry will mimic, here's the part I

54:47.720 --> 54:48.460
want you to catch.

54:49.860 --> 54:55.860
The single servant's ministry,
Jesus' ministry, mimics the corporate

54:55.860 --> 54:56.400
servant.

54:57.820 --> 55:01.080
Death because of the nation's sin,
and then resurrection.

55:02.180 --> 55:07.540
Once raised and resurrected, following the
pattern that we've seen up to this point,

55:07.680 --> 55:09.120
what else would a Jew have expected?

55:10.220 --> 55:11.280
Well, we need a king.

55:11.280 --> 55:13.860
If we have a kingdom resurrected,
we need a king.

55:15.100 --> 55:21.140
And those nations, too, they still need to
be brought into the fold because God

55:21.140 --> 55:23.520
disinherited them, but yet He's still
clearly interested in them.

55:23.620 --> 55:27.200
He's told us a couple times He's going to
bring them back, and they're going to

55:27.200 --> 55:27.800
worship Him.

55:28.020 --> 55:29.040
He will be their God.

55:30.520 --> 55:33.640
We need a prophet like unto Moses,
because that's still hanging out there.

55:34.380 --> 55:38.680
We need a priest who isn't from the
Aaronic line, but, oh yeah, there's that

55:38.680 --> 55:39.580
guy, you know, Kislevich.

55:42.060 --> 55:47.240
We need a return of the glory of the
presence of Yahweh, and we still need the

55:47.240 --> 55:49.580
original prophecy that started the whole
ball rolling.

55:50.600 --> 55:54.800
We still need a human being that will undo
the effects of the fall.

55:55.580 --> 55:57.240
I want you to just look at this visually.

55:59.580 --> 56:04.360
We have here Jesus' bloodline back to
Adam.

56:05.920 --> 56:10.860
Again, in parallel with some of the other
bloodline issues that emerged in the

56:10.860 --> 56:11.760
primeval history.

56:13.440 --> 56:15.840
That's followed by a miraculous birth.

56:16.520 --> 56:18.340
Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac.

56:19.920 --> 56:23.440
Well, the Gospels have that too.

56:25.000 --> 56:28.980
And then Israel, my son Israel,
is taken out of Egypt.

56:30.160 --> 56:34.220
So is this son out of Egypt.

56:34.380 --> 56:37.500
In fact, Matthew says, yeah, he came out
of Egypt.

56:37.700 --> 56:41.080
Because, like Hosea says, out of Egypt
have I called my son.

56:42.680 --> 56:44.680
Corporate individual, corporate
individual.

56:44.840 --> 56:47.020
The same things going on.

56:47.080 --> 56:48.580
You have deliverance under Moses.

56:50.680 --> 56:52.240
At the baptism of Jesus.

56:52.380 --> 56:56.720
I mean, you have again, you can talk about
the water imagery or whatever.

56:57.060 --> 57:00.420
What's really going on at the Exodus is a
victory over the gods of Egypt.

57:01.580 --> 57:05.760
And a rebirth of the nation as God's son.

57:06.340 --> 57:07.640
To start the kingdom again.

57:08.620 --> 57:13.800
It's interesting, at the baptism,
God says, this is my son.

57:14.340 --> 57:15.460
So everybody can hear it.

57:16.220 --> 57:17.940
Of course, he comes to fulfill the law.

57:18.160 --> 57:19.480
We have the law at Sinai.

57:20.480 --> 57:22.340
The law, of course, points to Jesus.

57:22.540 --> 57:25.180
Jesus administers righteousness to his
people and nations.

57:25.720 --> 57:28.460
And look at the passage quoted at Jesus'
baptism.

57:29.460 --> 57:30.320
Isaiah 42.

57:30.320 --> 57:32.820
My servant.

57:33.540 --> 57:34.660
Then it's Israel.

57:35.500 --> 57:36.520
This time it's not.

57:37.380 --> 57:43.280
Because his life is mimicking,
is echoing, what happened to the corporate

57:43.280 --> 57:43.680
son.

57:45.740 --> 57:47.120
And they go into the wilderness.

57:50.280 --> 57:52.100
The corporate son fails.

57:52.840 --> 57:56.260
Goes into the wilderness, which is
associated with chaos and demonic forces.

57:57.760 --> 57:59.000
Jesus goes into the wilderness.

57:59.440 --> 58:00.880
We have a victory over Satan.

58:02.480 --> 58:04.060
Satan offers him the nations.

58:04.260 --> 58:05.060
Isn't that curious?

58:07.680 --> 58:09.220
Bow down and worship me.

58:11.720 --> 58:13.220
It's not an empty promise.

58:13.900 --> 58:14.940
I'll give you the nations.

58:16.940 --> 58:18.120
Jesus says, I don't think so.

58:19.320 --> 58:20.720
I've got another way to get them.

58:22.300 --> 58:24.420
I don't need you to give them to me.

58:25.720 --> 58:29.760
What does Jesus do right after he defeats
Satan in the wilderness?

58:30.620 --> 58:31.600
Luke chapter 10.

58:32.380 --> 58:33.800
He sends out disciples.

58:33.940 --> 58:35.080
How many does he send out?

58:36.340 --> 58:36.900
70.

58:38.260 --> 58:42.860
Now there is a textual disagreement,
70 and 72, that goes back into the Old

58:42.860 --> 58:44.280
Testament, 70 and 72.

58:45.480 --> 58:50.380
If you look in Genesis 48, the count there
is given at 70, but the problem was how to

58:50.380 --> 58:53.140
count Ephraim and Manasseh and all this
kind of stuff.

58:55.480 --> 58:57.960
The tradition at 70 is very strong.

58:58.960 --> 59:00.700
And not only that, it lines up everywhere
else.

59:02.760 --> 59:09.040
Over here, after we get to wander around
the wilderness, then we go into the land

59:09.040 --> 59:09.760
under Joshua.

59:10.800 --> 59:12.080
Joshua's holy wars.

59:12.740 --> 59:17.860
He defeats all human and all semi-divine
opposition.

59:21.480 --> 59:23.340
Well, Jesus does the same thing.

59:23.400 --> 59:27.000
The ministry of the 70 begins and
coincides with the casting out of demons.

59:27.720 --> 59:29.480
The 70 cast out the demons.

59:30.360 --> 59:33.300
The only time in the Bible where demons
are cast out is the New Testament.

59:34.420 --> 59:35.760
It begins with the Gospels.

59:35.960 --> 59:36.220
Why?

59:37.060 --> 59:43.000
Because it marks the inauguration,
the beginning of the restoration of the

59:43.000 --> 59:43.780
kingdom of God.

59:43.940 --> 59:48.220
In this case, it ain't going to get
overturned like it did before.

59:48.540 --> 59:49.340
Why not?

59:50.080 --> 59:55.040
Because all the other iterations in the
Old Testament who was God depending on?

59:56.020 --> 59:57.340
The corporate servant.

59:58.800 --> 01:00:02.000
You know those Israelites that kind of
mess up a lot?

01:00:03.080 --> 01:00:05.400
He's not dependent on the corporate
servant anymore.

01:00:06.480 --> 01:00:08.020
He's depending on the servant.

01:00:08.800 --> 01:00:09.480
Who is him?

01:00:10.340 --> 01:00:11.220
His, but isn't him.

01:00:12.160 --> 01:00:14.500
And he can guarantee that he'll pull it
off.

01:00:16.560 --> 01:00:17.840
Transfiguration is interesting.

01:00:18.480 --> 01:00:20.380
Do a little study on the transfiguration.

01:00:20.540 --> 01:00:21.180
Where did it happen?

01:00:22.600 --> 01:00:26.000
Church tradition has Mount Tabor.

01:00:26.580 --> 01:00:29.800
If you look at your better commentaries
they will show why that doesn't work.

01:00:30.520 --> 01:00:32.480
There's actually no textual support for
it.

01:00:32.980 --> 01:00:35.640
If you follow the geography the
transfiguration would have happened

01:00:35.640 --> 01:00:39.240
somewhere near the foot of Mount Hermon.

01:00:40.320 --> 01:00:41.980
Anybody know where Mount Hermon is?

01:00:41.980 --> 01:00:43.980
Mount Hermon.

01:00:46.200 --> 01:00:47.400
Up in the Golan.

01:00:48.600 --> 01:00:52.680
What territory was Hermon in?

01:00:55.200 --> 01:00:56.260
Dan.

01:00:57.420 --> 01:01:00.680
Dan overlapped with the region known as
Bashan.

01:01:02.180 --> 01:01:02.960
Deuteronomy 3.

01:01:03.220 --> 01:01:08.540
Bashan was home to giant clans.

01:01:10.540 --> 01:01:13.580
Hermon was also in Jewish tradition in the
book of Enoch.

01:01:14.320 --> 01:01:20.200
It was the place where the angels from
Genesis 6 descended before they did what

01:01:20.200 --> 01:01:20.580
they did.

01:01:21.280 --> 01:01:21.800
Mount Hermon.

01:01:24.180 --> 01:01:29.200
And it's that place that Jesus picks to go
and be transfigured.

01:01:33.420 --> 01:01:40.300
If you're a Jew and you know your Old
Testament and you know all this other

01:01:40.300 --> 01:01:44.460
stuff that's written about the Old
Testament in the intertestamental period,

01:01:44.900 --> 01:01:46.320
you don't miss that.

01:01:47.680 --> 01:01:53.080
That is what's the phrase that we like to
use now?

01:01:53.180 --> 01:01:58.620
Not holy war, but what's the phrase that's
kind of spiritual warfare?

01:01:59.300 --> 01:02:00.680
That is spiritual warfare.

01:02:01.840 --> 01:02:04.260
Jesus showing up at these places.

01:02:04.440 --> 01:02:10.820
By the way, in the Semitic world,
Bashan in Hebrew is a geographical term,

01:02:10.920 --> 01:02:15.280
but it's also a noun, a common noun for
serpent.

01:02:16.740 --> 01:02:18.100
Who would have thought that?

01:02:20.440 --> 01:02:23.380
At Ugarit, they had a dialectical
difference.

01:02:23.620 --> 01:02:26.720
Their word for serpent was Bethan instead
of Bashan.

01:02:27.320 --> 01:02:29.800
It's a little T-H-S-H interchange going on
there.

01:02:30.320 --> 01:02:34.360
They actually described the region,
and they considered it the gateway to the

01:02:34.360 --> 01:02:34.920
netherworld.

01:02:35.720 --> 01:02:38.360
The gates of hell, if you will.

01:02:39.700 --> 01:02:41.360
So that's where Jesus shows up.

01:02:42.120 --> 01:02:43.460
I just want to let you know who I am.

01:02:44.840 --> 01:02:48.980
We have the demise of the kingdom over
here due to apostasy and unbelief.

01:02:50.220 --> 01:02:54.200
The Son, Israel, is surrendered to the
nations and their gods by God.

01:02:55.320 --> 01:03:01.400
Over here, the kingdom being offered is
rejected along with its king, but that was

01:03:01.400 --> 01:03:05.540
God's plan too because he needs
resurrection.

01:03:06.680 --> 01:03:13.900
The single servant needs to be resurrected
to fulfill the imagery of the corporate

01:03:13.900 --> 01:03:16.980
servant who died and was resurrected.

01:03:19.020 --> 01:03:24.020
That's not the only reason God did that,
but it's there in the text.

01:03:25.580 --> 01:03:30.300
So here we have, again, the whole thing
with Cyrus, the anointed, the servant dies

01:03:30.300 --> 01:03:31.220
but yet lives.

01:03:32.560 --> 01:03:33.800
It's not the nation there.

01:03:35.100 --> 01:03:36.380
Prophecies of resurrection.

01:03:37.580 --> 01:03:41.260
And here we get, again, the shepherd,
the Messiah, the servant, brings

01:03:41.260 --> 01:03:44.040
deliverance and dies, but is raised on the
third day.

01:03:44.940 --> 01:03:47.300
The nation of the kingdom is revived with
him.

01:03:48.260 --> 01:03:51.520
Israel rises with him, because he is
Israel.

01:03:55.160 --> 01:03:59.380
Progressing toward an unstoppable,
and that's the key idea, an unstoppable

01:03:59.380 --> 01:04:01.020
eschatological culmination.

01:04:01.660 --> 01:04:10.540
This one won't fail, because we're no
longer trusting on mere human corporate

01:04:10.540 --> 01:04:11.260
servants.

01:04:12.220 --> 01:04:15.220
This time we have the servant.

01:04:16.620 --> 01:04:20.680
And if you stop to think about it,
how else could it have all been pulled

01:04:20.680 --> 01:04:21.080
off?

01:04:22.380 --> 01:04:27.440
You've got servant thread meets in Jesus.

01:04:28.580 --> 01:04:30.520
You've got divine embodiment.

01:04:31.920 --> 01:04:35.380
It's as though, and I think it is,
Jesus is there the whole time.

01:04:36.580 --> 01:04:43.500
Just shepherding it along, knowing full
well back in Genesis that the only way

01:04:43.500 --> 01:04:52.940
we're going to get this back is if a human
being does all this stuff to reverse the

01:04:52.940 --> 01:04:53.760
effects of the curse.

01:04:54.100 --> 01:04:57.320
Which one of them that you know is going
to do that?

01:04:59.280 --> 01:05:02.440
I'm going to have to become incarnated.

01:05:02.520 --> 01:05:06.620
I'm going to have to become them to flip
the whole thing around.

01:05:09.440 --> 01:05:14.900
Everything converges in this one
individual and his life mimics

01:05:14.900 --> 01:05:15.360
deliberately.

01:05:15.480 --> 01:05:19.040
The New Testament writers, this isn't an
accident, this is an intelligent mind

01:05:19.040 --> 01:05:23.400
guiding the New Testament writers to
arrange the material as they did so that

01:05:23.400 --> 01:05:24.820
the readers would get the point.

01:05:26.760 --> 01:05:31.260
Now, Dax has been going through,
I'm going to put this up real briefly,

01:05:31.840 --> 01:05:34.700
there's a lot more that could be hit on.

01:05:35.440 --> 01:05:42.100
Even before we get to the history of
Israel, Abraham, there are a lot of other

01:05:42.100 --> 01:05:44.000
parallels that are more primeval.

01:05:45.220 --> 01:05:49.420
But Dax has been talking, preaching
through Ephesians and this was the thing

01:05:49.420 --> 01:05:50.240
that shocked Paul.

01:05:51.740 --> 01:05:54.540
He's astonished that the Gentiles are
included in this.

01:05:55.700 --> 01:05:56.120
Why?

01:05:56.200 --> 01:06:00.100
Because they're the ones that were the
competing line.

01:06:00.220 --> 01:06:02.180
They're the ones always opposing this.

01:06:02.840 --> 01:06:06.400
Even by God's own design, God's own
choice, God's own judgment.

01:06:07.600 --> 01:06:13.140
So in other words, for this whole thing to
work out and to have redemption and to

01:06:13.140 --> 01:06:18.680
reclaim the nations, God is going to have,
something God did is going to have to be

01:06:18.680 --> 01:06:19.060
undone.

01:06:19.200 --> 01:06:20.780
Frankly, only God can do that.

01:06:20.780 --> 01:06:24.420
And so, you have an incarnation.

01:06:25.600 --> 01:06:28.960
You have the wall of separation of the
Gentiles being torn away.

01:06:30.620 --> 01:06:34.840
He is Israel, but the Gentiles are also
His body.

01:06:35.800 --> 01:06:36.860
Just think about it.

01:06:37.040 --> 01:06:38.120
Think about all the terms.

01:06:39.580 --> 01:06:41.960
The epistles use words like adoption.

01:06:44.260 --> 01:06:48.420
That's a really pregnant term against the
backdrop of all this.

01:06:48.420 --> 01:06:50.380
It's a family term.

01:06:51.900 --> 01:06:56.480
There are lots of things in the New
Testament that I'm going to encourage

01:06:56.480 --> 01:06:57.360
you...

01:06:58.780 --> 01:07:02.540
I'm going to encourage you to filter
through.

01:07:03.540 --> 01:07:04.640
Look for repetitions.

01:07:05.420 --> 01:07:06.340
Look for patterns.

01:07:08.280 --> 01:07:11.260
In academies, we call this
intertextuality.

01:07:11.560 --> 01:07:12.680
It's not a fancy word.

01:07:13.220 --> 01:07:17.160
We're just saying, look at the text real
closely where they use the same things.

01:07:18.960 --> 01:07:24.980
I think it'll give you a really solid
backdrop so that when you read through

01:07:24.980 --> 01:07:31.560
your Bible, you'll be able to sort of pick
out why writers are doing what they're

01:07:31.560 --> 01:07:31.980
doing.

01:07:32.400 --> 01:07:33.640
What they're telegraphing.

01:07:33.920 --> 01:07:34.780
What they're picking up.

01:07:34.900 --> 01:07:37.220
Little threads they're picking up and
they're going to take it a little further.

01:07:38.020 --> 01:07:41.320
And they're going to drop it somewhere and
the next guy will pick it up.

01:07:42.480 --> 01:07:43.440
But it's a story.

01:07:44.340 --> 01:07:45.780
Just like a good novel.

01:07:46.440 --> 01:07:48.780
Except it's not a myth.

01:07:49.080 --> 01:07:50.100
It's the myth that's true.

01:07:51.660 --> 01:07:53.060
Stealing that from Tolkien.

01:07:53.260 --> 01:07:54.420
It's a good story.

01:07:59.730 --> 01:08:04.130
I want to focus tonight on Jesus as
co-creator.

01:08:05.870 --> 01:08:10.490
And this is a obviously familiar idea for
Christians.

01:08:11.730 --> 01:08:15.290
And I think the longer we're Christians,
we sort of take this for granted.

01:08:16.850 --> 01:08:22.370
But I want you to ask yourself tonight
this question that you see on the slide

01:08:22.370 --> 01:08:23.110
behind me.

01:08:23.850 --> 01:08:27.170
Essentially, where in the world do the New
Testament writers get this idea?

01:08:28.230 --> 01:08:33.550
Now, I think the easy and I don't want to
call it a cop out because there's a

01:08:33.550 --> 01:08:35.410
certain level of legitimacy to it.

01:08:35.870 --> 01:08:40.070
You could say, well, they got that because
they were inspired to write what they

01:08:40.070 --> 01:08:43.050
wrote and God just gave them that
information and that's the answer.

01:08:43.810 --> 01:08:45.990
Well, I'm obviously not going to rule that
out.

01:08:46.750 --> 01:08:52.830
But what I wanted to get you to consider
and realize is that the idea of God having

01:08:52.830 --> 01:08:57.870
a co-creator is not new to Christianity.

01:08:58.610 --> 01:09:00.550
It comes from the Old Testament.

01:09:01.450 --> 01:09:06.490
And I personally as a scholar and as
someone who has taught many undergrad

01:09:06.490 --> 01:09:12.250
classes and I get to interact with a lot
of people who's, I think, predominantly

01:09:12.250 --> 01:09:13.690
their questions are sincere.

01:09:14.710 --> 01:09:19.510
But sometimes you get people who just
enjoy picking on Christianity and

01:09:19.510 --> 01:09:20.110
agitating.

01:09:20.950 --> 01:09:24.730
And one of the things that they like to
harp on is this notion that Christianity,

01:09:24.970 --> 01:09:28.430
the writers of the New Testament,
just basically sort of made things up.

01:09:30.390 --> 01:09:37.290
Or that they're dependent in some way on
pagan literature, pagan religious

01:09:37.290 --> 01:09:39.850
literature from the ancient Mediterranean
for their ideas.

01:09:41.050 --> 01:09:45.450
If you've been exposed to the Da Vinci
Code at all, you know that to be the case.

01:09:45.610 --> 01:09:49.350
In fact, I'm going to bring up the Da
Vinci Code tonight once or twice.

01:09:49.570 --> 01:09:52.370
Because what we're going to cover,
some parts of what we're going to cover,

01:09:53.430 --> 01:09:59.790
have been used in pop culture and that's
probably the best example in what I would

01:09:59.790 --> 01:10:02.510
call heretical ways and also very
antagonistic ways.

01:10:02.510 --> 01:10:06.510
I want you to be a little sensitive to the
fact that you really...

01:10:07.250 --> 01:10:12.290
there's an importance attached to being
able to show that the New Testament and

01:10:12.290 --> 01:10:15.350
the Old Testament are not these things
that you can drive a wedge between.

01:10:15.590 --> 01:10:18.370
That there's continuity of thought between
the two.

01:10:18.450 --> 01:10:21.510
And that would be reasonable since we
believe that there's the same divine

01:10:21.510 --> 01:10:21.890
author.

01:10:22.030 --> 01:10:26.870
And this is a good example because you
read certain statements in the New

01:10:26.870 --> 01:10:30.690
Testament that are pretty clear that have
Jesus as the co-creator.

01:10:30.690 --> 01:10:34.610
Here's one in Colossians, perhaps the most
familiar, Colossians chapter 1.

01:10:35.470 --> 01:10:39.710
He has delivered us from the domain of
darkness, God specifically, and

01:10:39.710 --> 01:10:42.130
transferred us to the kingdom of his
beloved son.

01:10:42.230 --> 01:10:43.470
So there's a reference to Jesus.

01:10:44.310 --> 01:10:46.770
In whom we have redemption, the
forgiveness of sins.

01:10:47.490 --> 01:10:51.250
He is the image of the invisible God,
again still speaking of Jesus,

01:10:51.370 --> 01:10:52.950
the firstborn of all creation.

01:10:53.750 --> 01:10:56.030
For by him all things were created.

01:10:56.610 --> 01:10:57.430
Pretty clear statement.

01:10:58.190 --> 01:11:00.070
In heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible.

01:11:00.590 --> 01:11:03.750
Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or
authorities, those are all terms for

01:11:03.750 --> 01:11:06.970
divine beings, what we would think of as
angelic beings.

01:11:07.470 --> 01:11:08.970
So it covers a lot of ground.

01:11:09.090 --> 01:11:12.610
Everything in heaven and earth,
visible and invisible, Jesus is given

01:11:13.730 --> 01:11:18.670
credit for at least being participating in
the creation.

01:11:19.850 --> 01:11:23.530
He is before all things and in him all
things hold together in verse 17.

01:11:24.470 --> 01:11:26.270
You get the same idea in 1 Corinthians 8.

01:11:27.010 --> 01:11:32.470
For although there may be so-called gods
in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are

01:11:32.470 --> 01:11:38.570
many gods and many lords, yet for us there
is one God, the Father, from whom are all

01:11:38.570 --> 01:11:41.050
things and for whom we exist.

01:11:41.350 --> 01:11:44.230
So God gets the credit in that part of the
verse.

01:11:44.970 --> 01:11:50.890
And one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom
are all things and through whom we exist.

01:11:50.950 --> 01:11:56.830
This is actually a little more precise in
terms of the idea because when you talk

01:11:56.830 --> 01:12:01.770
about giving Jesus credit for creation and
of course God gets credit for creation and

01:12:01.770 --> 01:12:04.030
we think of God as the creator from the
Old Testament.

01:12:05.030 --> 01:12:08.230
The language in the New Testament
sometimes, as in this verse, distinguishes

01:12:08.230 --> 01:12:13.510
between sort of God as an ultimate creator
and Jesus as the agent of creation,

01:12:13.670 --> 01:12:16.550
the means by which everything was brought
into existence.

01:12:17.370 --> 01:12:20.150
We'll be talking about that language as
well.

01:12:21.210 --> 01:12:24.570
Now, let's go here to...

01:12:25.450 --> 01:12:27.250
I actually want to skip ahead here.

01:12:28.270 --> 01:12:30.510
Let's go to Genesis 1, 1 to 3.

01:12:31.390 --> 01:12:39.370
If you look at this verse, very familiar,
actually three verses, what's the answer

01:12:39.370 --> 01:12:40.010
to the question?

01:12:41.330 --> 01:12:44.610
What is God's agent or means of creation?

01:12:44.790 --> 01:12:47.050
Because when you think of creation this is
the passage you think of, right?

01:12:47.590 --> 01:12:48.390
Genesis 1.

01:12:49.230 --> 01:12:51.790
So what would you say is the answer?

01:12:53.770 --> 01:12:58.170
I hear the word coming from verse 3.

01:12:59.430 --> 01:13:03.170
And God said let there be light and there
was light.

01:13:03.270 --> 01:13:07.790
So the word isn't actually in the passage
but God is speaking.

01:13:08.950 --> 01:13:14.330
So there you have this association with
God who is a spirit.

01:13:15.010 --> 01:13:17.090
The Old Testament tells us God does not
have a body.

01:13:17.170 --> 01:13:19.050
The New Testament tells us God does not
have a body.

01:13:19.730 --> 01:13:23.290
God doesn't have vocal cords that can
vibrate and make sound.

01:13:23.590 --> 01:13:31.890
This language is anthropomorphic and it
suggests that God is doing something and

01:13:31.890 --> 01:13:38.710
the result of his activity, the result of
his speaking in some way brings about

01:13:38.710 --> 01:13:41.190
everything that there is.

01:13:41.350 --> 01:13:45.870
Now, we know from the New Testament,
you know, we have John chapter 1 in the

01:13:45.870 --> 01:13:49.710
beginning, you know, was the word and the
word was God, was with God and all that.

01:13:49.750 --> 01:13:54.730
So we know that there is a conceptual
connection between what's going on.

01:13:56.090 --> 01:14:00.050
But I want to show you that the idea,
and we had a few of these last week and

01:14:00.050 --> 01:14:02.710
for the sake of those who weren't here I'm
going to go quickly through these.

01:14:03.930 --> 01:14:12.070
The idea of the word as an embodied
entity, an embodied person in human form,

01:14:12.290 --> 01:14:15.530
on occasion the description gets to that
level.

01:14:15.810 --> 01:14:18.710
That idea is very familiar to the Old
Testament.

01:14:19.570 --> 01:14:22.490
And I mentioned last week and I'll say it
again this week that I think that is what

01:14:22.490 --> 01:14:25.450
John is drawing on in chapter 1 of his
gospel.

01:14:26.150 --> 01:14:27.410
Here we have Genesis 15.

01:14:27.550 --> 01:14:33.710
After these things the word of the Lord
came to Abram in a vision, in something

01:14:33.710 --> 01:14:34.210
visual.

01:14:35.010 --> 01:14:37.810
Fear not Abram, I am your shield,
your reward shall be very great.

01:14:38.090 --> 01:14:39.310
Goes down a few verses.

01:14:40.030 --> 01:14:44.590
Behold the word of the Lord came to him,
he comes back, and he says to Abram,

01:14:44.870 --> 01:14:48.050
this man shall not be your heir,
referring to Eliezer of Damascus,

01:14:48.370 --> 01:14:50.970
your own, your very own son shall be your
heir.

01:14:51.510 --> 01:14:59.210
And he brought him, in other words he,
the word, brought him, Abram, outside and

01:14:59.210 --> 01:15:03.490
said, look toward heaven and number the
stars if you are able to number them.

01:15:03.730 --> 01:15:08.870
Then he, the word, said to Abram,
so shall your offspring be.

01:15:09.610 --> 01:15:13.690
And Abram's response is, according to the
biblical writer, he believed Yahweh.

01:15:15.210 --> 01:15:16.870
That is who is talking to him.

01:15:18.110 --> 01:15:22.430
So again you get this mixing of the divine
name Yahweh with the word.

01:15:23.370 --> 01:15:29.350
And the narrative reads as though Abraham
is seeing another individual who takes him

01:15:29.350 --> 01:15:30.890
outside and talks to him.

01:15:32.230 --> 01:15:36.110
If the writer wanted to make it clear that
Abraham wasn't seeing anything,

01:15:36.450 --> 01:15:41.670
that he has this thing in his ear,
maybe like this, he has this thing,

01:15:41.970 --> 01:15:46.930
this sound or something, sensation in his
ear or in his head, he could have made it

01:15:46.930 --> 01:15:48.490
a lot clearer than this.

01:15:48.570 --> 01:15:53.370
Because this is the language again of
visual appearance and embodiment as though

01:15:53.370 --> 01:15:54.290
another person is there.

01:15:55.510 --> 01:15:57.330
1 Samuel 3 we talked about.

01:15:57.550 --> 01:16:02.670
The young man Samuel was ministering to
the Lord under Eli and the word of the

01:16:02.670 --> 01:16:05.950
Lord, there is the phrase again,
was rare in those days.

01:16:06.710 --> 01:16:08.210
There was no frequent, what?

01:16:08.650 --> 01:16:09.130
Vision.

01:16:10.650 --> 01:16:12.010
Again something you see.

01:16:12.870 --> 01:16:17.370
So there is a connection between a thing
seen and the word of the Lord.

01:16:18.710 --> 01:16:21.230
The Lord came and stood calling us at
other times.

01:16:21.350 --> 01:16:22.630
So you know the story.

01:16:22.770 --> 01:16:24.210
I am not going to rehearse too much of it.

01:16:25.050 --> 01:16:27.110
Samuel hears this voice several times.

01:16:27.230 --> 01:16:31.050
Eli says, hey if it happens again you say
speak Lord for your servant hears.

01:16:31.050 --> 01:16:37.490
And here in verse 10, the Lord came and
stood and if you are just a spirit,

01:16:37.690 --> 01:16:39.730
it is kind of an odd word to use of you.

01:16:40.410 --> 01:16:45.890
If you don't have some sort of person
personality or some sort of maybe not

01:16:45.890 --> 01:16:47.050
necessarily substance.

01:16:48.370 --> 01:16:52.350
Although there are embodied passages where
there is a tactile thing going on.

01:16:52.410 --> 01:16:53.450
We are going to see one in a moment.

01:16:54.570 --> 01:16:57.390
But there is at least another person there
in the room that is visual.

01:16:58.350 --> 01:16:59.530
And it is Yahweh.

01:16:59.770 --> 01:17:02.710
The Lord came and stood calling us at
other times, Samuel.

01:17:02.950 --> 01:17:03.310
Samuel.

01:17:04.170 --> 01:17:05.950
Samuel said speak for your servant hears.

01:17:06.050 --> 01:17:08.670
Now the key here is the phrase at other
times.

01:17:09.610 --> 01:17:14.290
Because in the very first verse the writer
says, hey the word of the Lord was rare in

01:17:14.290 --> 01:17:16.130
those days but I am going to tell you
about a story.

01:17:16.350 --> 01:17:18.070
I am going to tell you something that
happened to Samuel.

01:17:19.650 --> 01:17:22.910
And he connects that back to this word of
the Lord being rare.

01:17:23.350 --> 01:17:26.410
And when you get to the end of the
passage, he ties it together there too.

01:17:27.310 --> 01:17:29.810
Beginning of chapter 3, the word of the
Lord is rare.

01:17:29.910 --> 01:17:31.450
At the end of the chapter we read this.

01:17:32.710 --> 01:17:35.150
And Samuel grew and the Lord was with him.

01:17:35.850 --> 01:17:39.350
Yahweh was with him and let none of his
words fall to the ground.

01:17:39.450 --> 01:17:44.650
And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew
that Samuel was established as a prophet

01:17:44.650 --> 01:17:45.870
of the Lord.

01:17:46.050 --> 01:17:47.030
A prophet of Yahweh.

01:17:48.010 --> 01:17:53.910
And Yahweh appeared again at Shiloh for
the Lord Yahweh himself revealed himself

01:17:53.910 --> 01:17:59.350
to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the
Lord.

01:18:00.010 --> 01:18:03.750
So again, it is all connected to a visual
presence.

01:18:04.370 --> 01:18:05.810
Something Samuel can see.

01:18:06.170 --> 01:18:10.110
And that thing, that person that Samuel is
seeing is called the word.

01:18:11.710 --> 01:18:17.010
Jeremiah 1 The words of Jeremiah the son
of Hilkiah one of the priests who were in

01:18:17.010 --> 01:18:21.990
Anathoth in the land of Benjamin to whom
the word of the Lord came in the days of

01:18:21.990 --> 01:18:22.430
Josiah.

01:18:22.570 --> 01:18:25.790
This is how the prophecy of Jeremiah
begins.

01:18:26.850 --> 01:18:32.570
Verse 4 The word of the Lord came to me
Jeremiah is the speaker now, saying Go

01:18:32.570 --> 01:18:37.030
down to verse 6 Jeremiah says,
Then said I, Ah Lord God, it is Adonai

01:18:37.730 --> 01:18:48.670
Elohim So Jeremiah is referring to this
word who came to him as Yahweh Yahweh

01:18:48.670 --> 01:18:53.790
Elohim Adonai Elohim Lord God,
behold I do not know how to speak He gets

01:18:53.790 --> 01:18:59.430
his commissions like, I don't know what I
am going to do Verse 9 Then Yahweh put out

01:18:59.430 --> 01:19:08.710
his hand and touched my mouth It is a
corporeal physicalized embodied presence

01:19:08.710 --> 01:19:15.110
and that physicalized person is the word
So there is a lot of Old Testament

01:19:15.990 --> 01:19:22.270
antecedents to this In fact, if you are
interested in this kind of thinking among

01:19:22.270 --> 01:19:27.830
Jews I would advise you to do a little
work in the Targums.

01:19:28.010 --> 01:19:31.510
Now the Targums are Aramaic translations
of both Old and New Testament,

01:19:31.650 --> 01:19:36.070
and for our purposes we are interested in
the Old There are a number of passages in

01:19:36.070 --> 01:19:41.030
the Old Testament where you can't really
tell, there is somebody else with Yahweh

01:19:41.850 --> 01:19:47.850
and it might be the angel, but it might be
just somebody else or that God refers to

01:19:47.850 --> 01:19:51.070
himself in the third person, which is kind
of odd.

01:19:52.230 --> 01:19:56.810
And whoever put the Targums together,
the translations, used the Aramaic word

01:19:57.410 --> 01:20:03.730
Memra, that is the word Aramaic word for
word it shows up in all sorts of passages

01:20:03.730 --> 01:20:08.730
that you won't find in the Old Testament
It is interpretive, and so here you have

01:20:08.730 --> 01:20:16.030
Jews, and all you have to do is Google the
word Memra M-E-M-R-A and it is going to be

01:20:16.030 --> 01:20:21.130
fascinating for you, because here you have
Jews looking at their own Hebrew Bible,

01:20:21.970 --> 01:20:29.730
and seeing Yahweh, and then this Memra guy
in different passages and they have this

01:20:29.730 --> 01:20:34.230
sort of consciousness, because they are
very in tune with their text, and they

01:20:34.230 --> 01:20:37.790
have a sense that there is Yahweh
invisible and there is this other Yahweh

01:20:37.790 --> 01:20:43.150
out there and sometimes they are in the
same passage at the same time and so that

01:20:43.150 --> 01:20:48.630
is part of their theological consciousness
Of course, going back to the New Testament

01:20:48.630 --> 01:20:54.890
John picks up on this idea and he has the
word as the agent of creation the first

01:20:54.890 --> 01:21:01.170
three verses of John and if you go down
around verse 14, we have the word made

01:21:01.170 --> 01:21:06.330
flesh, the word was made flesh and dwelt
among us again, very clear reference to

01:21:06.330 --> 01:21:11.050
Jesus, and so this is one means,
and probably the one most familiar to you,

01:21:11.150 --> 01:21:14.750
even though if you were not familiar with
all those Old Testament passages,

01:21:14.830 --> 01:21:19.930
the ideas I think were familiar to where
the New Testament writers would get this

01:21:19.930 --> 01:21:26.930
but there is actually another one that is
probably less familiar and which might be

01:21:26.930 --> 01:21:35.710
kind of surprising Now, let's go to the
second creation passage there are more

01:21:35.710 --> 01:21:38.670
than two creation passages in the Old
Testament but this is the one for our

01:21:38.670 --> 01:21:45.050
purposes that we want to focus on Who is
the agent or what is the agent of creation

01:21:46.390 --> 01:21:46.910
here?

01:21:47.670 --> 01:21:48.950
Proverbs 8, 22

01:21:52.110 --> 01:21:54.550
Anybody know what the passage is about?

01:21:56.270 --> 01:21:56.790
Wisdom.

01:21:57.050 --> 01:22:02.050
If you go back to Proverbs 1, read up
through chapter 8, you are going to see a

01:22:02.050 --> 01:22:08.550
character known as wisdom and the
character is spoken of in female terms in

01:22:08.550 --> 01:22:14.730
other words, there would be pronouns that
refer back to wisdom like her and she and

01:22:14.730 --> 01:22:19.630
then you get to chapter 8, and wisdom is
speaking at the beginning of the chapter

01:22:19.630 --> 01:22:29.710
and you get down to verse 22 and we read
Yahweh, the Lord possessed me at the

01:22:29.710 --> 01:22:38.590
beginning of his work the first of his
acts of old ages ago I was set up at the

01:22:38.590 --> 01:22:43.250
first before the beginnings of the earth
when there were no depths I was brought

01:22:43.250 --> 01:22:48.250
forth, again this is language drawn from
Genesis when there were no springs

01:22:48.250 --> 01:22:53.110
abounding with water, before the mountains
had been shaped, before the hills I was

01:22:53.110 --> 01:22:59.430
brought forth before he had made the earth
with its fields, or the first of the dust

01:22:59.430 --> 01:23:04.290
of the world now I have possessed in blue
and at the bottom you've already noticed

01:23:05.330 --> 01:23:11.550
the word translated possessed here in the
NIV is translated brought forth NRSV has

01:23:11.550 --> 01:23:17.010
created and the NLT has formed,
we're going to come back to the

01:23:17.570 --> 01:23:20.810
terminological difficulty there but to
continue on with Proverbs 8, look at what

01:23:20.810 --> 01:23:28.770
wisdom says when he, God established the
heavens, I was there when he drew a circle

01:23:28.770 --> 01:23:34.130
in the face of the deep, when he made firm
the skies above when he established the

01:23:34.130 --> 01:23:38.470
fountains of the deep, when he assigned to
the sea its limit, again this is all

01:23:38.470 --> 01:23:43.970
Genesis language so that the waters might
not transgress his command, when he marked

01:23:43.970 --> 01:23:49.690
out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him like a master

01:23:49.690 --> 01:23:56.690
workman and I was daily his delight
rejoicing before him always rejoicing in

01:23:56.690 --> 01:24:05.290
his inhabited world and delighting in the
children of man Wisdom is cast as a

01:24:05.290 --> 01:24:13.610
co-creator in the Old Testament and wisdom
is also cast as a female now I want you to

01:24:13.610 --> 01:24:18.950
keep that in the back of your mind and I'm
going to I'll probably hold discussion on

01:24:18.950 --> 01:24:23.190
why female, I'll mention something now and
if you want to talk about it later we can

01:24:23.190 --> 01:24:30.250
during Q&A the reason for the feminine in
reality is that the word wisdom,

01:24:30.730 --> 01:24:37.150
chokmah in Hebrew is feminine it's
grammatically feminine if you've ever

01:24:37.150 --> 01:24:44.210
studied a foreign language you know that
nouns especially have gender it's a means

01:24:44.210 --> 01:24:50.670
of classification so that nouns and
adjectives and verbs and subjects can be

01:24:50.670 --> 01:24:56.670
matched up in grammatical agreement it
really has nothing to do with biology

01:24:56.670 --> 01:25:06.510
sometimes it can, for instance a young man
that's going to be masculine young maiden

01:25:06.510 --> 01:25:11.770
young girl that's feminine sometimes
there's a congruence Greek though,

01:25:12.030 --> 01:25:17.630
I'll give you an example where these don't
have congruence Greek, the word technon,

01:25:17.910 --> 01:25:27.530
little child is neuter German,
Mädchen little girl is neuter don't look

01:25:27.530 --> 01:25:33.210
for a biological rhyme or reason to the
way languages work but because chokmah is

01:25:33.210 --> 01:25:38.770
feminine that's why the translators will
reflect feminine terminology, plus wisdom

01:25:38.770 --> 01:25:46.410
in Proverbs is set over against lady folly
you'll hear commentators talk about lady

01:25:46.410 --> 01:25:55.050
wisdom and she is set her ways are set
over against the salacious whorish woman

01:25:55.050 --> 01:25:58.990
in Proverbs that you're warned to stay
away from so there's this opposition and

01:25:58.990 --> 01:26:03.570
so to pull that off in literary terms,
you have to cast both of them as females

01:26:04.050 --> 01:26:09.870
keep that in the back of your mind we see
that wisdom was the agent but who or what

01:26:09.870 --> 01:26:19.870
was wisdom in the period between the Old
Testament and the New Testament which we

01:26:19.870 --> 01:26:22.410
so cleverly call the intertestamental
period

01:26:25.440 --> 01:26:30.660
the better term is second temple period
because of what happens at the end of the

01:26:30.660 --> 01:26:33.820
Old Testament they rebuild the temple and
then that one lasts until the first

01:26:33.820 --> 01:26:39.380
century but in the intertestamental period
there is a very large body of literature

01:26:39.380 --> 01:26:43.080
that's written by Jewish rabbis and
scholars and thinkers ...religious

01:26:43.080 --> 01:26:45.160
authorities on all stripes.

01:26:46.620 --> 01:26:48.100
And they know their Old Testament.

01:26:48.600 --> 01:26:55.420
And they comment and produce a lot of
material that deals with wisdom.

01:26:55.820 --> 01:27:00.120
Now what I want you to track with me here
is that we've looked at what the Old

01:27:00.120 --> 01:27:00.680
Testament does.

01:27:00.760 --> 01:27:03.120
There's this character wisdom out there
that's co-creator.

01:27:03.760 --> 01:27:07.940
Now we're going to look at what Jewish
thinkers, before we get to the era of

01:27:07.940 --> 01:27:10.200
Jesus and the New Testament, thought about
that.

01:27:10.880 --> 01:27:12.340
And then we'll go back to the New
Testament.

01:27:12.340 --> 01:27:19.100
And you'll find, again, a correlation that
the New Testament writers are tracking all

01:27:19.100 --> 01:27:24.320
this, but they do some important things
that translate to theological differences

01:27:24.320 --> 01:27:26.420
with mainstream Judaism.

01:27:26.920 --> 01:27:29.120
And when you hear what those are,
I think they're going to be kind of

01:27:29.120 --> 01:27:29.840
striking to you.

01:27:29.920 --> 01:27:33.980
It'll put the context of Paul's preaching,
especially, in a new light.

01:27:35.040 --> 01:27:39.260
One of the books that was produced during
this period is the Wisdom of Solomon.

01:27:42.000 --> 01:27:43.980
It's typical wisdom literature.

01:27:44.500 --> 01:27:48.160
It goes off into some theological
tangents, just like we saw Proverbs do.

01:27:49.080 --> 01:27:52.400
But the writer here, again, these are all
Jewish writers, I will tell you what

01:27:52.400 --> 01:27:55.860
wisdom is and how she, there's the
feminine language, came to be.

01:27:56.600 --> 01:27:59.840
And I will hide no secrets from you,
but I will trace her course from the

01:27:59.840 --> 01:28:03.680
beginning of creation and make knowledge
of her clear.

01:28:03.940 --> 01:28:05.940
I will not pass by the truth.

01:28:07.480 --> 01:28:11.860
Another chapter, the same writer,
same book, says, for wisdom, the fashioner

01:28:11.860 --> 01:28:15.680
of all things, again, he's getting that
from Proverbs, taught me.

01:28:16.700 --> 01:28:21.580
For she is a breath of the power of God
and a pure emanation of the glory of the

01:28:21.580 --> 01:28:22.040
Almighty.

01:28:23.120 --> 01:28:26.080
Therefore nothing defiled gains entrance
into her.

01:28:27.160 --> 01:28:31.260
For she is a reflection, and I have a
Greek word there that we're going to pick

01:28:31.260 --> 01:28:34.580
up in a few minutes, apogasma.

01:28:35.300 --> 01:28:40.940
She is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God,

01:28:41.380 --> 01:28:42.820
and an image of his goodness.

01:28:46.500 --> 01:28:52.300
Chapter 9, O God of my ancestors and Lord
of my, Lord of mercy, who have made all

01:28:52.300 --> 01:28:56.360
things by your word, isn't that
interesting, you made all things by your

01:28:56.360 --> 01:29:01.120
word, then he's going to talk about
wisdom, and by your wisdom have formed

01:29:01.120 --> 01:29:05.540
humankind to have dominion over the
creatures you have made, and rule the

01:29:05.540 --> 01:29:09.200
world in holiness and righteousness,
and pronounce judgment in uprightness of

01:29:09.200 --> 01:29:09.620
soul.

01:29:09.920 --> 01:29:12.660
Give me the wisdom that sits by your
throne.

01:29:14.980 --> 01:29:16.420
That's an odd phrase.

01:29:17.400 --> 01:29:20.360
Wisdom that sits by your throne.

01:29:20.480 --> 01:29:22.480
That implies well, there's another throne.

01:29:24.120 --> 01:29:26.720
Kind of wonder if that's the right hand of
God.

01:29:27.480 --> 01:29:31.320
Okay, do not reject me from among your
servants.

01:29:34.380 --> 01:29:35.760
With you is wisdom.

01:29:36.220 --> 01:29:41.240
With you, speaking to God again,
she who knows your works and was present

01:29:41.240 --> 01:29:42.440
when you made the world.

01:29:42.980 --> 01:29:47.100
She understands what is pleasing in your
sight, and what is right according to your

01:29:47.100 --> 01:29:47.560
commandments.

01:29:48.580 --> 01:29:53.740
Send her forth from the holy heavens,
and from the throne of your glory send

01:29:53.740 --> 01:29:54.000
her.

01:29:54.100 --> 01:29:55.140
There she is at the throne.

01:29:55.320 --> 01:29:57.140
That's more like she's getting her
assignment.

01:29:57.440 --> 01:29:59.460
So she's sent by God right from the
throne.

01:30:00.360 --> 01:30:04.380
That she may labor at my side,
that I may learn what is pleasing to you.

01:30:06.400 --> 01:30:07.360
Chapter 10.

01:30:08.700 --> 01:30:12.140
Wisdom protected the first formed father
of the world.

01:30:12.240 --> 01:30:13.800
Now this is a reference to Adam.

01:30:14.960 --> 01:30:19.840
When he alone had been created,
she delivered him from his transgression,

01:30:20.580 --> 01:30:23.340
and gave him strength to rule all things.

01:30:24.560 --> 01:30:28.500
But when an unrighteous man departed from
her in his anger, he perished because in

01:30:28.500 --> 01:30:29.660
rage he killed his brother.

01:30:30.080 --> 01:30:31.340
It's a reference to Cain and Abel.

01:30:31.700 --> 01:30:32.780
You back up a little bit.

01:30:33.420 --> 01:30:39.680
The Jewish writer is crediting wisdom with
the redemption of Adam.

01:30:42.360 --> 01:30:48.860
Okay, you can see how the lines,
if there is a line, in at least this

01:30:48.860 --> 01:30:55.220
writer's mind, between God and wisdom,
and his throne, and like the other throne,

01:30:55.480 --> 01:30:59.820
and the right hand, you know, all this
kind of stuff, they tend to be blurred.

01:31:00.460 --> 01:31:01.400
They tend to be blurred.

01:31:02.980 --> 01:31:04.740
Just like, you know, in our thinking.

01:31:06.220 --> 01:31:08.920
Have you ever listened to other
Christians, especially when they pray?

01:31:09.820 --> 01:31:11.140
I don't mean to be critical.

01:31:11.300 --> 01:31:13.100
This is just an observation because I do
it too.

01:31:15.180 --> 01:31:18.020
We mix the word God and Jesus all the
time.

01:31:20.160 --> 01:31:21.020
It's just a habit.

01:31:21.160 --> 01:31:22.080
It's just a reflex.

01:31:24.020 --> 01:31:26.700
You know, listen to yourself pray or
listen to someone else, but you'll do it.

01:31:26.760 --> 01:31:27.840
You're just bound to do it.

01:31:28.920 --> 01:31:31.620
We just have it fixed in our mind that
they're just interchangeable.

01:31:33.940 --> 01:31:35.020
And they are.

01:31:35.340 --> 01:31:37.340
We know that they're not the same person.

01:31:37.740 --> 01:31:39.880
I like to say Jesus is but isn't God.

01:31:40.020 --> 01:31:42.720
What I mean by that is he is God,
but he isn't the Father.

01:31:42.860 --> 01:31:45.320
You know, there's this thing going back
and forth, like how do I parse that?

01:31:45.940 --> 01:31:48.760
But we have this interchangeability of the
names.

01:31:49.240 --> 01:31:50.620
And you're seeing that right here.

01:31:51.380 --> 01:31:52.140
Wisdom and God.

01:31:53.180 --> 01:31:57.640
When the earth was flooded because of him,
again, reference to Genesis 6 flood,

01:31:58.420 --> 01:31:59.600
wisdom again saved it.

01:32:00.900 --> 01:32:01.760
Way to go, wisdom.

01:32:03.240 --> 01:32:06.600
When you look back in your Old Testament,
you don't see wisdom in Genesis 6 through

01:32:06.600 --> 01:32:07.300
9, do you?

01:32:08.220 --> 01:32:12.240
But again, they're thinking that it's the
same as saying Yahweh, so what's the big

01:32:12.240 --> 01:32:12.500
deal?

01:32:14.060 --> 01:32:17.140
Steering the righteous man by a paltry
piece of wood.

01:32:18.640 --> 01:32:23.640
Another intertestamental book,
Sirach, reads this way.

01:32:24.120 --> 01:32:25.640
Wisdom praises herself.

01:32:27.100 --> 01:32:28.140
That's kind of interesting.

01:32:28.340 --> 01:32:31.200
Isn't God the only entity that should be
praised?

01:32:33.020 --> 01:32:37.400
You know, the Shema, the Lord our God is
one, and all this sort of again,

01:32:37.720 --> 01:32:43.280
thinking within Judaism, here wisdom
praises herself, tells of her glory in the

01:32:43.280 --> 01:32:44.180
midst of her people.

01:32:45.000 --> 01:32:49.940
In the assembly, this is a reference to
the Divine Council, which I mentioned last

01:32:49.940 --> 01:32:55.660
week, and again, for those that that term
might be unfamiliar to, it's just a

01:32:55.660 --> 01:32:59.540
reference to God surrounded by his
heavenly hosts, sort of God's

01:32:59.540 --> 01:33:05.520
administration or bureaucracy that he runs
the affairs of the cosmos with.

01:33:06.320 --> 01:33:11.100
In the assembly of the Most High,
she opens her mouth, and in the presence

01:33:11.100 --> 01:33:14.320
of his hosts, she tells of her glory.

01:33:15.260 --> 01:33:16.420
That's an interesting meeting.

01:33:17.360 --> 01:33:20.220
I came forth from the mouth of the Most
High.

01:33:20.300 --> 01:33:23.420
Now, wait a minute, I thought the word
came forth from the mouth.

01:33:24.520 --> 01:33:26.880
Again, now we're seeing that blurred.

01:33:27.900 --> 01:33:29.160
I'm telling you this deliberately.

01:33:29.400 --> 01:33:34.500
There's this blurring of wisdom,
word, and even God.

01:33:37.380 --> 01:33:40.860
I came forth from the mouth of the Most
High, and covered the earth like a mist.

01:33:41.460 --> 01:33:46.540
I dwelt in the highest heavens,
and my throne, oh you're gonna love this,

01:33:47.160 --> 01:33:48.880
my throne was in a pillar of cloud.

01:33:50.040 --> 01:33:51.880
Where have we seen that language before?

01:33:55.690 --> 01:33:59.330
Alone I compassed the vault of heaven,
and traversed the depths of the abyss,

01:33:59.530 --> 01:34:03.450
over waves of the sea, over all the earth,
and over every people and nation I have

01:34:03.450 --> 01:34:04.090
held sway.

01:34:07.850 --> 01:34:12.970
Before we get there, cut to the chase a
little bit.

01:34:13.790 --> 01:34:19.390
I could produce a lot of texts for you
about wisdom more generally.

01:34:20.290 --> 01:34:21.150
Think of Proverbs.

01:34:21.530 --> 01:34:22.790
I'm gonna use this as an analogy.

01:34:23.570 --> 01:34:26.210
If you read through the book of Proverbs,
and you probably have many times,

01:34:27.650 --> 01:34:32.450
you may have not even thought about what
you were reading in chapter 8,

01:34:32.690 --> 01:34:37.190
that all of a sudden wisdom is a person
that's a co-creator right there at

01:34:37.190 --> 01:34:37.690
creation.

01:34:38.570 --> 01:34:43.030
In other words, you didn't have this this
sort of backdrop to sort of have the radar

01:34:43.030 --> 01:34:43.670
for that.

01:34:44.930 --> 01:34:49.630
You probably thought, and for really good
reason, and this is accurate as well,

01:34:50.450 --> 01:34:53.150
that wisdom is about right living.

01:34:53.990 --> 01:34:56.830
It's about obeying the commandments of
God.

01:34:57.570 --> 01:35:02.570
In fact, wisdom, literature, is the
commandments of God.

01:35:02.970 --> 01:35:05.130
It's God laying out his will.

01:35:06.330 --> 01:35:13.050
It's giving you the repository of how you
are supposed to live, and not just in a

01:35:13.050 --> 01:35:17.490
heavy-handed way, but really that if you
live according to this way, it's good for

01:35:17.490 --> 01:35:17.610
you.

01:35:17.690 --> 01:35:19.110
It's the best for you.

01:35:19.150 --> 01:35:20.050
God knows what's best.

01:35:22.270 --> 01:35:26.170
The Jews thought of Proverbs that way,
and they thought a wisdom that way.

01:35:26.610 --> 01:35:35.050
In fact, if you really did an in-depth
study of this, to the Jew, wisdom was the

01:35:35.050 --> 01:35:35.430
Torah.

01:35:37.330 --> 01:35:38.710
Wisdom was the law.

01:35:40.210 --> 01:35:46.470
They believed that the law was eternal,
that it was there when God was there,

01:35:46.930 --> 01:35:51.810
that the law given to people and
scripturated, put down in writing,

01:35:52.170 --> 01:35:54.210
was the mind of God.

01:35:55.830 --> 01:35:59.370
That's why you'll hear rabbis or you'll
read rabbis write that everything in the

01:35:59.370 --> 01:36:01.810
world that can ever be known and you need
to know is in the Torah.

01:36:02.950 --> 01:36:03.830
It's in there.

01:36:06.610 --> 01:36:13.450
Now, that's quite a bit different than
what the New Testament writers are going

01:36:13.450 --> 01:36:21.290
to do with it, because the Jew takes all
of that person language and embodiment

01:36:21.290 --> 01:36:27.050
language and transfers it to the Torah,
the law.

01:36:30.330 --> 01:36:36.950
It used to be the case in Judaism,
in Jewish theology, and we could spend a

01:36:36.950 --> 01:36:38.110
lot of time talking about this.

01:36:38.210 --> 01:36:42.110
I have, in fact, probably next week or the
week after we'll get into this.

01:36:42.710 --> 01:36:47.510
Judaism used to have a doctrine of two
powers in heaven, two Yahwehs,

01:36:48.810 --> 01:36:55.770
visible, invisible, two gods, both Yahweh,
so it wasn't polytheistic.

01:36:56.790 --> 01:36:59.970
But that's how they initially parsed some
of this stuff.

01:37:00.550 --> 01:37:03.950
That changed when Christianity came along.

01:37:05.310 --> 01:37:10.930
In the second century, the two powers idea
became a heresy with the birth of the

01:37:10.930 --> 01:37:11.610
early church.

01:37:12.970 --> 01:37:19.370
And even before that, especially after it
became a heresy, Jewish thinkers and

01:37:19.370 --> 01:37:25.710
authorities went back to books like Sirach
and the wisdom of Solomon and the idea

01:37:25.710 --> 01:37:28.970
that this wisdom should be equated with
Torah.

01:37:29.370 --> 01:37:36.490
And they made the law just the focus of
all that they were about.

01:37:36.810 --> 01:37:37.950
It was the law.

01:37:39.030 --> 01:37:40.110
The law was eternal.

01:37:40.590 --> 01:37:46.830
It was as though the law had an existence
and a personality all of its own.

01:37:47.050 --> 01:37:48.750
It was an extension of Yahweh.

01:37:48.850 --> 01:37:51.010
All these ways we think about Jesus.

01:37:51.930 --> 01:37:55.410
So they don't want to go there for very
obvious reasons.

01:37:55.490 --> 01:38:00.710
They don't want it to be a godhead because
that's what Christianity is going to do

01:38:00.710 --> 01:38:01.090
with it.

01:38:01.930 --> 01:38:03.630
It becomes focused on the law.

01:38:04.870 --> 01:38:10.590
Now Paul and some of the other New
Testament writers, what are they

01:38:10.590 --> 01:38:11.610
constantly talking about?

01:38:11.690 --> 01:38:14.430
That righteousness doesn't come by the
law.

01:38:15.330 --> 01:38:19.730
It comes by this person, Jesus.

01:38:21.170 --> 01:38:26.850
And Paul and other writers are going to
say, that person, that second person right

01:38:26.850 --> 01:38:28.310
there is God.

01:38:29.310 --> 01:38:30.870
He is wisdom.

01:38:31.030 --> 01:38:32.170
He is the Word.

01:38:32.270 --> 01:38:33.090
He is the angel.

01:38:33.310 --> 01:38:38.470
All these things that we associate with
embodied deity in the Old Testament.

01:38:38.950 --> 01:38:42.650
So you can see that the conflict is just
transparent.

01:38:43.310 --> 01:38:45.690
It's Christ and the law.

01:38:47.010 --> 01:38:49.390
Okay, which wisdom is it?

01:38:49.810 --> 01:38:51.430
Which word is it?

01:38:52.090 --> 01:38:56.910
Is it this person, Jesus of Nazareth,
or is it the Torah?

01:38:59.430 --> 01:39:02.450
You know, Jesus says, I didn't come to
like do away with the Torah.

01:39:02.610 --> 01:39:03.810
I came to fulfill it.

01:39:04.610 --> 01:39:06.390
I am the embodiment of it.

01:39:07.250 --> 01:39:12.270
Okay, so it really casts some of the New
Testament confrontations that you read

01:39:12.270 --> 01:39:14.250
about in a little bit different way.

01:39:14.310 --> 01:39:16.710
It gives a little bit more flavor.

01:39:16.810 --> 01:39:17.470
Now look at this.

01:39:17.790 --> 01:39:19.310
We have a synoptic passage.

01:39:20.710 --> 01:39:21.870
Luke and Matthew.

01:39:22.370 --> 01:39:27.850
I want to give you a minute or two to read
through these and see if you can pick out

01:39:27.850 --> 01:39:29.350
the difference.

01:39:29.610 --> 01:39:35.470
I've highlighted a section in blue in
each, and there's a real subtle difference

01:39:35.470 --> 01:39:36.350
between the two.

01:39:38.310 --> 01:39:39.070
Take a minute.

01:39:42.660 --> 01:39:44.940
Passages are the same context.

01:39:46.500 --> 01:39:48.220
It's pretty easy to tell that.

01:40:02.050 --> 01:40:03.510
I should step in the middle here.

01:40:04.050 --> 01:40:05.070
I don't know where to go.

01:40:06.070 --> 01:40:09.530
I will go.

01:40:09.610 --> 01:40:11.210
I will go astray here a little bit.

01:40:15.740 --> 01:40:16.800
What's the difference?

01:40:28.660 --> 01:40:29.720
Anybody find it?

01:40:33.740 --> 01:40:34.620
Talk about it.

01:40:34.680 --> 01:40:35.420
Tell me about it.

01:40:36.740 --> 01:40:37.780
What do you see?

01:40:42.150 --> 01:40:42.870
Who's this?

01:40:43.590 --> 01:40:44.650
Let's go with Luke.

01:40:46.470 --> 01:40:47.750
The speaker is Jesus.

01:40:50.050 --> 01:40:55.830
Jesus said, woe to you lawyers also,
for you load people with burdens hard to

01:40:55.830 --> 01:40:55.950
bear.

01:40:56.690 --> 01:40:58.050
He's getting at the law.

01:41:01.030 --> 01:41:04.990
You load people with burdens hard to bear,
and yourselves do not touch the burdens

01:41:04.990 --> 01:41:05.790
with one of your fingers.

01:41:05.910 --> 01:41:10.010
Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the
prophets whom your fathers killed.

01:41:10.790 --> 01:41:14.870
So you are witnesses, and you consent to
the deeds of your fathers, for they killed

01:41:14.870 --> 01:41:16.670
them, and you build their tombs.

01:41:17.510 --> 01:41:22.730
Therefore also the wisdom of God said,
that thing you think is the Torah.

01:41:24.650 --> 01:41:31.410
Therefore also the wisdom of God said,
I will send them prophets and apostles,

01:41:31.790 --> 01:41:34.710
some of whom they will persecute and kill.

01:41:36.030 --> 01:41:40.390
You just killed the people that wisdom
sent.

01:41:41.530 --> 01:41:45.110
Now if that wasn't bad enough,
if that wasn't stick your face in this

01:41:45.110 --> 01:41:48.030
enough, you get to Luke.

01:41:49.390 --> 01:41:50.530
And what does Luke do with it?

01:41:53.090 --> 01:42:00.750
Jesus is cast, he is equated with wisdom
by virtue of the personal pronoun.

01:42:01.510 --> 01:42:04.010
It's no longer wisdom sending the
prophets.

01:42:04.450 --> 01:42:06.270
Jesus said, I sent them.

01:42:08.250 --> 01:42:16.050
Now if you read the synoptics together,
this is a synoptic equation between wisdom

01:42:16.050 --> 01:42:17.810
and Jesus.

01:42:19.910 --> 01:42:23.330
The quotations, everything, it's the same.

01:42:25.010 --> 01:42:30.350
And they both rule out the Torah,
by the way, or at least put the Torah in

01:42:30.350 --> 01:42:31.350
its proper place.

01:42:33.190 --> 01:42:34.270
Book of Hebrews.

01:42:37.690 --> 01:42:45.830
Wisdom of Solomon, you'll note we had this
verse prior, says wisdom is a reflection,

01:42:46.970 --> 01:42:53.590
apogosma, of eternal light, a spotless
mirror of the working of God, and an image

01:42:53.590 --> 01:42:54.250
of his goodness.

01:42:55.170 --> 01:42:59.710
Now the passage below is Hebrews chapter
1, the first few verses.

01:42:59.850 --> 01:43:05.610
Long ago, at many times and in many ways,
God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

01:43:06.570 --> 01:43:12.510
But in these last days he has spoken to us
by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of

01:43:12.510 --> 01:43:17.930
all things, through whom also he created
the world.

01:43:18.890 --> 01:43:23.010
Very clear statement of Jesus,
the agent of creation.

01:43:23.770 --> 01:43:31.750
He is the apogosma of the glory of God and
the exact imprint of his nature,

01:43:32.310 --> 01:43:36.810
and he upholds the universe by the word of
his power.

01:43:37.910 --> 01:43:42.590
Apogosma in the New Testament is used one
time, right here.

01:43:44.530 --> 01:43:50.430
Now the question is, did Paul pluck that
out of his working lexicon of Greek,

01:43:50.770 --> 01:43:52.590
or is he citing something?

01:43:54.170 --> 01:44:01.430
I would suggest he's citing or alluding to
Wisdom of Solomon 726, because Wisdom of

01:44:01.430 --> 01:44:07.290
Solomon 726 is part of the Septuagint,
and it's the only place that that word

01:44:07.290 --> 01:44:07.810
occurs.

01:44:08.830 --> 01:44:14.450
There is no other place for Paul to quote,
to get it, than that passage.

01:44:15.450 --> 01:44:21.690
And again, it is an equation pushing the
Torah aside.

01:44:22.770 --> 01:44:24.850
The Torah is not the co-creator.

01:44:25.350 --> 01:44:28.810
The Torah is not God's agent for
everything.

01:44:30.950 --> 01:44:35.270
Okay, Wisdom is, but Wisdom is Jesus.

01:44:36.970 --> 01:44:38.910
He is the co-creator.

01:44:39.850 --> 01:44:46.430
Again, drawing a very, to this audience,
a very clear equation between the two.

01:44:47.670 --> 01:44:52.150
Now I'm going to show you a couple slides,
and I'm going to stop.

01:44:52.910 --> 01:44:58.430
We can talk about some of the heresies
that I'll bring up, or we can talk about

01:44:58.430 --> 01:45:01.150
some of this, but I wanted to leave plenty
of time for Q&A.

01:45:02.710 --> 01:45:06.170
What I just gave you is in kernel form.

01:45:07.430 --> 01:45:09.710
If anybody asks you, where did the New
Testament writers get this?

01:45:09.870 --> 01:45:10.850
It's the word and wisdom.

01:45:11.730 --> 01:45:12.310
Okay, that's there.

01:45:12.690 --> 01:45:15.090
The New Testament writers are getting
their theology from the Old Testament,

01:45:16.510 --> 01:45:20.830
but they're not, and you notice,
they're not accepting the interpretation

01:45:20.830 --> 01:45:23.730
or the spin that Judaism put on it.

01:45:24.390 --> 01:45:25.950
It's not the law.

01:45:26.890 --> 01:45:28.050
It's this guy.

01:45:28.250 --> 01:45:28.810
It's Jesus.

01:45:29.430 --> 01:45:36.590
Very clear divergence, but yet the
divergence comes from a shared continuity

01:45:36.590 --> 01:45:37.390
of thought.

01:45:38.610 --> 01:45:44.070
Okay, they're just taking it a different
direction, but that much information has

01:45:44.070 --> 01:45:52.070
led to a number of things that you will be
exposed to on TV, magazines, various

01:45:52.070 --> 01:45:54.650
either scholarship or popular culture.

01:45:56.210 --> 01:46:00.250
And I might as well just, I'm going to say
this, how presuppositions, agendas,

01:46:00.390 --> 01:46:03.010
and imprecise thinking can turn the
biblical text toward heresy.

01:46:03.590 --> 01:46:05.390
Here's the presupposition one.

01:46:06.670 --> 01:46:11.450
If you read much in archaeology,
in the history of Israel, archaeology of

01:46:11.450 --> 01:46:13.950
Israel, you will come across this idea.

01:46:14.770 --> 01:46:19.010
Wisdom, sometimes in scholarly literature
referred to as lady wisdom or woman

01:46:19.010 --> 01:46:20.870
wisdom, is the name of a biblical goddess.

01:46:22.690 --> 01:46:27.330
Now that's in my favorite reference work,
DDD, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in

01:46:27.330 --> 01:46:27.690
the Bible.

01:46:28.810 --> 01:46:32.470
It's just wonderful, but I disagree with
that.

01:46:32.650 --> 01:46:39.630
And in the very same article, he has this,
same writer, we cannot provide much

01:46:39.630 --> 01:46:42.530
evidence for the existence of a goddess by
the name of wisdom in the ancient Near

01:46:42.530 --> 01:46:42.650
East.

01:46:42.750 --> 01:46:43.250
No kidding.

01:46:44.510 --> 01:46:46.350
Okay, then why did you say that?

01:46:46.430 --> 01:46:48.690
I'll tell you why he said it, because
everybody says it.

01:46:50.290 --> 01:46:55.110
It's a reflex based on the presupposition
that Israel began its journey

01:46:55.110 --> 01:46:56.170
polytheistically.

01:46:57.650 --> 01:47:01.690
There just isn't really much evidence for
it when it comes to this particular

01:47:01.690 --> 01:47:02.030
argument.

01:47:02.250 --> 01:47:08.930
The only possible evidence is the Aramaic
Ahikar story, which is much later than the

01:47:08.930 --> 01:47:09.350
Old Testament.

01:47:09.990 --> 01:47:11.830
Wisdom, Chokmah, is of the gods.

01:47:11.930 --> 01:47:12.550
This is a quote.

01:47:13.210 --> 01:47:14.910
Indeed, she is precious to the gods.

01:47:14.970 --> 01:47:15.970
Her kingdom is eternal.

01:47:16.150 --> 01:47:19.430
She has been established by Shemayim,
which means the heavens or the heavenly

01:47:19.430 --> 01:47:19.810
one.

01:47:20.430 --> 01:47:22.310
Yes, the Holy Lord has exalted her.

01:47:22.910 --> 01:47:27.270
Well, yeah, that sounds a lot like what's
going on in Proverbs 8.

01:47:27.330 --> 01:47:31.950
You get some of the same language,
but it's later than the Old Testament.

01:47:33.150 --> 01:47:34.470
I'm having a little trouble here.

01:47:34.530 --> 01:47:35.370
I don't know why.

01:47:36.910 --> 01:47:40.050
Doesn't look like anything's going on.

01:47:40.910 --> 01:47:41.690
Let's go back here.

01:47:43.550 --> 01:47:46.290
Here's the problem that comes from
agendas.

01:47:46.770 --> 01:47:48.810
Anyone know who Langdon and Sophie are?

01:47:54.320 --> 01:47:56.480
Sophie's... somebody said it?

01:47:57.460 --> 01:48:02.600
Yes, that's absolutely correct,
and that's deliberate, because this

01:48:02.600 --> 01:48:07.200
quotation comes from a novel where the
lead female character's name is Sophie,

01:48:07.920 --> 01:48:11.140
because he wants you to think of Sophia,
or wisdom.

01:48:11.960 --> 01:48:13.220
This is from the Da Vinci Code.

01:48:14.840 --> 01:48:20.760
Robert Langdon is the male protagonist,
and he's conversing with Sophie Nouveau,

01:48:20.900 --> 01:48:21.700
who is a detective.

01:48:22.940 --> 01:48:26.720
Early Jews believed that the Holy of
Holies in Solomon's Temple housed not only

01:48:26.720 --> 01:48:33.520
God, but also his powerful female equal,
Shekinah, where the Shekinah is how we

01:48:33.520 --> 01:48:36.200
usually say it, really.

01:48:37.920 --> 01:48:44.760
Well, not only would you have trouble
proving that, because Shekinah is really

01:48:44.760 --> 01:48:46.220
another term for the glory.

01:48:46.760 --> 01:48:47.700
Okay, that's what it means.

01:48:47.760 --> 01:48:48.700
It's the glory cloud.

01:48:48.760 --> 01:48:54.800
It has nothing to do with a goddess,
but Shekinah in Hebrew, the noun is

01:48:54.800 --> 01:48:58.100
grammatically feminine, so that's the only
connection.

01:48:58.880 --> 01:49:02.820
And he's trying to equate it with wisdom
in that book, and then run with it,

01:49:02.820 --> 01:49:03.360
which he does.

01:49:04.800 --> 01:49:09.120
But if Dan Brown would have been smart
enough, or if he actually had spent some

01:49:09.120 --> 01:49:13.140
time in the New Testament, he might have
picked up something like this.

01:49:13.260 --> 01:49:18.680
There are New Testament texts where Jesus
may be seen as the glory.

01:49:20.200 --> 01:49:28.220
The conjunction Chi in Acts 7.55 may be
something scholars call exegetical.

01:49:29.120 --> 01:49:33.520
He saw the glory of God, Chi, Jesus,
standing at the right hand of God.

01:49:33.540 --> 01:49:38.600
You could translate that, he saw the glory
of God, namely Jesus, standing at the

01:49:38.600 --> 01:49:39.360
right hand of God.

01:49:40.760 --> 01:49:46.740
That might be what Luke is intending
there, equating Jesus with the glory.

01:49:47.920 --> 01:49:52.280
Another one, the idea of Jesus being
seated at the right hand of the power in

01:49:52.280 --> 01:49:58.240
Mark 14.62, Luke 22.69, however,
may be taken to imply that he was

01:49:58.240 --> 01:50:02.820
enthroned alongside the glory,
since the mystical texts use power as a

01:50:02.820 --> 01:50:03.780
synonym for glory.

01:50:04.540 --> 01:50:10.880
In Ephesians 1.17, we find the phrase,
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,

01:50:11.080 --> 01:50:12.680
the Father of the glory.

01:50:13.300 --> 01:50:15.440
Now that is a literal rendering.

01:50:15.680 --> 01:50:21.220
I don't know what the ESV has,
but in Greek it's hapater, the Father,

01:50:21.700 --> 01:50:26.640
teis, that's the definite article,
the word the, and then dogseis,

01:50:26.700 --> 01:50:26.980
glory.

01:50:27.100 --> 01:50:33.160
If you just literalize that, you have the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father

01:50:33.160 --> 01:50:33.880
of the glory.

01:50:34.880 --> 01:50:36.140
Is that what Paul meant?

01:50:36.620 --> 01:50:36.920
Maybe.

01:50:37.880 --> 01:50:39.700
You could say the Father of glory.

01:50:40.140 --> 01:50:42.720
Does that make as much sense as the Father
of the glory?

01:50:43.200 --> 01:50:44.300
I don't know.

01:50:45.580 --> 01:50:46.780
Could be what Paul's after.

01:50:47.700 --> 01:50:52.060
This one's more familiar, Titus 2.13,
may be translated, the glory of our great

01:50:52.060 --> 01:50:53.880
God and Savior Christ Jesus.

01:50:54.080 --> 01:50:57.680
Here Christ Jesus may be the glory of our
great God and Savior.

01:50:58.660 --> 01:51:03.180
James 2.1, a notoriously difficult verse
to translate, may in effect say,

01:51:04.220 --> 01:51:06.340
our Lord Jesus Christ, the glory.

01:51:06.480 --> 01:51:11.760
Now I know some of you have had some Greek
in here, so this is holding or having or

01:51:11.760 --> 01:51:18.220
holding the faith of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the glory.

01:51:19.140 --> 01:51:20.880
That would be literally what the Greek
says.

01:51:22.260 --> 01:51:28.020
Now what, I don't know, I think the ESV
has holding holding fast the faith of our

01:51:28.020 --> 01:51:29.760
Lord Jesus Christ, period.

01:51:31.060 --> 01:51:35.320
Our Lord Jesus Christ, and then something,
it does something else with the glory.

01:51:35.540 --> 01:51:36.540
You'd have to look it up.

01:51:37.320 --> 01:51:39.300
Lord Jesus Christ, something like that.

01:51:39.980 --> 01:51:43.080
But there's no, you know, punctuation is
an issue there, and there was no

01:51:43.080 --> 01:51:44.340
punctuation originally.

01:51:44.540 --> 01:51:49.300
So is James 2.1, is this another sort of
oblique reference to Jesus being the

01:51:49.300 --> 01:51:49.680
glory?

01:51:51.320 --> 01:51:52.020
Could be.

01:51:52.500 --> 01:51:53.540
I'll tell you what it isn't.

01:51:53.660 --> 01:51:54.480
It isn't a goddess.

01:51:56.460 --> 01:52:00.360
And even if you wanted to link wisdom to
it, we've just seen the New Testament

01:52:00.360 --> 01:52:01.720
writers say wisdom is Jesus.

01:52:02.160 --> 01:52:04.300
So like, what else do you want to talk
about?

01:52:05.820 --> 01:52:06.700
Imprecise thinking.

01:52:07.280 --> 01:52:09.760
Arian Christology and the verb of Proverbs
8.

01:52:10.920 --> 01:52:12.780
Remember this, I brought this up early.

01:52:12.900 --> 01:52:16.100
The Lord possessed me at the beginning of
his work, the first of his acts of old.

01:52:16.140 --> 01:52:20.720
This is Proverbs 8.22, and I noted you get
a real difference in translation here.

01:52:23.020 --> 01:52:27.280
Obviously our Christology does not depend
on the translation of one verse,

01:52:27.420 --> 01:52:31.800
but this verse became an item of
discussion, you could imagine,

01:52:32.380 --> 01:52:40.580
in the Nicene Era, okay, where the debate
was, Arian Christology said that Jesus was

01:52:40.580 --> 01:52:45.240
the very highest of all things that God
ever brought into existence.

01:52:46.520 --> 01:52:48.960
Higher than anything else, but he was
created.

01:52:49.100 --> 01:52:56.720
In other words, the Arian Creed was,
there was a time when the Son was not.

01:52:58.100 --> 01:53:03.020
Okay, whereas Orthodox theology,
what came out of the Nicene Creed,

01:53:04.000 --> 01:53:07.340
said no, no, no, there wasn't a time when
the Son was not.

01:53:07.400 --> 01:53:08.340
The Son is eternal.

01:53:09.680 --> 01:53:14.360
And Proverbs 8 became a focus of this,
because it's like, well look, if Jesus is

01:53:14.360 --> 01:53:17.380
wisdom, here you have this verb,
in Hebrew it's kanah.

01:53:18.520 --> 01:53:21.140
I just want to see if this will open here.

01:53:22.020 --> 01:53:26.540
Hebrew is kanah, and it actually does have
a very wide range of usages.

01:53:29.420 --> 01:53:38.080
My software here... there is, notice
number one and number two, this lexicon

01:53:38.080 --> 01:53:41.140
believes that there are two kanahs,
they're homonyms.

01:53:41.260 --> 01:53:44.320
Hebrew has homonyms just like English
does, just like any other language does.

01:53:45.140 --> 01:53:47.180
And you'll notice some of the options.

01:53:47.560 --> 01:53:50.360
Kanah can mean acquire, it's used of
acquiring a field.

01:53:51.140 --> 01:53:52.240
Kanah, a field.

01:53:53.180 --> 01:53:54.400
It's used of buying,

01:53:58.340 --> 01:53:58.800
purchasing.

01:53:58.800 --> 01:54:03.080
Buy as a wife, God redeemed, it can be
used for that.

01:54:03.220 --> 01:54:05.360
Again, there's an exchange there.

01:54:06.000 --> 01:54:10.440
Down here, with this kanah, it can mean
create.

01:54:10.820 --> 01:54:17.120
Genesis 14, God is called, El Elyon is
called the kanaher.

01:54:18.660 --> 01:54:22.000
The kanah, the creator of heaven and
earth, so it means create there.

01:54:22.800 --> 01:54:24.000
And a few other passages.

01:54:24.480 --> 01:54:30.360
And Eve says, I have kanahed a man with
the help of the Lord.

01:54:31.220 --> 01:54:33.420
So, produced, given birth to.

01:54:35.540 --> 01:54:37.380
Loosely created, okay, obviously.

01:54:38.140 --> 01:54:38.860
It's new life.

01:54:40.140 --> 01:54:44.040
So, this became a real focus of debate.

01:54:44.480 --> 01:54:46.340
And I like to think of it this way.

01:54:47.500 --> 01:54:54.220
All of those are legitimate translations,
but you have to translate in context.

01:54:54.300 --> 01:54:55.480
And what's the overall context?

01:54:56.360 --> 01:55:00.960
With wisdom, you see the ESV has
possessed, that comes from the acquired

01:55:00.960 --> 01:55:01.480
idea.

01:55:02.260 --> 01:55:05.700
I don't really like that one, because it
implies that there was a time when God

01:55:05.700 --> 01:55:09.600
didn't have wisdom and he had to either
possess it or keep it in, like it was kind

01:55:09.600 --> 01:55:10.120
of escape.

01:55:11.380 --> 01:55:13.820
Brought forth is kind of nice language.

01:55:15.720 --> 01:55:21.540
God had wisdom and he brought it forth
when he needed it to use it, the agent of

01:55:21.540 --> 01:55:22.160
his creation.

01:55:23.160 --> 01:55:28.180
What they really came down to was the
difference between being born and being

01:55:28.180 --> 01:55:28.800
begotten.

01:55:30.160 --> 01:55:32.840
Now, in our parlance, we don't really
distinguish that.

01:55:33.500 --> 01:55:34.800
But the language of the day, they did.

01:55:34.880 --> 01:55:36.120
I like to say it this way.

01:55:36.900 --> 01:55:38.380
Is wisdom eternal or not?

01:55:38.800 --> 01:55:43.200
Okay, wisdom is an... you look at
Proverbs, it's an attribute of God that

01:55:43.200 --> 01:55:47.360
gets personified, as we've just seen
tonight in Proverbs 8 and elsewhere.

01:55:48.400 --> 01:55:51.600
So, I think the question should be,
as to which is the right translation,

01:55:51.760 --> 01:55:53.100
should take this into context.

01:55:53.740 --> 01:55:58.120
Was there ever a time when God lacked
wisdom?

01:55:59.720 --> 01:56:04.000
And if there was, then my next question
is, how was he still God?

01:56:05.060 --> 01:56:09.000
In other words, you have a God who doesn't
have wisdom at some point.

01:56:09.600 --> 01:56:12.580
That doesn't make much logical or
theological sense.

01:56:14.360 --> 01:56:19.520
And that was the view, that was really the
question, the issue that won the day at

01:56:19.520 --> 01:56:22.380
Nicaea, because we can't have God not
having wisdom.

01:56:22.500 --> 01:56:24.640
Wisdom has to be eternal, because God's
eternal.

01:56:25.500 --> 01:56:27.500
How can it be an attribute of God and it
isn't eternal?

01:56:27.660 --> 01:56:29.320
Because if he didn't have it, then he
wouldn't be God.

01:56:29.600 --> 01:56:31.040
It doesn't make any sense.

01:56:32.020 --> 01:56:36.680
And so, Athanasius championed that
explanation.

01:56:38.460 --> 01:56:44.380
And so, that he became in history,
the articulator of what we have as

01:56:44.380 --> 01:56:45.740
Orthodox Christology now.

01:56:46.200 --> 01:56:49.440
And you have to match that against a whole
lot of other verses that do talk about

01:56:49.440 --> 01:56:54.300
Jesus being an eternal being, all these
Godhead verses and whatnot.

01:56:54.800 --> 01:56:58.380
So, the context is full and it's there,
it's not contrived.

01:57:02.180 --> 01:57:09.620
But tonight, we want to focus on Matthew's
use of Isaiah 7, Isaiah 7 more broadly,

01:57:10.560 --> 01:57:12.040
the whole virgin birth question.

01:57:12.120 --> 01:57:16.780
This is one of those topics that I'll just
telegraph this up front.

01:57:16.780 --> 01:57:23.880
Now, the critics, you know, we would call
them theological liberals.

01:57:25.260 --> 01:57:31.360
The critics of the virgin birth idea have
some legitimate points to make.

01:57:32.180 --> 01:57:38.420
But really, only because the way we talk
about the virgin birth is very easy for

01:57:38.420 --> 01:57:39.140
them to pick at.

01:57:39.870 --> 01:57:46.440
I file this topic in my folder that is
titled, Affirming the Obvious,

01:57:46.520 --> 01:57:48.740
but then Extrapolating to the Unnecessary.

01:57:49.860 --> 01:57:56.440
And that is what liberal, theologically
liberal critics do with a lot of what

01:57:56.440 --> 01:57:57.600
we're going to talk about tonight.

01:57:58.300 --> 01:58:02.220
I'm going to show you where their thinking
comes from.

01:58:02.320 --> 01:58:05.680
And in many respects, their thinking is
rooted in the text.

01:58:06.600 --> 01:58:10.520
But like I said, it's affirming the
obvious, what's there, and then

01:58:10.520 --> 01:58:14.360
extrapolating to the unnecessary because
of their presuppositions.

01:58:15.440 --> 01:58:16.800
So here's Isaiah 7.

01:58:17.500 --> 01:58:21.380
I want to take a little time for you to
read through it.

01:58:21.600 --> 01:58:22.500
I'm going to read through it.

01:58:22.500 --> 01:58:23.340
You can follow along.

01:58:23.400 --> 01:58:25.040
I'm going to try to do this for the sake
of the audio.

01:58:26.740 --> 01:58:30.760
And I have certain things highlighted that
I will come back to that I want you to pay

01:58:30.760 --> 01:58:33.100
special attention to or fix in your mind.

01:58:33.820 --> 01:58:38.760
In the days of Ahaz, that's the first
thing, first line that you need to fix in

01:58:38.760 --> 01:58:44.680
your mind, the son of Jotham, the son of
Uzziah, king of Judah, reason,

01:58:44.920 --> 01:58:50.060
the king of Syria and Pekah, the son of
Remaliah, the king of Israel, came up to

01:58:50.060 --> 01:58:54.300
Jerusalem to wage war against it,
but could not yet mount an attack against

01:58:54.300 --> 01:58:54.560
it.

01:58:54.560 --> 01:58:58.960
When the house of David was told,
Syria is in league with Ephraim,

01:58:59.900 --> 01:59:02.960
the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his
people shook as the trees of the forest

01:59:02.960 --> 01:59:04.040
shake before the wind.

01:59:04.660 --> 01:59:09.780
And the Lord said to Isaiah, go out to
meet Ahaz, you and Shear Yashuv,

01:59:10.320 --> 01:59:15.220
your son, at the end of the conduit of the
upper pool on the highway to the washer's

01:59:15.220 --> 01:59:15.480
field.

01:59:15.600 --> 01:59:16.280
So here we are.

01:59:17.260 --> 01:59:21.640
We're in a specific point of time,
the reign of King Ahaz in Judah,

01:59:22.600 --> 01:59:27.680
which is the eighth century BC,
700s for round numbers.

01:59:29.860 --> 01:59:31.040
And he's under threat.

01:59:31.520 --> 01:59:35.420
The narrative continues and say to him,
Isaiah say to Ahaz, be careful,

01:59:36.100 --> 01:59:41.660
be quiet, do not fear and do not let your
heart be faint because of these two

01:59:41.660 --> 01:59:43.880
smoldering stumps of firebrands.

01:59:43.880 --> 01:59:46.280
It's very pejorative against the enemy.

01:59:47.820 --> 01:59:51.340
You know, don't worry about these two
smoldering stumps at the fierce anger of

01:59:51.340 --> 01:59:56.360
reason in Syria and the son of Ramaliah,
because Syria with Ephraim and the son of

01:59:56.360 --> 02:00:00.940
Ramaliah has devised evil against you
saying, let's go up against Judah and

02:00:00.940 --> 02:00:06.900
terrify it and let us conquer it for
ourselves and set up the son of Tavael as

02:00:06.900 --> 02:00:07.940
king in the midst of it.

02:00:08.380 --> 02:00:09.340
That was their threat.

02:00:09.540 --> 02:00:12.720
And God says, don't worry about that,
says the Lord God.

02:00:13.840 --> 02:00:15.000
It shall not stand.

02:00:15.180 --> 02:00:20.660
It shall not come to pass for the head of
Syria is Damascus and the head of Damascus

02:00:20.660 --> 02:00:21.220
is reason.

02:00:21.500 --> 02:00:26.560
And within 65 years, Ephraim will be
shattered from being a people.

02:00:27.160 --> 02:00:28.800
You don't even have to worry about him
anymore.

02:00:29.500 --> 02:00:32.960
Ephraim, of course, is the northern
kingdom, also in the Old Testament known

02:00:32.960 --> 02:00:33.620
as Israel.

02:00:35.480 --> 02:00:37.940
This is after the kingdom has split into
two.

02:00:38.060 --> 02:00:41.620
The monarchy is divided, 10 tribes in the
north, two tribes in the south.

02:00:42.460 --> 02:00:47.840
The 10 northern tribes, northern kingdom,
are referred to as Israel or Ephraim or

02:00:47.840 --> 02:00:49.240
Samaria in your Old Testament.

02:00:49.380 --> 02:00:56.440
So when you see those terms in books of
the Old Testament after the death of

02:00:56.440 --> 02:00:59.800
Solomon, that's what it's talking about,
that northern kingdom.

02:01:00.620 --> 02:01:02.780
65 years from now, the northern kingdom is
going to be history.

02:01:04.100 --> 02:01:06.860
And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of

02:01:06.860 --> 02:01:07.420
Ramaliah.

02:01:07.900 --> 02:01:10.780
If you are not firm in faith, you will not
be firm at all.

02:01:14.070 --> 02:01:20.690
And again, the Lord spoke to Ahaz,
ask a sign of the Lord your God.

02:01:21.590 --> 02:01:25.190
Let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.

02:01:26.290 --> 02:01:27.790
So Ahaz is threatened.

02:01:29.450 --> 02:01:31.090
God says, Isaiah, come here.

02:01:31.130 --> 02:01:33.070
I got a message for you to deliver to King
Ahaz.

02:01:33.230 --> 02:01:33.950
Tell him not to worry.

02:01:34.870 --> 02:01:35.750
It's not going to happen.

02:01:36.210 --> 02:01:37.050
He's going to be okay.

02:01:38.630 --> 02:01:46.230
And if he's a little dubious of that,
a little nervous, tell him to ask for a

02:01:46.230 --> 02:01:46.570
sign.

02:01:48.390 --> 02:01:49.790
And it can be anything.

02:01:50.810 --> 02:01:53.410
Sheol, the lowest, it's up to the highest
heavens.

02:01:54.350 --> 02:01:55.310
Tell him to ask for a sign.

02:01:55.430 --> 02:01:58.970
But Ahaz said, I'm not going to do that.

02:01:59.310 --> 02:02:01.830
I will not ask, and I will not put the
Lord to the test.

02:02:01.950 --> 02:02:05.390
Now, whether he was being really pious
here or not, you know, we don't really

02:02:05.390 --> 02:02:05.710
know.

02:02:06.990 --> 02:02:10.630
This might be out of piety that he's
saying, I'm not going to do that.

02:02:13.270 --> 02:02:18.450
And he said, God said then, through
Isaiah, hear then.

02:02:18.550 --> 02:02:19.850
Okay, you're not going to ask for a sign?

02:02:19.850 --> 02:02:20.070
Okay.

02:02:21.450 --> 02:02:22.830
Hear then, O house of David.

02:02:22.870 --> 02:02:26.270
It's a reference to the dynasty of which
Ahaz is a part.

02:02:28.290 --> 02:02:33.030
Hear then, O house of David, is it too
little for you to weary men that you weary

02:02:33.030 --> 02:02:33.990
my God also?

02:02:36.290 --> 02:02:39.830
Therefore, the Lord himself will give you
a sign.

02:02:40.930 --> 02:02:46.690
Behold, the Alma, translated here in the
ESV as Virgin.

02:02:48.290 --> 02:02:54.950
Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear
a son and shall call his name Immanuel.

02:02:58.500 --> 02:03:05.220
He shall eat curds and honey when he knows
how to refuse the evil and choose the

02:03:05.220 --> 02:03:05.520
good.

02:03:07.120 --> 02:03:11.080
Because by the time this child is old
enough to eat solid food and know the

02:03:11.080 --> 02:03:15.660
difference between right and wrong,
again, it's within that 65 year range.

02:03:17.120 --> 02:03:20.660
For before the boy knows how to refuse the
evil and choose the good, the land whose

02:03:20.660 --> 02:03:22.340
two kings you dread will be deserted.

02:03:23.700 --> 02:03:24.860
They're going to be deserted.

02:03:26.080 --> 02:03:30.760
And again, in 65 years, they're both going
to be toast, as we read before.

02:03:31.820 --> 02:03:36.320
The Lord will bring upon you and upon your
people and upon your father's house such

02:03:36.320 --> 02:03:40.380
days as have not come since the day that
Ephraim departed from Judah.

02:03:41.360 --> 02:03:42.780
The king of Assyria.

02:03:44.460 --> 02:03:47.140
Now, here are the questions to start with.

02:03:47.280 --> 02:03:51.080
We read through the bulk of the chapter,
the important part.

02:03:53.600 --> 02:04:00.580
If the prophecy was for Ahaz, that's what
the text says, in the days of Ahaz,

02:04:00.700 --> 02:04:03.360
speak unto Ahaz, say to Ahaz, do the...
okay.

02:04:04.340 --> 02:04:10.860
If the prophecy was for Ahaz, why would he
assume, why would Ahaz assume the woman

02:04:10.860 --> 02:04:11.540
was a virgin?

02:04:12.460 --> 02:04:14.100
Does he have any reason to do that?

02:04:15.580 --> 02:04:17.540
Do we need a virgin for the prophecy?

02:04:18.200 --> 02:04:25.920
In other words, if the prophecy was for
Ahaz, number two, would he have expected

02:04:25.920 --> 02:04:27.980
the child was deity?

02:04:28.600 --> 02:04:34.240
In other words, is there any reason to
expect that the child, who is the sign,

02:04:35.880 --> 02:04:37.940
would be incarnate deity?

02:04:38.860 --> 02:04:44.020
Now, we have the name Immanuel given here,
so we need to talk about that.

02:04:45.340 --> 02:04:50.760
Regardless of what Immanuel means or can
mean, the question is still there.

02:04:51.600 --> 02:04:55.740
Is there any reason Ahaz would expect
incarnate deity to be the fulfillment of

02:04:55.740 --> 02:04:56.420
this prophecy?

02:04:57.560 --> 02:05:04.940
Third, does the word translated virgin,
Alma, mean virgin?

02:05:05.940 --> 02:05:09.880
Or does it mean something else,
like the RSV has young maiden,

02:05:10.120 --> 02:05:11.720
it's a very common translation.

02:05:12.980 --> 02:05:18.840
Four, if the prophecy was fulfilled in
Isaiah's, and of course Ahaz's own day,

02:05:18.840 --> 02:05:26.640
if it was fulfilled in their lifetimes,
how could Matthew quote it as referring to

02:05:26.640 --> 02:05:26.960
Jesus?

02:05:28.520 --> 02:05:30.760
Okay, those are the four fundamental
questions.

02:05:31.800 --> 02:05:41.740
I think you can already see that if
someone wanted to be an antagonistic

02:05:41.740 --> 02:05:47.140
toward this tenet of Christianity,
of the Christian faith and doctrine,

02:05:49.160 --> 02:05:53.440
critical of the virgin birth, it's pretty
easy to do that.

02:05:54.540 --> 02:05:58.520
Because all you got to do is go back to
Isaiah 7 and read it and ask these

02:05:58.520 --> 02:06:03.940
questions and say, you know, you tell me
when the prophecy was supposed to be

02:06:03.940 --> 02:06:05.240
fulfilled and who it was for.

02:06:05.920 --> 02:06:11.320
And it's very easy to sow the seeds of
doubt about what Matthew's doing.

02:06:12.420 --> 02:06:17.140
You know, it's easy for us on the other
hand to say, well, you know, God just told

02:06:17.140 --> 02:06:21.560
him, you know, hey, that prophecy over
there, you need to apply that to Jesus.

02:06:21.820 --> 02:06:25.860
And in the context of inspiration,
there's nothing wrong with that.

02:06:25.920 --> 02:06:29.460
But it doesn't actually answer the other
questions, is the point.

02:06:30.840 --> 02:06:38.240
So we get websites like this, a religious
Santa Claus tale from BeliefNet.

02:06:38.860 --> 02:06:43.720
I know you're probably thinking we ought
to call that unbelief net, but it is

02:06:43.720 --> 02:06:44.240
BeliefNet.

02:06:44.380 --> 02:06:49.820
BeliefNet is a, it's not a Christian site,
it's pretty much a kind of a hodgepodge of

02:06:49.820 --> 02:06:50.960
spiritual anything.

02:06:52.300 --> 02:06:58.120
And in this particular article for the
Christmas season, the birth narrative of

02:06:58.120 --> 02:06:59.640
Jesus shouldn't be taken literally.

02:07:00.360 --> 02:07:03.320
And it's going to go in to all these
questions.

02:07:03.520 --> 02:07:10.680
And the writer of this particular article
quotes a lot from a fellow named Bishop

02:07:10.680 --> 02:07:12.800
John Shelby Spong.

02:07:13.000 --> 02:07:15.380
I don't know if any of you have heard of
Bishop Spong before.

02:07:16.260 --> 02:07:22.140
He gets quoted practically every season in
Time and Newsweek and, you know,

02:07:22.180 --> 02:07:26.120
major news periodicals because they always
have to truck out some sort of article

02:07:26.120 --> 02:07:31.480
about the Christmas season, you know,
to sort of make fun of it or cast the

02:07:31.480 --> 02:07:32.500
seeds of doubt about it.

02:07:32.580 --> 02:07:38.600
And Spong, who is Episcopalian,
I believe, is sort of a chief proponent of

02:07:38.600 --> 02:07:42.960
the idea that the virgin birth account is
just nonsense.

02:07:44.240 --> 02:07:45.480
And so he gets quoted a lot.

02:07:45.540 --> 02:07:47.240
He's very widely published and read.

02:07:49.140 --> 02:07:51.420
In this article, we have this paragraph.

02:07:52.600 --> 02:07:54.440
And here's sort of the crux of the matter.

02:07:54.820 --> 02:08:00.580
This text, Isaiah, and of course,
Matthew, Isaiah 7, Matthew 2, has two

02:08:00.580 --> 02:08:01.080
problems.

02:08:01.680 --> 02:08:05.540
First, Matthew did not apparently read
Hebrew, which is really a dumb thing to

02:08:05.540 --> 02:08:09.460
say, but I'm going to try to get through
this paragraph without poking fun at other

02:08:09.460 --> 02:08:09.760
things.

02:08:09.860 --> 02:08:10.600
I'll just stick to it.

02:08:12.140 --> 02:08:14.460
First, Matthew apparently did not read
Hebrew.

02:08:14.600 --> 02:08:17.500
So he quoted his text or this text from a
Greek translation.

02:08:18.840 --> 02:08:22.060
If he had gone to the Hebrew original,
he would have discovered that the word

02:08:22.060 --> 02:08:23.720
virgin is not in the book of Isaiah.

02:08:24.760 --> 02:08:28.540
Isaiah used the Hebrew word Alma,
which means simply young woman.

02:08:29.000 --> 02:08:33.000
He did not use the word Betula,
which means virgin.

02:08:34.040 --> 02:08:38.680
Isaiah's text announces that the woman is
with child, which hardly qualifies her to

02:08:38.680 --> 02:08:39.260
be a virgin.

02:08:39.620 --> 02:08:42.820
Of course, the presuppositions there are
very transparent.

02:08:43.820 --> 02:08:48.000
When Isaiah was translated into Greek,
the translators rendered Alma with the

02:08:48.000 --> 02:08:49.300
Greek word Parthenos.

02:08:50.160 --> 02:08:54.020
Only in that Greek word does the hint of
virginity enter the text.

02:08:54.080 --> 02:08:55.400
And that is the key sentence.

02:08:56.480 --> 02:09:01.160
Only in that Greek word does the hint of
virginity enter the text.

02:09:02.440 --> 02:09:08.860
So basically, they're saying Matthew got
this idea from a mistranslation of the Old

02:09:08.860 --> 02:09:09.280
Testament.

02:09:09.580 --> 02:09:11.420
There is no virgin birth doctrine.

02:09:12.960 --> 02:09:15.220
Of course, he's referring to the
Septuagint.

02:09:16.440 --> 02:09:18.460
You know, all you got to do is just go
back to the Septuagint.

02:09:18.600 --> 02:09:19.680
Yeah, it's Parthenos.

02:09:19.840 --> 02:09:23.840
And you know, it would be very easy to say
that's what Matthew's quoting.

02:09:24.240 --> 02:09:29.500
That dismisses the Jewishness of Matthew,
which is very, very clear in other

02:09:29.500 --> 02:09:29.940
regards.

02:09:30.040 --> 02:09:33.500
But, you know, let's just say that he
quoted from the Septuagint.

02:09:33.700 --> 02:09:33.960
Fine.

02:09:36.710 --> 02:09:37.870
Let's talk about Alma.

02:09:38.650 --> 02:09:45.630
Other than Isaiah, chapter 7, the word
Alma in the feminine, Alma is the feminine

02:09:45.630 --> 02:09:53.170
noun, there is a masculine elem,
which refers to a young boy, as Alma

02:09:53.170 --> 02:09:54.510
refers to a young girl.

02:09:55.710 --> 02:09:57.070
But other, let's stick with the feminine.

02:09:58.150 --> 02:09:59.610
It occurs six other times.

02:09:59.750 --> 02:10:03.230
Now, I want you to see a few things here.

02:10:03.570 --> 02:10:09.070
This search, rather than you just taking
my word for it, here we have the lemma,

02:10:09.630 --> 02:10:12.250
it's elem there, because that is the form.

02:10:14.090 --> 02:10:16.570
And we'll see where this occurs.

02:10:17.550 --> 02:10:22.990
I want you to just take a quick note of
where the feminine occurs.

02:10:24.110 --> 02:10:26.270
We have Genesis 24, 43.

02:10:27.710 --> 02:10:29.470
That is Alma.

02:10:30.390 --> 02:10:31.870
Exodus 2, 8.

02:10:32.270 --> 02:10:35.130
This is the story of, you know,
the little girl following the basket,

02:10:36.450 --> 02:10:36.830
Miriam.

02:10:36.990 --> 02:10:38.070
So that's the feminine.

02:10:38.930 --> 02:10:42.390
1 Samuel 17, there is the masculine
reference.

02:10:43.070 --> 02:10:47.290
1 Samuel 20, that's David and Jonathan,
that's the masculine reference.

02:10:49.070 --> 02:10:53.070
1 Chronicles 15 is the term used in a
proper name of a place.

02:10:54.470 --> 02:10:56.570
Same thing with 46.1.

02:10:57.270 --> 02:10:59.330
Psalm 68, 25.

02:11:00.150 --> 02:11:01.890
Proverbs 30, 19.

02:11:03.450 --> 02:11:04.250
These are Alma.

02:11:04.730 --> 02:11:06.770
Song of Solomon 1, 3.

02:11:07.970 --> 02:11:08.530
Alma.

02:11:08.750 --> 02:11:10.370
Song of Solomon 6, 8.

02:11:10.570 --> 02:11:10.890
Alma.

02:11:11.090 --> 02:11:12.530
There's Isaiah 7, 14.

02:11:13.830 --> 02:11:18.830
And Ezekiel 22, 26 is sort of a verbal use
of the term.

02:11:19.870 --> 02:11:25.610
So, you don't have very many occurrences
of Alma.

02:11:25.950 --> 02:11:27.510
Now, here's the question.

02:11:29.010 --> 02:11:30.290
We're going to go back to the verse.

02:11:30.750 --> 02:11:36.730
Is there any indication in all the
occurrences of sexual status?

02:11:37.450 --> 02:11:46.890
In other words, is there anything in the
context of any of these that tells you the

02:11:46.890 --> 02:11:49.030
sexual status of the person in question?

02:11:50.130 --> 02:11:51.210
You can write them down.

02:11:51.290 --> 02:11:54.870
You can look through them as I go through
the presentation here.

02:11:56.190 --> 02:11:59.430
The answer to that question is no,
with one exception.

02:12:00.390 --> 02:12:06.030
The exception is Song of Solomon 6,
8.

02:12:06.910 --> 02:12:11.070
There are 60 queens, 80 concubines,
and virgins without number.

02:12:12.170 --> 02:12:15.350
On the surface, that doesn't look like a
sexual reference.

02:12:15.510 --> 02:12:22.790
What I mean by this, the point I'm angling
for here is the word itself doesn't

02:12:22.790 --> 02:12:27.870
telegraph, doesn't point to virginity,
the word in and of itself.

02:12:28.410 --> 02:12:31.590
It also doesn't telegraph non-virginity.

02:12:32.050 --> 02:12:34.110
You need the context.

02:12:34.370 --> 02:12:37.850
You need some sort of context for what's
going on.

02:12:38.850 --> 02:12:45.450
Now, in Song of Solomon 6, 8, we have the
plural, a la mote, 60 queens, 80

02:12:45.450 --> 02:12:48.530
concubines, and virgins without number.

02:12:49.330 --> 02:12:51.110
And I'm going to go to Exodus 2.

02:12:52.150 --> 02:12:53.870
Let's see if I can just click there.

02:12:54.990 --> 02:12:58.830
Because there's a very similar idea,
let me enlarge this a little bit,

02:12:59.530 --> 02:13:01.430
to that breakdown here.

02:13:02.450 --> 02:13:05.790
And I want you to be able to follow my
thought here, my thinking.

02:13:06.050 --> 02:13:06.990
I'm going to make it even bigger.

02:13:09.590 --> 02:13:15.090
This is Esther's, you know, tryout,
trial period.

02:13:16.070 --> 02:13:23.450
And the same kind of grouping,
queens, concubines, virgins, is going to

02:13:23.450 --> 02:13:25.990
show up in this passage in a significant
way.

02:13:27.270 --> 02:13:31.890
After these things, when the anger of King
Ahasuerus had abated, he remembered

02:13:31.890 --> 02:13:36.090
Vashti, what she had done and what had
been decreed against her.

02:13:36.650 --> 02:13:37.790
I'm just going to set a link here.

02:13:39.050 --> 02:13:43.350
Then the king's young men who attended him
said, let beautiful young virgins be

02:13:43.350 --> 02:13:44.910
sought out for the king.

02:13:45.850 --> 02:13:50.690
Now, if we go to the reverse inner linear,
let's go to Esther 2.

02:13:51.410 --> 02:13:56.050
Again, I'm doing this because I don't want
anybody who's watching the video later to

02:13:56.050 --> 02:13:57.350
just take my word for it.

02:13:57.890 --> 02:14:00.250
I'm going to show you the Hebrew
underneath.

02:14:05.060 --> 02:14:10.120
The king's young men who attended him,
let beautiful young virgins be sought out

02:14:10.120 --> 02:14:10.720
for the king.

02:14:11.740 --> 02:14:14.320
Here for the word virgins is betula.

02:14:14.960 --> 02:14:20.060
Now that is the word, if you remember the
quote from Beliefnet, where the writer

02:14:20.060 --> 02:14:23.800
said, you know, Isaiah didn't use betula,
he used Alma.

02:14:24.000 --> 02:14:25.580
Betula is the word for virgins.

02:14:26.680 --> 02:14:30.820
Betula is a more precise word for virgin.

02:14:31.000 --> 02:14:37.020
Even in some context for betula,
it's not clear what the status is,

02:14:37.080 --> 02:14:40.300
but there are certain instances of betula.

02:14:40.560 --> 02:14:44.420
For instance, some of the laws in
Leviticus and Deuteronomy, where it's very

02:14:44.420 --> 02:14:47.020
clear that the betula has not known a man.

02:14:47.400 --> 02:14:52.840
Okay, it's kind of a familiar reference,
the familiar euphemism for sexual

02:14:52.840 --> 02:14:53.360
intercourse.

02:14:54.540 --> 02:14:57.280
So there's a point to be made there.

02:14:57.820 --> 02:15:04.460
And we have naara, so we have naara and
betula, young virgins, beautiful young

02:15:04.460 --> 02:15:04.940
virgins.

02:15:05.580 --> 02:15:10.180
In verse two, we read on, let the king
appoint

02:15:17.800 --> 02:15:22.880
officers in all the provinces of his
kingdom to gather all the beautiful young

02:15:22.880 --> 02:15:27.820
virgins, there we have it again,
betula, naara, to the harem in Susa,

02:15:27.960 --> 02:15:33.120
the capital, under custody of Haggai,
the king's eunuch, who's in charge of the

02:15:33.120 --> 02:15:33.380
women.

02:15:34.780 --> 02:15:36.620
Let their cosmetics be given to them.

02:15:36.620 --> 02:15:42.520
Let the young woman, singular,
naara, who pleases the king, be queen

02:15:42.520 --> 02:15:43.580
instead of Vashti.

02:15:43.700 --> 02:15:45.780
Again, you're probably familiar with the
Esther story.

02:15:46.820 --> 02:15:48.440
This pleased the king and he did so.

02:15:48.960 --> 02:15:54.120
Now there was a Jew in Susa, the citadel,
whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair,

02:15:54.300 --> 02:15:59.560
son of Shemai, son of Kish, a Benjamite,
who had been carried away from Jerusalem

02:15:59.560 --> 02:16:04.120
among the captives, carried away with
Jeconiah, king of Judah, so on and so

02:16:04.120 --> 02:16:04.480
forth.

02:16:05.020 --> 02:16:08.840
He was bringing up Hadassah, Esther,
the daughter of his uncle, for she had

02:16:08.840 --> 02:16:09.980
neither father or mother.

02:16:11.000 --> 02:16:15.080
The young woman, the naara, had a
beautiful figure and was lovely to look

02:16:15.080 --> 02:16:15.320
at.

02:16:15.460 --> 02:16:17.320
So he said, we'll try Esther out.

02:16:18.640 --> 02:16:22.300
So when the king's order and his edict
were proclaimed, when many young women,

02:16:22.480 --> 02:16:30.320
naara, were gathered in Susa, the citadel
in custody of Haggai, Esther goes into the

02:16:30.320 --> 02:16:31.580
custody of Haggai.

02:16:32.620 --> 02:16:36.060
Esther was also taken to the king's
palace, put into the custody of Haggai,

02:16:36.140 --> 02:16:37.260
who had charge of the women.

02:16:38.520 --> 02:16:40.840
And the young woman pleased him and won
his favor.

02:16:41.720 --> 02:16:44.780
And he quickly provided her with her
cosmetics, her fortune of food,

02:16:44.840 --> 02:16:45.860
all the stuff she needed.

02:16:48.380 --> 02:16:54.380
Esther had not made known her people or
kindred, for Mordecai had commanded her

02:16:54.380 --> 02:16:55.380
not to make it known.

02:16:56.300 --> 02:17:00.340
Every day Mordecai walked in the front of
the court of the harem to see what was

02:17:00.340 --> 02:17:01.720
going on, how everything's going.

02:17:03.280 --> 02:17:10.040
Now when the turn came for each young
woman, naara, to go in to King Ahasuerus,

02:17:10.560 --> 02:17:15.640
after being 12 months under the
regulations for the women, since this was

02:17:15.640 --> 02:17:20.800
the regular period of their beautifying,
six months of oil of myrrh and six months

02:17:20.800 --> 02:17:23.520
with spices and ointments from... look,
these were not ugly women.

02:17:23.900 --> 02:17:25.900
They didn't need six months for this.

02:17:26.400 --> 02:17:28.820
What was the 12-month trial period for?

02:17:30.900 --> 02:17:33.740
See if they're pregnant, okay?

02:17:34.400 --> 02:17:35.280
Easy test.

02:17:35.680 --> 02:17:37.000
We'll just keep you here for 12 months.

02:17:37.700 --> 02:17:40.000
Can't fake your way out of that,
all right?

02:17:43.290 --> 02:17:47.230
When the young woman went into the king in
this way, she was given whatever she

02:17:47.230 --> 02:17:51.090
desired to take with her from the harem to
the king's palace.

02:17:51.990 --> 02:17:56.110
In the evening, she would go in,
and in the morning, she would return to

02:17:56.110 --> 02:17:58.730
the second harem.

02:18:00.010 --> 02:18:02.690
She doesn't go back to the same group.

02:18:04.050 --> 02:18:11.610
In custody of Sha'ashgaz, different
custodian, the king's eunuch, who was in

02:18:11.610 --> 02:18:13.390
charge of the concubines.

02:18:15.010 --> 02:18:16.910
Esther is now no longer a virgin.

02:18:18.270 --> 02:18:19.990
She is a concubine.

02:18:22.850 --> 02:18:24.770
She started out as a betula.

02:18:25.810 --> 02:18:27.530
Na'ara is all over the place.

02:18:27.850 --> 02:18:29.050
Okay, that just means young woman.

02:18:30.250 --> 02:18:32.450
She starts out with the virgins.

02:18:32.730 --> 02:18:33.750
She's there 12 months.

02:18:35.790 --> 02:18:40.170
Goes, has her night with the king,
the tryout, as it were, because this is

02:18:40.170 --> 02:18:40.970
what kings did.

02:18:41.670 --> 02:18:43.530
Okay, you didn't make the rules if you
were the woman.

02:18:45.710 --> 02:18:50.710
Next morning, she goes to a different
location, under a different guard,

02:18:51.070 --> 02:18:53.930
because now she belongs with the
concubines.

02:18:54.810 --> 02:18:59.010
She would not go into the king again,
unless the king delighted in her,

02:18:59.750 --> 02:19:01.350
and she was summoned by name.

02:19:02.630 --> 02:19:04.510
Go in unto the king.

02:19:06.730 --> 02:19:12.570
Okay, again, it's the language of
euphemism for sexual activity.

02:19:13.350 --> 02:19:14.950
Now let's take a look here.

02:19:15.290 --> 02:19:18.670
We've got virgins, concubines,
and we're trying to find a queen.

02:19:19.810 --> 02:19:26.110
So we have the same idea that when it
comes to the harem, remember Song of

02:19:26.110 --> 02:19:28.610
Solomon 6-8, we're talking about Solomon,
king.

02:19:29.270 --> 02:19:33.230
Okay, he's talking about the members of
the harem, how his beloved is like better

02:19:33.230 --> 02:19:36.930
than any of them, better than any of the
queens, any of the concubines,

02:19:37.130 --> 02:19:42.130
any of the Alamot, third category.

02:19:43.070 --> 02:19:46.670
Now conceptually, the Alamot there would
be a virgin.

02:19:47.750 --> 02:19:52.490
Alma would be a virgin in that context,
with that, again, the cultural mirror

02:19:52.490 --> 02:19:53.670
imaging going on here.

02:19:54.790 --> 02:20:00.370
That's why Song of Solomon 6-8 sort of
gives you a sexual status context.

02:20:01.490 --> 02:20:05.850
You look at what's going on in Esther,
you sort of get the cultural flavor for

02:20:05.850 --> 02:20:07.650
it, but it's not really airtight.

02:20:09.310 --> 02:20:11.470
Okay, we have to be honest there.

02:20:11.970 --> 02:20:14.290
It looks like Alma there is a virgin.

02:20:15.930 --> 02:20:20.910
Let's go back here and take a look at some
of the other terms here.

02:20:22.210 --> 02:20:26.550
And particularly, I want to show you
betula.

02:20:28.150 --> 02:20:34.310
So let's click on that, search for where
betula occurs.

02:20:36.950 --> 02:20:39.910
Now a little quiz, see who's paying
attention.

02:20:41.010 --> 02:20:48.150
There's one hit in this list that's
really, really important because you've

02:20:48.150 --> 02:20:49.090
seen it before.

02:20:51.050 --> 02:20:52.590
Which one is it?

02:20:55.250 --> 02:20:56.670
24-16.

02:20:58.330 --> 02:21:01.170
Genesis 24, remember Genesis 24?

02:21:01.830 --> 02:21:06.990
Back here with Alma, Genesis 24.

02:21:07.570 --> 02:21:09.810
This is the description of Rebekah.

02:21:10.850 --> 02:21:20.590
And lo and behold, Rebekah in Genesis 24
is called betula, Alma and Naar.

02:21:21.470 --> 02:21:25.330
All three words are used of the same
person.

02:21:26.910 --> 02:21:35.230
Now that is textual proof that Alma does
indeed overlap with a very clear term for

02:21:35.230 --> 02:21:35.550
virgin.

02:21:36.330 --> 02:21:44.850
And in fact, if you go to back to Genesis
24, the narrative is very, very painful in

02:21:44.850 --> 02:21:48.910
detail that she, Rebekah, had not known a
man.

02:21:50.710 --> 02:21:51.970
It's very clear.

02:21:52.130 --> 02:21:54.370
If you're looking for it, you can't miss
it.

02:21:55.490 --> 02:22:02.450
Now I would suggest that maybe Bishop
Spong didn't look very hard.

02:22:04.130 --> 02:22:06.730
Either that or he's just really sloppy.

02:22:07.830 --> 02:22:11.890
So you're either incompetent or you have
an agenda.

02:22:13.110 --> 02:22:16.910
Take your pick, Mr. Spong.

02:22:18.850 --> 02:22:26.470
Alma, the point is that Alma, when a
Hebrew Israelite, when an Israelite,

02:22:26.650 --> 02:22:34.670
someone familiar with the Hebrew Bible,
when they saw the word Alma, heard it or

02:22:34.670 --> 02:22:44.350
read it, they certainly had the category
possibility of virgin for that word.

02:22:44.950 --> 02:22:49.570
Now they know their own language well
enough to know that it might not be

02:22:49.570 --> 02:22:56.470
virgin, but it is absolutely incorrect to
say that it cannot be, that that meaning

02:22:56.470 --> 02:22:58.670
cannot be part of that word.

02:22:59.630 --> 02:23:03.810
And that is exactly what was on BeliefNet
and what's in Spong's books and anybody

02:23:03.810 --> 02:23:04.890
else who picks them up.

02:23:05.310 --> 02:23:11.230
It is simply textually fraudulent to say
that.

02:23:12.810 --> 02:23:16.690
Now, you know, let's do a little practical
thinking here.

02:23:18.590 --> 02:23:24.790
Scholars are not necessarily known for
their logic all the time.

02:23:27.150 --> 02:23:34.250
I once made the comment in a graduate
seminar class that I thought a course in

02:23:34.250 --> 02:23:37.910
logic should be required for every
graduate student in biblical studies.

02:23:38.970 --> 02:23:43.570
I didn't make many friends that day,
but I believe it.

02:23:45.310 --> 02:23:46.750
Let's do a little thinking.

02:23:47.710 --> 02:23:49.230
Okay, I have four children.

02:23:51.570 --> 02:23:54.490
I have three daughters and one boy.

02:23:55.350 --> 02:24:01.950
My daughters are 17, 15, and the youngest
is the daughter.

02:24:02.050 --> 02:24:02.650
She's eight.

02:24:04.110 --> 02:24:09.010
Now, in a patriarchal culture,
in the Semitic culture, as Dax pointed

02:24:09.010 --> 02:24:17.110
out, I can't remember if it was this week
or a week ago, a woman was of marriageable

02:24:17.110 --> 02:24:22.810
age when she hit puberty because now you
can start having babies.

02:24:24.070 --> 02:24:29.450
Okay, and that's 12, 13, 14, you know,
somewhere in the early teens.

02:24:31.230 --> 02:24:33.870
I have two almas.

02:24:34.990 --> 02:24:43.490
They're young women of marriageable age
and they just happen to be virgins because

02:24:43.490 --> 02:24:44.910
I'm a ruthless patriarch.

02:24:46.730 --> 02:24:56.210
Okay, you know, now I say that because if
in today's culture, unless we're going to

02:24:56.210 --> 02:25:04.450
conclude that every girl after the age of
12 is not a virgin, that's what you'd have

02:25:04.450 --> 02:25:08.470
to say for Spong to be right, that kind of
absurdity.

02:25:08.810 --> 02:25:13.390
Unless you're going to say that,
which would be totally obvious,

02:25:13.470 --> 02:25:16.550
you've got to conclude that, hey,
a lot of almas, a lot of women of

02:25:16.550 --> 02:25:18.650
marriageable age, they're still virgins.

02:25:19.010 --> 02:25:19.910
Yeah, they are.

02:25:21.150 --> 02:25:25.770
And in a patriarchal culture, like in the
Old Testament, where they really did

02:25:25.770 --> 02:25:34.090
exercise a very tight control over their
daughters, that number would probably even

02:25:34.090 --> 02:25:34.550
be higher.

02:25:36.070 --> 02:25:42.390
Okay, so again, just simple logic tells
you that when a Semite thought of alma,

02:25:42.930 --> 02:25:46.730
he didn't think, yeah, a woman that can
get married now and she's not a virgin

02:25:46.730 --> 02:25:47.110
either.

02:25:47.890 --> 02:25:48.970
It's just stupid.

02:25:50.130 --> 02:25:54.890
Okay, it's just not, it doesn't conform to
the reality of the culture and it doesn't

02:25:54.890 --> 02:25:56.830
conform to the reality of the text either.

02:25:58.050 --> 02:26:04.690
Now, in the New Testament, you can throw
all that away because in the New

02:26:04.690 --> 02:26:13.310
Testament, see if I put in the correct
link here, the text is really clear again

02:26:13.310 --> 02:26:15.310
about the birth of Jesus.

02:26:15.610 --> 02:26:21.530
In Matthew, you have the whole series of
wonderfully exciting begets, if you're

02:26:21.530 --> 02:26:25.630
reading the King James or the New King
James, so-and-so begets, so-and-so begets,

02:26:25.770 --> 02:26:26.910
so-and-so begets, so-and-so.

02:26:27.690 --> 02:26:30.310
And you have a whole string, there's over
30 of them.

02:26:31.050 --> 02:26:37.450
And then when you get down to Mary,
it says, okay, Joseph, the husband of

02:26:37.450 --> 02:26:41.150
Mary, of whom Jesus was born.

02:26:41.910 --> 02:26:46.190
The wording changes because, for those of
you who've had a little Greek,

02:26:46.350 --> 02:26:51.370
if you can actually see that morphological
reference, we have a relative pronoun,

02:26:51.510 --> 02:26:52.770
genitive singular, feminine.

02:26:53.770 --> 02:26:58.950
In other words, the writer of the text
wants it to be clear that Jesus came from

02:26:58.950 --> 02:27:00.010
only the woman.

02:27:02.250 --> 02:27:04.170
It's a feminine pronoun.

02:27:05.410 --> 02:27:09.950
It's not the male begat so-and-so like it
is the other 30 sometimes.

02:27:10.330 --> 02:27:13.170
When you get here, the whole thing
switches.

02:27:14.990 --> 02:27:17.650
Of whom, of her, Jesus was born.

02:27:18.950 --> 02:27:23.570
Okay, you just really can't get,
I mean, honestly, if I wanted to make the

02:27:23.570 --> 02:27:29.410
point that Jesus only came from Mary,
I really don't know any other way to make

02:27:29.410 --> 02:27:30.630
it that explicit.

02:27:31.150 --> 02:27:36.510
I mean, right down to the little particle
that you're using in Greek so that you

02:27:36.510 --> 02:27:37.510
can't miss it.

02:27:38.110 --> 02:27:39.350
There's no ambiguity.

02:27:40.870 --> 02:27:43.770
That's how detailed the writer's being.

02:27:46.790 --> 02:27:49.830
So, the Alma thing is a red herring.

02:27:51.470 --> 02:27:52.890
Certainly can mean virgin.

02:27:53.130 --> 02:27:58.770
Now, doesn't necessarily mean that Ahaz
would have thought of that or that the

02:27:58.770 --> 02:28:00.850
original prophecy was about a virgin.

02:28:01.190 --> 02:28:03.310
We still haven't, you know, we're gonna
get there.

02:28:03.950 --> 02:28:05.910
But the word itself can mean virgin.

02:28:06.630 --> 02:28:09.330
Immanuel is actually three parts.

02:28:09.670 --> 02:28:11.390
The preposition im, with.

02:28:12.790 --> 02:28:15.410
New is the suffix pronoun us.

02:28:16.190 --> 02:28:20.550
And el is God, either small G God or big G
God.

02:28:20.710 --> 02:28:22.510
It's used as a common noun and a proper
noun.

02:28:23.130 --> 02:28:26.850
So, together they form the sentence
without a verb.

02:28:26.950 --> 02:28:27.850
There is no verb.

02:28:29.050 --> 02:28:31.570
The words are literally with us God.

02:28:32.290 --> 02:28:39.670
So, you can translate that God with us,
God is with us, or a God is with us.

02:28:39.670 --> 02:28:43.830
All three of those are completely
legitimate because that's all you have.

02:28:44.030 --> 02:28:48.850
Now, God with us is probably the most
familiar.

02:28:49.130 --> 02:28:53.370
God is with us would probably be the most
grammatically correct.

02:28:54.550 --> 02:28:58.010
God is with us, though, doesn't
necessarily mean deity incarnate,

02:28:58.070 --> 02:28:58.290
though.

02:28:58.830 --> 02:29:00.830
Because I can say, hey, God's with us.

02:29:01.510 --> 02:29:04.730
Ahaz, God is with us, meaning God's on our
side.

02:29:06.090 --> 02:29:10.370
Doesn't have to mean that like God is
going to be present, that this child is

02:29:10.370 --> 02:29:12.250
going to be God when he's born,
that's God.

02:29:13.050 --> 02:29:14.470
It doesn't mean that at all.

02:29:15.010 --> 02:29:22.010
You know, we look at that because of what
happens in the New Testament as being sort

02:29:22.010 --> 02:29:23.630
of where our mind goes.

02:29:24.430 --> 02:29:27.050
But to Ahaz, Ahaz doesn't have any of
that.

02:29:28.190 --> 02:29:32.270
It's a sign for him that God is going to
take care of the problem.

02:29:33.430 --> 02:29:38.350
And by the way, sometimes I think we miss
in Isaiah 7 that the point of the sign is

02:29:38.350 --> 02:29:38.950
not the woman.

02:29:40.750 --> 02:29:43.990
Okay, you know, a lot of ink spilled
about, you know, virgin birth and all that

02:29:43.990 --> 02:29:44.250
stuff.

02:29:44.590 --> 02:29:46.450
Point of the sign is not the woman,
it's the child.

02:29:47.630 --> 02:29:49.650
Yeah, we kind of get that a little messed
up.

02:29:50.490 --> 02:29:52.010
Now, here's also from BeliefNet.

02:29:53.250 --> 02:29:57.030
The second problem in their article with
this text is that when Isaiah wrote it,

02:29:57.750 --> 02:30:00.930
the city of Jerusalem was under siege from
the combined armies of the northern

02:30:00.930 --> 02:30:01.850
kingdom in Syria.

02:30:02.590 --> 02:30:06.050
Isaiah suggested that the birth of this
child would be a sign to the king of Judah

02:30:06.050 --> 02:30:10.230
that his nation would not fall to these
enemies whom Isaiah described as,

02:30:10.450 --> 02:30:13.070
quote, the tails of two smoking
firebrands, unquote.

02:30:13.950 --> 02:30:18.670
A reference to a child born 800 years
later would hardly have been relevant to

02:30:18.670 --> 02:30:19.390
that crisis.

02:30:20.070 --> 02:30:21.330
Well, I would agree with that.

02:30:21.610 --> 02:30:25.190
You know, if you're Ahaz and you're
basically trembling in your boots and

02:30:25.190 --> 02:30:28.410
Isaiah comes up to you, I got great news,
I got great news.

02:30:28.890 --> 02:30:29.670
Don't panic.

02:30:30.290 --> 02:30:31.610
800 years from now.

02:30:32.370 --> 02:30:33.590
It's like, what?

02:30:34.330 --> 02:30:35.190
I mean, come on.

02:30:36.450 --> 02:30:37.270
Oh, thanks.

02:30:37.530 --> 02:30:38.790
I feel so much better.

02:30:41.430 --> 02:30:43.150
It's just not going to work.

02:30:43.770 --> 02:30:44.030
All right.

02:30:44.050 --> 02:30:46.330
There's an original context for what he's
saying.

02:30:47.690 --> 02:30:48.910
It's really interesting.

02:30:50.070 --> 02:30:59.210
There are some things going on even in the
original prophecy that Ahaz could have

02:30:59.210 --> 02:31:06.150
latched on to and fought, catch my wording
here, and fought a little bit beyond his

02:31:06.150 --> 02:31:06.790
own time.

02:31:08.290 --> 02:31:14.810
One of those possibilities is that there
is a cognate term, a related term in a

02:31:14.810 --> 02:31:18.370
different language, the language is
Ugaritic, for Alma.

02:31:19.630 --> 02:31:22.230
Now, in Hebrew, it's Alma.

02:31:22.950 --> 02:31:25.090
The letter is pronounced in the back of
the throat.

02:31:25.910 --> 02:31:29.930
And that's why it gets transliterated
sometimes with a G in certain books,

02:31:30.770 --> 02:31:32.050
like Gamora.

02:31:32.610 --> 02:31:33.170
Gamora.

02:31:33.630 --> 02:31:37.090
It actually begins with the same letter
that Alma begins with.

02:31:37.710 --> 02:31:39.530
But it sounds like a G.

02:31:40.710 --> 02:31:43.950
This word actually is very, very rare.

02:31:44.350 --> 02:31:46.870
And it refers to the sacred bride.

02:31:47.970 --> 02:31:52.810
And it's restricted to royal women and
goddesses in that culture.

02:31:52.890 --> 02:31:53.990
Now, that was a pagan culture.

02:31:55.090 --> 02:31:57.430
But the city of Ugarit is right next door
to Israel.

02:31:57.550 --> 02:32:01.310
There's a lot of Ugaritic crossover within
the Hebrew Bible, too.

02:32:01.450 --> 02:32:02.250
Other words.

02:32:03.490 --> 02:32:12.870
That's kind of interesting, because it
might mean that when Isaiah comes to Ahaz

02:32:12.870 --> 02:32:23.330
and says, behold, the Alma will conceive
and bear a son, that he could have been

02:32:23.330 --> 02:32:24.870
talking about Ahaz's wife.

02:32:25.510 --> 02:32:28.570
And if you were Ahaz, what would be the
first thing that crossed your mind?

02:32:29.990 --> 02:32:31.050
How do you know that?

02:32:32.930 --> 02:32:34.510
Like, is there something I should know
about?

02:32:35.710 --> 02:32:37.070
If there is, tell me now.

02:32:38.750 --> 02:32:45.430
How do you know that my wife, and it
actually could be that she is pregnant or

02:32:45.430 --> 02:32:46.670
is going to conceive.

02:32:47.730 --> 02:32:49.390
We don't know who the woman was.

02:32:49.530 --> 02:32:50.570
That's one possibility.

02:32:50.850 --> 02:32:52.970
If it is, Ahaz's wife.

02:32:54.870 --> 02:33:00.750
That means, and then Isaiah says,
and when she has the child, you're going

02:33:00.750 --> 02:33:03.430
to name it, God is with us.

02:33:05.670 --> 02:33:07.110
Why is that important to Ahaz?

02:33:07.690 --> 02:33:10.210
If that turns out to be, you know,
we don't really know.

02:33:11.150 --> 02:33:13.130
Because it tells Ahaz what?

02:33:13.830 --> 02:33:16.870
Whose family does Ahaz belong to?

02:33:19.610 --> 02:33:20.050
David.

02:33:21.490 --> 02:33:27.090
Okay, it means that Ahaz is sitting there
thinking, we're going to get wiped out.

02:33:27.310 --> 02:33:30.530
The Northern Kingdom, he said,
you know, is going to be gone,

02:33:30.610 --> 02:33:32.010
you know, in a few decades.

02:33:32.930 --> 02:33:33.410
What about us?

02:33:33.410 --> 02:33:33.410
We're going to get wiped out.

02:33:33.610 --> 02:33:33.670
What about us?

02:33:33.750 --> 02:33:38.370
Because I'm the line of David,
and God gave David this promise that like,

02:33:38.470 --> 02:33:39.550
we're always going to be here.

02:33:39.710 --> 02:33:43.330
And there's this everlasting dynastic
commitment and fulfillment.

02:33:44.390 --> 02:33:46.610
And Isaiah is saying, yeah, I know,
I know.

02:33:47.550 --> 02:33:48.570
God is with you.

02:33:50.070 --> 02:33:53.730
If it is his wife, it's a sign that the
Davidic covenant will not die.

02:33:54.610 --> 02:33:56.750
Okay, you are, it's not going to go away.

02:33:56.770 --> 02:33:57.690
It's not going to end.

02:33:58.530 --> 02:34:00.470
Okay, God will remain loyal to it.

02:34:03.950 --> 02:34:07.330
Now, again, let's just play with it.

02:34:07.830 --> 02:34:15.670
If that's the case, if there was royalty
involved with the woman, why is that

02:34:15.670 --> 02:34:18.570
important for what Matthew does?

02:34:20.350 --> 02:34:22.350
Mary is a member of what line?

02:34:22.470 --> 02:34:24.050
So there's these boring genealogies.

02:34:24.150 --> 02:34:25.270
Again, I know, and I know they're boring.

02:34:25.390 --> 02:34:27.730
Okay, and I don't spend my time with
genealogies, please.

02:34:29.210 --> 02:34:30.350
Don't think that of me.

02:34:33.070 --> 02:34:34.430
But there is a point to them.

02:34:34.610 --> 02:34:37.210
Mary is also in the line of David.

02:34:37.750 --> 02:34:38.570
So is Joseph.

02:34:39.310 --> 02:34:44.210
I mean, this is something that Matthew,
if this is what he was tracking on,

02:34:44.290 --> 02:34:48.350
it would have been a link back to Isaiah
7.

02:34:49.270 --> 02:34:53.030
Because, I mean, think of what Matthew's
doing here.

02:34:53.070 --> 02:34:53.890
Here's the quotation.

02:34:55.330 --> 02:34:56.970
And I have two questions here.

02:34:57.110 --> 02:35:00.610
This is where Matthew quotes Isaiah 7.

02:35:01.370 --> 02:35:03.070
Put yourself in Matthew's shoes.

02:35:04.010 --> 02:35:07.050
Is it reasonable to believe that Matthew
and Mary never met?

02:35:09.550 --> 02:35:12.570
I mean, good grief, they lived with Jesus
for three and a half years.

02:35:13.010 --> 02:35:15.110
Do you think he might have met his mother?

02:35:17.790 --> 02:35:21.650
Is it reasonable to believe that the
disciples never heard Mary tell the story

02:35:21.650 --> 02:35:23.470
about how Jesus was born?

02:35:24.670 --> 02:35:27.790
I mean, I can tell you, if I was one of
the 12 and we were, like, sitting around

02:35:27.790 --> 02:35:31.410
dinner at Jesus' house someday and he,
like, wasn't in the room, I'd say,

02:35:32.150 --> 02:35:35.150
was there anything unusual about him when
he was little?

02:35:36.770 --> 02:35:40.430
Because there's some really unusual things
going on right now.

02:35:41.230 --> 02:35:42.330
Can you tell me about that?

02:35:42.450 --> 02:35:43.850
I mean, anything at all.

02:35:44.830 --> 02:35:46.150
Anything, like, amiss?

02:35:46.290 --> 02:35:48.670
Anything, like, did he do something really
weird?

02:35:49.330 --> 02:35:55.930
Because you're beginning to see this man
do incredible things.

02:35:57.910 --> 02:36:00.510
I think that would be a very natural
conversation.

02:36:01.310 --> 02:36:05.950
It would be very natural for Matthew to
have heard about the circumstances of

02:36:05.950 --> 02:36:06.670
Jesus' birth.

02:36:08.770 --> 02:36:10.330
What I'm getting to is this.

02:36:10.450 --> 02:36:15.930
Why is it so fantastic for Matthew,
who knew his Old Testament really well,

02:36:16.230 --> 02:36:24.530
to hear the story of Jesus' birth and
Mary's going, oh yeah, an angel came to me

02:36:24.530 --> 02:36:27.870
and said, you know, the baby you're
gonna... I mean, Joseph and I weren't

02:36:27.870 --> 02:36:28.250
even...

02:36:28.250 --> 02:36:30.270
we were betrothed, but we had never,
you know, what.

02:36:30.870 --> 02:36:34.050
I mean, we were loyal to each other,
we were faithful to each other,

02:36:34.090 --> 02:36:39.150
and all of a sudden I'm pregnant,
and, you know, gives all the stories.

02:36:40.570 --> 02:36:46.830
And then she gets to the part where they
had to take the child down to Egypt to

02:36:46.830 --> 02:36:47.990
protect him from Herod.

02:36:48.110 --> 02:36:50.170
And Matthew, then the lights are going on.

02:36:50.770 --> 02:36:52.050
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

02:36:52.110 --> 02:36:52.430
Why?

02:36:54.690 --> 02:36:59.810
Because Matthew knows Hosea 11,
verse 1, because Matthew quotes it,

02:37:00.370 --> 02:37:03.070
out of Egypt, I have called my son.

02:37:04.470 --> 02:37:08.190
Remember the first week we talked about
how my son was the nation and the servant

02:37:08.190 --> 02:37:11.810
and the individual, you know, who would do
these things in Isaiah.

02:37:12.010 --> 02:37:16.290
And he starts thinking about Isaiah,
and it's like, wow, you know, Davidic

02:37:16.290 --> 02:37:21.870
dynasty out of Egypt, really, you know,
virgin birth, holy cow, you know,

02:37:21.870 --> 02:37:22.490
virgin birth.

02:37:22.570 --> 02:37:23.650
Well, that's just like Alma.

02:37:23.890 --> 02:37:28.230
I mean, it's not quite the same,
but it's like, it's... there's an analogy

02:37:28.230 --> 02:37:28.630
there.

02:37:29.370 --> 02:37:30.870
Look what God was up to.

02:37:32.430 --> 02:37:33.650
I'm gonna put this down.

02:37:36.050 --> 02:37:39.490
Okay, there is such a thing as fulfillment
of prophecy by analogy.

02:37:40.510 --> 02:37:46.070
You know, too often we have been trained
to think that prophecy works one way.

02:37:47.090 --> 02:37:54.370
Old Testament guy says, A, describes it in
a few sentences with specific nouns and

02:37:54.370 --> 02:37:54.730
verbs.

02:37:55.250 --> 02:37:59.890
And then the New Testament, well,
A has to happen exactly the way A is

02:37:59.890 --> 02:38:00.410
described.

02:38:00.550 --> 02:38:03.650
There is no fulfillment, you know,
so long we got to look for all these

02:38:03.650 --> 02:38:05.210
literalisms and all the...

02:38:05.210 --> 02:38:11.530
Word has to... Hey, if you spend any time
in prophecy, that just doesn't happen that

02:38:11.530 --> 02:38:11.870
often.

02:38:12.530 --> 02:38:15.130
Most of the time there are analogous
situations.

02:38:16.390 --> 02:38:21.830
Or one is a type, the Old Testament is a
prefigurement, either in terms of an event

02:38:21.830 --> 02:38:23.730
or an institution or a person.

02:38:24.550 --> 02:38:34.550
And that Old Testament thing or person
mirrors or telegraphs or is an analogy to

02:38:34.550 --> 02:38:40.650
something that goes on in the life of
Jesus, something he says or does or quotes

02:38:40.650 --> 02:38:41.130
or whatever.

02:38:41.770 --> 02:38:44.530
Think back to the first week, all these
analogies.

02:38:44.690 --> 02:38:48.990
This is absolutely deliberate on the part
of the New Testament writer to make Jesus'

02:38:49.230 --> 02:38:56.150
life analogous to the corporate servant,
the corporate son, the individual son.

02:38:57.830 --> 02:38:59.070
Okay, that's deliberate.

02:38:59.390 --> 02:39:00.370
It's not accidental.

02:39:00.910 --> 02:39:02.790
It happens dozens of times.

02:39:03.250 --> 02:39:05.310
We just took an overview the first week.

02:39:05.870 --> 02:39:06.870
This is one of them.

02:39:07.850 --> 02:39:11.870
So for people to say, well, Matthew was
just misunderstood, Isaiah just

02:39:11.870 --> 02:39:16.630
misinterpreted, he just wasn't very
scholarly, come on.

02:39:17.650 --> 02:39:21.090
You need to wake up, you need to take a
good look at your New Testament.

02:39:22.030 --> 02:39:25.910
And more than that, you need to think
about what's going on in Jewish literature

02:39:25.910 --> 02:39:31.910
of the same period, because they look at
prophecy the same way as the New Testament

02:39:31.910 --> 02:39:32.590
writers do.

02:39:33.190 --> 02:39:41.770
Matthew, his methods would have been
completely familiar to any scribe,

02:39:41.850 --> 02:39:49.410
any Pharisee, any priest, anyone literate
in terms of biblical material of his day.

02:39:49.950 --> 02:39:52.690
He's not doing anything new.

02:39:53.710 --> 02:39:54.790
They get it.

02:39:56.350 --> 02:40:00.850
And again, I'm back to either the critics
don't get it, or they don't want to get

02:40:00.850 --> 02:40:01.110
it.

02:40:02.570 --> 02:40:06.450
And I'm gonna let them pick, because
that's really what it comes down to.

02:40:06.950 --> 02:40:09.370
Matthew is not botching the New Testament.

02:40:10.290 --> 02:40:12.510
He's not goofing his way through the book.

02:40:13.350 --> 02:40:15.050
He is seeing analogies.

02:40:16.130 --> 02:40:19.570
And if you walked up to him and said,
hey, Matthew, I get that analogy with

02:40:19.570 --> 02:40:23.550
Isaiah 7, but you know, some of the words,
you know, some of the meanings of the word

02:40:23.550 --> 02:40:26.310
back here wouldn't really be true of Jesus
and vice versa.

02:40:26.430 --> 02:40:29.190
He'd go, well, like, duh, I know.

02:40:29.990 --> 02:40:31.070
Where did you go to school?

02:40:32.510 --> 02:40:34.550
I mean, I'm a tax collector, and I know
better than that.

02:40:34.610 --> 02:40:35.310
I mean, come on.

02:40:36.390 --> 02:40:38.490
This is nothing new to the culture.

02:40:39.490 --> 02:40:40.590
This is how they do it.

02:40:44.790 --> 02:40:47.670
So if your head spins, you can always
watch the video.

02:40:47.910 --> 02:40:53.850
You can always get the slides from Dax or
Dale, but this is a topic I had planned to

02:40:53.850 --> 02:40:54.070
do.

02:40:54.230 --> 02:40:59.710
And then I think it was the first week I
mentioned the idea of two powers in heaven

02:40:59.710 --> 02:41:00.970
and two Yahwehs.

02:41:01.770 --> 02:41:05.350
And that prompted a question afterwards,
like, what in the world are you talking

02:41:05.350 --> 02:41:05.730
about?

02:41:06.550 --> 02:41:08.310
Well, this is the week for that.

02:41:08.370 --> 02:41:15.750
I want to go through this because this is
fundamentally one of the more important

02:41:15.750 --> 02:41:23.050
things that we can learn about
contextualizing Jesus against the Old

02:41:23.050 --> 02:41:23.430
Testament.

02:41:23.630 --> 02:41:28.270
And I also think it's one of the more
important things that if you're familiar

02:41:28.270 --> 02:41:34.130
with, it has a strong apologetic value,
a strong evangelistic value for Jewish

02:41:34.130 --> 02:41:39.470
seekers, Jewish friends that you might
have, and Messianic Christians.

02:41:39.550 --> 02:41:44.210
And I think, frankly, just for us as well,
because sometimes we get either caught

02:41:44.210 --> 02:41:47.510
with a question or maybe in our own mind,
we wonder, well, where in the world did

02:41:47.510 --> 02:41:48.290
they get this stuff?

02:41:48.370 --> 02:41:50.730
I mean, yes, again, we can appeal to
revelation.

02:41:51.570 --> 02:41:52.730
And I've mentioned this before.

02:41:52.870 --> 02:41:54.530
Well, God just told them that information.

02:41:55.270 --> 02:41:55.950
No kidding.

02:41:56.070 --> 02:41:57.110
I mean, God can do that.

02:41:58.110 --> 02:42:03.430
But there's a lot to be said for
continuity between the Testaments.

02:42:03.670 --> 02:42:06.550
And I think this is one of the most
striking examples of it.

02:42:07.350 --> 02:42:11.790
And I'm going to take you through a number
of passages tonight again quickly to try

02:42:11.790 --> 02:42:16.190
to introduce you to the answer for a
really basic question.

02:42:16.390 --> 02:42:23.210
That is, since Christianity was born out
of Judaism and the first converts were

02:42:23.210 --> 02:42:30.110
naturally Jewish, how is it that
God-fearing Jews could wrap their minds

02:42:30.110 --> 02:42:37.470
around the notion of worshiping and
praying and speaking of the God of Israel

02:42:37.470 --> 02:42:41.490
as God and in the same breath doing the
same thing to Jesus?

02:42:41.730 --> 02:42:43.770
Why did they not see that as a problem?

02:42:44.490 --> 02:42:49.030
Why did they not think it was a violation
of monotheism or of the Shema,

02:42:49.310 --> 02:42:50.490
the Lord our God is one?

02:42:51.670 --> 02:42:58.070
The answer to that comes from the Old
Testament, because they had a two Yahweh's

02:42:58.070 --> 02:43:02.530
mental backdrop from their own scriptures.

02:43:03.290 --> 02:43:09.050
That when Jesus came along, it was very
easy to move toward him being the second

02:43:09.050 --> 02:43:10.550
Yahweh, the second power.

02:43:11.090 --> 02:43:15.430
And I'm going to show you a little bit
about how this works in Judaism up to the

02:43:15.430 --> 02:43:16.610
second century AD.

02:43:17.570 --> 02:43:20.430
And then of course, apply that to the New
Testament and the Old Testament.

02:43:20.490 --> 02:43:22.410
Now, this is an important book.

02:43:22.510 --> 02:43:26.850
If you wanted to really read in this
subject, this is the one I recommend,

02:43:28.210 --> 02:43:30.290
written in 1977 by Alan Siegel.

02:43:30.370 --> 02:43:31.010
He's a Jew.

02:43:31.510 --> 02:43:33.690
He's a Jewish professor of Jewish studies.

02:43:33.830 --> 02:43:37.150
I think he still teaches at NYU,
Two Powers in Heaven.

02:43:37.350 --> 02:43:43.910
Now, he views the two powers teaching as a
heresy, because he's Jewish.

02:43:44.770 --> 02:43:48.110
But his book is about the fact that it
used to not be a heresy.

02:43:48.550 --> 02:43:50.070
That's what drew him into the topic.

02:43:50.350 --> 02:43:53.870
This is actually a publication of some
work he did on his dissertation way back

02:43:53.870 --> 02:43:54.210
when.

02:43:55.630 --> 02:43:59.590
Siegel says the basic heresy involved
interpreting scripture to say that a

02:43:59.590 --> 02:44:04.690
principal angelic or hypostatic
manifestation in heaven, in other words,

02:44:04.750 --> 02:44:07.710
another character, was equivalent to God.

02:44:08.330 --> 02:44:09.710
Okay, that was the basic issue.

02:44:10.390 --> 02:44:13.590
The idea of the second power was not
considered heretical until the second

02:44:13.590 --> 02:44:14.590
century CE.

02:44:14.870 --> 02:44:15.470
That's AD.

02:44:15.850 --> 02:44:17.050
It means the same thing.

02:44:17.590 --> 02:44:22.530
So sometime during the 100s, Jewish
theology changed.

02:44:23.530 --> 02:44:28.850
Prior to that, it was okay to talk about
two gods, two Yahwehs in heaven.

02:44:29.010 --> 02:44:30.390
But after that, it was not.

02:44:32.450 --> 02:44:35.630
Other scholars have made similar
observations, namely that the rabbinic

02:44:35.630 --> 02:44:38.850
polemic of late antiquity, again,
their arguments against Christians against

02:44:38.850 --> 02:44:43.850
two powers in heaven, arose from rabbinic
unease about much material in the Hebrew

02:44:43.850 --> 02:44:46.430
Bible which seemed too close to paganism
for comfort.

02:44:46.530 --> 02:44:49.510
In other words, it seemed
non-monotheistic.

02:44:50.510 --> 02:44:57.970
So the rabbis were a little uneasy about
things in their own scriptures that seemed

02:44:57.970 --> 02:44:58.670
inconsistent.

02:45:00.670 --> 02:45:02.890
I'm not describing Zoroastrianism.

02:45:02.990 --> 02:45:06.370
I'm not talking about a good Yahweh and a
bad Yahweh, good and evil.

02:45:06.790 --> 02:45:08.610
I'm not talking about that kind of
dualism.

02:45:08.670 --> 02:45:14.490
I'm also not talking about Gnosticism with
the true God, the ethereal, non-personal

02:45:14.490 --> 02:45:18.850
God, and then the Demiurge, the Creator,
the God of the Bible, which Gnostics view

02:45:18.850 --> 02:45:19.470
as evil.

02:45:20.250 --> 02:45:21.570
I'm not talking about that either.

02:45:21.630 --> 02:45:22.590
This is not good and evil.

02:45:22.650 --> 02:45:26.810
These are both good guys, both positive,
holy figures.

02:45:27.690 --> 02:45:30.750
A couple examples of texts that the rabbis
talked about.

02:45:31.010 --> 02:45:32.530
Genesis 19-24.

02:45:33.370 --> 02:45:40.110
Take a quick look at that, and I will ask
you, what seems odd about the verse?

02:45:42.410 --> 02:45:46.290
Yahweh reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah,
saw first fire from Yahweh out of heaven.

02:45:46.950 --> 02:45:50.050
Well, what's odd is that Yahweh occurs
twice.

02:45:50.930 --> 02:45:54.010
So Yahweh rains down fire from Yahweh.

02:45:54.150 --> 02:45:55.270
It's just awkward.

02:45:56.190 --> 02:46:01.270
And there were some rabbis that thought,
that just sounds really odd, or I don't

02:46:01.270 --> 02:46:07.030
know how we would handle that in the
context of the Shema.

02:46:07.290 --> 02:46:08.690
Again, the Lord our God is one.

02:46:09.730 --> 02:46:10.690
Amos 4-11.

02:46:11.330 --> 02:46:17.630
I have wrought destruction among you as
when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

02:46:17.710 --> 02:46:18.130
Now, wait a minute.

02:46:18.490 --> 02:46:20.410
The speaker at the end of the verse is
Yahweh.

02:46:20.910 --> 02:46:26.950
And he's saying, I did this, and this,
and this, just like when God did that.

02:46:28.010 --> 02:46:29.830
So like, who's Yahweh referring to?

02:46:29.830 --> 02:46:32.170
He's referring to himself and then God.

02:46:32.710 --> 02:46:34.210
Like we have two figures.

02:46:36.510 --> 02:46:37.650
There they are.

02:46:39.010 --> 02:46:39.990
Isaiah 13.

02:46:40.670 --> 02:46:42.590
Behold, I stir up the Medes against them.

02:46:43.310 --> 02:46:46.370
And Babylon, glory of kingdoms,
proud splendor, the Chaldeans shall

02:46:46.370 --> 02:46:50.410
overcome, or shall become like Sodom and
Gomorrah, overturned by God.

02:46:50.570 --> 02:46:51.430
There's the same thing.

02:46:51.610 --> 02:46:52.510
I stir up.

02:46:53.790 --> 02:46:56.250
Okay, then we have God like a third person
reference.

02:46:57.530 --> 02:47:00.450
And what's really unusual, if you go to
Jeremiah, the parallel passage,

02:47:00.970 --> 02:47:04.410
it's very clear that Yahweh is the one
doing this.

02:47:04.630 --> 02:47:07.990
And then there's this other reference to
God along with the first person language.

02:47:08.410 --> 02:47:13.990
There are actually a decent number of
these in the Old Testament, where God is

02:47:13.990 --> 02:47:17.290
speaking, then refers to God in the third
person.

02:47:17.610 --> 02:47:19.210
It's just very odd, very awkward.

02:47:21.830 --> 02:47:27.190
Prior to the time of the rabbis,
this is... Rabbinic Judaism is something

02:47:27.190 --> 02:47:28.710
we sort of view as

02:47:31.810 --> 02:47:36.430
formulating, or as we think of it,
forming after the New Testament era.

02:47:36.570 --> 02:47:40.770
It actually has roots that are older than
that in some of the sects of Judaism,

02:47:40.950 --> 02:47:44.310
like the Pharisees and the Sadducees and
things like that.

02:47:44.410 --> 02:47:49.910
So prior to what is properly the Rabbinic
era, back into the New Testament era and

02:47:49.910 --> 02:47:52.970
in the Second Temple period,
intertestamental period, there was a lot

02:47:52.970 --> 02:47:56.710
of speculation about who the second power
was.

02:47:58.390 --> 02:47:59.670
Some thought it was Jacob.

02:47:59.870 --> 02:48:01.590
I'm going to run through these texts
really quickly.

02:48:02.710 --> 02:48:05.670
This is the prayer of Joseph.

02:48:05.970 --> 02:48:07.510
It's a pseudepigraphical text.

02:48:08.650 --> 02:48:12.630
Jacob is... these are all Jewish,
okay, and they're all intertestamental.

02:48:12.830 --> 02:48:14.330
So this is prior to Christianity.

02:48:15.390 --> 02:48:18.790
I, Jacob, who is speaking to you,
I'm also Israel, an angel of God and a

02:48:18.790 --> 02:48:19.370
ruling spirit.

02:48:19.470 --> 02:48:21.130
So there, Israel is called an angel.

02:48:21.450 --> 02:48:22.810
Jacob is like an angel now.

02:48:23.770 --> 02:48:27.050
I am he whom God called Israel,
which means a man seeing God.

02:48:27.650 --> 02:48:31.690
The next section, I, Israel, the archangel
of the power of the Lord and the chief

02:48:31.690 --> 02:48:33.350
captain of the sons of God.

02:48:33.910 --> 02:48:40.010
So Jacob becomes an angelic figure and he
becomes the lead of all the heavenly

02:48:40.010 --> 02:48:42.590
hosts, in some Jewish thinking.

02:48:43.590 --> 02:48:46.530
Adam was sort of viewed this way by
others.

02:48:47.850 --> 02:48:52.530
In 2 Enoch, and on earth, I assigned
him... again, God is speaking about...

02:48:52.530 --> 02:48:56.230
the writer is speaking about Adam,
first person language of God.

02:48:56.330 --> 02:48:58.610
And on earth, I assigned him to be a
second angel.

02:48:59.470 --> 02:49:01.210
Well, wait a minute, Adam, a second angel?

02:49:01.990 --> 02:49:05.330
Honored and great and glorious,
and I assigned him to be a king to reign

02:49:05.330 --> 02:49:09.350
on the earth and to have my wisdom,
which is an interesting phrase considering

02:49:09.350 --> 02:49:11.510
week two when we talked about wisdom.

02:49:13.350 --> 02:49:16.890
Adam is also elevated higher than a
principal angel in another text,

02:49:16.990 --> 02:49:17.890
Life of Adam and Eve.

02:49:19.190 --> 02:49:23.570
In this text, he's called... Satan has
demanded... it's called to worship Adam,

02:49:23.630 --> 02:49:25.530
the image of God, Testament of Abraham.

02:49:26.250 --> 02:49:30.270
Abraham is shown a man seated on a golden
throne who has a terrifying appearance,

02:49:30.750 --> 02:49:33.010
like the masters, like God's.

02:49:33.730 --> 02:49:36.210
And he finds out this is the first form to
Adam.

02:49:36.870 --> 02:49:42.370
So Adam becomes this exalted sort of
number two or right there with God kind of

02:49:42.370 --> 02:49:42.770
figure.

02:49:44.170 --> 02:49:49.050
Enoch himself, in one text, gets sort of
taken to heaven.

02:49:49.230 --> 02:49:53.930
Like we have, you know, the language of
Ezekiel, some of these visionary

02:49:53.930 --> 02:49:55.690
experiences of biblical characters.

02:49:55.810 --> 02:49:58.730
Enoch, in the book of 1st Enoch,
this happens to him.

02:49:59.610 --> 02:50:02.650
And he says, you know, he falls on his
face before the Lord of Spirits.

02:50:02.710 --> 02:50:05.150
I saw countless angels with them the
Ancient of Days.

02:50:05.310 --> 02:50:06.490
Again, that's right out of Daniel.

02:50:07.210 --> 02:50:11.370
Then an angel came to me and greeted me
and said to me, you son of man.

02:50:12.610 --> 02:50:16.010
Okay, right there, you can see there's
something going on.

02:50:16.030 --> 02:50:19.910
Because if you're familiar with Daniel 7,
which we discussed a couple of weeks

02:50:19.910 --> 02:50:20.310
already.

02:50:22.230 --> 02:50:25.890
In Daniel 7, you have the Ancient of Days,
who's the enthroned God.

02:50:25.990 --> 02:50:28.370
And then the Son of Man comes to him.

02:50:28.870 --> 02:50:33.310
Something like a human, you know,
human being comes to the Ancient of Days.

02:50:33.430 --> 02:50:36.790
And under that human one is given the
everlasting kingdom.

02:50:36.910 --> 02:50:41.190
Well, here in 1st Enoch, Enoch becomes the
Son of Man, which is, of course,

02:50:41.250 --> 02:50:43.210
a title that Jesus has in the New
Testament.

02:50:43.450 --> 02:50:44.730
But this is before the New Testament.

02:50:45.750 --> 02:50:49.430
He says, you son of man who are born in
righteousness, and so on and so forth.

02:50:50.610 --> 02:50:53.890
He says, Enoch, don't be frightened,
stand up, stand in front of my face

02:50:53.890 --> 02:50:54.290
forever.

02:50:55.030 --> 02:50:59.710
The Lord said to Michael, go and extract
Enoch from his earthly clothing and get

02:50:59.710 --> 02:51:00.870
rid of that flesh stuff.

02:51:01.750 --> 02:51:04.850
And anoint him with my delightful oil and
put him into clothes of my glory.

02:51:04.950 --> 02:51:08.610
And at the end, Enoch says, I looked at
myself and I had become like one of his

02:51:08.610 --> 02:51:09.550
glorious ones.

02:51:10.450 --> 02:51:15.050
So even Enoch himself, in the book that
bears his name, becomes this sort of

02:51:15.050 --> 02:51:20.930
exalted figure, right there with the
enthroned Yahweh.

02:51:21.670 --> 02:51:27.770
Moses, this is an interesting passage,
on Sinai's peak I, Moses, saw what seemed

02:51:27.770 --> 02:51:28.330
a throne.

02:51:28.570 --> 02:51:30.330
Again, those are familiar biblical
passages.

02:51:31.290 --> 02:51:33.110
I made approach and stood before the
throne.

02:51:33.210 --> 02:51:38.470
He handed over the scepter and bade me
mount the throne and gave me the crown.

02:51:38.570 --> 02:51:40.670
Then he himself withdrew from off the
throne.

02:51:41.910 --> 02:51:47.630
Now, if you have some Jewish thinkers and
religious authorities in between the

02:51:47.630 --> 02:51:53.490
Testaments viewing Moses to this level,
it makes it kind of interesting when Paul

02:51:53.490 --> 02:52:00.690
and Jesus and other New Testament writers
are making a contrast between Jesus and

02:52:00.690 --> 02:52:02.590
Moses, between the gospel and the law.

02:52:02.830 --> 02:52:06.190
Again, you have this sort of friction
that's just going to happen.

02:52:07.110 --> 02:52:09.930
But for some, Moses was like a second
deity.

02:52:11.170 --> 02:52:14.810
Other people thought it was angels,
not humans who become angels or humans

02:52:14.810 --> 02:52:16.170
that just get to sit on the throne.

02:52:16.810 --> 02:52:18.270
Some people thought it was Michael.

02:52:18.470 --> 02:52:21.830
Michael is called in Daniel, the chief
intercessor for Israel.

02:52:22.650 --> 02:52:26.230
And in the Testament of Dan, another
pseudepigraphical book.

02:52:27.350 --> 02:52:30.150
Now, fear the Lord, my children,
be on guard against Satan and his spirits.

02:52:30.310 --> 02:52:33.890
Draw near to God and to the angel who
intercedes for you because he is the

02:52:33.890 --> 02:52:35.410
mediator between God and men.

02:52:35.630 --> 02:52:37.690
Sounds a lot like 1 Timothy, doesn't it?

02:52:38.530 --> 02:52:41.090
Okay, but in this case, that mediator is
Michael.

02:52:44.150 --> 02:52:46.050
That's a little bit of a rabbit trail.

02:52:46.170 --> 02:52:50.170
One of the traditions in Seventh-day
Adventism is to identify Michael with

02:52:50.170 --> 02:52:50.570
Jesus.

02:52:51.290 --> 02:52:55.090
And it's because of, you know,
maybe passages like this.

02:52:55.170 --> 02:52:59.970
I don't know how much awareness there is
of it, but there's a whole body of

02:52:59.970 --> 02:53:07.270
tradition that creates and argues for and
articulates similarities between Jesus and

02:53:07.270 --> 02:53:07.590
Michael.

02:53:07.730 --> 02:53:09.670
And it's because of this number two
position.

02:53:11.590 --> 02:53:15.510
Yahoel is an angel that gets a name in
pseudepigraphical literature.

02:53:15.610 --> 02:53:19.250
You'll notice the name Yah is short for
Yahweh.

02:53:19.330 --> 02:53:20.870
That actually occurs in the Old Testament.

02:53:21.970 --> 02:53:23.710
El, of course, another name for God.

02:53:23.830 --> 02:53:27.210
So we have an angel that bears two divine
names.

02:53:28.610 --> 02:53:32.150
And Abraham is commanded to worship God in
one text.

02:53:32.390 --> 02:53:37.590
And here, Yahoel appears to be the God of
Israel because look at all these titles,

02:53:37.770 --> 02:53:41.430
Eternal One, Mighty One, Holy El,
God, Autocrat.

02:53:41.530 --> 02:53:45.270
You get to the verse 13, El, El,
El, El, Yahel.

02:53:47.150 --> 02:53:52.230
But you have other passages that sort of
muddy those waters.

02:53:52.630 --> 02:53:55.150
The same figure appears in life of Adam
and Eve.

02:53:56.010 --> 02:53:59.830
They, the angels, came to God and said,
Yahel, Eternal King, command that fragrant

02:53:59.830 --> 02:54:02.350
incenses from paradise be given to Adam.

02:54:02.470 --> 02:54:06.170
Here, Yahel or Yahoel looks like the God
of Israel.

02:54:07.450 --> 02:54:11.530
But here, in a third passage, they're
distinguished.

02:54:12.410 --> 02:54:14.730
I heard the voice of the Holy One
speaking.

02:54:15.550 --> 02:54:16.750
Okay, now this is God speaking.

02:54:17.190 --> 02:54:22.490
Go, Yahel, of the same name, through the
mediation of my ineffable name.

02:54:22.710 --> 02:54:26.330
So God is commanding Yahoel to do
something.

02:54:26.810 --> 02:54:32.270
So they're different characters now,
even though Yahoel has all those

02:54:32.270 --> 02:54:36.430
attributions, all those epithets of deity,
of the God of Israel.

02:54:37.710 --> 02:54:41.090
Lo, I am sent to strength, sent to you to
strengthen you and to bless you.

02:54:41.470 --> 02:54:45.650
The last line in bold there, I am Yahel,
and with me Michael blesses you forever.

02:54:45.770 --> 02:54:46.510
Isn't that interesting?

02:54:47.050 --> 02:54:47.950
Michael's distinguished.

02:54:48.250 --> 02:54:54.430
So in heaven, according to this writer,
you've got God, this Yahoel guy,

02:54:55.050 --> 02:54:55.690
and Michael.

02:54:56.830 --> 02:54:58.150
The three of them are distinguished.

02:54:58.910 --> 02:55:04.570
But one of them is described in the same
terms that you would reserve for the God

02:55:04.570 --> 02:55:05.050
of Israel.

02:55:05.630 --> 02:55:08.430
So you have the God of Israel and then
like another one, or what?

02:55:08.490 --> 02:55:09.510
What's going on here?

02:55:11.170 --> 02:55:12.030
That's the point.

02:55:12.370 --> 02:55:19.590
There's a lot of confusion, a lot of... to
us it's confusion, and to them,

02:55:19.750 --> 02:55:21.330
I'm sure they wrestled with it.

02:55:22.250 --> 02:55:29.790
But there's a lot of effort being put in
to identifying who is actually at the top

02:55:29.790 --> 02:55:32.370
in heaven, and yet they're Jews.

02:55:32.870 --> 02:55:34.570
You would think, well, that shouldn't even
be a question.

02:55:35.690 --> 02:55:36.590
But it was.

02:55:36.910 --> 02:55:42.230
Philo, another Jewish writer, he wrote a
lot in Greek, and he uses the word Logos,

02:55:42.430 --> 02:55:47.450
which of course, later on in the New
Testament, gets attributed to Jesus.

02:55:48.610 --> 02:55:54.230
Philo says of the Logos, God sustained the
universe to rest firm and sure upon the

02:55:54.230 --> 02:55:56.450
mighty Logos, who is my viceroy.

02:55:56.450 --> 02:56:02.690
So the Logos here is God's vizier,
God's vice regent, his co-ruler,

02:56:03.370 --> 02:56:04.890
sort of in the description.

02:56:05.870 --> 02:56:10.590
The Logos is, quote, that power of his,
that power of God's by which he made and

02:56:10.590 --> 02:56:11.490
ordered all things.

02:56:12.010 --> 02:56:13.190
That sounds very New Testament.

02:56:13.350 --> 02:56:17.370
Remember, we talked about how Jesus was
the agent of creation in a number of New

02:56:17.370 --> 02:56:18.290
Testament texts.

02:56:19.570 --> 02:56:25.230
Not only is God between the two primary
powers, that's picking up with a different

02:56:25.230 --> 02:56:26.930
context, but so is the Logos.

02:56:27.030 --> 02:56:31.550
While God is indeed one, there's an
affirmation of the Shema on Philo's part,

02:56:32.350 --> 02:56:35.850
his highest and chief powers are two,
goodness and sovereignty.

02:56:36.670 --> 02:56:40.170
And in the midst of between the two,
there's a third which unites them,

02:56:40.270 --> 02:56:43.810
the Logos, for it is through the Logos
that God is both ruler and good.

02:56:44.370 --> 02:56:47.810
So here we have like God's attributes
funneled through this other guy,

02:56:48.090 --> 02:56:50.430
which sounds really odd.

02:56:51.450 --> 02:56:57.090
And to a Jew today, it would sound almost
blasphemous.

02:56:57.730 --> 02:56:59.490
Like God doesn't need anybody else.

02:57:00.470 --> 02:57:04.830
What's this language about, you know,
the attributes are in this other being.

02:57:06.170 --> 02:57:09.490
Philo also refers to the Logos as God,
Theos.

02:57:10.170 --> 02:57:13.810
He uses the term Deuterosteos,
the second God.

02:57:15.110 --> 02:57:18.850
And he refers to there being two gods,
a synonym for two powers in Jewish

02:57:18.850 --> 02:57:19.330
thought.

02:57:19.430 --> 02:57:22.030
That's a quote from Siegel, citing Philo's
writing.

02:57:22.210 --> 02:57:26.370
So what I want you to see here is that
these are Jews.

02:57:26.730 --> 02:57:31.650
None of these people, none of these
writers, none of these books were ever

02:57:31.650 --> 02:57:33.650
anathematized as heretical.

02:57:35.330 --> 02:57:43.750
This was a commonly accepted speculation
about who is at the top in the heavenly

02:57:43.750 --> 02:57:48.090
realm because of something we will see in
a moment,

02:57:51.770 --> 02:57:54.730
because of certain things that are going
on in the Old Testament.

02:57:55.490 --> 02:57:59.150
And the rabbis knew their text really
well.

02:58:00.230 --> 02:58:05.110
And they picked up on some of the odd
passages like Genesis 19, some of this

02:58:05.110 --> 02:58:07.750
language where God is speaking and then
refers to God.

02:58:09.030 --> 02:58:10.550
They knew that really well.

02:58:11.230 --> 02:58:15.910
And so between the Testaments,
they're coming up with candidates.

02:58:18.130 --> 02:58:22.250
Afterwards, though, after they declared a
heresy, they need to come up with some

02:58:22.250 --> 02:58:26.890
other explanation because we can't accept
that there's two, because we've made that

02:58:26.890 --> 02:58:27.710
a no-no now.

02:58:28.650 --> 02:58:30.850
So later rabbis did this.

02:58:32.470 --> 02:58:36.990
Exodus 15.3 was sort of their beginning
proof text.

02:58:38.230 --> 02:58:40.090
Yahweh is a man of war.

02:58:40.710 --> 02:58:42.230
Yahweh is his name.

02:58:43.750 --> 02:58:48.890
So what they said, and Siegel cites one of
the later rabbis, and here's his

02:58:48.890 --> 02:58:50.610
explanation or his exegesis.

02:58:51.670 --> 02:58:55.950
Yahweh is a man of war is to be
interpreted as a descriptive statement

02:58:55.950 --> 02:59:00.590
referring to God's manifestation as a
young warrior when he destroyed the

02:59:00.590 --> 02:59:01.790
Egyptians at the Red Sea.

02:59:02.490 --> 02:59:03.490
Yahweh is his name.

02:59:04.510 --> 02:59:08.750
That's necessary because at Sinai,
he reveals himself as an old man.

02:59:10.410 --> 02:59:14.210
So what the rabbis are saying is,
look, all this stuff that looks like two

02:59:14.210 --> 02:59:17.750
Yahwehs, it's really one Yahweh,
but manifested in two ways.

02:59:17.830 --> 02:59:18.870
It's two modes.

02:59:19.030 --> 02:59:21.010
It's two manifestations.

02:59:21.010 --> 02:59:24.690
It's two sort of appearances.

02:59:28.200 --> 02:59:32.280
Is God ever described as an old man on
Sinai?

02:59:36.200 --> 02:59:37.220
No, he's not.

02:59:38.840 --> 02:59:43.100
Okay, I'll just plant that seed right now,
because this is going to break down pretty

02:59:43.100 --> 02:59:43.500
quickly.

02:59:44.060 --> 02:59:47.380
But this is today, this is the rabbinical
view.

02:59:48.160 --> 02:59:53.080
Okay, that we're talking about one person
in two modes of existence, and they're

02:59:53.080 --> 02:59:56.520
going to try to go to their scriptures to
demonstrate that.

02:59:56.720 --> 02:59:59.680
And the real, the major text is Daniel 7.

03:00:01.140 --> 03:00:03.580
Segal notes, again, the proof text used by
the rabbis.

03:00:03.720 --> 03:00:07.120
As I looked on, thrones were set in place,
the ancient of days took a seat,

03:00:07.200 --> 03:00:11.120
his garb was white as snow, hair,
head like lamb's wool.

03:00:11.300 --> 03:00:12.800
So there, there he's old.

03:00:13.960 --> 03:00:16.620
Throne was tongues of fire again,
just like Ezekiel 1.

03:00:16.760 --> 03:00:18.380
It's God, we know who that is.

03:00:19.260 --> 03:00:23.020
The court sat, the books were open,
one like a human being came with clouds of

03:00:23.020 --> 03:00:24.580
heaven, he reached the ancient of days.

03:00:24.660 --> 03:00:27.100
And so there's this, there's this other
one who's a man.

03:00:29.480 --> 03:00:35.520
Okay, so the rabbis say, Aha, we've got an
old God, and a God who's, who's a man

03:00:35.520 --> 03:00:35.980
figure.

03:00:36.560 --> 03:00:40.160
But they're really just two, they're
really the same guy.

03:00:40.280 --> 03:00:43.780
But depending on like, where you were at,
and looked in the scene, you would see

03:00:43.780 --> 03:00:45.120
one, and then you'd see the other.

03:00:45.320 --> 03:00:49.980
And, you know, this one symbolizes this,
and that one symbolizes the other.

03:00:52.340 --> 03:00:58.020
Problem, there are other places that I'm
going to show you, either at Sinai or not,

03:01:00.260 --> 03:01:03.140
where you have a description of God.

03:01:03.600 --> 03:01:07.780
And this breaks down, there's no old man
in Exodus 3, Exodus 3 is the burning bush.

03:01:08.260 --> 03:01:10.920
There are two figures in there,
and neither of them are old men.

03:01:11.920 --> 03:01:13.620
We'll show that passage in a moment.

03:01:15.240 --> 03:01:19.420
The warrior man who's elsewhere identified
as the angel of the Lord, who's in the

03:01:19.420 --> 03:01:22.680
burning bush with Exodus 3 is with Yahweh.

03:01:22.760 --> 03:01:23.860
So how can they be the same?

03:01:23.920 --> 03:01:25.440
You could ask the same for Daniel 7.

03:01:25.480 --> 03:01:29.280
If they're both there at the same time,
how are they the same in just different

03:01:29.280 --> 03:01:29.740
modes?

03:01:30.440 --> 03:01:35.200
And there's another passage that we'll
look at that really creates problems for

03:01:35.200 --> 03:01:35.440
that.

03:01:36.060 --> 03:01:39.580
And third, the son of man in Daniel 7 is
never cast as a warrior.

03:01:40.880 --> 03:01:48.180
So the rabbinical explanation of same God,
two different modes might sound like it

03:01:48.180 --> 03:01:49.600
works, but there are problems.

03:01:49.740 --> 03:01:51.340
These are three initial ones.

03:01:52.040 --> 03:01:53.140
Segal admits this.

03:01:53.980 --> 03:01:57.720
He says, well, you know, in his mind,
this is the answer, because he's Jewish.

03:01:58.260 --> 03:02:01.560
But he says, I have to be honest,
it may easily be describing two separate

03:02:01.560 --> 03:02:02.740
divine figures anyway.

03:02:04.060 --> 03:02:05.360
So like, what do you gain?

03:02:05.660 --> 03:02:07.020
Well, not a whole lot.

03:02:08.020 --> 03:02:11.780
Let's go back to the scriptures,
actually, and I'll show you what leads up

03:02:11.780 --> 03:02:16.780
to all this and show you how the
rabbinical... the Jews were better off

03:02:16.780 --> 03:02:21.920
saying, hey, there's two, just like they
did before they declared it a heresy,

03:02:21.920 --> 03:02:24.460
because that's going to become apparent
when I go through this.

03:02:24.980 --> 03:02:28.400
They're better off doing that than after
they declared it a heresy and saying,

03:02:28.500 --> 03:02:30.200
oh, it's just one guy in two forms.

03:02:31.820 --> 03:02:33.520
That one is really hard to defend.

03:02:33.600 --> 03:02:35.960
The other one is pretty much apparent.

03:02:36.680 --> 03:02:37.500
Now, go back here.

03:02:37.560 --> 03:02:40.920
The word I'm not going to spend any time
on, because we've hit this for two weeks.

03:02:42.580 --> 03:02:48.040
There's the word of God who comes to
certain individuals, and he is embodied at

03:02:48.040 --> 03:02:48.580
times.

03:02:48.940 --> 03:02:52.580
At times, the language of physicality is
attributed to the word.

03:02:53.280 --> 03:02:54.620
Okay, we've seen those passages.

03:02:55.800 --> 03:02:57.240
Let's talk about the name.

03:02:58.980 --> 03:03:05.420
Sometimes God is referred to as the name,
or the name of the Lord does things,

03:03:05.640 --> 03:03:07.560
and then later he's referred to as God.

03:03:09.220 --> 03:03:12.880
The idea comes from Deuteronomy,
specifically this chapter.

03:03:14.340 --> 03:03:18.040
Do not worship the Lord your God in like
manner, but look only to the sight that

03:03:18.040 --> 03:03:21.400
the Lord your God will choose amidst all
your tribes as his habitation,

03:03:22.040 --> 03:03:23.920
to establish his name there.

03:03:24.000 --> 03:03:30.660
Now, this is God, through Moses,
telling Joshua and the people what they're

03:03:30.660 --> 03:03:32.780
supposed to do when they get into the
promised land.

03:03:34.100 --> 03:03:36.960
One of the things that they're going to do
is they're going to build a temple.

03:03:37.720 --> 03:03:41.380
They're going to build a central site at
which God is worshipped.

03:03:41.820 --> 03:03:45.080
And you see this phrase occur in
Deuteronomy a lot.

03:03:46.140 --> 03:03:51.860
The temple is referred to as the place
where the Lord thy God shall choose to set

03:03:51.860 --> 03:03:52.480
his name.

03:03:53.880 --> 03:03:58.180
Now, we know from descriptions of the
temple that the idea wasn't, well,

03:03:58.220 --> 03:04:01.700
when you build a thing, then you take some
sharp object and scratch, you know,

03:04:01.760 --> 03:04:05.180
the four consonants in the door,
or something like that.

03:04:07.120 --> 03:04:09.040
It was never commanded, it was never done.

03:04:09.600 --> 03:04:15.160
It's language that says, this is where I'm
going to decide to live, okay?

03:04:15.540 --> 03:04:16.900
I'm going to be there.

03:04:16.980 --> 03:04:19.040
I'm going to set my name there.

03:04:19.120 --> 03:04:22.060
Now you think, well, if that's the point,
why doesn't God just say, hey,

03:04:22.080 --> 03:04:22.740
I'm going to live there?

03:04:24.700 --> 03:04:32.160
Okay, because God's telling you somewhat
cryptically that I'm going to put myself

03:04:32.160 --> 03:04:35.740
there, but I'm still everywhere else.

03:04:36.580 --> 03:04:41.700
It's the language of localization,
but yet God can't just be at only one

03:04:41.700 --> 03:04:42.180
place.

03:04:42.900 --> 03:04:46.440
It's sort of an expression for God's
essence.

03:04:47.260 --> 03:04:50.260
His glory is going to inhabit the temple.

03:04:50.940 --> 03:04:54.700
And we know that's, you know, how it was
because we read through the books of Kings

03:04:54.700 --> 03:04:56.820
and all that, and other passages.

03:04:57.040 --> 03:04:59.460
So is the name just another way of
referring to Yahweh?

03:05:00.420 --> 03:05:02.340
It is in most instances.

03:05:02.680 --> 03:05:03.400
Here's an example.

03:05:04.420 --> 03:05:07.160
May the Lord answer you in the day of
trouble.

03:05:07.420 --> 03:05:10.640
May the name of the God of Jacob protect
you.

03:05:12.860 --> 03:05:15.800
Okay, now names aren't alive.

03:05:16.440 --> 03:05:17.840
They're not persons.

03:05:18.020 --> 03:05:18.880
They're not entities.

03:05:19.320 --> 03:05:20.920
They can't do anything.

03:05:22.020 --> 03:05:25.240
Okay, but the God of Israel is a person
who's active and powerful.

03:05:25.540 --> 03:05:31.080
And so the idea isn't that somehow,
you know, four letters are going to come

03:05:31.080 --> 03:05:36.300
to your assistance, rather the being that
those four letters represent.

03:05:37.100 --> 03:05:39.060
Okay, that's who you're trusting.

03:05:39.200 --> 03:05:42.100
And so it's another way of referring to
God himself.

03:05:42.820 --> 03:05:46.560
Some trust in chariots, some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our

03:05:46.560 --> 03:05:46.920
God.

03:05:48.200 --> 03:05:49.080
Pretty straightforward.

03:05:50.080 --> 03:05:54.500
It gets a little strange though,
as this gets articulated.

03:05:54.700 --> 03:05:55.400
Second Samuel.

03:05:56.520 --> 03:05:59.080
Most English translations really cheat on
this one.

03:06:00.480 --> 03:06:02.440
David again gathered all the chosen men of
Israel.

03:06:02.540 --> 03:06:04.540
This is when they're moving the ark.

03:06:05.440 --> 03:06:09.340
David arose and went to all the people who
were with him from Baal Yudah to bring up

03:06:09.340 --> 03:06:11.960
from there the ark of God, which is called
the name.

03:06:13.040 --> 03:06:18.620
The ark is called the name, the name of
the Lord.

03:06:18.700 --> 03:06:23.200
Now, the ESV has the ark is called by the
name of the Lord of hosts.

03:06:23.820 --> 03:06:25.740
Now, I'm sorry, that is just wrong.

03:06:26.400 --> 03:06:28.120
Because here's what the Hebrew says.

03:06:29.120 --> 03:06:38.540
It says, Asher Nikra Shem, who is called
the name, the name Shem Adonai Tzevaot,

03:06:38.960 --> 03:06:40.980
the name of the Lord of hosts.

03:06:42.280 --> 03:06:44.940
Okay, name occurs twice in the verse.

03:06:45.520 --> 03:06:46.360
It's very clear.

03:06:46.560 --> 03:06:49.980
The ark was called the name.

03:06:50.380 --> 03:06:52.740
Now, why would, why would, what does that
mean?

03:06:53.180 --> 03:06:53.900
Anybody?

03:06:54.700 --> 03:06:59.280
Why would you associate the ark with the
presence of Yahweh?

03:07:03.230 --> 03:07:03.670
Right.

03:07:03.930 --> 03:07:05.390
The tablets are inside.

03:07:05.610 --> 03:07:06.570
What are some other reasons?

03:07:06.930 --> 03:07:08.090
What is it about the ark?

03:07:12.690 --> 03:07:14.830
Cherubim on top, the mercy seat.

03:07:15.130 --> 03:07:19.310
This is where God was perceived to sit or
be.

03:07:19.590 --> 03:07:22.510
Okay, the tent of meeting, all that,
all that Old Testament imagery.

03:07:23.070 --> 03:07:25.270
This is the place where God was.

03:07:26.570 --> 03:07:31.530
Okay, just like the temple, which is why
they put the ark in the temple later on.

03:07:31.530 --> 03:07:34.950
Actually, they put the whole tabernacle in
the temple, but we don't need the rabbit

03:07:34.950 --> 03:07:35.610
trail there.

03:07:37.050 --> 03:07:38.130
Isaiah 30, 27.

03:07:38.230 --> 03:07:41.190
Sometimes the name is personified as
though it were a person.

03:07:41.490 --> 03:07:44.990
Because again, it's just a substitute for
Yahweh.

03:07:45.270 --> 03:07:47.910
Behold, the name of the Lord comes from
afar.

03:07:48.830 --> 03:07:50.150
Well, like names don't travel.

03:07:51.430 --> 03:07:56.070
In blazing wrath, with a heavy burden,
his lips, his lips full of fury.

03:07:56.190 --> 03:07:58.350
Well, again, that's language of
personification.

03:07:59.270 --> 03:08:01.690
The name is now cast as a person.

03:08:03.170 --> 03:08:04.730
His tongue like devouring fire.

03:08:07.170 --> 03:08:11.330
Now the name theology becomes important
when you start looking at the angel of the

03:08:11.330 --> 03:08:13.270
Lord, which is why I always begin with it.

03:08:14.610 --> 03:08:16.570
Exodus 3, familiar passage.

03:08:17.730 --> 03:08:18.850
Who's in the bush?

03:08:20.430 --> 03:08:20.830
God.

03:08:21.390 --> 03:08:22.090
Yeah, he is.

03:08:22.190 --> 03:08:22.590
Who else?

03:08:23.590 --> 03:08:24.530
He's not alone.

03:08:25.530 --> 03:08:29.790
Okay, verse 2, an angel of Yahweh appeared
to him in a blazing fire out of a bush.

03:08:30.930 --> 03:08:31.790
It's Moses.

03:08:32.190 --> 03:08:34.690
He says, boy, I'm going to turn aside and
look at this.

03:08:35.470 --> 03:08:40.910
And then in verse 4, when Yahweh saw that
he, Moses, had turned aside to look,

03:08:41.070 --> 03:08:42.430
God called to him out of the bush.

03:08:42.730 --> 03:08:46.770
So you got angel, Yahweh, and God,
all three terms used in the passage.

03:08:47.350 --> 03:08:55.370
Now, either the angel is Yahweh,
or the angel and Yahweh are separate.

03:08:56.010 --> 03:08:59.110
And what I'm going to suggest to you
through the rest of the time tonight is

03:08:59.110 --> 03:09:00.970
the answer to that is yes.

03:09:02.370 --> 03:09:05.810
The angel is Yahweh, but he's not.

03:09:06.330 --> 03:09:08.250
He is, but isn't Yahweh.

03:09:08.890 --> 03:09:13.170
And I've used this language before,
and we use it, but we don't maybe think

03:09:13.170 --> 03:09:14.470
about it when we talk about Jesus.

03:09:15.690 --> 03:09:17.890
Jesus is God, but he's not.

03:09:18.270 --> 03:09:19.650
Okay, he's not the Father.

03:09:20.430 --> 03:09:25.210
In other words, we distinguish persons
within the Godhead, but yet they're all

03:09:25.210 --> 03:09:26.130
equal in essence.

03:09:26.890 --> 03:09:28.190
That's what's going on here.

03:09:28.270 --> 03:09:33.630
And in a number of other passages,
they have the category of a Godhead,

03:09:34.650 --> 03:09:40.490
where you've got different, not the same,
different entities who are Yahweh,

03:09:40.710 --> 03:09:41.930
but are still distinct.

03:09:43.070 --> 03:09:45.270
Okay, that's the point you need to fix in
your mind.

03:09:45.590 --> 03:09:47.570
And it comes right out of the Old
Testament.

03:09:48.830 --> 03:09:52.350
Exodus 23, this is the key passage that
goes back to the name.

03:09:53.830 --> 03:09:58.630
God tells Moses, when they're embarking to
go to the land, I am sending an angel

03:09:58.630 --> 03:10:03.370
before you to guard you on the way,
and to bring you to the place that I have

03:10:03.370 --> 03:10:03.910
made ready.

03:10:04.150 --> 03:10:06.510
Pay heed to him and obey him.

03:10:07.090 --> 03:10:10.950
Do not defy him, for he will not pardon
your offenses or forgive your sins,

03:10:10.990 --> 03:10:11.510
more literally.

03:10:12.330 --> 03:10:12.810
Why not?

03:10:13.970 --> 03:10:18.210
He won't do that since my name is in him.

03:10:19.990 --> 03:10:26.650
My essence, my glory, what I am,
me, I'm in him.

03:10:27.770 --> 03:10:30.170
He is me, and I am he.

03:10:30.170 --> 03:10:33.470
Okay, I mean, try to parse the language
here.

03:10:34.210 --> 03:10:36.270
My name is in him.

03:10:36.670 --> 03:10:39.250
And if you go, this is Exodus 23,
you go through the Pentateuch,

03:10:39.550 --> 03:10:44.310
you got the Ark, you got Deuteronomy
language, the name was considered to be

03:10:44.310 --> 03:10:45.030
Yahweh.

03:10:46.350 --> 03:10:50.650
So the angel is an embodiment of Yahweh.

03:10:50.810 --> 03:10:51.450
And guess what?

03:10:54.130 --> 03:10:56.890
Sometimes Yahweh and the angel are both in
the same scene.

03:10:58.090 --> 03:11:01.410
Deuteronomy 4 is a nice backup verse for
the essence.

03:11:03.410 --> 03:11:09.970
Yahweh says, I brought you... the writer
says that Yahweh, the Lord, brought you

03:11:09.970 --> 03:11:11.910
out of Egypt with his own presence.

03:11:13.510 --> 03:11:15.790
We just saw it was the angel here,
it's the presence.

03:11:16.730 --> 03:11:22.870
Exodus 33, God says, my presence will go
with you, and I will give you rest.

03:11:24.210 --> 03:11:28.090
Judges 2, the angel of Yahweh came up from
Gilgal to Bochim.

03:11:28.930 --> 03:11:31.390
This is when they're in the land,
they're supposed to be getting the job

03:11:31.390 --> 03:11:31.710
done.

03:11:32.570 --> 03:11:33.730
The angel shows up.

03:11:34.190 --> 03:11:35.810
The angel's been with them the whole time.

03:11:37.050 --> 03:11:40.750
He led them into the land, and he shows up
in a number of episodes.

03:11:42.110 --> 03:11:43.570
I brought you up from Egypt.

03:11:44.170 --> 03:11:45.770
Look at the use of I.

03:11:46.550 --> 03:11:47.830
I brought you up from Egypt.

03:11:48.030 --> 03:11:51.610
I took you into the land, which I had
promised on oath to your fathers.

03:11:51.850 --> 03:11:55.670
And I said, I will never break my covenant
with you.

03:11:56.030 --> 03:11:59.130
And you, for your part, must make no
covenant with the inhabitants in the land.

03:11:59.190 --> 03:12:01.330
But you have not obeyed me.

03:12:02.350 --> 03:12:03.370
Look what you've done.

03:12:03.510 --> 03:12:05.210
Then he basically says, I'm out of here.

03:12:05.950 --> 03:12:07.410
You're not going to obey, bye.

03:12:08.210 --> 03:12:12.130
That's why they call the name of the place
Bochim, because they sat there and cried,

03:12:12.590 --> 03:12:13.950
because the angel's gone.

03:12:15.030 --> 03:12:16.050
Isaiah 63.

03:12:16.350 --> 03:12:19.210
Again, we have the angel.

03:12:19.470 --> 03:12:23.350
Who led the children of Israel out of
Egypt into the land?

03:12:23.450 --> 03:12:25.970
Was it Yahweh, or was it the angel?

03:12:26.390 --> 03:12:27.470
And the answer is

03:12:30.970 --> 03:12:31.570
yes.

03:12:31.570 --> 03:12:32.750
Isaiah 63.

03:12:32.930 --> 03:12:34.030
In their affliction, he was afflicted.

03:12:34.070 --> 03:12:35.670
The angel of his presence saved them.

03:12:38.110 --> 03:12:40.570
Now, back to the scene at the Red Sea.

03:12:42.070 --> 03:12:45.450
Yahweh went before them by day in a pillar
of cloud to lead them along the way.

03:12:45.550 --> 03:12:46.850
Again, very familiar passage.

03:12:47.010 --> 03:12:48.090
So Yahweh's in the cloud.

03:12:50.350 --> 03:12:54.730
Then the angel of God, who was going
before the host, so he's out in front,

03:12:55.570 --> 03:12:57.190
moved and went behind them.

03:12:57.750 --> 03:13:02.170
And the pillar of cloud moved from before
them and stood behind them as well.

03:13:05.350 --> 03:13:10.890
They're both again, they're both at the
same scene doing things.

03:13:14.890 --> 03:13:15.690
Joshua 5.

03:13:16.070 --> 03:13:18.710
This is the captain of the Lord's host
passage.

03:13:19.770 --> 03:13:23.450
Once when Joshua was near Jericho,
he looked up and saw a man standing before

03:13:23.450 --> 03:13:25.950
him with a drawn sword in his hand.

03:13:27.170 --> 03:13:30.310
Joshua went up to him and asked,
are you one of one of us or for our

03:13:30.310 --> 03:13:30.650
enemies?

03:13:31.110 --> 03:13:34.130
He replied, no, I'm captain of Yahweh's
host.

03:13:34.250 --> 03:13:35.010
Now I have come.

03:13:36.230 --> 03:13:38.050
Joshua, of course, goes prostrate.

03:13:38.050 --> 03:13:41.110
What does my Lord command his servant,
the captain of the Lord's host?

03:13:41.290 --> 03:13:46.950
Answered Joshua, remove your sandals from
off your feet for the place in which you

03:13:46.950 --> 03:13:47.790
stand is holy.

03:13:48.650 --> 03:13:49.690
Where have we heard that before?

03:13:50.810 --> 03:13:51.570
Burning bush.

03:13:52.750 --> 03:13:55.190
Not only that, and the angel was at the
bush.

03:13:56.270 --> 03:14:01.770
Not only that, but the reason I have this
in Hebrew is this phrase of three words,

03:14:02.870 --> 03:14:10.890
the carbo shelofa beyado, and his sword
drawn in his hand is used two other places

03:14:10.890 --> 03:14:12.770
in the Old Testament.

03:14:13.630 --> 03:14:19.450
They are in the Chronicles account of
David taking the census.

03:14:20.350 --> 03:14:25.070
There's a parallel account there and
they're both used explicitly.

03:14:25.450 --> 03:14:29.390
The person described with the sword drawn
in his hand is the angel of the Lord.

03:14:29.890 --> 03:14:31.650
It's the only two places where it occurs.

03:14:31.770 --> 03:14:32.550
Other than this one.

03:14:34.170 --> 03:14:37.110
Again, the writers are not, this doesn't
happen by accident.

03:14:37.290 --> 03:14:39.230
They're telegraphing something to you.

03:14:40.070 --> 03:14:42.150
Judges six, the angel of Yahweh.

03:14:42.210 --> 03:14:45.330
This is one of my favorite passages on
this because it's just, it's just unusual.

03:14:46.510 --> 03:14:49.410
The angel of Yahweh came and sat under the
terebinth at Ophiroth.

03:14:49.510 --> 03:14:50.250
Terebinth is a tree.

03:14:50.430 --> 03:14:52.670
So fixing your mind, who's sitting under
the tree?

03:14:53.630 --> 03:14:54.310
The angel.

03:14:54.630 --> 03:14:54.890
Okay.

03:14:55.950 --> 03:14:57.690
He has a conversation with Gideon.

03:14:57.810 --> 03:15:00.490
The angel of Yahweh appeared to him and
said, Yahweh is with you.

03:15:00.810 --> 03:15:03.530
So the angel speaking of Yahweh as a
different person.

03:15:04.610 --> 03:15:08.250
Gideon says, well, yeah, you know,
boy, if he's with me, why is all this bad

03:15:08.250 --> 03:15:08.810
stuff happening?

03:15:08.950 --> 03:15:10.050
You go to verse 13.

03:15:11.010 --> 03:15:13.370
You know, why has all this stuff befallen
us?

03:15:14.170 --> 03:15:15.410
Yahweh turned to him.

03:15:16.170 --> 03:15:17.130
Where did he come from?

03:15:19.770 --> 03:15:20.510
How did he get there?

03:15:21.670 --> 03:15:22.750
I thought it was the angel.

03:15:23.070 --> 03:15:23.670
Well, it was.

03:15:23.830 --> 03:15:24.510
Now it's Yahweh.

03:15:24.730 --> 03:15:24.910
Yeah.

03:15:26.030 --> 03:15:26.430
Right.

03:15:27.810 --> 03:15:31.010
Yahweh turned to him and said,
go in this might of yours and save Israel

03:15:31.010 --> 03:15:31.930
from the hand of Midian.

03:15:32.870 --> 03:15:33.990
Aren't I sending you?

03:15:35.130 --> 03:15:37.150
And then of course he has this
conversation.

03:15:37.330 --> 03:15:39.650
Verse 16, Yahweh says to him something
else.

03:15:39.770 --> 03:15:41.310
Again, Yahweh speaks to him again.

03:15:41.390 --> 03:15:42.070
I'll be with you.

03:15:42.890 --> 03:15:45.470
And he, Gideon, said to him.

03:15:45.630 --> 03:15:48.530
Now we don't know who the him is because
we've got two characters.

03:15:48.770 --> 03:15:51.370
So that's why I have angel and Yahweh with
a question mark.

03:15:51.570 --> 03:15:52.570
Who's he talking to?

03:15:53.450 --> 03:15:54.810
We're not really clear.

03:15:55.730 --> 03:15:59.390
If now I have found favor in your eyes,
show me a sign that it is you who speaks

03:15:59.390 --> 03:15:59.690
with me.

03:15:59.790 --> 03:16:03.430
Please do not depart from here until I
come to you and bring out my present and

03:16:03.430 --> 03:16:04.110
set it before you.

03:16:04.150 --> 03:16:08.830
And he, whoever he is, said, I will stay
until you return.

03:16:12.050 --> 03:16:16.490
So Gideon went to his house, prepared a
young goat, cakes.

03:16:16.910 --> 03:16:18.950
He brought them to him.

03:16:19.750 --> 03:16:20.670
There's the him.

03:16:20.950 --> 03:16:21.150
Where?

03:16:22.750 --> 03:16:24.150
Under the terebinth.

03:16:25.110 --> 03:16:31.750
Now, is it right for anyone else but
Yahweh to accept an offering or a

03:16:31.750 --> 03:16:32.150
sacrifice?

03:16:32.510 --> 03:16:33.170
No, it is not.

03:16:34.310 --> 03:16:35.670
But you can see what happens.

03:16:36.530 --> 03:16:38.890
It's the angel who accepts the sacrifice.

03:16:40.530 --> 03:16:44.210
But now, wait a minute, wasn't Yahweh also
there?

03:16:44.330 --> 03:16:44.990
Well, yeah, he was.

03:16:46.050 --> 03:16:46.690
Is there a problem?

03:16:46.810 --> 03:16:48.590
No, the writer didn't see any problem.

03:16:50.050 --> 03:16:52.830
The angel of Yahweh reached out the tip of
his staff that was in his hand,

03:16:52.910 --> 03:16:54.250
touched the meat and the unleavened cakes.

03:16:54.430 --> 03:16:58.710
Fire sprang up from the rock, consumes it,
and the angel of Yahweh vanished from his

03:16:58.710 --> 03:16:59.030
sight.

03:17:00.430 --> 03:17:02.790
Okay, my job's over, bye, see you later.

03:17:04.370 --> 03:17:06.270
Gideon perceived that he was the angel of
Yahweh.

03:17:06.390 --> 03:17:07.790
A brilliant insight there.

03:17:08.870 --> 03:17:13.190
Gideon said, alas, O Lord God,
for now I have seen the angel of the Lord

03:17:13.190 --> 03:17:15.970
face to face, but Yahweh said,
Yahweh's still there.

03:17:17.710 --> 03:17:21.950
So this is the passage that I would take a
Jewish friend and saying, look,

03:17:22.910 --> 03:17:25.350
you can't have it both ways.

03:17:25.890 --> 03:17:30.990
Yahweh wants two modes or two forms,
and you got them coming and going here.

03:17:31.150 --> 03:17:32.470
You got two different characters.

03:17:33.650 --> 03:17:34.430
What's the point?

03:17:36.930 --> 03:17:40.510
You know, and at this point, we could
launch into how this is similar,

03:17:40.670 --> 03:17:46.030
how this bears similarity to other ancient
Near Eastern ways of describing deity.

03:17:47.830 --> 03:17:53.070
It's just a necessary thing to have,
to speak of deity as embodied on occasion,

03:17:53.090 --> 03:17:56.350
because of we have to be able to detect
deity with our own senses.

03:17:56.530 --> 03:17:58.050
And so that just gets built in.

03:17:58.290 --> 03:18:02.090
But the issue here is that you have both
things happening at the same time,

03:18:02.170 --> 03:18:04.470
and they're clearly separate characters.

03:18:04.590 --> 03:18:07.570
And sometimes they're so closely
identified, you can't tell them apart.

03:18:08.150 --> 03:18:12.170
And even more than that, the same
descriptions are used of both.

03:18:12.950 --> 03:18:15.170
And there's no blasphemy going on here.

03:18:15.250 --> 03:18:22.790
This is normal discourse for Israelite
religion, Israelite theology in the Old

03:18:22.790 --> 03:18:23.270
Testament.

03:18:23.910 --> 03:18:26.130
These are not non-canonical books.

03:18:27.210 --> 03:18:28.390
This is the Torah.

03:18:29.430 --> 03:18:30.570
This is the Tanakh.

03:18:31.650 --> 03:18:32.750
It is what it is.

03:18:34.510 --> 03:18:39.450
Genesis 31, the angel of God comes to
Jacob, comes to him in a dream.

03:18:39.950 --> 03:18:41.230
Jacob says, here I am.

03:18:42.010 --> 03:18:45.270
And in verse 13, the angel says,
I am the God of Bethel.

03:18:45.950 --> 03:18:48.930
I mean, how much clearer can it be?

03:18:50.110 --> 03:18:52.550
He didn't say, hey, the God of Bethel has
a message for you.

03:18:52.590 --> 03:18:54.110
Or like, I was there with him.

03:18:54.150 --> 03:18:56.750
He says, I am the God of Bethel.

03:18:57.130 --> 03:19:02.030
Jacob had an episode back there at Bethel
earlier in his life where he made a pillar

03:19:02.030 --> 03:19:03.650
and made a vow.

03:19:04.610 --> 03:19:08.850
Genesis 48, this is when Jacob is blessing
his sons.

03:19:10.370 --> 03:19:12.110
He stretched out his sons of Joseph.

03:19:12.370 --> 03:19:15.070
He stretched out his right hand,
laid it on Ephraim's head.

03:19:15.070 --> 03:19:17.390
And then, you know, he crosses his hands
with Manasseh.

03:19:17.810 --> 03:19:18.690
And here's his blessing.

03:19:18.810 --> 03:19:19.390
Here's the point.

03:19:19.510 --> 03:19:24.170
Jacob says, the God, and in Hebrew,
it's Elohim.

03:19:25.410 --> 03:19:28.230
The God in whose ways my fathers,
Abraham and Isaac, walked.

03:19:28.830 --> 03:19:32.230
The God who has been my shepherd from my
birth to this day.

03:19:33.550 --> 03:19:38.130
The angel who has redeemed me from all
harm.

03:19:40.170 --> 03:19:42.130
No incongruity in Jacob's mind.

03:19:42.690 --> 03:19:48.890
And the kicker is, may he bless these
boys.

03:19:49.710 --> 03:19:50.930
The verb is singular.

03:19:51.950 --> 03:19:53.910
You can't tell them apart.

03:19:56.790 --> 03:20:00.210
And the writer doesn't want you to tell
them apart, because if he did,

03:20:00.290 --> 03:20:01.170
he would have used a plural.

03:20:02.210 --> 03:20:05.330
He would have said, may they bless these
boys.

03:20:05.390 --> 03:20:05.770
But he doesn't.

03:20:05.890 --> 03:20:06.610
He says, may he.

03:20:07.250 --> 03:20:07.930
Which one?

03:20:08.390 --> 03:20:10.050
God or the angel?

03:20:10.630 --> 03:20:13.290
The answer is, yes.

03:20:13.810 --> 03:20:14.170
Okay.

03:20:16.410 --> 03:20:17.590
The cloud rider.

03:20:18.430 --> 03:20:19.850
He who rides the clouds.

03:20:19.990 --> 03:20:22.150
Now, Baal, this is the title of Baal.

03:20:23.710 --> 03:20:27.510
I like to use, to reference this for a
couple of reasons.

03:20:27.590 --> 03:20:31.830
But one is, sometimes you get into
discussions with people and they say,

03:20:31.910 --> 03:20:35.990
well, one was God and the other one was
like, not really God, just sort of divine

03:20:35.990 --> 03:20:37.110
or something like that.

03:20:37.190 --> 03:20:37.970
Well, okay.

03:20:39.430 --> 03:20:40.870
Let's talk about Baal.

03:20:41.330 --> 03:20:50.830
Baal was not mistaken by anyone for being
other than a deity across the ancient

03:20:50.830 --> 03:20:51.290
world.

03:20:51.830 --> 03:20:54.990
There are Baal shrines practically
everywhere you go.

03:20:55.710 --> 03:20:57.030
Hundreds of them.

03:20:58.550 --> 03:21:02.830
Baal was a to lots of people all the way
into Roman times.

03:21:03.190 --> 03:21:04.610
They're still worshiping Baal.

03:21:05.250 --> 03:21:06.390
Baal is not an angel.

03:21:08.050 --> 03:21:09.610
He's not something else.

03:21:09.670 --> 03:21:12.390
He is a God to the ancient people.

03:21:13.090 --> 03:21:16.430
One of Baal's titles is the one who rides
the clouds.

03:21:17.590 --> 03:21:23.670
This title, because it was so clearly
identified with the deity, this title is

03:21:23.670 --> 03:21:26.290
used in the Old Testament four or five
times.

03:21:27.030 --> 03:21:32.290
It is always used with one exception of
the God of Israel, because what the

03:21:32.290 --> 03:21:37.090
Israelite writers are doing is,
look, there seems to be some confusion,

03:21:37.270 --> 03:21:39.490
like the confrontation with Elijah.

03:21:40.610 --> 03:21:42.290
Who are you going to worship, Baal or
Yahweh?

03:21:42.390 --> 03:21:43.270
Like, make up your mind.

03:21:43.870 --> 03:21:47.890
The problem was, is that the seat of Baal
worship was next door in Syria.

03:21:48.670 --> 03:21:52.150
And so there was a big problem with
keeping the Israelites worshiping Yahweh

03:21:52.150 --> 03:21:52.850
and not Baal.

03:21:53.910 --> 03:21:59.310
So a couple of times the biblical writers
say, okay, Baal's the one who rides the

03:21:59.310 --> 03:21:59.770
clouds.

03:21:59.870 --> 03:22:04.210
We're going to use that title and
attribute it to Yahweh to make it clear in

03:22:04.210 --> 03:22:08.690
our readers' minds of just who rides the
clouds.

03:22:08.830 --> 03:22:10.150
Who's the one who brings rain?

03:22:10.290 --> 03:22:11.810
Who's the one that grows our crops?

03:22:11.910 --> 03:22:14.290
You know, all these things that they
associated with Baal.

03:22:15.490 --> 03:22:16.590
So here are some examples.

03:22:16.790 --> 03:22:21.990
Deuteronomy 33, there's none like God,
O Jeshurun, who rides through the heavens

03:22:21.990 --> 03:22:22.630
to your help.

03:22:22.790 --> 03:22:24.690
Again, Deuteronomy 33, talking about the
God of Israel.

03:22:25.450 --> 03:22:31.330
Psalm 68, sing to God, sing praises to the
Lord, to him who rides in the heavens.

03:22:33.130 --> 03:22:36.410
Psalm 104, O Lord my God, you are very
great.

03:22:37.030 --> 03:22:39.970
He lays, you know, this description,
covering yourself with light as garments,

03:22:40.710 --> 03:22:41.930
stretching out of the heavens like a tent.

03:22:41.930 --> 03:22:43.990
He lays the beams of his chambers on the
waters.

03:22:44.370 --> 03:22:46.210
He makes the clouds his chariot.

03:22:46.290 --> 03:22:49.010
There's, you know, this reference to the
rider on the clouds again.

03:22:50.230 --> 03:22:52.930
Isaiah 19, behold, the Lord is riding on a
swift cloud.

03:22:53.090 --> 03:22:54.910
Yahweh's riding on a swift cloud.

03:22:54.970 --> 03:22:59.910
So they're doing this to reinforce that it
isn't Baal who does this, who does all the

03:22:59.910 --> 03:23:05.830
things that we associate with the God who
governs the clouds, or who controls things

03:23:05.830 --> 03:23:06.270
up there.

03:23:06.350 --> 03:23:06.830
It's Yahweh.

03:23:06.970 --> 03:23:08.210
It's not Baal, it's Yahweh.

03:23:09.230 --> 03:23:10.210
Here's the exception.

03:23:12.410 --> 03:23:14.690
As I looked, thrones were set in place
again.

03:23:14.830 --> 03:23:19.470
Ancient of days takes his seat,
the court sits, divine counsel again.

03:23:20.790 --> 03:23:24.590
I saw in the night visions and behold,
upon the clouds of heaven there came one

03:23:24.590 --> 03:23:25.510
like a son of man.

03:23:26.470 --> 03:23:28.290
Who's the cloud rider now?

03:23:30.350 --> 03:23:35.530
It's not the seated God of Israel,
it's somebody else.

03:23:36.930 --> 03:23:40.890
There are two deities in the passage.

03:23:41.930 --> 03:23:49.430
This is why this became a critical text
for not only the discussion of a second

03:23:49.430 --> 03:23:54.350
power, but also we have to be able to
answer Daniel 7, where we're sunk,

03:23:55.150 --> 03:23:57.210
because there's clearly two.

03:23:58.090 --> 03:24:04.350
Everybody in the ancient world knew this
was a title of deity, the one who rides

03:24:04.350 --> 03:24:04.930
the clouds.

03:24:05.510 --> 03:24:08.710
And here it ain't the God of Israel,
it's somebody else.

03:24:11.950 --> 03:24:14.790
Yahweh gets described in human form as
well.

03:24:14.990 --> 03:24:20.950
Genesis 18, he's one of the three men who
sit down and Abraham brings them a meal

03:24:20.950 --> 03:24:24.870
and in verse 8, they eat.

03:24:25.890 --> 03:24:27.130
So he's clearly embodied.

03:24:28.370 --> 03:24:34.710
Exodus 24, Moses, Aaron, Nadav,
and Abihu and the elders go up to Sinai

03:24:34.710 --> 03:24:38.650
and it says, point-blank, they saw the God
of Israel.

03:24:40.110 --> 03:24:43.010
Under his feet there's pavement,
like sapphire stone.

03:24:43.410 --> 03:24:47.050
This is actually coming from Baal
literature as well, because this is a

03:24:47.050 --> 03:24:49.270
stock description of Baal's palace.

03:24:50.350 --> 03:24:53.890
And again, they want to be clear,
it is not Baal who inhabits the heavens

03:24:53.890 --> 03:24:56.010
and rules everything, it's Yahweh.

03:24:56.990 --> 03:25:00.430
This stuff happens a lot in the Old
Testament, and it's for theological

03:25:00.430 --> 03:25:01.170
reasons.

03:25:01.310 --> 03:25:05.950
They're trying to do a theological
corrective to the people who are reading

03:25:05.950 --> 03:25:06.730
their text.

03:25:08.030 --> 03:25:13.850
Ezekiel 1, famous passage Ezekiel,
likeness on the throne, human appearance.

03:25:15.270 --> 03:25:17.990
Now let's look at Jesus against all of
this.

03:25:18.910 --> 03:25:25.530
If you were a Semite, if you were a Jew
living in the first century, if you were

03:25:25.530 --> 03:25:29.690
familiar with your Old Testament,
you knew all the stuff that I just

03:25:29.690 --> 03:25:31.030
covered, and there's more.

03:25:32.350 --> 03:25:38.570
You had this idea in your mind that
there's Yahweh, but there's actually two.

03:25:38.850 --> 03:25:43.010
There's the Yahweh who's invisible that we
never see, and then there's this other

03:25:43.010 --> 03:25:47.030
Yahweh that we can see, because a lot of
times he's in human form.

03:25:47.810 --> 03:25:51.170
And they're not two gods, we're not
worshipping two gods, we're worshipping

03:25:51.170 --> 03:25:53.710
one, the Lord our God is one, there's
unity there.

03:25:55.810 --> 03:25:59.570
But there's two, and there's still one,
and there's two, and they're different.

03:25:59.690 --> 03:26:06.710
I mean, they had these things in their
head that they could sift information

03:26:06.710 --> 03:26:07.210
through.

03:26:07.430 --> 03:26:10.330
It was their grid, their interpretive
grid.

03:26:10.450 --> 03:26:13.590
So along comes Jesus, and not only that,
but they had all the other Second Temple

03:26:13.590 --> 03:26:18.550
stuff, where Jewish thinkers are trying to
identify the second one.

03:26:18.770 --> 03:26:19.950
They have all this.

03:26:20.450 --> 03:26:24.230
Then Jesus comes along, the New Testament
writers, and they write stuff like,

03:26:25.310 --> 03:26:30.830
in the beginning was the Logos,
and the Logos was with God, and the Logos

03:26:30.830 --> 03:26:36.490
was God, and the Logos became flesh and
dwelt among us.

03:26:37.670 --> 03:26:41.690
We've seen his glory, okay, the presence.

03:26:43.050 --> 03:26:46.110
Glory is of the only Son from the Father,
full of grace and truth.

03:26:46.110 --> 03:26:51.270
No one has ever seen God, the only God
who's at the Father's side.

03:26:51.330 --> 03:26:51.710
Now, wait a minute.

03:26:52.250 --> 03:26:55.550
I thought God was the Father, so how can
God be at the Father's side?

03:26:56.270 --> 03:26:58.830
Well, it's easy if you have two.

03:27:01.050 --> 03:27:01.890
Piece of cake.

03:27:03.170 --> 03:27:04.990
The angel, Jude 5.

03:27:06.270 --> 03:27:10.090
Now, I want to remind you, although you
once fully knew it, that Jesus,

03:27:10.790 --> 03:27:13.770
who saved a people out of the land of
Egypt...

03:27:15.110 --> 03:27:15.750
Well, wait a minute.

03:27:15.950 --> 03:27:18.530
I thought that was God.

03:27:18.690 --> 03:27:19.930
No, no, no, it was the angel.

03:27:21.430 --> 03:27:26.830
Maybe Jesus, like, angel was the embodied
Yahweh, and the word became... Oh,

03:27:26.930 --> 03:27:27.790
okay, I get it.

03:27:29.130 --> 03:27:29.870
I'm tracking.

03:27:35.600 --> 03:27:37.020
John 17, the name.

03:27:38.380 --> 03:27:40.680
I want you to think about what Jesus is
praying here.

03:27:42.540 --> 03:27:47.880
I have manifested your name to the people
whom you gave me out of the world.

03:27:48.000 --> 03:27:48.240
What?

03:27:48.540 --> 03:27:51.780
The Jews didn't know the name of God
before Jesus got there?

03:27:52.900 --> 03:27:53.380
Hello?

03:27:55.820 --> 03:27:58.200
They had... What do you mean they didn't
know the name of God?

03:27:58.260 --> 03:27:58.980
They had the Torah.

03:27:59.640 --> 03:28:02.320
In Exodus chapter 3, God tells you what
his name is.

03:28:02.940 --> 03:28:03.880
I am that I am.

03:28:04.180 --> 03:28:07.960
Yahweh is used like, oh, I don't know,
3,000 times in the thing.

03:28:08.920 --> 03:28:14.960
Jesus is not praying that, hey,
you know, when I came here, it was really

03:28:14.960 --> 03:28:17.680
an important part of my job to tell you
God's name.

03:28:20.060 --> 03:28:22.480
How could they not have known that?

03:28:22.800 --> 03:28:23.680
That isn't the point.

03:28:24.780 --> 03:28:27.040
I have manifested your name.

03:28:27.780 --> 03:28:33.680
I have made known your presence to the
people whom you gave me out of the world.

03:28:34.200 --> 03:28:38.020
Yours they were, and you gave them to me,
they have kept your word.

03:28:38.540 --> 03:28:42.420
While I was with them, I kept them in or
by your name.

03:28:44.540 --> 03:28:48.140
So when we got in trouble, I just said,
Yahweh, remember that's God's name.

03:28:48.700 --> 03:28:50.140
You didn't know that before I got here.

03:28:51.300 --> 03:28:52.760
That's not what he's saying at all.

03:28:53.320 --> 03:28:59.400
He's saying, I kept them through your
power, through who you are, through what

03:28:59.400 --> 03:29:03.040
you are, because I and the Father are one.

03:29:04.180 --> 03:29:09.440
I made known to them your name,
and I will continue to make it known.

03:29:09.460 --> 03:29:17.080
This is just another way of Jesus saying
that you have never seen the Father unless

03:29:17.080 --> 03:29:18.040
you've seen me.

03:29:18.120 --> 03:29:20.800
You've never known the Father unless
you've known me.

03:29:21.720 --> 03:29:28.440
It's the same way of saying, I am him,
but I'm still me.

03:29:29.820 --> 03:29:35.960
Again, it's this language of fusion and
dichotomy at the same time.

03:29:38.820 --> 03:29:40.180
One who rides the clouds.

03:29:41.180 --> 03:29:44.800
I saw in the night visions, again,
Daniel writing, son of man riding on the

03:29:44.800 --> 03:29:45.160
clouds.

03:29:46.000 --> 03:29:46.900
Matthew 26.

03:29:48.000 --> 03:29:51.820
This is Jesus at his trial for Caiaphas.

03:29:52.120 --> 03:29:54.480
Those who had seized Jesus led him to
Caiaphas, the high priest.

03:29:54.580 --> 03:29:57.940
The priest stands up and says,
don't you have an answer to make?

03:29:58.060 --> 03:30:00.240
What is it that these men testify against
you?

03:30:00.300 --> 03:30:01.580
But Jesus remains silent.

03:30:02.280 --> 03:30:07.440
The high priest gets a little fed up with
that and says to him, I adjure you by the

03:30:07.440 --> 03:30:07.940
living God.

03:30:08.060 --> 03:30:10.340
Tell us if you are the Christ,
the son of God.

03:30:10.600 --> 03:30:12.460
Quit beating around the bush, say
something.

03:30:13.180 --> 03:30:21.280
Jesus said to him, you have said so,
but I tell you from now on, you will see

03:30:21.280 --> 03:30:26.420
the son of man seated at the right hand of
power and coming on the clouds of heaven.

03:30:26.580 --> 03:30:30.620
His answer to Caiaphas is he quotes Daniel
seven.

03:30:31.840 --> 03:30:33.700
Like what kind of an answer is that?

03:30:34.360 --> 03:30:35.940
I'll tell you what kind of an answer it
was.

03:30:35.960 --> 03:30:38.140
It was a punch in the face is what it was.

03:30:38.800 --> 03:30:41.900
He's saying, I am the son of man.

03:30:42.540 --> 03:30:46.400
This is Jesus' favorite title for himself
through the New Testament.

03:30:47.220 --> 03:30:50.840
Most of the time it's just a reference to
being the human one, but isn't that kind

03:30:50.840 --> 03:30:51.320
of curious?

03:30:51.800 --> 03:30:55.940
I mean, honestly, if you met a guy at work
that referred to himself as the human one,

03:30:56.680 --> 03:30:57.960
wouldn't you think he was a little odd?

03:30:59.000 --> 03:31:00.360
I'm like, no kidding.

03:31:01.360 --> 03:31:07.400
You know, most of the time it's a
reference to humanity, but here he quotes

03:31:07.400 --> 03:31:13.500
Daniel seven point blank, and he puts
himself in it and Caiaphas gets it

03:31:13.500 --> 03:31:15.400
immediately because look at what he does.

03:31:16.080 --> 03:31:20.960
Then the high priest tore his robes and
said, he has uttered blasphemy.

03:31:21.560 --> 03:31:24.040
He just made himself the second Yahweh.

03:31:24.660 --> 03:31:26.640
He just made himself the second power.

03:31:27.520 --> 03:31:28.980
What further witnesses do we need?

03:31:29.080 --> 03:31:30.360
You have now heard his blasphemy.

03:31:30.500 --> 03:31:34.340
Caiaphas isn't saying, oh, we got to get
rid of this guy because he called himself

03:31:34.340 --> 03:31:34.780
human.

03:31:36.260 --> 03:31:36.700
What?

03:31:39.020 --> 03:31:45.420
No, we got to get rid of this guy because
he just called himself the second Yahweh.

03:31:46.600 --> 03:31:48.440
He's claiming to be God.

03:31:50.500 --> 03:31:57.700
I mean, it's easy to see when you have the
backdrop that the first century Christians

03:31:57.700 --> 03:31:57.920
did.

03:31:58.000 --> 03:32:02.820
Now, what I'm not claiming is I'm not
saying that in the old Testament you have

03:32:02.820 --> 03:32:11.960
a full blown, full orbed Christology,
Trinitarian Christology, like we think of.

03:32:12.000 --> 03:32:15.000
There are hints of Trinity in the Old
Testament.

03:32:15.440 --> 03:32:17.780
It's easy to show two.

03:32:18.520 --> 03:32:19.840
There are hints of three.

03:32:20.340 --> 03:32:25.720
All I'm saying is that the Jews,
the Jewish people, it was part of Judaism

03:32:26.680 --> 03:32:28.420
to have a God head.

03:32:28.600 --> 03:32:32.720
It comes right out of the Old Testament,
right out of Israelite religion.

03:32:33.220 --> 03:32:39.240
And when Jesus comes along, we need to
view him, and they did view him against

03:32:39.240 --> 03:32:41.200
the backdrop of the Old Testament.

03:32:41.340 --> 03:32:48.450
When Jesus starts going around saying some
of the things he's saying, some of it

03:32:48.450 --> 03:32:53.630
falls, you know, on deaf ears on our end,
not because we don't care, but because we

03:32:53.630 --> 03:32:55.310
just lack the connections.

03:32:56.390 --> 03:33:00.770
But when they heard him say things like,
you know, calling himself the son of man,

03:33:00.890 --> 03:33:04.810
and you know, this or that quotation,
they knew exactly what he was saying.

03:33:05.570 --> 03:33:08.090
And some of them believed it, and others
didn't.

03:33:08.750 --> 03:33:10.310
Some of them were really offended.

03:33:11.930 --> 03:33:15.350
The problem was not the two powers
teaching.

03:33:15.490 --> 03:33:17.310
The two powers teaching was part of
Judaism.

03:33:19.450 --> 03:33:28.490
What made it indigestible is that this
candidate for the second power,

03:33:29.150 --> 03:33:33.790
according to the New Testament writers,
was not some dead guy from the Bible,

03:33:34.390 --> 03:33:37.530
you know, from the Old Testament,
a guy who lived thousands of years ago.

03:33:37.810 --> 03:33:42.530
Well, yeah, he sounds like a good
candidate, wonderful, whatever.

03:33:43.630 --> 03:33:50.230
Instead, this was a guy who was alive now,
and who was doing things that were pretty

03:33:50.230 --> 03:33:50.890
spectacular.

03:33:52.250 --> 03:33:56.390
And not only that, but he was running
against the grain of the religious

03:33:56.390 --> 03:33:58.890
authorities of his time in his tradition.

03:33:59.370 --> 03:34:04.050
And he's claiming to be the one that
they've been speculating about for

03:34:04.050 --> 03:34:04.610
centuries.

03:34:05.270 --> 03:34:06.810
That was a little hard to take.

03:34:06.910 --> 03:34:14.250
The other problem was, to be that person,
you had to, he had to have been born,

03:34:14.790 --> 03:34:17.710
you had to have Yahweh born of a woman.

03:34:18.910 --> 03:34:25.770
In other words, he had to be human with
all of the frailties associated with all

03:34:25.770 --> 03:34:29.510
of the somewhat distasteful things
associated with it.

03:34:31.170 --> 03:34:32.770
Jesus had to be potty trained.

03:34:33.830 --> 03:34:36.770
Jesus puked up his lunch from time to
time.

03:34:36.910 --> 03:34:39.770
Okay, I mean, he just did the things kids
do, because why?

03:34:40.370 --> 03:34:41.150
He was human.

03:34:42.290 --> 03:34:44.570
We know he could bleed, we know he could
die.

03:34:45.690 --> 03:34:46.490
He was human.

03:34:46.850 --> 03:34:48.330
He wasn't like mostly human.

03:34:48.910 --> 03:34:50.650
It's not princess bride theology.

03:34:50.830 --> 03:34:52.150
Okay, he was human, all right?

03:34:53.030 --> 03:34:54.350
He's whole.

03:34:54.690 --> 03:34:56.110
And that really bothered people.

03:34:56.190 --> 03:34:58.730
But you know, how could God stoop to that?

03:34:59.750 --> 03:35:00.950
I'll throw in a third thing.

03:35:01.010 --> 03:35:02.510
The other problem was the crucifixion.

03:35:04.410 --> 03:35:07.910
Because if you're saying, if you're trying
to convince a Jewish audience of this

03:35:07.910 --> 03:35:12.470
after the crucifixion, they have to say,
in order for them to look at you and say,

03:35:12.530 --> 03:35:13.850
you know, I believe it, I think you're
right.

03:35:14.950 --> 03:35:20.830
They would have to get over the hump of
acknowledging that we just killed him.

03:35:22.770 --> 03:35:24.190
Boy, that was a big mistake.

03:35:25.210 --> 03:35:27.070
That sure looks like a boo-boo now.

03:35:29.030 --> 03:35:34.470
You know, and Peter is real quick in Acts
chapter 2 to confront them with just that.

03:35:35.070 --> 03:35:37.930
But he's also just as quick to say,
well, this was part of God's plan.

03:35:38.110 --> 03:35:40.230
You didn't realize it, but you're still
accountable.

03:35:40.490 --> 03:35:41.070
You did it.

03:35:42.430 --> 03:35:44.530
And you had to get over that hump.

03:35:44.930 --> 03:35:50.030
And that was a little too much for a lot
of Jews to accept.

03:35:50.750 --> 03:35:52.050
But many Jews did.

03:35:53.210 --> 03:36:00.810
Many Jews could look at Jesus and say,
this is entirely consistent with what we

03:36:00.810 --> 03:36:04.190
see in the Torah, with what we see in the
Tanakh.

03:36:04.870 --> 03:36:06.090
It's not a big leap.

03:36:08.010 --> 03:36:12.790
We're willing to take that leap that it
was this one and not these other ones.