Promised Messiah Quotes

The adult must seem to mislead the child, and the Master the dog. They misread the signs. Their ignorance and their wishes twist everything. You are so sure you know what the promise promised! And the danger is that when what He means by ‘wind’ appears you will ignore it because it is not what you thought it would be—as He Himself was rejected because He was not like the Messiah the Jews had in mind.

The Messiah is not imagination. It’s the truth. It is promised.

Let all your activities, everything that you do in life, let them all lead unto this great fundamental fact, that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. We can never be far from Him if we make Him central and thereby merit the promise that there shall come to you more satisfaction in living and following This life than anything else you could do in this world.

Marxism, like all other totalitarian movements in our century, must be seen as kind of secular pattern of redemption , designed to bring hope and fulfillment to those who have come to feel alienated , frustrated, and excluded from what they regard as their rightful place in a community. In its promise of unity and belonging lies much of the magic of totalitarian mistery, miracle, and authority. Bertrand Russell has not exaggerated in summing up the present significance of Marxism somewhat as follows: dialectical materialism is God; marx the Messiah; Lenin and Stalin the apostles; the proletariat the elect; the Communist party the Church; Moscow the seat of Church; the Revolution the second coming; the punishment of capitalismo hell; Trotsky the devil; and the communist commonwealth kingdom come.

The Essenes of Qumran thought Melchizedek was an angel. The philosopher Philo believed he was the divine Logos. The Jewish historian Josephus said he was only a man, but so righteous that he was “by common consent . . . made a priest of God.” David saw Melchizedek as a prototype of the promised Messiah who would establish a new order of king-priests (Psalm 110:1–4).

As with everything else in the gospels, the story of Jesus’s arrest, trial, and execution was written for one reason and one reason only: to prove that he was the promised messiah. Factual accuracy was irrelevant. What mattered was Christology, not history.

Anticipation lifts the heart. Desire is created to be fulfilled - perhaps not all at once, more likely in slow stages. Isaiah uttered his prophetic words about the renewal of the natural Creation into a wilderness of spiritual barrenness and thirst. For him, and for many other Old Testament seers, the vacuum of dry indifference into which he spoke was not yet a place of fulfillment. Yet the promise of God through this human mouthpiece (and the word "promise" always holds a kind of certainty) was verdant with hope, a kind of greenness and glory. A softening of hard-heartedness, a lively expectation, would herald the coming of Messiah. And once again, in this season of Advent, the same promise for the same Anointed One is coming closer.

He made so many promises,” said the deeply disappointed Obama acolyte Barbara Walters five years into the presidency. “We thought that he was going to be . . . the next messiah.” The messiah he was clearly not. He was not even an honest man. Lamented Walters, “People feel very disappointed because they expected more.

Despite two millennia of Christian apologetics, the fact is that belief in a dying and rising messiah simply did not exist in Judaism. In the entirety of the Hebrew Bible there is not a single passage of scripture or prophecy about the promised messiah that even hints of his ignominious death, let alone his bodily resurrection.

Luke means that Jesus is the new David, the King of the Jews, placed on God’s throne to rule over the Promised Land. Simply put, the infancy narratives in the gospels are not historical accounts, nor were they meant to be read as such. They are theological affirmations of Jesus’s status as the anointed of God. The descendant of King David. The promised messiah.

When love of one’s people becomes an absolute, it turns into racism. When love of equality turns into a supreme thing, it can result in hatred and violence toward anyone who has led a privileged life. It is the settled tendency of human societies to turn good political causes into counterfeit gods. As we have mentioned, Ernest Becker wrote that in a society that has lost the reality of God, many people will look to romantic love to give them the fulfillment they once found in religious experience. Nietzsche, however, believed it would be money that would replace God. But there is another candidate to fill this spiritual vacuum. We can also look to politics. We can look upon our political leaders as “messiahs,” our political policies as saving doctrine, and turn our political activism into a kind of religion.

Was this man the Messiah whom God had promised him or wasn’t he? All the miracles he performed could also be performed by Satan, who could even resurrect the dead. The miracles therefore did not give the rabbi sufficient basis to pass judgment; nor did the prophecies. Satan was a sly and exceedingly powerful archangel. In order to deceive mankind he was capable of making his words and actions fit the holy prophecies to perfection.

This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he has sent (John 6:29). This is to say that the most divinely approved work possible is to believe in the Messiah. To trust in the Lord Jesus is the climax of virtue.

5. This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel: under the law it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come; which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called the old Testament.

As with everything else in the gospels, the story of Jesus’s arrest, trial, and execution was written for one reason and one reason only: to prove that he was the promised messiah. Factual accuracy was irrelevant. What mattered was Christology, not history. The gospel writers obviously recognized how integral Jesus’s death was to the nascent community, but the story of that death needed elaborating. It needed to be slowed down and refocused. It required certain details and embellishments on the part of the evangelists. As a result, this final, most significant episode in the story of Jesus of Nazareth is also the one most clouded by theological enhancements and flat-out fabrications.

But there is no Messiah of Sitka. Landsman has no home, no future, no fate but Bina. The land that he and she were promised was bounded only by the fringes of their wedding canopy, by the dog-eared corners of their cards of membership in an international fraternity whose members carry their patrimony in a tote bag, their world on the tip of the tongue.

Mark’s Baptist admits that he himself is not the promised messiah—“There is one coming after me who is stronger than I am,” John says, “one whose sandals I am not worthy to untie” (Mark 1:7–8)—but strangely, John never actually acknowledges Jesus to be the one he is referring to. Even after Jesus’s perfunctory baptism, when the sky opens and the spirit of God descends upon him in the form of a dove as a heavenly voice says, “You are my son: the Beloved. In you I am well pleased,” John neither notices nor comments on this moment of divine interjection. To John, Jesus is merely another supplicant, another son of Abraham who journeys to the Jordan to be initiated into the renewed tribe of Israel. He simply moves on to the next person waiting to be baptized.

Take David, the man after God’s own heart. For decades, he held on to God’s promise that he would become king. But then he gave up and moved to Goliath’s native country, where he worked for the Philistine king and fought the wrong battles (1 Samuel 27). Abraham, the father of faith, had bad days. He once ran away from the promised land and lied about his wife being his sister to protect himself (Genesis 20). Why? He was afraid. The apostle Paul begged God three times to take away a painful trial that was far too heavy for him to carry (2 Corinthians 12:7–8). Elijah, the mightiest of the miracle-working prophets, had a total emotional breakdown when a woman cussed him out. He ended up running away from home, hiding under a tree, and wishing for death (1 Kings 19:4). The prophet Jeremiah got so stressed out that he told God he was never going to preach again (Jeremiah 20:9). And then there’s John the Baptist. Jesus said that he is the best person ever to be born of a woman. He had such a big crisis of faith in prison that he doubted whether he had made the right choice in baptizing Jesus as the Messiah (Luke 7:20).

The more deeply he entered the gentile world, the more Paul’s Christos parted company with the historical Jesus, which had never really interested him in the first place. Far more important to Paul was Jesus’s death and resurrection, the cosmic events that had transformed history and changed the fate of all peoples, regardless of their beliefs or ethnicity. If they imitated Jesus’s kenosis in their daily behavior, he promised his disciples, they would experience a spiritual resurrection that brought with it a new freedom.5 The Messiah, he told the Galatians, had given “himself for our sins, to rescue us out of this present wicked age as our God and Father willed.”6

The Jews love their mythic connections. The Son of God, a Son of David, the original Messiah king of Israel.” Eleazer knew all too well about the promised Son of David.   “Behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.   “A son of Zeus!” said an amused Artabanus. “You jest,” said Antipas, “But you are more in on the joke than you realize.” Antipas wanted to ingratiate himself with the foreign ruler. He kept the amusement going like a master of chorus in a Greek play. “Rumors have been spreading that this Nazarene was born of a virgin!

The problem is not the general problem of human sin or indeed of the death that it incurs. The problem is that God made promises not only to Abraham but through Abraham to the world, and if the promise-bearing people fall under the Deuteronomic curse, as Deuteronomy itself insists that they will, the promises cannot get out to the wider world. The means is then that Jesus, as Israel’s Messiah, bears Israel’s curse in order to undo the consequences of sin and “exile” and so to break the power of the “present evil age” once and for all. When sins are forgiven, the “powers” are robbed of their power. Once we understand how the biblical narrative actually works, so as to see the full force of saying that “the Messiah died for our sins in accordance with the Bible,” the admittedly complex passage can be seen to be fully coherent.

As my Advent celebration approaches its end, I remember how merciful the Lord has been. My eyes move reluctantly from the manger. But if I emulate the wise men, who followed the star that led them to Jesus, my view will move across the poignant scenes of Christ’s mortal life, be stopped short by wonder and gratitude as I consider the incomparable gift of His atonement, crucifixion, and resurrection, and then lift to the promised dawn of His second coming. As I consider His promised return, I might ask myself, “When that day comes, will I kneel and joyfully exclaim that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Light of the World, my Redeemer, Deliverer, and Savior, or will it be truth that compels me to confess His name?” Today, as my celebration by candlelight of His first advent draws to a close, I resolve to let Him prevail in my life so that my adoration of Him in the brilliant light of His second advent will be spontaneous, heartfelt, and unrestrained.

Command, promise, Messiah—the basic terms of the Bible’s message are ineradicably verbal and cannot be communicated in isolation from words. Bin the words and whatever else you are left with; it is not Christianity, biblical, historical or otherwise. We do need to think about how such a word-based religion can be communicated in this day and generation; we do need to avoid at all costs becoming a middle-class ghetto for frustrated academics. But we also need to be faithful to the Bible’s own form and matter, both of which involve words at their very centre. Let us not despair: the Word is not just the Word; it is the Word of, in, and through the Spirit. It is powerful in its very essence. Our task is ultimately to communicate it; the power of the communication resides in God alone. Let us remember the words of Isaiah and concentrate not so much upon technique as upon the moral attitude we should adopt: This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word. (Isa. 66:2).

In first-century Palestine, nearly every claimant to the mantle of the messiah neatly fit one of these messianic paradigms. Hezekiah the bandit chief, Judas the Galilean, Simon of Peraea, and Athronges the shepherd all modeled themselves after the Davidic ideal, as did Menahem and Simon son of Giora during the Jewish War. These were king-messiahs whose royal aspirations were clearly defined in their revolutionary actions against Rome and its clients in Jerusalem. Others, such as Theudas the wonder worker, the Egyptian, and the Samaritan cast themselves as liberator-messiahs in the mold of Moses, each would-be messiah promising to free his followers from the yoke of Roman occupation through some miraculous deed. Oracular prophets such as John the Baptist and the holy man Jesus ben Ananias may not have overtly assumed any messianic ambitions, but their prophecies about the End Times and the coming judgment of God clearly conformed to the prophet-messiah archetype one finds both in the Hebrew Scripture and in the rabbinic traditions and commentaries known as the Targum.

At the present time, political power is everywhere constituted on insufficient foundations. On the one hand it emanates from the so-called divine right of kings, which is none other than military force; on the other from universal suffrage, which is merely the instinct of the masses, or mere average intelligence. A nation is not a number of uniform values or ciphers; it is a living being composed of organs. So long as national representation is not the image of this organization, right from its working to its teaching classes, there will be no organic or intelligent national representation. So long as the delegates of all scientific bodies, and the whole of the Christian churches do not sit together in one upper council, our societies will be governed by instinct, by passion, and by might, and there will be no social temple. ...We are beginning to understand that Jesus, at the very height of his consciousness, the transfigured Christ, is opening his loving arms to his brothers, the other Messiahs who preceded him, beams of the Living Word as he was, that he is opening them wide to Science in its entirety, Art in its divinity, and Life in its completeness. But his promise cannot be fulfilled without the help of all the living forces of humanity. Two main things are necessary nowadays for the continuation of the mighty work: on the one hand, the progressive unfolding of experimental science and intuitive philosophy to facts of psychic order, intellectual principles, and spiritual proofs; on the other, the expansion of Christian dogma in the direction of tradition and esoteric science, and subsequently a reorganization of the Church according to a graduated initiation; this by a free and irresistible movement of all Christian churches, which are also equally daughters of the Christ. Science must become religious and religion scientific. This double evolution, already in preparation, would finally and forcibly bring about a reconciliation of Science and Religion on esoteric grounds. The work will not progress without considerable difficulty at first, but the future of European Society depends on it. The transformation of Christianity, in its esoteric sense would bring with it that of Judaism and Islam, as well as a regeneration of Brahmanism and Buddhism in the same fashion, it would accordingly furnish a religious basis for the reconciliation of Asia and Europe.

Most of the mortgaged farmers. Most of the white-collar workers who had been unemployed these three years and four and five. Most of the people on relief rolls who wanted more relief. Most of the suburbanites who could not meet the installment payments on the electric washing machine. Such large sections of the American Legion as believed that only Senator Windrip would secure for them, and perhaps increase, the bonus. Such popular Myrtle Boulevard or Elm Avenue preachers as, spurred by the examples of Bishop Prang and Father Coughlin, believed they could get useful publicity out of supporting a slightly queer program that promised prosperity without anyone's having to work for it. The remnants of the Kuklux Klan, and such leaders of the American Federation of Labor as felt they had been inadequately courted and bepromised by the old-line politicians, and the non-unionized common laborers who felt they had been inadequately courted by the same A.F. of L. Back-street and over-the-garage lawyers who had never yet wangled governmental jobs. The Lost Legion of the Anti-Saloon League—since it was known that, though he drank a lot, Senator Windrip also praised teetotalism a lot, while his rival, Walt Trowbridge, though he drank but little, said nothing at all in support of the Messiahs of Prohibition. These messiahs had not found professional morality profitable of late, with the Rockefellers and Wanamakers no longer praying with them nor paying. Besides these necessitous petitioners, a goodish number of burghers who, while they were millionaires, yet maintained that their prosperity had been sorely checked by the fiendishness of the bankers in limiting their credit. These were the supporters who looked to Berzelius Windrip to play the divine raven and feed them handsomely when he should become President, and from such came most of the fervid elocutionists who campaigned for him through September and October.

The Big Picture: From Abraham to Armageddon Down through the ages, the sons of Jacob have survived trials, persecution, and thousands of years in exile from their homeland. The Scriptures foretold the dispersion of the Jews and also of their regathering toward the end of the age. After a long absence from a country left in desolation, the Jews have come home to the land that God promised to Abraham: “…a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety.” (Ezekiel 38:8). The other branch of Abraham’s family—the sons of Ishmael— are the Islamic Arabs that inhabit the lands surrounding Israel. Ishmael’s descendants epitomize the spirit and temperament that the Bible predicted more than three millennia ago: “…his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers” (Genesis 16:12). The Prophet Ezekiel tells us that these same sons of Ishmael will be among the enemies who seek to destroy Israel in the end times: “And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land…” (Ezekiel 38:16). The day is soon coming when Ishmael’s descendants will unite as one: “…they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast.” Their ultimate purpose being the fulfillment of a long-held dream: the annihilation of Israel. Muslims have been taught for centuries that the Last Day will not come until they wage a final war against the Jews and rid the world of them once and for all. They believe that only after this is accomplished will Muslims enjoy a golden age of peace, justice, and worldwide Islamic rule. However, the Bible tells us that God has other plans: Before Israel can be destroyed He is going to intervene, and bring to ruin those who seek her destruction. On that day, multitudes of Jews will realize that Jesus is Messiah, and many Muslims will realize that they have made a fateful mistake. Though most are unaware, we, today, are witnessing the fruition of seeds that were planted nearly four thousand years ago with the birth of Abraham’s sons. God promised Abraham that He would make great nations of both Isaac and Ishmael. To be sure, one would be hard pressed to argue that He did not. The Jewish and Arabic peoples have had an immeasurable impact on the world and can now be found at center stage in the arena of world politics and conflict. Thus, the history of mankind will reach its pinnacle, essentially where it began, in a region literally located at the center of the globe; more specifically, Israel and the nations that surround her.

The fate of the Gospels was decided by death—it hung on the “cross.”... It was only death, that unexpected and shameful death; it was only the cross, which was usually reserved for the canaille only—it was only this appalling paradox which brought the disciples face to face with the real riddle: “Who was it? what was it?”—The feeling of dismay, of profound affront and injury; the suspicion that such a death might involve a refutation of their cause; the terrible question, “Why just in this way?”—this state of mind is only too easy to understand. Here everything must be accounted for as necessary; everything must have a meaning, a reason, the highest sort of reason; the love of a disciple excludes all chance. Only then did the chasm of doubt yawn: “Who put him to death? who was his natural enemy?”—this question flashed like a lightning-stroke. Answer: dominant Judaism, its ruling class. From that moment, one found one’s self in revolt against the established order, and began to understand Jesus as in revolt against the established order. Until then this militant, this nay-saying, nay-doing element in his character had been lacking; what is more, he had appeared to present its opposite. Obviously, the little community had not understood what was precisely the most important thing of all: the example offered by this way of dying, the freedom from and superiority to every feeling of ressentiment—a plain indication of how little he was understood at all! All that Jesus could hope to accomplish by his death, in itself, was to offer the strongest possible proof, or example, of his teachings in the most public manner.... But his disciples were very far from forgiving his death—though to have done so would have accorded with the Gospels in the highest degree; and neither were they prepared to offer themselves, with gentle and serene calmness of heart, for a similar death.... On the contrary, it was precisely the most unevangelical of feelings, revenge, that now possessed them. It seemed impossible that the cause should perish with his death: “recompense” and “judgment” became necessary (—yet what could be less evangelical than “recompense,” “punishment,” and “sitting in judgment”!). Once more the popular belief in the coming of a messiah appeared in the foreground; attention was rivetted upon an historical moment: the “kingdom of God” is to come, with judgment upon his enemies.... But in all this there was a wholesale misunderstanding: imagine the “kingdom of God” as a last act, as a mere promise! The Gospels had been, in fact, the incarnation, the fulfilment, the realization of this “kingdom of God.” It was only now that all the familiar contempt for and bitterness against Pharisees and theologians began to appear in the character of the Master—he was thereby turned into a Pharisee and theologian himself!

The first-hand information Paul needed about Jesus either as a man, or as the promised Jewish Messiah was to be found in Arabia rather than in Jerusalem. This means the historical Jesus had some connection with Arabia .. Paul's visit to Arabia is a historical fact.

Judging from citations found in early Christian writers, Matthew was the most widely read and frequently used of the four Gospels in the formative years of the church. There are many reasons for its popularity, but one of the primary reasons why this Gospel is so important is because of its verification that Jesus is recognized as the long-awaited Messiah, the prophesied fulfillment of God’s promise of true peace, deliverance, salvation, and new life in the kingdom of God for all of humanity, both Jew and Gentile.

Critics often style early Christians as anti-Semitic, but it was not the intent of early Christian believers to separate from Judaism or degrade Jews. They went into the synagogues seeking to convince Jews that Jesus was the Messiah, the promised one of Israel. The church became distinct sociologically when they were forced out of the synagogues and had to form their own communities. As these messages to Jews in the book of Acts show, the argument in the synagogue was that if one was a good Jew and believed God’s promises, then one would embrace Jesus as the promised Messiah and become complete as a Jew.

But in this case of the Edomites' coveting the land of Israel, and gaping for it, there was a particular affront to God, when they said, "These lands are given us to devour, and we shall have our bellies full of their riches." God says, You have boasted against me and have multiplied your words against me; for they expected possession upon a vacancy, because Israel was driven out, whereas the Lord was still there, Eze 35:10. His temple indeed was burnt, and the other tokens of his presence were gone; but his promise to give that land to the seed of Jacob for an inheritance was not made void, but remained in full force and virtue; and by that promise he did in effect still keep possession for Israel, till they should in due time be restored to it. That was Immanuel's land (Isa 8:8); in that land he was to be born, and therefore that people shall continue in it of whom he is to be born, till he has passed his time in it, and then let who will take it. The Lord is there, the Lord Jesus is to be there; and therefore Israel's discontinuance of possession is no defeasance of their right, but it shall be kept for them, and they shall have, hold, and enjoy it by virtue of the divine grant, till the promise of this Canaan shall by the Messiah be changed into the promise of a far better.

The Old Testament predicted the coming of the Messiah. But the idea that He would actually live in His redeemed church, made up mostly of Gentiles, was not revealed. The New Testament is clear that Christ, by the Holy Spirit, takes up permanent residence in all believers (cf. Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 6:19, 20; Eph. 2:22). The revelation of the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles awaited the New Testament (Eph. 3:3-6). Believers, both Jew and Gentile, now possess the surpassing riches of the indwelling Christ (John 14:23; Rom. 8:9-10; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 1:7, 17-18; 3:8-10, 16-19; Phil. 4:19). The church is described as “the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people’” (2 Cor. 6:16). That Christ indwells all believers is the source for their hope of glory and is the subject or theme of the gospel ministry. What makes the gospel attractive is not just that it promises present joy and help, but that it promises eternal honor, blessing, and glory. When Christ comes to live in a believer, His presence is the anchor of the promise of heaven—the guarantee of future bliss eternally (cf. 2 Cor. 5:1-5; Eph. 1:13-14). In the reality that Christ is living in the Christian is the experience of new life and hope of eternal glory.

The prophecies of both the Old and New Testaments are clear regarding what will happen to the Jewish people in the last days: They will come to recognize and know Jesus as their promised Messiah, the One who was prophesied throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. We see a beautiful picture of this in Zechariah 12:10: “They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

We can point with amazement at the covenant people of God at the time of Christ. They murdered their own Messiah. Does this make God’s faithfulness come to nothing? Certainly not. Christendom has more than once been full of baptized infidels. Does this make God a liar? Certainly not. Paul then comes to a remarkable statement. Every last professing believer in the world could be lying, and doing so through the teeth, and God would still be true, the root would still be firm, the tree would still be Christ, and the earth will one day be full of fruit. God’s promise to Abraham was not dependent upon the cooperation of man. And we are not supposed to believe it because we see it; we are to believe it because God says it.

We have to remind ourselves that the multitude who heard Peter's sermon on Pentecost was Jewish. It included Jews from Palestine, proselytes, and dispersed Jews from other parts of the Roman Empire and beyond. The Old Testament was all they had of the Holy Scriptures. As they listened to Peter preaching from those Scriptures (twelve of the twenty-two verses of Peter's sermon in Acts 2 contain quotations from the Old Testament), they could have understood his words in only one way-as a reference to the promise in God's covenant and the fact that that promise extended not only to believers but to their children as well. To interpret Acts 2:39 in light of the New Testament Scriptures, which did not yet exist, as do many Baptists," is to engage in hermeneutical error and can only lead to a serious misrepresentation of the mind of the Spirit. The Jewish multitude had Jewish expectations-not just about the Messiah, but also about the way in which God works with people.

Imagine hiring a plumber who shows up, looks at your fucked plumbing, then announces, 'I shall return thousands, millions or billions of years from now and then I will fix all the plumbing and everything will be perfect. Trust me. Honest, Guv.' What would you do? Put up with your fucked plumbing and pray every day to the Plumber Messiah who never comes and never fixes any plumbing, or hire a different plumber who actually does his fucking job and fixes your broken plumbing? The idea of a Messiah who shows up and is so clueless and inept that he can’t think of anything better than committing 'suicide by Romans' is like the darkest comedy sketch ever. Jesus Christ is not a plumber who fixes the plumbing. This is a plumber who shows up and wrecks the plumbing, then promises to come back, but never does.

Protestants believe that the Church, under all dispensations, has been the same. It has always had the same God; the same Redeemer; the same rule of faith and practice (the written Word of God, at least from the time of Moses), the same promise of the presence and guidance of the Spirit, the same pledge of perpetuity and triumph. To them, therefore, the fact that the whole visible Church repeatedly apostatized during the old economy — and that, not the people only, but all the representatives of the Church, the priests, the Levites, and the elders — is a decisive proof that the external, visible Church may fatally err in matters of faith. No less decisive is the fact that the whole Jewish Church and people, as a church and nation, rejected Christ. He came to his own, and his own received him not. The vast majority of the people, the chief priests, the scribes and the elders, refused to recognize him as the Messiah. The Sanhedrim, the great representative body of the Church at that time, pronounced him worthy of death, and demanded his crucifixion. This, to Protestants, is overwhelming proof that the Church may err.

As the Old Testament also insisted on the handing down of a message which was the coming of the Messiah, so they awaited this Messiah. Since that time it is no longer a promise which we have to transmit - it is Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and we have to hand down this admirable treasure - a treasure so extraordinary that it transcends our capabilities. It is our duty to hand down this message faithfully, in imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of St. Pius X, our patrons. If there is anyone who has handed down Our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully in this world, it is the Blessed Virgin Mary. She received Him by the grace of the Holy Ghost; she who was immaculate in her conception, which great privilege we celebrate today. Our Lord Jesus Christ was truly handed down to humanity by the Blessed Virgin Mary, until His last breath on the Cross, when she too was present; she fulfilled her role perfectly. And that is why she can truly be called Virgo Fidelis - Virgin Most Faithful. She was faithful to all the details of her duties as mother, of her duty to hand down Jesus to us for our redemption. In the midst of the upheavals of history, in the midst of the errors which appeared right at the beginning of this century, and which had their roots in the century which came before, a Pope also arose. God gave us an admirable Pope i the person of St. Pius X, the last Pope to be canonized. St. Pius, too, was faithful; he, too, wanted to transmit the message which Our Lord entrusted to him. And he expressed it in a wonderful manner in these words: "Instaurare omnia in Christo - Restore all things in Christ." This is the message handed down to us by Pope St. Pius X and with these examples before you - the Blessed Virgin Mary and Pope St. Pius X - you, too, will be faithful. (Sermon of December 8, 1979)

If I go into work tomorrow and face my attending, who is a world-renowned surgeon, and she looks at me as if I’m a slut who sleeps around, I will find a way to drug you, shave your head, drag your body to a tattoo shop, and have them mark you for life with something so horrid, so ghastly, so incredibly humiliating, you won’t be able to get your willy up for years!” A gust of air flies out of my mouth. “How did you get that all said in one breath?” I’m panting with fear. “Because, I’m Jesus,” she states, her face revealing nothing but icy, dark, dangerous promise. I swallow hard and give my balls a touch again. Thank fuck they are still there. “Well, Messiah, I promise I won’t let you down.

Translated literally, Jesus replies, "I am, the (one) speaking to you" [John 4:26]. This word-for-word translation comes out awkwardly in English, so it's often broken up in our Bibles. But as New Testament scholar Craig Evans observes, Jesus's statement is "emphatic and unusual" in the original Greek as well. Smoothing it out in translation masks the fact that this is the first of Jesus's "I am" statements. ...This is the first time in John that Jesus explicitly declares he's the Messiah. And as he does so, Jesus makes an even more extraordinary claim. Each of Jesus's "I am" statements gives us fresh insight into who he is. At first, his words to the Samaritan woman seem like an exception. But if we look more closely, Jesus is giving us more insight about his identity when he says to the Samaritan woman, "I am, the (one) speaking to you." Jesus claims he's the Messiah and the one true covenant God. But he is also the one who is speaking to this sexually suspect, foreign woman. He could have just said "I am he!" But as we look at Jesus through this woman's eyes, we see him as the long-promised King and everlasting God, who chooses to converse with her.

The weakling wait patiently for a promised saviour, while the realistic and strongest take a step ahead of humanity.

February 15,1978 Based upon ancient and modern revelation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gladly teaches and declares the Christian doctrine that all men and women are brothers and sisters, not only by blood relationship from common mortal progenitors but as literal spirit children of an Eternal Father. The great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammed, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God's light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals. The Hebrew prophets prepared the way for the coming of Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, who should provide salvation for all mankind who believe in the gospel. Consistent with these truths, we believe that God has given and will give to all peoples sufficient knowledge to help them on their way to eternal salvation, either in this life or in the life to come. We also declare that the gospel of Jesus Christ, restored to His Church in our day, provides the only way to a mortal life of happiness and a fulness of joy forever. For those who have not received this gospel, the opportunity will come to them in the life hereafter if not in this life. Our message therefore is one of special love and concern for the eternal welfare of all men and women, regardless of religious belief, race, or nationality, knowing that we are truly brothers and sisters because we are sons and daughters of the same Eternal Father.

The ceremonial law was given by Christ. Even after it was no longer to be observed, Paul presented it before the Jews in its true position and value, showing its place in the plan of redemption and its relation to the work of Christ; and the great apostle pronounces this law glorious, worthy of its divine Originator. The solemn service of the sanctuary typified the grand truths that were to be revealed through successive generations. The cloud of incense ascending with the prayers of Israel represents his righteousness that alone can make the sinner’s prayer acceptable to God; the bleeding victim on the altar of sacrifice testified of a Redeemer to come; and from the holy of holies the visible token of the divine Presence shone forth. Thus through age after age of darkness and apostasy faith was kept alive in the hearts of men until the time came for the advent of the promised Messiah.

The Old Testament is characterized by the affirmation of God’s sovereign kingship. God is sovereign as Creator and Sustainer of the earth and all that dwell therein; as Judge; as Redeemer of Israel; and in relation to all nations and peoples. Yet the created turned against their Creator. The earth reels under the consequences of human rebellion. Human life is characterized by violence, injustice, unrighteousness and misery. Israel itself was shattered by cataclysmic wars, most notably the war with Babylon that destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, displaced the royal family and ended in the exile of her leading citizens, forcing Israel into a seemingly endless period of occupation at the hands of pagan armies—in Jesus’ time, the Roman legions. Thus the later Prophets are redolent with a deep yearning for salvation, in the deepest and most holistic sense of that word. In Isaiah, it is based on God’s forgiveness, and it is eternal. It includes deliverance from oppression and injustice, from guilt and death, from war and slavery and imprisonment and exile. It includes peace and justice and forgiveness. The promise is that salvation is coming—for Israel and ultimately for the world, for societies, for families and for individuals. This is where the hope of a Messiah is located in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Old Testament hope of salvation is not merely for an eternal salvation in which our disembodied souls are snatched from this vale of tears. Nor is it merely for physical justice while fellowship with the presence of God’s Holy Spirit is ignored. To the extent that Christians adopt any kind of body/soul, earth/heaven dualism we simply do not understand the message of Scripture—or of Jesus. God’s salvation is the kingdom of God, and it means that—at last—God has acted to deliver humanity and now reigns over all of life, and is present to and with us, and will be in the future. The New Testament will bring a greater emphasis on eternal life, but it will not negate the holistic message of deliverance. The only possible response to this good news is great joy!

Thus it is fair to say that the ‘rising’ of the Mahdi is to the majority of Muslims what the return of Jesus is to Christians. While         Christians await the return of Jesus the Messiah to fulfill all of God’s prophetic promises to the people of God, Muslims await the appearance of the Mahdi, to fulfill those purposes. Sheikh Kabbani likewise identifies the Mahdi as Islam’s primary messiah figure: ‘Jews are waiting for the messiah, Christians are waiting for Jesus and Muslims are waiting for both the Mahdi and Jesus. All (three) describe them as men coming to save the world’” (Antichrist: Islam’s Awaited Messiah, Joel Richardson, Winepress Publishing,

In the whole history of theological exegesis and interpretation I know of nothing so utterly faulty, illogical and wholly unscriptural as that exegesis which teaches the angel song at Bethlehem to be the announcement of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Prince of Peace and that as such He should establish it among the nations after His ascension to heaven and during His absence from the world. The angels sang glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to “men of good will.” The angel who spoke to the shepherds keeping the temple sheep for the morning and the evening sacrifice was testifying to them that there was no longer need to keep the sheep for such a purpose. The day of animal sacrifices had passed, the living God had provided the true sacrifice, He who was born beneath the chaplet of heaven’s music, the Lamb of God ordained before the foundation of the world. He had been born into the world that He might make peace by the blood of His cross, not between man and man, not between nation and nation, but between man and God. He had been born to die and by His death reconcile a rebel world to God; on the basis of this sacrifice yet to be and when He should have risen from the dead as witness of the efficacy of His death He would bring peace to every soul that should be of good will—every soul that should surrender to the will of God by believing on Him, offering Him by faith as a sacrifice and claiming Him as a substitute. Every such soul should be at peace with, and have the peace of, God. This was the meaning of that natal hour at Bethlehem. The angels were not singing over Him as the Prince of Peace who had come to abolish war among the nations, but as the ordained sacrifice who should bring peace between the individual man and his God. And yet—He is to be the Prince of Peace and reign and rule as such over the earth, putting an end to war and establishing perfect peace among the nations. The promise of His reign and rule as the Prince of Peace is clearly set forth in Scripture; as it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his peace and government there shall be no end.” But when? Where? Listen: “Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom to order it.” And hear what Gabriel says to Mary when he comes to announce to her that she has been chosen of Almighty God to give birth to the Messiah of Israel. The angel says: “Thou shalt call his name Jesus . . . He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” He is to be the Prince of Peace when He sits upon the throne of united Israel in their own land and not before.

Original Sin was the end of the human story, it would be bleak and pathetic, for sure. But God’s mercy and love are without limit. God’s justice condemned and punished humankind for disobeying, and God’s mercy promised that a Messiah

Any illusion of papal objectivity must have been dispelled by the pope’s opening statement: “You, the Jewish sages, ought to bear in mind that I am not here, nor have I sent for you to come to this place, in order to discuss which of the two religions is true. For I know that my faith is the only true one; yours had once been true but it has since been superseded. You have come here only on account of Geronimo who has promised to prove, through the very Talmud of your masters who are wiser than yourselves, that the Messiah has already come. You shall debate before me this topic exclusively.

Of Abraham it is written that “he was called the friend of God,” “the father of all them that believe.” James 2:23; Romans 4:11. The testimony of God concerning this faithful patriarch is, “Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” And again, “I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.” It was a high honor to which Abraham was called, that of being the father of the people who for centuries were the guardians and preservers of the truth of God for the [141] world—of that people through whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed in the advent of the promised Messiah. But he who called the patriarch judged him worthy. It is God that speaks. He who understands the thoughts afar off, and places the right estimate upon men, says, “I know him.” There would be on the part of Abraham no betraying of the truth for selfish purposes. He would keep the law and deal justly and righteously. And he would not only fear the Lord himself, but would cultivate religion in his home. He would instruct his family in righteousness. The law of God would be the rule in his household.

All is now ready for the most important event in human history. It is an event planned even before the creation of the world. It is the keeping of a promise made to Abraham over 2000 years earlier. It is the fulfillment of a host of prophecies regarding a Messiah who would come to establish his kingdom. Most importantly, it is the beginning of a dynamically new relationship between God and man. The event is the coming of the Savior of the world, the Messiah—or, as referred to in the Greek, the Christ. This Christ is not to be just another world leader, as Cyrus, Alexander, or Caesar. He is not to be just another great man of God, as Abraham, Moses, or David. He is to be God himself in human flesh! The Lord of heaven is to become a servant of the earth. God, who has previously made himself known through a nation and a law, is now to reveal himself in the most personal way possible—in the form of a man. Until now God’s blessings have been reserved mostly for a chosen people, but now they are to become available to all people in every generation. Who is this Christ, this Messiah? His name is Jesus. His symbolic name, Immanuel (meaning “God with us”),

Only God can intervene, Deofina believes, to save a people condemned to damnation by their leaders. She is a deeply religious woman, a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and she is hoping God will do away with the politicians and self-appointed messiahs—the donos - who have dragged the country, her family, to ruin. ‘The problem is that the donos never die.

Similar to how God led Israel into the Promised Land, now he is adding all people who believe in Jesus to the spiritual membership of the spiritual Promised Land. The New Jerusalem will be revealed at the second coming of Jesus (Revelation 3:11-13; 21:2). Through Adam we experience our physical bodies and death, but in Jesus the Christ (Messiah), we will be raised to live forever! The Bible states:

precious look on John’s face. A mixture of revelation and confusion, like he doubted what he had been proclaiming might actually be coming true. Jesus had chuckled and thought of dunking John in the water as a playful prank, but thought better of it because of the seriousness of the moment. Baptism was a serious sacrament indeed. It was a symbolic ritual that recapitulated the cleansing waters of the Great Deluge. In the days of Noah, the fallen Sons of God had not merely come to earth to draw worship away from Yahweh. They also sought to corrupt humanity by violating the holy separation between heaven and earth. They mated with human women who gave birth to unholy hybrids of human and angel. These offspring were giants called Nephilim, and they were mighty warriors of old. The angelic/human crossbreeding had a second purpose: to corrupt the bloodline of the Messiah that was promised through the fully human bloodline of Eve. In the curse on the Serpent of the Garden. Yahweh had said, “I will put war between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall crush your head, and you shall strike his heel.” The violent sins of men and angels brought the judgment of Yahweh to cleanse the earth from abomination. But it was only the beginning of a war that would not cease until the promised Messiah came to crush the Serpent’s head.

As the Messiah, Jesus Christ is priest, prophet and king. He is the new Adam. He is the seed of Abraham. He is the new Moses. He is the Son of David. He is the Son of God. He is the Lamb of God. Jesus had to be all these things and more in order to fulfill all of the promises made by his Father. And he did.

The commandments for peace given by Jesus,—those simple and clear commandments, foreseeing all possibilities of discussion, and anticipating all objections,—these commandments proclaimed the kingdom of God upon earth. Jesus, then, was, in truth, the Messiah. He fulfilled what had been promised. But we have not fulfilled the commands we must fulfil if the kingdom of God is to be established upon earth,—that kingdom which men in all ages have earnestly desired, and have sought for continually, all their days.

Simon explained, “Demons are the spirits of the Nephilim. You will remember the readings in synagogue from the Scriptures that in the days of Noah, the fallen Sons of God mated with the daughters of men. Their unholy offspring were the Nephilim, giant hybrid bastards of angel and human essence. This unholy mixing of heaven and earth, was a violation of the separation of creation. But it was also the attempt to corrupt the human bloodline of the promised Messiah who would crush the head of the Serpent.” Peter interjected, “The Nephilim were killed in the Flood.” Simon nodded. “Yes, but their seed rose again to occupy the land of Canaan that was promised as Israel’s inheritance by Yahweh. Joshua used the holy wars of Yahweh to cleanse the land from the evil filth of the Nephilim, whose descendants were the mighty Anakim and Rephaim. It was not until King David that they were fully subdued and wiped out.” Peter asked Jesus directly, “Well, then what do you mean that the Nephilim are back, Rabbi?” Jesus sighed. “The god of this world, and his principalities and powers know that I am here. So they have awakened the spirits of the Nephilim to occupy the Land. The holy wars of Yahweh are renewed in the heavenlies.” Simon added for clarification, “Rabbi is cleansing the land for inheritance by Messiah.” “In the synagogue,” said Jesus, “I did not quote the entire passage from Isaiah. I left out the last line.” “What was the line, Rabbi?” asked Peter. Jesus said somberly, “To proclaim the day of vengeance of our God.

leader of the squad was Ittai the Gittite. He led the dissident Gittites that David met earlier. Their numbers had grown. They stopped and presented themselves formally to David. Ittai stepped forward and announced, “My lord David, anointed messiah king of Israel, please accept our force of Gittite warriors as your loyal followers. As Yahweh lives, and as my lord the promised king lives, wherever my lord David shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will your servants be. We will fight on your behalf and we will die on your behalf. Take us with you to Ziklag.” Benaiah cautioned David, “They are Philistines.” More murmuring in the group of leaders signaled agreement with Benaiah. But David knew something the others did not. He turned to the rest of his men and announced, “Does anyone know any reason why we should not allow these circumcised warriors of Yahweh to join our forces?” The gibborim muttered and buzzed with surprise. Circumcised warriors of Yahweh? Ittai must have led them in the Israelite sign of their covenant. David shouted, “Neither do I! We welcome you, Ittai the Gittite and your number of faithful gibborim. Now, everyone go each to his own home and retrieve your families and possessions. We meet at Ziklag in a fortnight.

Some scribes and rabbis recently had begun to interpret the Prince of Tyre as an analogy with the Shining One, Nachash, in the Garden. Simon saw in it a mockery of Ba’al’s elevation to the throne of the Most High that results in the casting of the king to the ground or underworld.   “Thus says Yahweh Elohim: “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of Elohim; every precious stone was your covering… From the day you were created, I placed you with the cherub on the holy mountain of Elohim; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you. In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of Elohim, The cherub has led you out, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you. All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever.”   Simon knew that the subjugation of Tyre was important because the gods Ba’al, Asherah and Molech would have to be bound and judged as part of the reclamation of the Promised Land for Messiah’s inheritance. But Jesus was not letting them in on his clandestine activities.

Saul blurted out, “Whose son are you, again?” Saul remembered that he had publicly promised to bestow great riches and honor on the family of the victorious warrior, as well as his daughter in marriage. But David was of such humble origins that Saul never could remember his father’s name. David said, “I am the son of your servant, Jesse, the Bethlehemite.” He was used to Saul’s bad memory, and had often joked with Jonathan about it. Saul said, “And which one is he again? He will be sad to know that you will not be returning to his house. For you, my gibborim, will be the new captain of my bodyguard.” In this moment, everyone knew that Yahweh had performed a miracle. But it was more than a miracle, it was an unveiling. More than a few persons now suspected the true reason for David’s anointing by Samuel; that the messiah of Israel had been revealed. Among them were Jonathan, Saul—and Nimrod. “Send the emissaries to disarm the Philistines,” said Saul. “We have a victory to celebrate.” He placed his hand on David’s shoulder and looked at him with pride. He was elated, and free of his fear and muddled thinking. The dark counselor had temporarily left him again.

This is my body, he said, two thousand years ago. This is my blood. It was the only religion that delivered exactly what it promised: life eternal for its adherents. There are some of us alive today who remember him. And some of us claim that he was a messiah, and some think that he was just a man with very special powers. But that misses the point. Whatever he was, he changed the world.

MY DAILY WALK How well do you know your Old Testament?     That may seem like an unusual question to ask as you begin reading the New Testament. But you’ll quickly discover that the key to unlocking the New is a foundational knowledge of the Old. In order to persuade his fellow Jews to believe in Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah and King, Matthew used the Old Testament as proof. When Jesus faced the triple temptation by Satan in the wilderness, he quoted Deuteronomy as his basis of defense.     Underline each Old Testament quotation you find in today’s reading. (Hint: watch for such phrases as “this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet.”) Then spend a few extra minutes looking up those Old Testament prophecies that became New Testament realities. Wouldn’t it be fitting to close your time in God’s Word today by thanking God that his centuries-old promises are trustworthy?

The fathers [the Old Testament saints] knew the promise about the Messiah, that God for the Messiah’s sake had chosen to forgive sins. Therefore, since they understood that Christ would be the price given to pay for our sins, they knew that our own works are not a sufficient price for so weighty a matter. Accordingly, they enjoyed free mercy and the forgiveness of sins by faith, just like the saints in the New Testament." "Psalm 130:3 “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” Here David acknowledges his sins and does not speak of his merits. He then adds: “But there is forgiveness with You” (verse 4). Here David comforts himself by his trust in God’s mercy, and he quotes the promise: “My soul waits, and in His Word I hope,” (verse 5), i.e., because You have promised the forgiveness of sins, I am supported by Your promise. Therefore the [Old Testament] fathers too were justified, not by the law, but by God’s promise and by faith.

Simply put, the infancy narratives in the gospels are not historical accounts, nor were they meant to be read as such. They are theological affirmations of Jesus’s status as the anointed of God. The descendant of King David. The promised messiah.

Two Jewish believers will be convinced that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the Christ. They will prophesy for three and a half years (42 months). In other words, for the first three and a half years of the tribulation period, these two witnesses will be preaching to the people of Israel that Jesus Christ is indeed the promised Messiah of Israel. As a result, many people will come to faith in Christ

Now, filled with the Holy Spirit, he is so confident of God’s redeeming work in the coming Messiah that he puts it in the past tense. For the mind of faith, a promised act of God is as good as done. Zechariah has learned to take God at his word and so has a remarkable assurance: “God has visited and redeemed!

Luke's entire understanding of the Christian mission: it is the fulfillment of scriptural promises; it only becomes possible after the death and resurrection of the Messiah of Israel; its central thrust is the message of repentance and forgiveness; it is intended for “all nations”; it is to begin “from Jerusalem”; it is to be executed by “witnesses”; and it will be accomplished in the power of the Holy Spirit.

What covenant do you mean?” asked Zane, a little puzzled. “Good question, Zane. I’m referring to the covenant of the coming Messiah. That promise first mentioned in Genesis where YHWH told Adam and Eve that their ‘seed’ would ultimately triumph over the Serpent. Later he reaffirmed that promise to our father Abraham after his faith was tested by being asked to sacrifice his only son, Isaac.

Maybe Ruth, steeped in a disgusting culture, looked upon the way of life of her mother in law as something worth giving up everything for.  Or maybe she saw that she wasn’t giving up anything worth having in the first place!  In any event, she left the life of her youth and became a part of a foreign culture.  Her virtue attracted the attention of a wealthy man who redeemed her, and she became an ancestor of both King David and the promised Messiah.[52]

Our day-to-day activities and labor under the sun are reconciled with YHWH’s prophetic calendar and the lunar cycle by the thirteenth month. Each day we labor reminds us of our sin and the curse of sin upon the earth. Each night we look up into the sky and are reminded of YHWH’s promise of reconciliation and the eventual restoration of mankind through Jesus, or Yeshua, the promised Messiah. Matthew, in the first chapter of the first book of the New Testament, emphasizes the numbers thirteen and fourteen in relation to the lineage of Jesus, the Messiah. What were the four words Matthew chiseled over the three-column list we found?

The Jubilee Code really did exist, and the 13th Enumeration was the key! That ancient list of names arranged in three columns that he and Rachael had first glimpsed in the dark tunnel in Capernaum not only proved Jesus was the Messiah promised in the prophecy of Daniel 9, but now he realized it was also a chronological waypoint which proved the history of the Bible had happened according to the predetermined plan of YHWH. Matthew 1 was a list of forty-one names from Abraham to Jesus. He was looking down at the evidence on his computer screen. If he’d checked it once, he had checked it a dozen times.

Jesus was born during the forty-first Jubilee cycle from Abraham. Abraham was born during the forty-first Jubilee cycle from Adam. Even more exciting to think about was the fact that they were living in the forty-first Jubilee cycle from Jesus. Zane knew now why the Order had so jealously guarded the secret of the 13th Enumeration. It proved that YHWH had a plan for mankind’s redemption, an ancient promise of mankind’s reconciliation through the Messiah.

We can follow this covenantal theme like a scarlet thread through the entire Scripture. It began with Adam, and we can follow it through Noah and Shem until the promise is confirmed in Abraham. After Abraham, we trace the thread through Isaac, Jacob, and David and finally to its culmination in the promised seed, in Yeshua the Messiah. In Romans 15:8, Paul said Yeshua was a minister to the Jewish people to ‘confirm the promises made unto the fathers.’ Let me read you what he said to the Galatians:

will be explained in the chapters that follow, a number of prophecies specify that this final phase of the Regathering process began in-or-about 1996 CE.  Since prophecy tells us that this final phase has already started, we should be able to look at the world and find a group of believers in the Messiah (both Protestant and otherwise) who are attempting to re-establish their identity as the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.  There are in fact several such groups, and their numbers are rapidly growing. Since the promises of the Two House Theory are being borne out right before our eyes, it is clearly a true theory; and therefore we should endeavor to understand it as completely as possible.  However, in order to do that, we must first understand the origins of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

APRIL 1 Worshiping with other believers helps you view all of life from the vantage point of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not just the most important miracle ever. It’s not just the most astounding event in the life of the Messiah. It’s not just an essential item in your theological outline. It’s not just the reason for the most important celebratory season of the church. It’s not just your hope for the future. No, the resurrection is all that and more. It is also meant to be the window through which you view all of life. Second Corinthians 4:13–15 captures this truth very well: “[We know] that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.” But what does it look like to look at life through the window of the resurrection? As I assess my life right here, right now, what about the resurrection must I remember? Let me suggest five things. The resurrection of Jesus guarantees your resurrection too. Life is not a constantly repeating cycle of the same old same old. No, under God’s rule this world is marching toward a conclusion. Your life is being carried to a glorious end. There will be a moment when God will raise you out of this broken world, and sin and suffering will be no more. The resurrection tells you what Jesus is now doing. Jesus now reigns. First Corinthians 15 says that he will continue to reign until the final enemy is under his feet. You see, your world is not out of control, but under the careful control of One who is still doing his sin-defeating work. The resurrection promises you all the grace you need between Jesus’s resurrection and yours. If your end has already been guaranteed, then all the grace you need along the way has been guaranteed as well, or you would never make it to your appointed end. Future grace always carries with it the promise of present grace. The resurrection of Jesus motivates you to do what is right, no matter what you are facing. The resurrection tells you that God will win. His truth will reign. His plan will be accomplished. Sin will be defeated. Righteousness will overcome evil. This means that everything you do in God’s name is worth it, no matter what the cost. The resurrection tells you that you always have reason for thanks. Quite apart from anything you have earned, you have been welcomed into the most exciting story ever and have been granted a future of joy and peace forever. No matter what happens today, look at life through this window.

Jesus himself did not baptize anyone; only his disciples did; This statement, which interrupts the narrative of the Gospel of John at one point (4:2), suggests that Jesus was not much concerned with making religious conversions. His own political preaching .. offers himself as the promised Messiah.

us to take our place within the crowd, to hear Jesus preach and see him perform mighty deeds, when we open up the Gospels for ourselves. While no one today would say that Jesus is John the Baptist, Elijah, or Jeremiah, we will see for ourselves if we agree with our own contemporaries that Jesus of Nazareth was simply a great man, a noble teacher, a religious founder, and an unfortunate martyr. Or perhaps we agree with the sour-faced scholars who tell us that Jesus of Nazareth was a failed messiah who never intended to found a religion and that the religion bearing his name has done little to further the material progress of the world.   Pope Benedict XVI reflects in Jesus of Nazareth, “What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought? The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God. He has brought the God who formerly unveiled his countenance gradually, first to Abraham, then to Moses and the Prophets…. He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about our origin and destiny: faith, hope, and love.” The Story of a People Open to the beginning of the New Testament and the genealogy of Jesus is what you will find. Most skip over it while others bravely plough their way through it. But much like Matthew, the writer of the first Gospel, I too feel the need to express before anything else that the story of Jesus does not begin with Jesus of Nazareth. A great history is presupposed – a history that his fellow countrymen would have known as well as we know the names of our own grandparents. The only question is: how far back should we go? For Matthew, the answer was to go back to Abraham, the ancient father of the Jewish people, whom God had called out of the city of Ur in Mesopotamia in a journey of faith to the land of Canaan, later called Palestine. For Luke the Evangelist, the answer was Adam, the father of the human race, emphasizing that Jesus came for all peoples.   Very basically, the history presupposed is that of God’s intervention in human affairs, particularly those of the Chosen People, the Children of Israel. The Bible tells us that God spoke to Abraham, bringing him into a covenant with God alone as God, as opposed to the many false gods of his ancestors. As God promised, he made Abraham into a vast people, and that people was later liberated from slavery in Egypt by Moses. The Bible tells us that God spoke to Moses and made a covenant with Moses. And through Moses, God made the people a nation, replete with laws to govern them. Then there was David, the greatest king of Israel, a man “after God’s own heart.” And the Bible tells us that God spoke to David and made a covenant with him, promising that his kingdom

Praise Him and Thank Him Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings. We can’t quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you! Colossians 1:3 MSG Sometimes, life can be complicated, demanding, and busy. When the demands of life leave us rushing from place to place with scarcely a moment to spare, we may fail to pause and say a word of thanks for all the good things we’ve received. But when we fail to count our blessings, we rob ourselves of the happiness, the peace, and the gratitude that should rightfully be ours. Today, even if you’re busily engaged in life, slow down long enough to start counting your blessings. You most certainly will not be able to count them all, but take a few moments to jot down as many blessings as you can. Then, give thanks to the Giver of all good things: God. His love for you is eternal, as are His gifts. And it’s never too soon—or too late—to offer Him thanks. The best way to show my gratitude to God is to accept everything, even my problems, with joy. Mother Teresa The act of thanksgiving is a demonstration of the fact that you are going to trust and believe God. Kay Arthur The game was to just find something about everything to be glad about—no matter what it was. You see, when you’re hunting for the glad things, you sort of forget the other kind. Eleanor H. Porter God is worthy of our praise and is pleased when we come before Him with thanksgiving. Shirley Dobson God has promised that if we harvest well with the tools of thanksgiving, there will be seeds for planting in the spring. Gloria Gaither MORE FROM GOD’S WORD Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift. 2 Corinthians 9:15 HCSB Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and

February 18 Jesus Wept When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.… Jesus wept. —John 11:33, 35 Jesus knew what He was going to do. He had already announced to the disciples that Lazarus would be raised from the dead. He was on His way to the tomb to fulfill His plan. It was one of the final pieces of the picture that would show conclusively that Jesus was the Messiah, the Promised One. The suffering and death that is part of the human condition, the injustice and inequity that some must bear, the inadequacy of even our best love to be enough in this world—these realities overwhelm us all at times. In the midst of his work, on his way to bringing triumph out of tragedy, our God feels the pain of our suffering. Nothing pierces a parent’s heart as deeply as the broken-hearted sobs of their precious child. Even when we know their tears will dry and life will go on, even when we have it in our power to relieve their sadness, we feel their pain because we love them so. At the place where our hearts are joined with theirs is the spot of our greatest tenderness and vulnerability. Jesus did not weep out of frustration or disappointment at others’ lack of faith in Him. He did not weep for the inadequacy of the human condition. He wept because, to be with us in our pain and confusion, to cry with us in our overwhelming sorrow, to experience our deepest grief as if it were His own—that is a part of Him.

Tuesday, January 27 Nothing Is Impossible with God For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment. LUKE 1:37 AMP Gabriel, the archangel tasked with telling Mary that she would be the mother of the promised Messiah, spoke these words to her when she asked how such a thing could happen when she wasn’t married. She responded with humility and submitted to the Lord’s will. Two other times in scripture an angel announces a birth to couples who in human years were too old for such a thing to happen. When the angel told Abraham that Sarah would conceive and have a son within the year, Sarah laughed. When the angel asked why she laughed, she denied it at first and then said she was too old. The angel responded that nothing was too hard for God. And it happened as God said it would. Then Sarah’s laughter of unbelief turned into joy. Several months before Gabriel appeared to Mary, he showed up in the temple where a priest named Zechariah was sacrificing the daily offering. Gabriel told him that he and his wife, Elizabeth, would have a son in their old age. The child would be the forerunner to the promised Messiah. Zechariah’s unbelief led to losing his voice for the next nine months until his son was born and he gave him the name the angel had said. God delights in doing the impossible, waiting until the perfect time to fulfill His Word. Father, give me faith to believe Your Word as Mary received the news of Jesus’ birth, knowing that nothing is too hard for You.

A month later God asks Haggai to address the concern of the older exiles, who had wept when the temple foundation was laid. Remembering the beauty of the great temple of Solomon, they know that its replacement will be smaller and less ornate. God’s words of comfort are perhaps messianic in nature. He promises that, even though the architectural appointments will not compare with those of Solomon’s temple, God will one day fill this new temple with an even greater glory. Perhaps the message alludes symbolically to another temple, or possibly to the fact that the Messiah will personally walk through the very building they are now erecting. TEMPLE’S FUTURE GLORY. [Haggai 2:1–9 (520 B.C.)]

Old Testament prophets foretold that God would reveal “his Arm,” his own Son, to show us what he’s like in a human form we could relate to. And this Messiah would pay our debts for us, so that all willing people could come home to God (Isaiah 53). God removed every barrier between you and himself. You don’t have to prove you can be good enough—you can’t. You can’t perfectly follow the eightfold path of Buddhism, the five pillars of Islam, the Ten Commandments, or even your own moral conscience. Ever say, “I’ll never . . . ,” but you did? We can’t be who God intended without relationship with God—so God paid the ultimate human price to forgive us and restore relationship with every willing person.

Religion is our attempt to reach God. Jesus the Messiah is God’s attempt to reach us—all of us! All he needs is a humble, willing heart saying, “I want your forgiveness and love, come lead my life.

Every truth that a missionary teaches—whether that be faith, repentance, baptism, or any other element of the gospel message—is only an appendage to the central message of all time: that Jesus is the Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, the Holy Messiah, the Promised One, the Savior and Redeemer of the World, that He alone burst the bands of death and triumphed over the captivity of hell, that not one of us could ever have those blessings without His merciful, grace-filled intervention in our behalf, and that there never shall be any “other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent

Paul describes a second, more overarching, consequence of Christ’s compelling love: So whoever is in Christ is a new creation. The creator God has established a new order through the coming of Jesus, the new Adam (2 Cor 4:6; Gal 6:15). Because the obedient Messiah has defeated the enslaving powers of sin and death (see Rom 5:18–19), new life exists for those who are “in Christ,” who are in personal union with Christ and incorporated into his body through baptism. God has brought about “new things” in the baptized that exceed anything we could achieve on our own—a new heart, a new ability to love God and others, a new capacity to participate in the actualization of God’s kingdom on earth, inaugurated by Jesus’ ministry. Paul refers to this divine work within us when he states that the old things have passed away; behold new things have come. These words evoke several passages from the book of Isaiah (e.g., 42:9; 43:18–19; 48:6). Just as the †new covenant ministry, through which God’s Spirit now transforms hearts, fulfills Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s prophecies (see 2 Cor 3:1–6), so also Isaiah’s promises of “new things” to come are being fulfilled following the world-changing death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.

We shouldn’t make requests of God to try to prove that He is listening and that He loves us. We should make our requests because He is listening and He loves us. Faith is not the same as assuming that even if we disobey God, He will do for us whatever we want. Faith is claiming God’s promises and seeing our lives change with His power.

People, it seemed, could not resist continuing to dream big. Society is easily wooed by a charismatic leader with a big vision. It’s hard to resist an optimist who promises a lucrative future—a messiah for profits lying just over the next horizon.

The FBI nicknamed the program COINTELPRO, as a shorthand for "counterintelligence program." COINTELPRO originated in the 1950s, to prevent socialist movements from developing in the United States, and the program rose to new heights in the Black Power era. Even prior to Stokely Carmichael's first calls for Black Power in 1966, the FBI was organizing to undermine civil rights movement efforts. The Black organizations they labeled as "militant' included not only Stokely's SNCC but also the Rev. Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group that never wavered in its dedication to nonviolent civil disobedience. Between 1963 and 1971, the FBI ran nearly three hundred separate COINTELPRO operations against Black nationalist groups, the majority of which targeted the Black Panther Party. The program's major goals were to: 1. Prevent the coalition of militant Black nationalist groups, as there would be strength in unity. 2. Prevent the rise of a "messiah" who could unify and electrify the movement, such as the Rev. Dr. King or Malcolm X. 3. Prevent violence, ideally by neutralizing movement leaders before they could become violent. 4. Prevent Black nationalist leaders from gaining respectability, ideally by discrediting them in the eyes of white people, Black people, and radicals of all races. 5. Prevent young people from joining the groups and increasing their membership base.

Psalm of Solomon 17 is the first known work of Jewish literature to use the terms son of David and Lord Messiah (Christ), distinctive titles that New Testament writers apply to Jesus. Although Psalm of Solomon 17 sees the Messiah as sinless and powerful, he is clearly a human rather than a supernatural figure, God’s agent but not a divine being. His promised activities include gathering together “a holy people” who will be “children of their God,” cleansing Jerusalem (presumably including its Temple), and ruling compassionately over the Gentiles. Although a Davidic heir, this “Lord Messiah” achieves his dominion without military conquest because he is “powerful in the holy spirit” and strengthened by “wisdom and understanding.” This vision of a peaceful Messiah subduing opponents through “the word of his mouth [his teaching]” is much closer to that adopted by the Gospel authors than the traditional expectation of a warrior-king like the historical David (see Box 3.3).

The presence of these men from the East—outsiders, Gentiles—is a confirmation of God’s promise to send a Messiah who would not only be the King of the Jews, but a Messiah for the nations. Jesus’ kingdom is a kingdom not just for insiders, but for outsiders. In fact, many insiders—those who were closest to Jesus—were most resistant to His message. And so it often is today. Those who are most “churched” are often those who are so blinded by self-righteousness they cannot see—we cannot see—the gospel.

The problem for the early church is that Jesus did not fit any of the messianic paradigms offered in the Hebrew Bible, nor did he fulfill a single requirement expected of the messiah. Jesus spoke about the end of days, but it did not come to pass, not even after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and defiled God’s Temple. He promised that God would liberate the Jews from bondage, but God did no such thing. He vowed that the twelve tribes of Israel would be reconstituted and the nation restored; instead, the Romans expropriated the Promised Land, slaughtered its inhabitants, and exiled the survivors. The Kingdom of God that Jesus predicted never arrived; the new world order he described never took shape. According to the standards of the Jewish religion and the Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus was as successful in his messianic aspirations as any of the other would-be messiahs. The early church obviously recognized this dilemma and, as will become apparent, made a conscious decision to change those messianic standards. They mixed and matched the different depictions of the messiah found in the Hebrew Bible to create a candidate that transcended any particular messianic model or expectation. Jesus may not have been prophet, liberator, or king. But that is because he rose above such simple messianic paradigms. As the transfiguration proved, Jesus was greater than Elijah (the prophet), greater than Moses (the liberator), even greater than David (the king).

Jesus had set out with the Twelve, but they were gradually joined by an ever-increasing crowd of pilgrims. Matthew and Mark tell us that as he was leaving Jericho there was already “a great multitude” following Jesus (Mt 20:29; Mk 10:46). An incident occurring on this final stretch of the journey increases the expectation of the one who is to come and focuses the wayfarers’ attention upon Jesus in an altogether new way. Along the path sits a blind beggar, Bartimaeus. Having discovered that Jesus is among the pilgrims, he cries out incessantly: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mk 10:47). People try to calm him down, but it is useless, and finally Jesus calls him over. To his plea, “Master, let me receive my sight”, Jesus replies, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” Bartimaeus could see again, “and he followed [Jesus] on the way” (Mk 10:48-52). Now that he could see, he became a fellow pilgrim on the way to Jerusalem. The Davidic theme and the accompanying Messianic hope now spread to the crowd: Was it possible that this Jesus, with whom they were walking, might actually be the new David for whom they were waiting? As he made his entrance into the Holy City, had the hour come when he would reestablish the Davidic kingdom? The preparations that Jesus makes with his disciples reinforce this hope. Jesus comes from Bethphage and Bethany to the Mount of Olives, the place from which the Messiah was expected to enter. He sends two disciples ahead of him, telling them that they will find a tethered donkey, a young animal on which no one has yet sat. They are to untie it and bring it to him. Should anyone ask by what authority they do so, they are to say: “The Lord has need of it” (Mk 11:3; Lk 19:31). The disciples find the donkey. As anticipated, they are asked by what right they act; they give the response they were told to give—and they are allowed to carry out their mission. So Jesus rides on a borrowed donkey into the city and, soon afterward, has the animal returned to its owner. To today’s reader, this may all seem fairly harmless, but for the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus it is full of mysterious allusions. The theme of the kingdom and its promises is ever-present. Jesus claims the right of kings, known throughout antiquity, to requisition modes of transport (cf. Pesch, Markusevangelium II, p. 180). The use of an animal on which no one had yet sat is a further pointer to the right of kings. Most striking, though, are the Old Testament allusions that give a deeper meaning to the whole episode.

In the Hosanna acclamation, then, we find an expression of the complex emotions of the pilgrims accompanying Jesus and of his disciples: joyful praise of God at the moment of the processional entry, hope that the hour of the Messiah had arrived, and at the same time a prayer that the Davidic kingship and hence God’s kingship over Israel would be reestablished. As mentioned above, this passage from Psalm 118: “Blessed is he who enters in the name of the Lord!” had originally formed part of Israel’s pilgrim liturgy used for greeting pilgrims as they entered the city or the Temple. This emerges clearly from the second part of the verse: “We bless you from the house of the Lord.” It was a blessing that the priests addressed and, as it were, bestowed upon the pilgrims as they arrived. But in the meantime the phrase “who enters in the name of the Lord” had acquired Messianic significance. It had become a designation of the one promised by God. So from being a pilgrim blessing, it became praise of Jesus, a greeting to him as the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the one awaited and proclaimed by all the promises. It may be that this strikingly Davidic note, found only in Saint Mark’s text, conveys most accurately the pilgrims’ actual expectations at that moment. Luke, on the other hand, writing for Gentile Christians, completely omits the Hosanna and the reference to David, and in its place he gives an exclamation reminiscent of Christmas: “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (19:38; cf. 2:14). All three Synoptic Gospels, as well as Saint John, make it very clear that the scene of Messianic homage to Jesus was played out on his entry into the city and that those taking part were not the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but the crowds who accompanied Jesus and entered the Holy City with him.

He was a Jew who believed in the goodness of the original creation and the intention of the Creator to renew his world. His gospel of “salvation” was about Israel’s Messiah “inheriting the world,” as had been promised in the Psalms. What God had done in and through Jesus was, from Paul’s perspective, the launching of a heaven-and-earth movement, not the offer of a new “otherworldly” hope.

Hand to the Messiah, I promise you, baby, the last thing I want to do is control you.

We Jews,' he said to me on more than one occasion, 'were driven away from the Holy Land and scattered all over the world because we had fallen short of the task God had conferred upon us. We had been chosen by Him to preach His Word, but in our stubborn pride we began to believe that He had made us a "chosen nation" for our own sakes - and thus we betrayed Him. Now nothing remains for us but to repent and to cleanse our hearts; and when we become worthy once again to be the hearers of His Message, He will send a Messiah to lead His servants back to the Promised Land ...

Israel had been called to be the covenant people of the creator God, to be the light that would lighten the dark world, the people through whom God would undo the sin of Adam and its effects. But Israel had become sinful, and as a result had gone into exile, away from her own land. Although she had returned geographically from her exile, the real exile condition was not yet finished. The promises had not yet been fulfilled. The Temple had not yet been rebuilt. The Messiah had not yet come.336

God is using America to be midwife in Israel’s modern birth into the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob those thousands of years ago.

Sartre threw away the entire content of thebourgeois subject, maintaining only its pure form, and the next stepwas to throw away this form itself—is it not that,mutatis mutandis,Der-rida threw away all the positive ontological content of messianism, re-taining nothing but the pure form of the messianic promise, and thenext step is to throw away this form itself? And, again, is this not alsothe passage from Judaism to Christianity? Judaism reduces the prom-ise of Another Life to a pure Otherness, a messianic promise whichwill never become fully present and actualized (the Messiah is always “to come”); while Christianity, far from claiming full realization ofthe promise, accomplishes something far more uncanny: the Messiahis here, he has arrived, the final Event has already taken place,yet the gap(the gap which sustained the messianic promise) remains....Here I am tempted to suggest a return to the earlier Derrida ofdifférance:what if (as Ernesto Laclau, among others, has already ar-gued17) Derrida’s turn to “postsecular” messianism is not a necessaryoutcome of his initial “deconstructionist” impetus? What if the ideaof infinite messianic Justice which operates in an indefinite suspen-sion, always to come, as the undeconstructible horizon of decon-struction, already obfuscates “pure”différance,the pure gap whichseparates an entity from itself? Is it not possible to think this pure in-between priorto any notion of messianic justice? Derrida acts as ifthe choice is between positive onto-ethics, the gesture of transcend-ing the existing order toward another higher positive Order, andthe pure promise of spectral Otherness—what, however, if we dropthis reference to Otherness altogether? What then remains is eitherSpinoza—the pure positivity of Being—or Lacan—the minimal con-tortion of drive, the minimal “empty” (self-)difference which is op-erative when a thing starts to function as a substitute for itself. As Freud observed, the very acts that are forbidden by religion arepracticed in the name of religion. In such cases—as, for instance, mur-der in the name of religion—religion also can do entirely withoutminiaturization.Those adamantly militant advocates of human life, forexample, who oppose abortion, will not stop short of actually mur-dering clinic personnel. Radical right-wing opponents of male homo-sexuality in the USA act in a similar way.They organize so-called “gaybashings” in the course of which they beat up and finally rape gays. What we have here, yet again, is the Hegelian “oppositional determi-nation”: in the figure of the gay-basher raping a gay, the gay encoun-ters himself in its oppositional determination; that is to say, tautology(self-identity) appears as the highest contradiction.This threshold canalso function as the foreign gaze itself: for example, when a disen-chanted Western subject perceives Tibet as a solution to his crisis, Ti-bet loses its immediate self-identity, and turns into a sign of itself,its own “oppositional determination.

So what, in the light of all this, would Paul say had actually happened by six o’clock on the first Good Friday evening? If Romans 3:21–26 was all we had to go on, what might we conclude? First, he would say that the age-old covenant plan of the Creator, to rescue humanity and the world from sin and death, had been accomplished. The new Passover had taken place, in fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham. Second, he would say that this had been accomplished by God himself, in his act of covenant faithfulness (for which the shorthand is “love,” though Paul does not use that word until chapters 5 and 8), drawing together Israel’s vocation and his own deepest purposes in the faithful death of the Messiah. Third, as befits a “Passover” moment, he would say that people of all sorts—Jews and Gentiles alike—were now free, free from past sins, free to come into the single covenant family. They were “freely declared to be in the right,” to be within God’s justified people, able to look ahead to the final day without fear of condemnation (5:9; 8:1; 8:31–39). Fourth, as we have seen in all the other early Christian strands of thought we have studied, Paul saw the new Passover also as the “dealing with sins” through which exile was undone. This is where Passover and the “Day of Atonement” meet and merge. Fifth, and at the heart of it all, Paul saw Israel’s representative Messiah “handed over because of our trespasses,” in the sense intended in Isaiah 53. Dealing with sins robs the “powers” of their power; and this, as we have seen, is the key that unlocks all the other doors.