The Triumph of the Sons of Israel over the Sons of Esau

TORAH

Gen. 32:4-36:43

HAFTORAH

Obadiah 1-21 (Sephardic)

B’RIT HADASHAH

1 Cor. 5:1-13

Rev. 7:1-12

Obadiah 1-21

In the parashah selection from Friday, November 16, we discussed the relationship between the figures of Jacob & Esau. In that commentary we discussed the idea that “This passage (i.e. Gen. 25:19—28:9) is a very good example of the four levels of Biblical interpretation: the simple (plain, “literal”), the hinted (secondary or implied), the comparative (analogical, symbolic) and the spiritual (mystical, deeply hidden). The simple sense is an historical recounting of the birth and early lives of two brothers. The hinted sense is found in the statement that these two brothers also represent two historical people groups or nations. We see the events of the selling the birthright for a bowl of stew and later, the deceitful presentation of a meal to Isaac in order to obtain blessing as being highly symbolic. Even the names of the brothers, especially of Jacob, have symbolic meaning. Finally, we understand, in light of Gen. 3:15 that in Jacob and Esau, we are dealing with spiritual or mystical truth regarding the establishment of God’s kingdom and the ultimate role of the Messiah in the redemption of God’s people.”

Our comments today build on what was introduced in that previous post, specifically that Esau represents a people (the nation of Edom) but further—for the prophets of Israel—on a spiritual level the nation of Edom represents all the kingdoms of the world that stand in opposition to the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, Edom represents the realm of Satan. As we wrote in our previous post we take this understanding from a consideration of Gen. 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

This verse is a key to understanding the symbolism of Obadiah. For him, Esau’s kingdom is the national symbol of all that opposes Israel, which nation is God’s chosen nation—intended, through her Messiah, to be a “light to the nations” (Isa. 42:6; see also 60:1-22).

In verses 2-4, we have an attitude shared by several other prophets, especially Isaiah and Ezekiel. Obadiah writes, “We have heard a report from the LORD, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: ‘Rise up! Let us rise against her for battle!’ Behold, I will make you small among the nations; you shall be utterly despised.  The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’ Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the LORD.”  Such language is reminiscent of that found in Ezekiel to describe the king of Tyre—himself a stand-in for Satan, “…I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, 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; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you” (Eze. 28:16b-17).

As Esau was to his brother Jacob, so Edom was to Israel. Edom had historically always been an enemy of Israel. When she was not actively joining other nations in their wars of conquest against Israel, she was standing by in complicity, waiting and hoping for Israel’s destruction, ready to move in and take whatever spoils she could. (Edom was approximately the size of Israel and lay south of the Dead Sea. Edom bordered Judah and Moab.)

In verses 10-14 the LORD through Obadiah warns Edom against taking delight in Israel’s destruction and in verses 15-18 He declares the punishment that awaits Edom, while in the concluding verses God re-invokes His promises to the remnant of Israel that “this host of the people of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites.”

In his prophetic testimony, Obadiah makes it clear that the kingdom of Satan ultimately cannot stand; that God is even now in control and working all things according to the good pleasure of His will. Indeed that Christ has already won the victory; it has already been accomplished in principle. It only awaits the fullness of time for its complete consummation in glory. Verses 19-21 of this prophecy make it clear that the forces of evil will not just be defeated. They will themselves be given over in eternal subjection to the Kingdom of God—represented by “the exiles of this host”, that is to say God’s “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9a).

Once again the Bible testifies that God has not only not abandoned His chosen people, but that in due course He will uphold His ancient promises and actually give all the blessings to Israel, including but not limited to the promise of the Land. More than that however the last verse makes it plain that a remnant—“the exiles of this host”—shall actually become the “saviours” of the final and ultimate “Israel of God.” And from the spiritual center of Jerusalem/New Jerusalem they shall go as saviours to rule Mount Esau—the stronghold and center of evil in the world.

The word rendered into English as “saviours” is the plural Hebrew verb yasha from which comes the word Massiach (Messiah) and which also forms the root of the name Yeshua which itself means God saves or God delivers. This is significant when we consider the NT verse, “you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21, which Gospel was originally written in Hebrew, not Greek). Jesus is simply the English version of the Greek Iesous, which is a meaningless phonetic rendering of the Hebrew Yeshua, itself so pregnant with meaning.

The fact that the word saviours is plural indicates, on the one hand that real individual people—the remnant, the exiles—will do the saving but that, in light of the fact of the Messiah as God’s chosen and anointed one, they will do this saving as members of His body, of which He is the Head, and therefore it is done with His authority. When Paul was persecuting followers of the Way in Jerusalem and elsewhere, Yeshua came to him on the Damascus road and asked him, “Why are you persecuting me?”  He did not ask, “Why are you persecuting my people or my followers or my disciples?” We must understand this in light of such passages as John 15:5; 17:11; Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 10:17; 12:20; Eph. 5:23, 29, 32 etc. The bond between Christ and His true church (Ekklesia) is so intimate that they are in effect “one flesh” (Eph. 1:25; Rev. 21:9; Gen. 2:24).

It is in this mystical or spiritual sense, with prophetic insight, that Obadiah can affirm that even though it is a plurality that will carry on the saving (whether he knew it or not) it is at the same time, because of the intimate union we have with Christ, that it is really He—as the Messiah—who ultimately accomplishes the salvation.

AMEN

The Promise of the Land

TORAH

Gen. 28:10-32:3

HAFTORAH

Hosea 11:7-14:9

B’RIT HADASHAH

John 1:43-51

Hosea 11:7-14:9

The prophet Hosea prophesied to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which he also calls Ephraim. Ephraim, as the largest of the northern tribes, stands for the entire federation, usually called Israel in the Bible. Hosea prophesied in a time between invasions by the Assyrians and some years before the invasion of the north by the Assyrian kings Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser V, in 724-722 BCE.

Up to that point, Israel had obtained a degree of political stability, economic prosperity and agricultural abundance (2 Chron. 26:10). After much struggle and hardship, she had gained her independence through the efforts of strong kings such as Jehoash and his son Jeroboam. Therefore, by the time of Hosea, there had been peace for a generation and many people were becoming quite well off. Luxuries were available and building projects went on apace. However, at the same time, degrading social and moral conditions were developing. As the number of the very wealthy grew, so also did the number of the very poor. The rich were selfishly exploiting the poor and the politically disenfranchised for their own profit, (Isa. 5:8; Amos 8:5-6) even to buying and selling those who, out of extreme desperation, had to become indentured slaves in order to survive. Religious conditions were just as bad. Pagan Ba’alism was still ubiquitous in the land and was manifested by calf worship at Bethel and Dan. Sacred prostitution was common (Hos. 4:14) and the people (both rich and poor) were building “high places”, erecting idolatrous images and asherah poles that became objects of worship. This period of prosperity and peace did not last long. After the reign of Jeroboam II, there was increasing political and military instability, culminating in the complete destruction of the northern kingdom and the exile of most of her people by the Assyrian military.

Hosea’s principal prophetic theme is the necessity for moral repentance and social justice, as it was for his near contemporary, the prophet Amos. In this passage, God, through His prophet, delivers dire warnings of calamities certain to come. “The Lord has an indictment against Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways; he will repay him according to his deeds” (12:2; see also Exo. 34:7; Num. 14:18; Nahum 1:3). But along with these warnings are included promises of ultimate hope and restitution, “…the Lord  when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west;  they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord” (11:10-11).

However, in this prophecy God did not reveal His exact plan of redemption. He did not reveal to Hosea—as He did with Isaiah—that the blessings to come would be for a portion of His people, a remnant that is, “In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth” (Isa. 10:20).

Be that as it may, the prophecy is chock full of hope. But not hope in some vague, watered-down promise. True, the guilty must pay for their injustice and idolatry, which would soon be so great as to cause God to do to His own northern tribes what He had already demanded of Joshua through the conquest of the land of Canaan and the complete destruction of the “cities of these peoples” (Deut. 20:16-18).

But we also have in this particular prophecy a three-fold restatement and confirmation of the promise made to Jacob at Bethel (see Gen. 28:13-15)—and which itself was a divine confirmation of the promise made to Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham.

The first confirmation comes at 11:10-11, “…the Lord when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west;  they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord.”  The second confirmation is found at 12:9, “I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast.” And the final confirmation comes at 14:7, “They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

Together, these verses re-iterate God’s plan of redemption for His chosen people, not through their moral righteousness but through His own sovereign grace. However, we see from several biblical passages of which Isa. 10:20 cited above is but one example, that not all Israel is the chosen of the promise. Rather, there is to be a saved remnant that will not include the northern tribes, at least in the national sense (although there is always the possibility of national salvation in a limited degree). “In just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel” (Hos. 1:4). But this remnant will include at least a portion of the southern kingdom, the largest, most representative tribe of which is Judah, “But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them…” (Hos. 1:7). In addition, this remnant will ultimately include Gentiles.

We know from Paul that, “…not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (Rom. 9:6-8). And we know from both the OT and the NT that God’s remnant will be composed of both Jews and Gentiles (Isa. 66:20-21; Zech. 8:22-23; Acts 28:28).

For instance, in Paul’s famous passage of the olive tree he makes known that God is including Gentiles in His plan of salvation, “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles…But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you” (Rom. 11:13a, 17-18).

So a remnant, including both Jews and Gentiles, will inherit the Kingdom. But in the OT passages, including the above quoted verses from Hosea, there is also an added dimension for “Israel.” God has always included the promise of the Land to His chosen people—who indeed are part of the remnant. This Land is known by various terms including the “land flowing with milk and honey”, the “glorious land” and so forth. Throughout the OT, part of God’s promise is—after a period of chastising—to gather together the people that He Himself has scattered because of sin and return them to the land of Israel (Jer. 29:14; 31:10; Eze. 11:17; Mic. 4:7). This will not happen however, until “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11:25b). This is a pre-condition for the fulfillment of the promise.

I believe that the modern return of Jews to the land of Israel may be considered a kind of foretaste or a type for the return promised in the Bible but is not a fulfillment of the promise because the extent of the Biblical borders of Israel as described in Numbers, chapter 34 are not yet in place (and probably won’t be until after the fall of Islam) and because the modern nation of Israel is essentially unbelieving and secular. God promised the land to the children of the offspring, that is, the offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that is, those counted righteous through their faith. Symbolically speaking, this would exclude the offspring of Ishmael and Esau.

Significantly, the promise of the land to the remnant (the “Israel of God”, Gal. 6:16) includes Jerusalem—the place where God makes His name to dwell (Deut. 12:5; 2 Chron. 7:12). So the full redemption of the redeemed house of Israel will include Gentiles in some dimension and will incorporate the Biblical borders of the Land as well as Jerusalem as the central place of worship for God’s people.

Yet in the book of Revelation, Jerusalem itself is redeemed and as such comes down from Heaven (Rev. 21:2). John does not have in mind (entirely) the notion of the physical city, or its temple. Does this constitute a Scriptural error? I don’t think so. I believe we can find the answer in the portion of Scripture from Gen. 28:12-13, which describes Jacob’s dream at Bethel. Bethel was for a long time a center of public worship but was eventually superseded by Jerusalem. The point here is that the physical location of the dream—at the place Jacob named Bethel—was simultaneously the location of the heavenly realms. It was then the point in time and space that heaven and earth intersected. And it is in Jerusalem that—in some mysterious way—access to heaven from our place on earth will be made available to all the Children of the Promise.

In this way, I believe that the earthly Jerusalem and the new, heavenly Jerusalem are intimately connected. There will indeed be a complete fulfillment of the promise to Jacob found in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, and simultaneously a complete fulfillment of the promise of “New Jerusalem” found in the last book of the Bible, Revelation. God says of Himself that He is the first and the last (Isa. 44:6; Rev. 22:13) and since we know that “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” should we doubt or wonder how God could possibly bring this to pass or should we rather stand in awe of an omnipotent, all merciful God.

AMEN

Sovereignty through Opposition

TORAH

Gen. 25:19-28:9

HAFTORAH

Mal. 1:1-2:7

B’RIT HADASHAH

Rom. 9:6-16; Heb. 11:20; 12:14-17

Gen. 25:19-28:9

The essential lesson of this complex narrative comes from from Gen. 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

A predominant form of the theme of God’s sovereign plan of redemption throughout the Bible is seen as the interplay of opposites. One particular motif seen repeatedly is that of two brothers or close relatives in conflict. The Holy Spirit teaches with this motif that God is sovereign and that He elects—that is, sovereignly chooses—His people through the seeming paradox of human free will. In our narrative from Gen. 25:19—28:9, we see, through several dramatic scenes, that though humans are making decisions concerning the status, wealth and power of their families it is God, working in the background, who causes these decisions and subsequent actions to come to pass.

This story of the twins Jacob and Esau, illustrates the outworking of God’s salvific intentions and the promise He made to Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3). God’s word in Gen. 3:15 sets up the dynamic of consequent history, which begins with the brothers Cain and Able (Gen. 4:1-2) and is also evident in the relationships of the three sons of Noah (9:25-27), Abraham and Lot (13:7-12), Isaac and Ishmael (21:9), Jacob and Laban (29-31) as well as Joseph and his brothers (37-50). The lesson is enunciated clearly and unequivocally in Gen. 50:15, 19-20, “When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.’ But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.’” 

Joseph is testifying that the conflict between himself and his brothers was part of God’s plan to ultimately redeem for Himself a people. It is interesting that so often God chooses the younger over the older (Cain and Able), the weaker over the stronger (Jacob and Esau), women over men (Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel) as the instruments of His grace. The example of the Matriarchs is given as further evidence that God works sovereignly since all three women were barren and only conceived and gave birth under extraordinary (supernatural?)  circumstances. It is also intriguing that Rebekah plots with the younger Jacob to bring about the fulfillment of God’s word to her that “the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.”

Another motif from this portion of Scripture is that of birthright and blessing. Esau sold his birthright and all that it entailed. The birthright of the oldest Hebrew son was a double portion of all the possessions of his father, the remainder to be divided up between any other sons. But the birthright was more than just a determiner of one’s inheritance. In Genesis—which is partly the story of the formation of the Hebrew people—God determined that leadership was to be through the father and consequently through the eldest son—the “firstborn.” Under normal circumstances Esau would have become not only the Patriarch of his family, but—far more importantly—he would have been a son of the “promise” and accordingly would have been a link through whom the covenant promise made to his grandfather, Abraham, would be realized in due course.

But God—in the hidden recesses of His wisdom—chose Jacob instead. He determined this outcome before either boy was born when He loved Jacob but hated Esau. In the context, “loved” means chosen or preferred while “hated” means not chosen or preferred. The words do not represent affection and hostility. It is also worthy of note the moral similarities between Jacob and another man known as “a man after God’s own heart”—King David. (Yes, like Jacob, David was the youngest son. And like Jacob, David too was morally wanting, a great sinner in fact.) But one’s moral character was not—and still is not—the determiner of God’s sovereign grace. Abraham was a pagan gentile who undoubtedly practiced all sorts of heathenish idolatries before he was saved through faith—and who consequently became obedient to Ye’ hovah, the one true God.

God chooses whom He will, for reasons which are rarely, if ever, clear to us until they have come to pass. According to Paul, Esau was never a son of the promise, even though he was the rightful heir as Isaac’s firstborn. Nevertheless, Esau traded his birthright—essentially the promise or covenant given by God to Abraham—for nothing more than a bowl of lentil stew. (Judas traded His eternal security for thirty measly pieces of silver, the standard price, by the way, for a slave at the time.) At one level, I believe we can see this bowl of stew as representing the world because we are tied to this world through the food we consume. The idea of worldliness here is further supported when we consider that Esau was described as “a skillful hunter, a man of the field.” He was a man’s man. Jacob, on the other hand is described as a quiet (or peaceful) man, dwelling in tents. He was, in other words, a wimp. Esau was probably a macho man an outgoing extrovert, a man of action, while Jacob was likely a milquetoast, a contemplative and perhaps deceptive—the name Jacob can mean both “deceiver” and “may God protect”—introvert.

In any event, the blessing that was intended by the simple Isaac for his son Esau was appropriated by the connivance of Rebekah, who was the instrument God had chosen to ensure the promise would go to His chosen one, Jacob. In almost the very same words as those spoken to Abraham by God in Gen. 12:3 and again by the rogue prophet Bala’am in Num. 24:9b, “Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you” Isaac blesses Jacob the real son of the promise, “Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you. And of course, Bala’am was speaking an oracle concerning the nation of Israel, the ancestor and namesake of which was Jacob, whose name God changed to Israel (Gen. 32:28) which means “God strives.” And what was God “striving” to do but to bring to pass His enduring promise for a whole people, the Hebrew people, the Israelites, the true remnant, of which we, as Gentiles, now belong as grafted in branches. This is why God said to Rebekah, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided” (Gen. 25:23a). The division—as we come to understand at a deeper level of apprehension—is not just between two brothers; it is not just between two nations, Israel and Edom along with their descendants. Rather it is between two kingdoms: the fallen Kingdom of Satan and the redeemed Kingdom of Christ, the Messiah—God’s ultimate “Chosen or Anointed One.” In our story, using Gen. 3:15 to unlock the hidden meaning, Jacob stands for “her offspring” that is, the children of the promise, while Esau stands in as “your offspring”, that is, the children of the Serpent, Satan.

The main purpose of this story—and the commentary on it by Paul from Romans—is the absolute sovereignty of God and His ensuing omnipotence to make good on His promise of redemption. This is why He first makes up the rules of His covenants with His people but then goes to great pains in order to fulfill them in ways that seem to human reasoning as arbitrary and perhaps irrational. The narrative we’ve been considering is a prime example. God will ensure that His promises will not be appropriated by creatures though He uses their decisions and actions, carried out by their own free will, to sovereignly bring about His own good purpose. Indeed, Ye’ hovah will always have the last laugh!

AMEN

Addendum:

This passage (Gen. 25:19—28:9) is a very good example of the four levels of Biblical interpretation: the simple (plain, “literal”), the hinted (secondary or implied), the comparative (analogical, symbolic) and the spiritual (mystical, deeply hidden).

The simple sense is an historical recounting of the birth and early lives of two brothers. The hinted sense is found in the statement that these two brothers also represent two historical people groups or nations. We see the events of the selling the birthright for a bowl of stew and later, the deceitful presentation of the meal to Isaac in order to obtain blessing as being highly symbolic. Even the names of the brothers, especially of Jacob, have symbolic meaning. Finally, we understand, in light of Gen. 3:15 that in Jacob and Esau, we are dealing with spiritual or mystical truth regarding the establishment of God’s kingdom and the ultimate role of the Messiah in the redemption of God’s people.

All of these levels are to be found in this portion of Scripture and give up much more than the simple or plain meaning of this story

The Pathos of Judas

TORAH

Gen. 23:1-25:18

HAFTORAH

1 Kings 1:1-31

 

B’RIT HADASHAH

Matt. 8:19-22; 27:3-10

Luke 9:57-62

Matt. 27:3-10

The meditation today is “Did Judas really repent after betraying Yeshua?”

Commentators are universally hostile to Judas and at first blush, this seems reasonable beyond question. Certainly, the Church has always maintained Judas’s guilt and lack of true repentance. And we can’t forget that, when dining with his disciples in the upper room, our Lord said “woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born” (Matt. 26:24, KJV).

The Greek word used here—and variously rendered in English by “changed his mind” (ESV), “remorse” (NIV, NLT, NASB), “regretted” (NSV), and “repented” (KJV, ASV)—is metamelētheis, a cognate of metamellomai, which means, “to care afterwards.”

Most commentators have been unwilling to accept the idea that this word represents true and radical repentance. The word commonly used in the NT for repentance is the Greek metanoeó but there is no technical reason preventing us from understanding metamelētheis in the sense of repentance. Indeed the venerable KJV translates it this way. All the variants of the word metamelētheis can legitimately be translated as repent; I believe it is not the word itself but the context that should decide the case.

And here we have the context, “And they bound him [Jesus] and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor…. Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind [metamelētheis] and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’ They said, ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself.’ And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself” (Matt. 27:2-5).

Now, it seems evident to me that someone is not likely to hang himself because he has merely “changed his mind” or even experiences significant regret. I change my mind all the time and I regret many stupid words and actions over the course of my life so far. The extent of the change as well as the reason for the change can be seen from the immediate context. I think Judas was profoundly affected by what he had done, and perhaps this justifies understanding the sense of the word metamelētheis as true repentance and not just regret or remorse. The theologian and commentator Albert Barnes says of Judas’s predicament, “True repentance leads the sinner to the Saviour: this led away from the Saviour to the gallows. Judas, if he had been a true penitent, would have come then to Jesus, confessed his crime at his feet, and sought for pardon there. But, overwhelmed with remorse, and the conviction of vast guilt, he was not willing to come into his presence, and added to the crime of a traitor that of self-murder. Assuredly, such a man could not be a true penitent.” I don’t entirely agree with his opinion partly because Judas could not go to the Lord and pour out his heart, begging for forgiveness, as we learn from Matt. 26 and the first two verses of our present chapter. Jesus had been arrested the night before, after celebrating the Passover. Upon His arrest, He was taken immediately before the Sanhedrin where He was subjected to interrogation by the High Priest and after that was sent to Pilate, “When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor” (Matt. 27:1-2). Jesus was in the hands of the authorities all night, thus making him incommunicado. Therefore, Judas had no chance to seek forgiveness from Jesus, assuming he wanted such forgiveness.

We see from Judas’s statement in verse four, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” that during the course of the night and Jesus’s trial Judas had come to the realization of what he had done, and the magnitude of it. To make matters worse, he would have recalled the words of his Master from the previous night, “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. Judas, who would betray him, answered, ‘Is it I, Rabbi?’ He said to him, ‘You have said so’” (Matt. 26:24-25). While his statement, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” amounts to a confession of sin and Judas sees his actions of the night before in a true and merciless light, he is prevented from receiving the mercy and forgiveness he so desperately needs because of his own actions. Worse yet and perhaps the greatest tragedy, is that Judas never goes to the very Father that Jesus, his Master, had been preaching and teaching to His intimate followers for the past three years. Not having access to the Son, Judas tragically never thinks to go to the Father.

For me, Judas is not so much a viscous turncoat (notwithstanding the enormity of his actions). On balance, he is admittedly dishonest, conniving and driven by self-interest as we learn from John’s gospel (John 12:6). Nevertheless, he seems to me more as one who is blind to the light that had dawned upon the world with the coming of the Messiah. He was unable—even more than the other disciples, who still didn’t really understand what was going on or what was about to happen—to comprehend the words of Christ, “the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20b, see also 17:21). The wonder and majesty of Christ was a light that he had no eyes to see. Therefore he did the only thing he could do—which too is a sin—he murdered himself because he could not live with his guilt and couldn’t understand that forgiveness was as close as a head bowed in contrition before the great and awesome Ye’ hovah.

Did Judas betray Christ as an act of free will? John says, “But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him” (John 6:64, 70-71).

Later in John’s testimony we learn that Satan—or at least a demon “diabolos”, an adversary”—caused Judas to do what he did, and although Judas was a fit instrument for such use it was nevertheless ultimately through the sovereign will of God that these things came to pass.

While not excusing what Judas did, for me the pathos of the passage is still heart breaking. I can’t help feeling sorry for Judas, whom God chose as the instrument of his will.

 

 

AMEN

The Promise, Faith & Works

TORAH

Gen. 18:1-22:24

HAFTORAH

2 Kings 4:1-37

B’RIT HADASHAH

Luke 17:26-37; Rom. 9:6-9
Gal. 4:21-31; Heb. 6:13-20; 11:13-19
James 2:14-24

Our commentary for today is based on Gen. 22:1-19; Gal. 4:21-31; Heb. 11:13-19; James 2:14-24.

 

The twofold theme of this commentary is the “promise” as the thread that connects our passages together and the outcome of this promise, which is the relationship between faith and works.

 

First, what does the promise consist of? There are three main aspects, namely that

1.       From Abraham a great nation will arise (the Hebrews, of which Abraham was the progenitor).

2.      This nation is established in the land of Canaan (i.e. the gate of his enemies).

3.      And because of the children of the promise (not the flesh) all the nations of the earth shall be blessed with spiritual blessings. It is from the Israel of this promise (that is Sarah, the free woman) and not from Hagar the slave woman who symbolically is the mother of the flesh or the sinful nature, that Christ was given to us (John 4:22).

The first step in God’s plan of redemption was the creation of a people. It was necessary to create a people because from these people the Messiah would come. God created the human nature of the Messiah from the available “gene pool”, in a manner of speaking. “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7a). This breath of life (Heb. Neshamah) does not partake of the “spiritual.” It refers rather to the self-awareness or the consciousness of man shared to one degree or another by many, if not all, animal species. However, the people would not be of the flesh only, otherwise Yeshua could not be born as the Messiah, instead of just another human being. (In order to forgive sin and pay the penalty for it that God required the Christ had to be fully human and fully divine, simultaneously but independently.) Hence, the promise made to Abraham and the prototypical birth of Isaac (who is a type of God the Son, even as Abraham is a type of God the Father). The children of the Sinai covenant were born under the yoke of slavery—that is to say, (as we wrote in our commentary on the parsha from last Sabbath), their personal willingness to be governed by external rules and regulations for obtaining justification or righteousness instead of growing in sanctification.

But there had to be many generations (children of the flesh as well as children of the promise—see the parable of the wheat and the tares, Matt. 13:24ff) which would form the cultural as well as the cultic basis for the development of the necessary religious system for the birth of the Messiah. Make no mistake; the Christ was the intended outcome, the offspring, of His culture and the religious system that developed in Canaan by the Hebrew nation. This Canaan-based religious system was the only one possible to act as the matrix for the advent of Messiah.  This was not an “accidental” occurrence. God did not just use the circumstances of the Exodus into Canaan—He purposefully brought all these things to pass so that in the fullness of time from this matrix alone the Saviour would be born.

In God’s own hidden but sovereign will, He purposed that this to be the way He would bring His Messiah into the world. But why couldn’t God have made it all happen in a moment, all at once, with no uncertainty? Well, He could have. But then there would have been no need—therefore opportunity—for His people to experience the graces of faith and hope. When things happen slowly and in unforeseen ways, it requires a degree of faith and biblical hope (not to mention patience and forbearance). These are gifts given by God, true, but equally true, they must also be developed and strengthened. This is what we call sanctification. “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12b-13).

Finally, the promise was necessary in order for there to be the possibility—I should say the certainty—of final spiritual liberation. Without the promise, the harm done by the fall of Adam could not be reversed or undone—that is, redeemed. This was part of the divine plan of redemption. Admittedly, in Adam there is a spiritual dimension, but that dimension was so corrupted by the fall that those living under its conditions can never escape and experience the gospel which is nothing more than the proclamation that the Kingdom of God has now been made freely available to all—the promise fulfilled—for all who in faith and hope desire it above anything else (Matt. 6:33).

The people that contributed to the birth of God’s Anointed One were not holistically cohesive however. In the passage from Galatians, Paul is rhetorically asking gentile believers if they really want to adopt all the provisions of the OT. He warns them that only the sons of the promise (the promise given to Abraham) will inherit the blessings that come with that promise. The danger for them is confusing the acceptance of the Mosaic covenant (given written expression in the Torah) including all its ceremonial aspects such as circumcision, with the faith that only comes with the promise, and which Christ alone completes. The promise is for Jew and Gentile alike. (Abraham was declared righteous, that is, justified, before he was circumcised. He was born as a Gentile but created as a Jew. His circumcision was a double sign: first and most importantly, like baptism it was a sign and a seal of his righteousness in the presence of God and of his corresponding commitment to God. Additionally, it was a sign of belonging to God’s covenant people. Over the course of time, Israel confused these aspects and now many believe that belonging to the covenant community means that one is justified by the law governing that community.)

While we may understand that the promise was necessary to bring the Messiah, we, like our brothers and sisters of the Mosaic covenant don’t always see the relationship between faith and works. Most people (Jews and Gentiles alike) are confused about the essential relationship, but it is really just the difference between justification and sanctification. Many people think that James and Paul were preaching different gospels—one of works of the law and another of faith without the law. However, what Paul really preached against was trying to be justified by the law or the Torah. According to God’s Word itself, justification is and has always been a matter of faith (Gen. 15:6; Hab. 2:4; Rom. 4:9; Gal. 3:6; James 2:23).

As his Master and brother in the flesh had already taught (John 15:5, 8), what James was getting at in his letter to the dispersed Jews was that the justified life is a fruitful life and that the actions and attitudes and the moral profile of the justified will automatically manifest as works or actions for good within the world. The best example of this is Abraham (Abraham was a Gentile who became a Jew by God’s providential will). He was willing to fulfill the ultimate work by sacrificing his own son in obedience to God. His actions were the outcome of his belief. Even his words "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son" should be understood not as a blind trust that God would provide a substitute sacrifice so he wouldn’t have to kill his son. Rather, we should understand that even if God permitted Abraham to kill his son, God would not break his promise. “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice."

AMEN