Archive | April 7th, 2014

April 7th – The in-between God




The dilemma of Orthodox Jews, and also of a great many devout in other religions, has been put simply like this.At one and the same time, no human can see God and live,and that no human can live unless he sees God.I don’t need to illustrate this, for to see God is to see what our eyes cannot register: the glory of God is too bright, too dazzling, for puny humans to get close. Yet to live without seeing, touching,hearing God, is to be spiritually dead. Bulk and body without breath. Hence the uniqueness of Jesus.

He was not caught up in our dilemma for he is declared to be the mediator. He himself is the meeting place between heaven and earth, between the glory of the Holy God, and the benighted human race.His favourite term for himself was Bar’a’Nasha: Son of Man. The Hebrew word ‘Messiah’ had become type-cast as a heavenly warrior, super Jew, so Jesus stopped people using that term to describe him. He preferred the words ‘Son of Man’ for himself.That was a phrase from the book of Daniel, Chapter 7 v. 14, which clearly did not mean a mere human being, but a mediator between heaven and earth, a revelation in full humanity of the Holy, the very glory of God.Not some god or other disguised as a man.Not a man aspiring to be God, but the God/Man. The unique bridge twixt heaven and earth, between glory light and sin’s inky blackness. The mediator – the one who never lets go of being God, and never lets go of the creatures he joined and came to change.
When the climax came, Jesus was bound and judged by the Jewish Council. The High Priest eventually demanded:
“I charge you under oath by the living God: tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God”
“Yes, it is as you say” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: In future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Matthew 26: 63-64Matthew 26: 63-64
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV

63 But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. 64 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.  

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A Prayer Thought:
People who sit in judgement on Jesus never seem to realise that it is not He who is on trial before them, but precisely the opposite.

Now read Hebrews 9: 11-15Hebrews 9: 11-15
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV

11 But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; 12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. 13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: 14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? spot: or, fault 15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.  

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and see I Timothy 2: 5-6.

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THROUGH THE YEAR CALENDAR

April 2014
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Click on any previous date in the above calendar to read the relevant Through The Year post
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Sometimes you just can't believe it's true!
A Word in Time
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Cooke's Tour of The Bible
Frank Cooke's journey through the Old and New Testaments
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Mind Stretchers
An open mind is a healthy mind!
Bible Bloopers
Even the Bible has its funnies!