God Will Create A New Thing: A Woman Will Surround A Man

This prophecy from Jeremiah seems at first both intriguing and strange. It is presented in a way that makes it sound like a key to prophetic understanding, and indeed it is like a key in a box, a box which itself is locked and must be opened for the key to be made accessible. Once this key is in one's hand it can be used to open the mystery for which it was designed. This mystery is the mystery of Israel's conversion from disobedience to the final mature service of God for which the nation was chosen.

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Adam's Little Finger: Good Seed and Good Soil

The Torah turns the soil, removing rock, weeds and hardened ground. Where the field to be cultivated is 'all Adam', the good heart of the soil first cultivated  is 'all Israel', including an extract from every nation.

The picture is here of the corporate Humanity, 'all Adam', the structural design of Humanity that God built into Humanity, being the "field" that He desires to regenerate with the seed sown, the word of God.  In other words, we are looking at God's desire to regenerate the very structure of Humanity, its corporate nature. 

Individual conversion and regeneration is not enough. Accumulated individul conversion is not enough. There must be a conversion of WHAT we are in common not just of WHO we are individually, even if added together. How does this corporate salvation and regeneration of Humanity occur?

The Western mind is not accustomed to thinking that the word of God could be addressed to a whole people, not just to a aggregate of individuals.  But this precisely is the truth.  While the word of God is also addressed to human beings as individuals, it is first addressed to human beings as indivisible members of one corporate entity.

But isn't it the individual who hears, the individual with an individual will and individual responsibility?  Just as the first parents of Humanity were not only individuals but also together one corporate head and had to listen to the word of God as such, so every person is first a member of the greater adamic whole, and only as such is an individual at all!

We are inclined to think of the individual person as the soul, so that we think of the individual person as the primary entity.  But just as there has never been a human being without a personal body, so that salvation cannot be complete without the resurrection of the body, so there has never been a human being without a family body.  The man was not created alone.  The woman was not created alone.  No one was created alone or separately.  Yet we mistakenly continue to define the true essential human being as being the individual.

In fact, the Torah, the word of God, was declared from Heaven to Israel as one, a corporate whole.  The primary responsibility of those who heard the commandments on Mount Sinai and then the whole Torah was a corporate responsibility and only then in a way derived from this was it an individual responsibility.  So it is with the Good News of Israel.  It is first a seed sown in the soil, the heart, the life of the nation as a corporate entity and only then in the life of the individual in a way that is derived from this.

What then of the nations and 'all Adam'?  Israel is "the little finger" of Adam.  The corporate body of Adam died but "a little finger" of the corporate body was selected to be redeemed and given new life.  The corporate body of Adam is organic in nature.  One corporate part of it, even "a little finger", can be preserved through a resurrected life and this result in the redemption of the corporate body itself.  Look at one example:

God said to Moses that He could destroy the body of Israel as it existed at the time in the wilderness and build up Israel again out of Moses' own offspring alone.  After listening to Moses prayer and pleading for Israel, his argument being to the effect that the nations would say that God was unable to bring Israel out of Egypt and keep them alive, God granted to Moses his request and did not do this.  However, in principle, this is exactly what God did do with Abraham in relation to Adam.  The Good News is that God corporately redeemed Adam in corporately redeeming Torah defined Israel.  He did this temporally by way of promise in Egypt and at Mount Sinai and eternally by way of the fulfillment of that promise through Mashiach.

As much, therefore, as the word bears fruit in Israel that fruit multiplies the seed in all the world among all the nations, where, being heard and obeyed, it incorporates all things into the redemption of "Adam's little finger."

They Saw That Their Souls Were Naked

To ask people to expose their innermost awareness of their existence to the eyes and the interpretation of anyone and everyone else, and to defend doing this by saying that it is the responsibility of each person not to take it personally, is like asking everyone to live without any clothes and if anyone stares to say that it is up to each individual not to take it personally. But where should we draw the line? Should we make all people, men, women and children to cover every inch of their bodies at all times so that no one can objectify them with their eye? Should we prohibit all speech about anyone's sincerely held world-view so that no one can violate another person's spiritual privacy with their mind, even unintentionally?

Ironically, it is possible sometimes for people to think that by insisting that modesty in matters of dress or in matters of privacy of spirit is entirely the responsibility of the beholder they are defending the sanctuary of the individual and of individual rights. It only takes the experience of spiritual brokenness or spiritual disability and vulnerability, (whether caused by child abuse, mental illness, or other hardships), to make us realize how callous this way of thinking can be. We can violate another person's spiritual privacy and cause damage to them in places where they are spiritually vulnerable simply by talking with them about our most deeply felt world-view. And no one, no matter how righteous they are or how righteous their world-view is, is exempt from this responsibility. What then if we come into an age of anything goes spirituality? It is not only the broken people who are in great danger. There are areas of spiritual brokenness and vulnerability in everyone.

To Be Continued...

Declaring Knesset Israel's Good News

The purpose of my work in declaring and teaching Knesset Israel's Good News is to serve the God of Israel, the Creator of all things, in restoring all things to unification with himself in love by his revelation of himself as the God and Redeemer of Israel.  This is the service of faith and Godliness, as it is written:
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ll Peter 1
2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Yehoshua our Master, 3 according as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and Godliness, through the knowledge of Him who has called us to glory and virtue, 4 through which He has given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, so that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
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Romans 12
1 I implore you, therefore, my relatives, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, your spiritual service. 2  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind, that you may demonstrate what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
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And we also have many resources, such as Mesillat Yesharim to assist us.
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Now because faith is created by the word of God and because it is impossible to please God or to be blessed by God in any of these things without that faith which is created by the word of God, it is essential that Knesset Israel's good News is clearly heard and known, for in it is the beginning and the seal of faith.

The purpose of all that God does is to create free will.
Free will requires free choice.
Free choice requires there being a commandment from God and material opportunity for obedience.
The heavens and the earth were created as an environment for the Torah.
The choice not to obey takes away free choice.
Only choice to obey leaves free choice in place.
Only obedience establishes free will.
Only Mashiach establishes obedience.
Free will is eternal because obedience in Mashiach is the obedience of Mashiach and cannot be altered.
If the Son of Adam makes Adam free, Adam then is free indeed.

Living by, declaring and teaching Knesset Israel's Good News is the beginning of eternal freedom.  For we are commanded to go into all the world and live and speak by Knesset Israel's Good News.

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The Challenge for This Study

The first challenge for this study will be to explore the significance for our time of the commandment of the Lord to begin fulfilling the Great Commission in Jerusalem. I will be using two basic perspectives.
1.) Starting from the beginning looking forward to the end.
2.) Starting from the present looking back to the beginning and then forward to the end.

Before any other considerations, I will be asking the question, What is the actual nature of the Good News which is to be preached to the ends of the earth beginning at Jerusalem? What is the relationship of the Lord, his death and his resurrection, to Jerusalem and to the nations of the world?

The first perspective I have mentioned raises the whole issue of the relationship of Jewish Messianism and Gentile Christianity. There are various important aspects to this. Some of these are:
1.) The relationship betwee the branch of Jewish Messianism that led to the time of Yehoshua (Jesus) but then went in a different direction and the branch of Jewish Messianism that led to the time of Yehoshua which then proceeded to follow him.
2.) The relationship between "Messianic Judaism" today and original Jewish Messianism and the two directions which it split into. How did original Jewish Messianism produce "Messianic Judaism"?
3.) The relationship of Gentile Messianism (Christianity) with these different aspects of Jewish Messianism. How did original Jewish Messianism produce Gentile Messianism (Christianity)?

The second pespective raises the following issues:
1.) Should contemporary Messianic Judaism seek to go back and start all over from the beginning? Or should it seek to start by understanding and accepting the present reality and working from there to re-create a link to the beginning? How would it do either of these? In what sense is it trying to do either or both of these? How does the commandment to begin the great commission from Jerusalem affect this question?
2.) Should Gentile Messianism (Christianity) seek to go back and start all over from the beginning in any sense at all? How was the Protestant Reformation an attempt to do this? It the Protestant Reformation complete? How was the Anabaptist Reformation an attempt to do this? Is the Anabaptist Reformation complete? How does the commandment to begin the great commission from Jerusalem affect this question?