Posted on 05/31/2021 4:22:00 PM PDT by OneVike
As a gift of his love for his eight-year old son, a father gives him a baseball and a bat. The father tells the boy to be carefull as to not break any windows, nor harm anyone with the toys.
So the boy takes his gift and goes outside to play with the new toy. He grabs the bat with his hand, rests it upon his shoulder and tosses the ball into the air with his other hand. As the ball descends he swings the bat at the ball. To his complete enjoyment, the boy hits the ball squarely and it goes sailing into the air. As the baseball flies across the yard, it enters the neighbors yard and smashes into their living room window.
That's when the neighbor comes outside to confront the boy about his window. The neighbor realizes that an eight-year old boy cannot fix, nor pay for the broken window. Yet he demands justice. So he confronts the boys father, who gave him the destructive instruments that shattered his living room window.
The father apologizes to the neighbor and promises to fix his window. The reason the father must do this, is because the boy has no means of rectify the mistake he made. While the father himself did not break the neighbor’s window, he does accept the responsibility for giving his son the ball and bat that allowed for the possibility that something bad could happen.
In return the boy will have to suffer the consequences of his actions by mowing lawns to pay for the window or even loosing the chance to play with his ball and bat. The boy himself will not pay for, nor fix the broken window, but his father will. So it is with our Father in heaven. We cannot rectify the transgression we committed by our sins, only our Father can.
Like the gift of a bat and ball that was given to the boy by his father, our Father in heaven also gave us a gift. That gift was free will. With the gift of the bat and ball, came a responsibility to follow the rule set down by the boys father.
With our gift of free will, comes a responsibility to follow the rule set down by our Father in Heaven. Like the boy, we too violated the trust of our Father. With free will, there is a potential for us to commit sin. Fact is we all will, and we have, committed many sins.
Now God himself did not commit the sin that enabled the whole of mankind to fall. (Revelations 13:8) Nor did He commit any of the sins since the fall. However, just like the eight-year old has no way to satisfy the neighbor for breaking his window, so too are we unable satisfy our Father in heaven for breaking the window of trust He gave us. So our Father in heaven did what a loving father would do, like the just as the boys father did, He paid for the broken window (our sin).
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
who,being in the form of God, did not consider it
robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no
reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming
in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance
as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to
the point of death, even the death of the cross.
(Philippians 2:5-8)
God desires for us to choose Him willingly. He is not some kind of a cosmic rapist that would force His love upon us. However, if we choose not to love God, than an emptiness is created in our hearts, and sin or evil will fill that gap. Evil is a natural probability when free will is allowed to exist in one's nature. Like Lucifer, we were given free will to make that decision possible.
Thus evil is the sbsence of God's love, and only the receiver can deny that love. John tells us that,
"He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."
(1 John 4:8)
"We love Him because He first loved us. "
(1 John 4:19)
That being said, we also must conclude that a perfect and responsible God must take responsibility for the actions of His creations. So even though God did not, and cannot sin. He paid the price for it like a truly loving Father would, and that was by becoming the perfect and eternal sacrifice for the sins we committed.
"For God so loved the world that He
His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not
perish but have everlasting life"
(John 3:16)
Yet it goes even deeper than that, because as Paul tell us,
"For He made Him who knew no sin to
be sin for us, that we might become
the righteousness of God in Him."
(2 Corinthians 5:21)
Think about that. The innocent One was punished voluntarily as if guilty. So that the guilty one might be gratuitously rewarded innocence. Thus, we are justified by our Creator through His Son's substitutionary atoning sacrifice. (Justified, “Just as if we did not sin”). The broken window has been paid for Praise God, because we could never pay the price for the sins we committed.
I pray those who have ears to hear will hear His voice and call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Many may be baffled by this, and some may even disagree, but if you allow yourself to step away from what secular history has told you about the religion of Judaism, you will realize that their is truth in what I am about to share.
Let me begin by stating, there is absolutely nothing “Jewish” about God's revelations to Moses at Mt. Sinai. Everything Moses wrote that God instructed him to write, was distinctly Hebraic. NOT Jewish.
The Jewish religious tradition was born in the late second temple period, by the Pharisees. There are 613 laws that God handed down to Moses, called the Torah. These laws were to guide the nation of Israel and, as Paul told the Galatians, to be a tutor and disciplinarian to guide God's people to their Messiah, Christ Jesus. However, the Pharisees added what is known as the Mishnah, which is an oral tradition of commentaries on the Mosaic Law.
These commentaries include hundreds of man-made rules and traditions that were elevated to the same level of Scripture. Thus, if you broke one of the man made rules, then you were considered guilty of violating the Mosaic Law. Jesus confronted them on this by pointing out their hypocrisy in Matthew Chapter 5 & 23.
The Pharisees were supposed to be the keepers and interpreters of the Mosaic Law. Yet the many rules and traditions they added turned it into a man made legal document, that allowed them to scam God's people. I tend to believe that most of the lower class common folk in the Jewish communities must have thought God and His Priests were crazy, as they probably shook their heads over some of the silly rules, and how they were interpreted and applied? I can see them asking,
However, as bad as that was, there was another problem with the religion put in place by God through Moses. This one had to do with the way the Pharisees and Sadducees had thumbed their proverbial finger into God's proverbial eye, by destroying the succession of the High Priesthood. A succession which God Himself ordained.
We read in Chapter 8 of Leviticus, that God ordained only the descendants of Aaron to be the rightful heirs to the High Priesthood. Sometime after the return from captivity, it was not your genealogy that helped you become the High Priest. Nope, instead it became a position won by bribery, or by having a close relationship with whom ever the power was controlling the region. The last High Priest from Aaron's lineage was probably Jashua.
By the time Jesus walked with the Disciples, the high priesthood fluctuated between Annas and Caiaphas. The decision of who would be High Priest was decided by whomever the Roman governor wanted. By this time Aaron's descendants were just attendants of the building. It is doubtful that the political appointees, who were in and out of office with every whim of the Rome, were ever God’s High Priests.
So the removal of Aaron's descendants from the High Priesthood, put an end to the true Hebrew religious order which God Himself had set in place.
Now I get to how John the Baptist would become the last High Priest. We read in Luke 1:9 that John's father, Zacharias, was chosen by lot to perform the act of offering at the altar of incense.
So it was God's decision, that Zacharias was chosen to burn the incense before the LORD. This job was specifically given to Aaron the High Priest, and only the High Priset. Thus even in future generations, the only one allowed by GOD to burn incense was a the High Priest who was a direct descendant of Aaron. No on else was allowed.
It must be pointed out, that God was so serious about this, that twice He punished those who violated the commandment. The first time was when Aaron son's, Nadab and Abihu offered unauthorized profane fire.
The second time was when king Uzziah tried to burn incense and GOD struck him with leposy for life. Mind you, we are told that "Ussiah did what was right in the sight of the LORD." So he was one of the good Kings of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Yet he violated God's command on who has the right to offer incense.
This is why God chose Zacharias to be in the Temple offering incense. Zacharias was a descendant of Aaron, thus God wanted him in the Temple offering incense when His Angel visited and told him that his elderly wife Elizabeth would be with child, and the child's name would be John. Now John's wife, Elizabeth, was also a descendant of Aaron. Another interesting aspect of this is, the name of Aaron's wife was Elisheba, which is the same as Elizabeth.
This is huge, because when you put all the facts on the table, you can clearly see that John the baptist was uniquely qualified to be a High Priest. He was a child of pure Aaronic Priestly stock, who was specifically sent by God, via a miracle pregnancy to parents who were childless and in their advanced years. Luke 1:7. John would also become a pure Nazarite, because he never cut his hair, never touched dead bodies, nor did he ever drink wine, and he would be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. Luke 1:15 John would become be a priest-prophet that would minister in the spirit and power of Elijah. Luke 1:17
John was the most qualified man in history to not only minister to God, but to also mediate things of men before God. Just compare John the Baptist's credentials to the credentials of the imposters who were High Priests of those days. From the womb, John was a Spirit-filled Hebrew, Levite, Nazarite, Aaronic priest-prophet. While the others were pretenders propped up by their father the devil.
Consider this, Christ came to not only die for our sins, but first He had to restore the priesthood for the symbolic prophecy to be filled. Thus after John the Baptist was gone, He could properly assume the position as the last true High Priest. In this case, in the order of Melchizedek.
Think about it. It makes perfect sense that John the Baptist was the true High Priest who was the rightful heir after his father Zacharias. As such, the true High Priest of God would baptize Jesus. The scene of Jesus baptism would be what Aaron did to his sons to sanctify them so they could minister to the Lord in His house. You can also see this as the transition ordained by God.
When you consider the facts. This puts a new perspective on John’s statement
John's priesthood was decreasing while the priesthood in the order of Melchizedek was increasing. John was not a Jew, he was a Levite. A descendant of the father of the Hebrews, Abraham, and a member of the twelves tribes of Israel chosen to be a blessing to the whole world. It seems obvious why God would bypass the religious leaders in everything His Son did. Beginning from the day He was born, God ignored those tending His Temple, and instead notified the shepherds in the fields that His Son has arrived. Instead of going to the Satan's High Priest of the Temple to be washed and anointed, He sent His Son to the High Priest in the field to be washed and anointed. The very High Priest God chose to be born from the Aaronic line as He commanded at Mt Saini. Instead of having Jesus join the Priesthood to be ordained so He could preach in the Temple to His sheep, Jesus went straight to the fields to tend His sheep.
Thanks to John's High Priesthood, Christ was able to fulfill God's command on the proper transfer of the High Priesthood. Eventually Christ would ascend into heaven where he now sits at the right hand of God as our forever High Priest. Then in 70 A.D., God allowed the false priesthood of the Pharisees to end forever. Something Jesus predicted when he told the disciples about the coming destruction of Herod's Great Temple.
Jesus knew the Temple and the sacrificial ceremonies had to be stopped, because He would forever satisfy the need to atone for man's sins. The destruction of the Temple ended any chance of there ever being a descendant of Aaron from ever assuming the High Priesthood again. Thus John the Baptist was the last Aaronic High Priest there would ever be.
I pray those who have ears to hear will, hear His voice and call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen
You have a lot to go through and I will attempt to keep some semblance of regularity in reading.
God Bless you, OneVike
Thank you. I truly enjoyed reading this.
I am not a Biblical scholar by any means but, I have read the Holy Bible(the entire Bible, Old, and New Testaments), cover to cover several times.
And, I agree with your logic in this posting. When I first read the Bible I noted too that Christ Jesus did not go to the Jewish Priests for Baptism. He went to John. When he went to the Jewish High Priests it was to admonish them for their self-serving behaviors and actions.
Exactly. Jesus scolded the Religious leaders, as HE would do today when it comes to many who call Him Lord, but preach a different Gospel.
Very interesting.
I never heard that before.
Which one, the baseball analogy, or the one about John the baptist?
Well, kind of both, but certainly more the one about John the Baptist.
I never even heard anyone address that issue before.
Yes I agree. It is one of two commentaries on a subject that I have never seen anyone with the same take. Both of which I have meticulously detailed.
The other is the fulfillment by Christ on Jacob’s deathbed prophecy to his son Judah in Genesis 49:10.
“””””The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.”””””
If you are interested in reading what I have on it, I will give you a drop box link to it in a pm for you to read. I am not posting it yet, because I was told by a publisher it could be a blockbuster, and that some unscrupulous editors steal ideas from forums and websites to give them their known authors so the publishing company can profit. They know that new writers books do not sell very well. So I pulled it and now am holding until I decide.
I am currently writing book now that will be a compilation of my Biblical commentaries, Psalms, and Devotionals, and historical writings I have written over the years and will be adding it as a chapter.
Once I have it in print, then I have the copywriter control that would keep anyone from taking credit for my investigative discovery. No one, in 2000 years has found the connection, and from what I have gathered from some reputable Theologians, I have it nailed. They also advised me to hold it till I am ready to publish it.
So if interested I will send you a link, but if so, I ask you do not share it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.