Praying to Adonai our God in the Name of His Anointed

Hebrews 4: 14-16 KJV
"Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

Probably the earliest account of the disciples praying to the Father in the name of Jesus is recorded in Acts chapter 4, after Peter and John were threatened and warned not to teach in Jesus' Name by the High Priest, rulers, elders and scribes:

Acts 4: 29-31 KJV
29 And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word,
30 By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.
31 And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.

Notice how the disciples, praying with one accord (4:24), addressed God as "Lord" (= "LORD" or Adonai in Hebrew, the title for YHWH) in verse 24 and 29.

Acts 4:24 KJV
24 And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is:

It is also noteworthy that the disciples referred to Jesus in their prayer as "thy holy child whom thou hast anointed" in verse 27, and "thy holy child Jesus" in verse 30.

Brothers and Sisters, let us pray to Adonai YHWH our God, in the Name of His Holy Child, whom He has Anointed.

The New Way of the Spirit

Dear brothers and sisters, here are some observations that I have made during my devotions about a year ago.

The Good News of the New Testament
- the new way of the Spirit vs the old way of the written Instructions.
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The apostle Paul writes in his epistle to the Romans that those who have believed in the Lord Jesus the Messiah have three distinct characteristics in the new covenant with God.

Before I go on however, I'd like to point out that the epistles referenced in this article were written by Paul in typical Jewish midrashic style. Midrash is a Jewish approach to exegesis, which mainly focuses on deep meanings and comparative investigation of Biblical texts. (A brief commentary on interpretation of Old Testament scripture in the early NT times can be found at the end of this article)*

Here are three characteristics:

(I) Believers in the Messiah are Freed from Condemnation of the Law.

Rom. 7:6 GNT
"Now, however, we are free from the Law
because we died to that which once held us prisoners.
No longer do we serve in the OLD WAY of the written Law (or Instructions)
but in the NEW WAY of the Spirit."

This verse tells us that the written Instructions once held us captives, that they constitute an old way of serving God and that they are replaced by a new way, simply described as the way of the Spirit.

We must note, however, that this assertion by no means imply that Believers are to abandon or to disregard the teachings of the Law of Moses. It does not, for example, gives us license to kill, to steal or to commit adultery. Being free from the Law certainly does not mean being free to bear false witness or to covet our neighbours' possessions. Paul wrote in Romans 3:31, "Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law." (NASB)

Likewise, whist we are free from the condemnation of the Law, we are nonetheless reminded to use the Law, along with the Writings and the Prophets (all Scriptures), to instruct, to reprove, to correct and to train ourselves in righteousness, so that we are properly equipped to perform good works.  Paul wrote to Timothy in his 2nd epistle,

2 Tim 3:15,17 GNT
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful[a] for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living, 17 so that the person who serves God may be fully qualified and equipped to do every kind of good deed.

Yes, we Believers serve our Heavenly Father in the new way of His Spirit working within us, no longer by the old way of the written Instructions outside of us. And, no, we do not transgress the Instructions. Instead we uphold it.

(II) Believers in the Messiah are Enabled by the Power of God.

This assertion is further explained in Paul's 2nd epistle to the Corinthians, in chapter 3 for example, which tells us that believers in the Lord Jesus are enabled by God Himself to serve the new covenant, doing the work of God. It tells us that this new covenant does not consist of a written Law (Instructions) but instead consists of the Spirit of God

2 Cor 3:5b,6 GNT
"The capacity we have comes from God; 6 it is he who made us capable of serving the new covenant, which consists not of a written law but of the Spirit. The written law brings death, but the Spirit gives life."

Paul goes on to explain how this comes about.

He points out that the written Instructions were carved in stone (2 Cor 3:7). They came with the powerful manifestations of God's glory, a glory so bright, shining from Moses' face, that the Israelites could not look at it. In alluding to the account of Moses in Exodus chapter 34, Paul asserts that this glory was to subsequently bring death and condemnation to the people of Israel (2 Cor 3: 7b, 8), and that this glory was transient (2 Cor 3:11).

In contrast to the fearsome but transient glory that shone on Moses' face, the Spirit of God which is poured out on His people in the new covenant (Acts 2:33) gives life (2 Cor 3:6b). It comes with a far greater glory (2 Cor 3:8). It brings salvation instead of condemnation (2 Cor 3:9). And it lasts forever (2 Cor 3:11)

2 Cor 3: 7-11 GNT
"7 The Law was carved in letters on stone tablets, and God's glory appeared when it was given. Even though the brightness on Moses' face was fading, it was so strong that the people of Israel could not keep their eyes fixed on him. If the Law, which brings death when it is in force, came with such glory, 8 how much greater is the glory that belongs to the activity of the Spirit! 9 The system which brings condemnation was glorious; how much more glorious is the activity which brings salvation! 10 We may say that because of the far brighter glory now the glory that was so bright in the past is gone. 11 For if there was glory in that which lasted for a while, how much more glory is there in that which lasts forever!"

And finally,

(III) Believers in the Messiah are Full of the Glory of the LORD (YHWH).

The Apostle calls on the believers at Corinth to behave as a people who show the glory of God with "uncovered faces", unlike Moses who had to cover his face with a veil to conceal the glory of God (Ex 34:34, 2 Cor 3:13, 18).

2 Cor 3:18 GNT
"All of us, then, reflect the glory of the Lord with uncovered faces; and that same glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, transforms us into his likeness in an ever greater degree of glory."

This glory that Believers reflect is the same glory as that which shone from Moses' face. It comes from the LORD (YHWH), who is Spirit (see John 4:24). The Spirit of God in us transforms us in a ever increasing degree of glory, i.e. "from glory to glory".

Brothers and Sisters, let us reflect the Glory of YHWH our God by His Spirit in us.
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Midrash

• Ethnic Relations and MIgration in the Ancient World: Interpreting Judean Scriptures in Paul's time (available 2025-01-08)

The Prayer for the Ephesians

Friday 2013.06.07

Ephesians 3:14-21, a prayer for the Ephesians.

This is a good prayer for all of us to exemplify, especially because, like all prayers in the NT, this is essentially a prayer to our Heavenly Father. If we want to pray like Paul in Ephesians 3:14-21, we should do the following:

(Scripture quoted from Young's Literal Translation)

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Bow to our Heavenly Father, who is also the Father of our Master Jesus the Messiah.

"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," 3:14

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Acknowledge that every being in heavens and earth receives its true name from our Father in heaven. He is our creator God.

"of whom the whole family in the heavens and on earth is named"3:15

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Ask our Heavenly Father to give us strength in our inner being, through His Spirit according to the wealth of His glory. Yes, this we must ask for such wealthy, glorious strength from our Father.

"that He may give to you, according to the riches of His glory, with might to be strengthened through His Spirit, in regard to the inner man" 3:16

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Along with the inner strength, ask the Father to make our Messiah (the Anointed One) to dwell in our hearts through our trust in Him.

"that the Christ may dwell through the faith in your hearts" 3:17a

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Also ask that the Father will make us established in His love:

" in love having been rooted and founded," 3:17b

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Ask the Father that we may also, together with all other saints, have the power to understand the full dimensions (of His love)

"that ye may be in strength to comprehend, with all the saints, what [is] the breadth, and length, and depth, and height" 3:18

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Ask our Father that we may also know the love of the Messiah, a love which is beyond our normal knowledge / ability to understand,

"to know also the love of the Christ that is exceeding the knowledge" 3:19a

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So that we may be full of the nature of God our Father
"that ye may be filled -- to all the fulness of God;" 3:19b

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Finally, let us sing our doxology to God our Father, who works in us by His power: to HIM (God our Father) be the glory in the assembly (ekklesia) by Jesus our Messiah.

"and to Him who is able above all things to do exceeding abundantly what we ask or think, according to the power that is working in us, to Him [is] the glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus, to all the generations of the age of the ages. Amen" 3:20,21

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Brothers and Sisters, let us pray to God, He is our Father in Heaven.

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My thoughts on the Prayer for the Ephesians:

• That we may know God — our Father (May2010)

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The Unpardonable Sin - revisited

Matthew 12: 23,24 NKJV
And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”
Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”

Why did the Master Yeshua say in Matthew 12: 31, 32 that all sins and blasphemies, including speaking against the Son of Man himself, can be forgiven but "whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.".

For many years as a Trinitarian believer, this verse used to puzzle me. If the Messiah is God-the-Son and if the Holy Spirit is God-the-Spirit, why would speaking against one "person" of the Triune Godhead be forgiveable while doing so against another person in the very same Godhead be unpardonable? Is it possible that God-the-Spirit is somehow more "unblasphemable" than God-the-Son?

Little did I know how wrong I was to believe that our Only True God was a "Triune Godhead".

Last week, four years after I had awakened to the truth that God our Father is the one and only true God,
I revisited this account in Matthew 12: 22-32, along with parallel passages in Mark 3:22-30 and that of a similar account giving the background to the accusation involving Beelzebub in Luke 11: 14-15.

The Master Yeshua had cast out a demon from a mute but was accused by both scribes and Pharisees that he had done this by the power of the King of Demons.

Why was this accusation tantamount to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? The answer is found in Matthew's account:

Matthew 12: 27,28 NKJV
And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.

I am reminded that the Master Yeshua, after his baptism by John the Baptist, he saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove upon him. Yes, he was FILLED with the Holy Spirit. On that day the voice of God was heard, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased" (Matt.3: 16,17)

From that day, our Master became, "a Man ATTESTED by God . . . by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst" the Apostle Peter later declared to his audience in Jerusalem in Acts chapter 2. Likewise, Peter also declared to the household of Cornelius at Caesarea in Acts 10:38 about "how God ANOINTED Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him."

Yes, our Master Yeshua of Nazareth is the Anointed One - the Son of Man who was filled with the Holy Spirit. When he healed the demon possessed mute person in Luke 11:14, it was the Holy Spirit of God within him that performed the wonderful work. Indeed, by such miracles, signs and wonders God had attested that Yeshua was His beloved Son.

In other words, God was with him.

As such, when the scribes from Jerusalem (Mark 3:22) and the Pharisees (Matt 12:24) accused the Master of using Beelzebub to cast out demons, it was tantamount to blaspheming against the very presence of God Himself. It was a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Mark 3:30 puts it in a nutshell,

because they said, “He has an unclean spirit.”.

Set your mind on things that are above

Matthew 16: 23 NKJV
But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

The words of our Master Yeshua in this well-known verse struck me during one of my morning devotions a few days ago. I have never before noticed the reason why our Master rebuked the Apostle Peter with in such harsh terms.

"Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me",

the King James Version says.

Why is Peter called "Satan" by the Master in this account? In what way is he an offence to Yeshua the Anointed One? It was just a while ago that he was called "Blessed" by the Master Yeshua for identifying correctly that Yeshua is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. It was also a while ago that the Master had told him in verses 18 and 19,

"And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

How then did Peter suddenly become an offence to the Anointed One?

The answer lies in the second part of verse 23, "you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men", the Master Yeshua says.

Peter couldn't accept the sudden revelation from the Master Yeshua that He must soon suffer at the hands of His enemies and be killed by them in Jerusalem and then to be raised by God on the third day. The thought of seeing his Master captured, ill-treated and killed by His Master's adversaries, also the adversaries of all the disciples, is unimaginable.

Such an eventuality dashes the hope of Peter seeing His Master lead his disciples, along with many more of his fellow countrymen, to victory over the enemies and to become their new ruler. Peter was concerned with an earthly mission, an earthly accomplishment and an earthly success. He instinctively, perhaps even impulsively, pulled his Master aside and started to rebuke his Master in verse 22,

“Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”

Perhaps Peter wasn't paying enough attention to His Master's words. He had apparently not noticed the last statement of the Master Yeshua, that He would be raised from death on the third day. Well, after all, this had never happened to anyone before. It didn't make sense to Peter.

It was this very last statement of the Master Yeshua that made the difference between being mindful of the things of God versus the things of men. Had Peter been mindful of the eternal Kingdom of God, then he would have welcomed the revelation of this marvellous plan of God: that His Anointed One, the Messiah who is to be the everlasting King over Israel, would first have to die and then to BE RAISED on the third day - to rule eternally over all nations.

Today, I am reminded of the words in Colossians 3:2, "Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth.".  Have we also fallen into the same error like Peter did in Matthew 16:23?

The things of God. That, is what Peter should have been mindful of.

Repent and be baptized . . .

One of the Apostolic teachings that have impressed me very much recently is that of Repentance and Baptism in the Name of Yeshua (Iesous) the Anointed One.

Acts 2:38
"Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."

The Apostles had always taught repentance and baptism.

The call to repent and to be washed in the waters of baptism is an ancient Jewish practice called respectively "teshuva and mikveh" in Hebrew. I'm persuaded that when Peter told the crowd in Jerusalem to "Repent and be baptized" that Pentecost (Shavuot) day, his audience was not surprised by anything new. It was just a call to "teshuva and mikveh".

In Jewish teaching, baptism is effective only if one sets his heart on becoming pure. It is highly likely that Peter's call to repentance and baptism was made in the same context too. The only big difference was the mikveh was to be performed by calling upon the Name of the Messiah - Yeshua.

The following is an excerpt from "The Dynamics of Teshuva" in the book "Deep Calling Unto Deep" published by Kehot Publication Society, 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11213, authored by Dr. J. Immanuel Schochet, Professor of Philosophy at Humber College, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

"Just as sin is rooted in man's will and mind, so must teshuvah be rooted in man's will and mind. . . .He who sets his heart on becoming purified (from ritual defilement) becomes pure as soon as he has immersed himself (in the waters of a mikveh), though nothing new has befallen his body. So, too, it is with one who sets his heart on cleansing himself from the impurities that beset man's soul - namely, wrongful thoughts and false convictions: as soon as he consents in his heart to withdraw from those counsels and brings his soul into the waters of reason, he is pure."

The Dynamics of Teshuva

The Promise that is for you, for your children and for all afar

I read Acts chapter 2 this morning before starting work, and noticed the significance of the "promise of the Holy Spirit", as explained by the Apostle Peter:

(1) Our Lord Jesus the Messiah has received this promised Spirit from God the Father, and has poured out this Spirit on that Pentecost day:

Acts 2:33 ESV
Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

(2) This promise is also for everyone who Repents and is Baptized in the Name of Jesus the Messiah, to their children and to all who are far away:

Acts 2: 38, 39
“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

I am also reminded of the words of our Master in Luke 11:13

"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?"

Let us ask our Father in Heaven for this gift.