Of my Lord, the Lord and the LORD.

Which "Lord" are we talking about?

The Name of God Almighty YHWH occur 6,828 times in the Hebrew scriptures, and is rendered as "the LORD" (all capital letters) whereas the Hebrew title Adoni (my Master) is translated "Lord" (small letters) in our English bibles. Thus, the well known prophetic verse Psalm 110:1 where YHWH spoke to the Messiah, David's adoni. is rendered as follows:

The LORD (YHWH) says to my lord (adoni):“Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

When the OT was translated into Greek sometime around the 3rd century BCE (the Septuagint), a new level of ambiguity arose because the entire Greek text used only capital letters. The word "KURIOS" was used to translate both YHWH as well as adoni, with no distinction whatsoever in the letter case. It thus became somewhat difficult to make out when the Septuagint was referring to the Name of God YHWH and when it was referring to the title of adoni or my Master.

This ambiguity spilled over into the NT Greek manuscripts when the apostles quoted from the Septuagint and continued the practice of using KURIOS to refer to both YHWH and Master, using only capital letters in all their writings.

Today, we have inherited this confusion in our English translations of the Greek NT, using only "the Lord" to refer to both YHWH as well as Master.

For example, Psalm 110:1, quoted by Jesus in his question to the Pharisees in Matthew 22:44, is rendered as follows (I have used all capitals, just like in the Greek text):

‘THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD,
“SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND,
UNTIL I PUT YOUR ENEMIES BENEATH YOUR FEET”’?

In view of this ambiguity over the use of "the Lord" I'd like to ask a question: How do we go about identifying references to YHWH in the NT and distinguishing them from references to the title (Master) for the Messiah?

(To be continued).

Implicit Allusions vs Explicit Assertions.

I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. (John 16:28 ESV)
I and the Father are one. (John 10:30 ESV)
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58)

I have friends who point out passages such as John 16:28 (I came from the Father), or John 8:58 (Before Abraham was, I am), or John 10:30, "I and my Father are one" to make their case for the "Divinity" of the Messiah, whether as part of a Trinity or Binity or Oneness doctrine.

At best, these arguments are based Implicit Allusions to the purported divinity of the Anointed One. For example, according to these friends, the words ". . . I am" in John 8:58, IMPLIES that Jesus is the great I AM, the Almighty God Himself. Similarly, "I and my Father are one" IMPLIES that Jesus is the same being as the Father (Oneness doctrine), and likewise "I came forth from the Father . . . going to the Father" IMPLIES that Jesus is part of the Godhead etc.

I'd like to invite my friends to leave aside for a moment their preoccupation with such Implicit Allusions and join me in examining the far more significant and undeniably obvious Explicit Assertions of the apostles who wrote the book of Acts and the Epistles in the NT. The long list of verses from Paul's and Peter's letters which I have included in my previous post are but only some of such Explicit Assertions. I reproduce some of Paul's assertions below:


2 Corinthians 1:3 NKJV
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,

Ephesians 1:3 NKJV
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

Colossians 1:3
We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,

Romans 1:8
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.

Romans 1:8-9
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ . . .God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers . . ."

Romans 7:25
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God . . .

Romans 15:5-7
Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore receive one another just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.

Further examples are found in Peter's words in his first epistle.

1 Peter 1:3 NKJV
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Verses 17 through 21 is rendered very clearly and unambiguously in the Good News Translation:

1 Peter 1: 17 GNT
You call him Father, when you pray to God, who judges all people by the same standard, according to what each one has done; so then, spend the rest of your lives here on earth in reverence for him.

1 Peter 1:19, 20 GNT
 it was the costly sacrifice of Christ, who was like a lamb without defect or flaw. He had been chosen by God before the creation of the world and was revealed in these last days for your sake.

1 Peter 1:21 GNT
Through him you believe in God, who raised him from death and gave him glory; and so your faith and hope are fixed on God.

In Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2: 22 - 24 (note especially v36), Peter asserts explicitly that

• Jesus is a man: accredited by God, 
• handed over to the Jews by God's foreknowledge, 
• raised from death by God and 
• made Master and Messiah by God.

Another explicit assertion is found in Peter's testimony to the household of the centurion Cornelius in Acts 10: 34 - 43, a passage which I had commented back in April 2009. In this passage, Peter asserts explicitly that:

• It was God who anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power (v 38).
• God was with Him (v 38b).
• After he was killed, God raised him up on the third day (v 39).
• It was God who showed the resurrected Lord Jesus openly to selected witnesses (v 41), witnesses whom God had chosen, so that they could even eat and drink with Him.
• Finally, it was God who ordained the Lord to be judge of the living and the dead (v 42).

Let us not be troubled by various implicit allusions. Instead, let us turn to the explicit assertions of the apostles. May our Father in Heaven, the Only True God, grant us peace through Yeshua the Anointed One.

Does God have a God?

Does God have a God? (Something for Christian friends to ponder over)

I have just come across a remark by a "Oneness" member of a Christian discussion group that the words of Thomas in John 20:28, "My Lord and My God" should be regarded as an Apostolic proclamation: that our Master Yeshua the Anointed One is God Himself.

Many Christians today who are likewise persuaded by these brief words of Thomas fail to consider the more detailed words of our Master Himself in John 20:17 where He told Mary to "go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’"

Also, If we take Thomas' words as Apostolic Proclamation, then how should we take Paul's words, quoted below?

2 Corinthians 1:3 NKJV
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,

Ephesians 1:3 NKJV
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

Colossians 1:3
We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,

Romans 1:8
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.

Romans 1:8-9
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ . . .God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers . . ."

Romans 7:25
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God . . .

Romans 15:5-7
Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore receive one another just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.

And Peter's words too:

1 Peter 1:3 NKJV
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead


And finally, here are more words spoken by the Messiah Himself, where He refers to His God no less than four times in a single verse:

Revelation 3:11-12 (KJV)
Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.


If, on the basis of one very brief exclamation of Thomas alone, we are persuaded to regard our Master Yeshua the Anointed One as our God, then on the basis of so many express statements by Paul and Peter above, would we be persuaded to regard the Father in Heaven as our God's God?

Does our God have a God?

Related post:
Thanksgiving, Prayer and Praise in the NT

Let us take Christmas out of Christ.

It is Christmas Day.

I thank my friends for all your good wishes. In my country, Christmas is a joyous celebration, an occasion of giving gifts and merry making for the Christian community. Many homes as well as shopping centres are decorated with Christmas trees while good old familiar carols are heard everywhere.

Some of my more serious and faithful Christian friends, however, would frown at the highly commercialised celebrations. They point out that the real joy of Christmas can only be found in the story of Jesus Christ, recorded in the gospel accounts of the New Testament. To them, all the celebrations, decorations and felicitations are meaningless if people forget what Christmas is really about: that God sent His Only Begotten Son to this world to save mankind from sin and to grant eternal to everyone.

Thus, we would often hear people say, "Let us put Christ back into Christmas."

I have other friends who are even more serious and faithful believers in Jesus Christ. These friends recognise a fundamental error in trying to put Christ back into Christmas. The error is that Christmas was not about Christ in the first place. Instead, the celebrations originated from some week-long pagan Roman holiday characterised by feasting, drinking and wanton sex parties.* Later, in the fourth century CE, this lawless Roman holiday was subsumed by Christianity as a celebration of the Birth of Christ.

*(Please see link below.)

As for me, I no longer celebrate Christmas, although I agree with all my friends, both Christians and non-Christians alike that it is a joyous festive occasion of giving gifts and singing Christmas carols.

Let there be a sober remembrance of the birth of Christ as recorded in the Gospel accounts WITHOUT any association with ancient pagan Roman winter holidays, from which Christmas trees and gingerbread men originated.

If possible, let us find another day to remember the events surrounding the birth of Christ, events which included the long and arduous journey of Joseph and Mary from the town of Nazareth to the city of Bethlehem to obey the decree of a heartless Roman Emperor. Of Joseph's failure to get a proper guest room for his wife who was at the point of giving birth. Of their having no place to put the newborn baby other than a manger.

And of the subsequent massacre by Herod of all boys two years old and below in Bethlehem and its surrounding neighbourhoods.

Thus, the remembrance of the birth of Christ should be both a sober and solemn occasion rather than one of feasting and merry-making. The announcements by the angels of "good tidings of great joy" should be remembered alongside the sufferings that Joseph and Mary endured and the mourning by the numerous mothers whose children were murdered by Herod's soldiers.

While some of my friends are calling for Christ to be put back into Christmas, I would like to make a different call.

I call for Christmas to be taken away from Christ.

Here's the link to Christmas - The Real Story

The Priest of God.

Psalm 2:7 NKJV
I will declare the decree:
YHWH has said to Me,
‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.

Psalm 110:4 NKJV
YHWH has sworn
And will not relent,
“You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.”

The Messiah is a priest of the order of Melchizedek. Yes, priest of the YHWH our God.
Forever.

Hebrews chapter 5 explains these prophecies in the following way:

(1) The Priest was Appointed by God
Hebrews 5:1, 4
For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. . . . 4 And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.

(2) The Priest offered up prayers to God
Hebrews 5:7
who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear,

(3) The Priest was saved from death by God
Hebrews 5:7
who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear,

(4) The Priest became the Author of our Salvation because he was made perfect by God
Hebrews 5:9
9 And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him,

(5) The Priest was called by God
Hebrews 5:10
. . . called by God as High Priest “according to the order of Melchizedek,”

Finally, ponder over Hebrews 5:11. Let us not remain dull of hearing.

". . . of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing."

Brothers and Sisters in the Anointed One, let us hear and understand that we have Iesus the Anointed One, appointed on oath by God, as High Priest of the Order of Melchizedek. The High Priest of God. Forever.

Authority to break Sabbath? What authority?

I came across the following comments in a discussion group today:

"I don't keep a Saturday Sabbath because Jesus abolished the Law of Moses in His death...ie He destroyed the "devil" in His death. In other words, the Law falsely accused Jesus and condemned Him in His death. Every day is "Sabbath" for the Children of God...because we are FREE in Him to serve the Father every moment of our lives."

"If you have been made "priests and kings" giving you authority to break Sabbath yet remain innocent [Mat 12.5] why don't you?"

Some people say that the Messiah our Master has abolished the Torah by his sacrificial death. In fact, two years ago I was told by a well-respected Christian pastor that even the Ten Commandments have likewise abolished. As such there is, supposedly, no need to keep the Sabbath rest every week.

Then there are others who take a longer route in their reasoning. They would first point out from verses such as Revelations 1:6; 5:10 and 1 Peter 2:9 that we, children of Elohim, has been made priests and kings in His kingdom.

Revelations 1:6 NIV
and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father--to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
Revelations 5:10 NIV
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.
1 Peter 2;9 NIV
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Then they would move on to the well known account in Matthew 12 about our the disciples of our Master Yeshua picking some heads of grain and eating them as they passed through a grain field on a Sabbath day, pointing out the words of our Master in verse 5 ". . . haven’t you read in the Torah that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent?"

These simple minded people would put two and two together and say, "Ah-ha! There it is. Don't you see?". They would conclude that since we are chosen as priests and kings, and since the priests who serve YHWH Elohim "break" the Sabbath by carrying out their priestly duties every Sabbath day, therefore, we have the authority to also break Sabbath. (!)

Is that so? Did the Levitical priests really desecrate the Sabbath? Are we really authorised to break it, likewise? What's wrong with people who come to such a conclusion?

Let us take a closer look at the account in Matthew chapter 12

Matthew 12:1 - 8 ESV“At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck ears of corn and to eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” 3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice’, you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” ”

The Accusation by the Pharisees : 
The Pharisees told the Master Yeshua that his disciples had broken the Torah commandment (did something unlawful) by plucking the ears of corn and eating them on the Sabbath (verse 1).

My friend Paul F. Herring, in his recent book, "The New Testament: the Hebrew behind the Greek" has this to say:

 "It was accepted that on the Sabbath it was permissible to pick up fallen heads of grain and rub them between the fingers. According to Rabbi Yehuda, also a Galilean like Yeshua, it was even permissible to rub them in one's hand. Some of the Pharisees though found fault with Yeshua’s disciples for most likely behaving in accordance with their Galilean tradition.

That is, it is most probable that these Galileans, picked the fallen heads of grain, rubbed them together and ate them. But what we read in Greek (Matt 12:1-2) is that they ‘plucked’ the heads of grain.

It seems fairly clear then, that when the original Hebrew account (written by someone who knew the customs and even the local differences in interpretation) was translated into Greek, the translator, not knowing these customs, and perhaps trying to make the scene more colourful, added the statement about plucking the wheat and thus introduced the one and only act of transgression of the Torah recorded in the synoptic Gospels ."
See M. Kister, "Plucking on the Sabbath and Christian-Jewish Polemic," Immanuel 24-25 (Jerusalem, 1990), pp. 35-51.


The Answer by our Master Yeshua:
Yeshua told them that his disciples had not broken the commandment. They had not done anything unlawful. Instead, the Pharisees have condemned the guiltless (verse 7). Yes, the key to this passage is the word "guiltless". The Pharisees have condemned the guiltless disciples. In making this point, the Master Yeshua made three allusions to the TaNaKh, as follows:

The Allusions to the TaNaKh:

Firstly, how David entered the temple of Elohim and ate the Show bread. see 1 Samuel 2: 1-16.
(this point to be continued . . .)

Secondly, how the Levitical priests did not rest from their duties in serving YHWH Elohim in the temple on Sabbath.

 The Levitical priests did not break the Sabbath by doing what they liked. They did not go after their own ways nor sought their own pleasure, nor talked idly. Instead they "worked" on Sabbath by doing the work of ministering in the Temple of Elohim. It was this work that the Master Yeshua was talking about in Matthew 12:5 when he said that the priests "profaned" the Sabbath when they were on Sabbath duty.

Isaiah 58:13, 14 ESV
“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of YHWH honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in YHWH, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of YHWH has spoken.”

Thirdly, Yeshua told the Pharisees to ponder over what YHWH Elohim meant when He told His people through the prophet Hosea that He desired mercy and not sacrifice.

Hosea 6:6
 "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings."

(to be continued . . .)

Related post: Did the Messiah break the Sabbath?

Did the Messiah break the Sabbath?

One of my facebook friends posed the following question in a discussion group this morning:

If Jesus broke the Sabbath [John 5.18], why can't you?

This friend went on to emphasise his belief that the Master broke the Sabbath by quoting verse 17:

Jesus answered them, “My Father is always working, and I too must work.”

He claimed that our Messiah's assertion in John 5:17 shows that he "worked" on that Sabbath day!

Far from breaking the Sabbath, our Master Yeshua the Anointed One actually did the opposite.

In John chapter 5, the Jewish authorities accused Yeshua of breaking the Sabbath because he:
(1) healed a man who had been sick for 38 years by the pool with five porches, near the Sheep Gate.
(2) after the healing, he told the man to take up his mat and walk.

There is no commandment in the Torah that says you cannot heal a sick person on Sabbath. Nor is there any commandment that says you cannot pick up your mat and go home. Yeshua did not break the Fourth commandment. He merely went against some man-made rules.

We will do well to remember the words of the Messiah in his sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 5:17-20 NKJV
17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Even in this account of healing, our Messiah told the man whom he had healed,

John 5:14 ESV
. . . “Listen, you are well now; so stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

It is unthinkable that the Anointed Yeshua would have taught the man to ignore or break the Fourth Commandment.

As for your question about what Yeshua meant when he said that he is the Master of the Sabbath, well, he certainly DID NOT mean that we can break the Sabbath commandment. Otherwise, would his followers have kept the Sabbath, as we can read about the women doing so in Luke's gospel:

Luke 23:56 ESV
Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

My brothers and sisters, let us keep the Fourth Commandment. Shabbat Shalom.