Letter 487 (The Father's judicial ways)

Shalom Fellow Israelite,

Continuing from the perspective of last week’s letter, let us follow our Heavenly Father’s righteous justice when reconciling Adam back to Himself through Yeshua His Son.  Yeshua’s role in all that took place two thousand years ago was marked by His obedience to the will of His Father, while the Father’s Spirit preformed the rest. 

 Paul mentions the mystery of His (the Father’s) will: “Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself” (Ephesians 1:9).  “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to Elohim (the Father) through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life, (that is the Father’s life that was in Yeshua).  And not only that, but we also rejoice in Elohim through our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, through whom we have now received the reconciliation”(Romans 5:10-11).

  

Those who deem that reconciliation to our Heavenly Father can be attained through good works do not understand the laws of redemption, the gospel, or their own unrighteousness.  “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).  Earlier Paul quotes the Psalms: “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after Elohim. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one’" (Romans 3:10-12; Psalms 14:3; 53:3). 

When the Creator breathed His Spirit into Man, Adam was called “son of Elohim” (see Luke 3:38).  However, after Adam’s rebellion his description changed to “son of disobedience”: “And you, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:1-2).  The Creator could not rescind the law He legislated at the beginning in regards to Adam, that if he were to partake of the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” he would surly die (see Genesis 2:17). Adam, therefore, had to die.  There was no way out of Satan’s kingdom and the laws of “sin and death,” unless the Almighty were to fulfill His own requirements for forgiveness and reconciliation of Man back to Himself.  And so, in accordance with YHVH’s righteousness and justice, He made a way whereby Man could return to the Garden of Delight.  Thus it required another law, mentioned by the apostle Paul: “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.  Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law” (ref. Romans 3:27).

Since Adam’s original spirit life was from the Father’s Spirit, only the Father could reconcile that corrupted (spirit) life back to Himself.  Since Adam not only had a spirit but was also of the earth (earthy) - a natural man (see 1 Corinthians 15:47) - the Spirit life of the Father had to take on flesh and blood, as only a kinsman redeemer (Second Adam) could redeem his lost brother (the First Adam).  Yeshua, therefore, had to be born of the Spirit, the water, and the blood:  “This is He who came by water and blood – Yeshua the Messiah; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth...” (Verse 7 is not in the original)*  And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one” (1 John 5:6; 8).

Having to identify with this “earthly” and “natural” brother, Yeshua had to be born of a human mother. If He were wholly divine His natural body could not have died. However, after His resurrection His body was no longer subject to corruption. He was incorruptible in soul and body. Similarly we too, after the resurrection, will receive an immortal body (see 1 Corinthians 15: 51-53).  

Again, the life ‘resident’ in Yeshua was not the defiled spirit of the Adamic man. He could not have the spirit/life (in His blood) of any natural human male. If He had, He would not have been the perfect lamb for the kind of sacrifice that YHVH required in order to inaugurate the New Covenant. “He died to make atonement for our sins, to expiate our guilt, to satisfy divine justice” (from Matthew Henry’s commentary). 

Shabbat Shalom,

Ephraim

*See Aramaic English New Testament, by Andrew Gabriel Roth p. 658; footnote 16.

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