June 2003

RAISING UP A REDEEMER

(Part Twenty)

“GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD”

[M]

         Raising up a redeemer is much the same process as raising up a loaf of bread. Bread dough must be kneaded before it can rise to the occasion of its fiery finish in the oven; as a redeemer-to-be must be needed before he can rise to the occasion of his fiery finish on the cross! The word, knead, is from a Dict. root meaning: “To work, form, or shape into a mass by pressing with the hands!” A similar procedure is used by a potter with his clay as Isa 64:8 says, “O Lord, You are our Potter and we are Your clay! WE ARE THE WORK OF YOUR HANDS!” Just as clay needs a potter and bread dough needs a baker, so sinful mankind needs a Redeemer! This need He created in us attracts and elicits the very best from Himself! “In due time, when we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly...for God extended and commended His Love toward us (all), in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us! Much more than that, now that we are (all) justified by His Blood, we will (all) be saved from His wrath through Christ! For if, while we were yet His enemies (because of our flesh-mindedness Ro 8:6), we were (all) reconciled to God by the death of His Son; having been reconciled, even more, we shall (all) be saved by His Life! And not only that, but we will also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom we (all) have now received the Atonement...

“Thus as the offense of one brought judgment to condemnation to ALL MEN; even so
the Righteousness of One brought the free gift of Justification of Life to ALL MEN!!”
(Ro 5:611, 18)

         Who would dare pervert these Words to mean less than what they clearly say? Who would impugn the Unconditional Love of our Lord? I once made a conscious decision that I would rather err on the side of Eternal Life, than to err on the side of death! I would rather stand before Christ and hear I am guilty of a misplaced Faith in Resurrection Life, than to hear, “O, you of little faith!” I couldn’t bear to hear, “Who can ever separate (anyone) from Christ’s Love? Shall suffering, affliction, tribulation, calamity, distress, persecution, hunger, destitution, peril or sword? As it is written, For Your Sake we are put to death all day long; regarded and counted as sheep for the slaughter! Yet, amid all these things, we are more than conquerors who gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved us! For I am persuaded beyond all doubt that neither death, life, angels, principalities, nothing present or to come; no powers, heights, or anything else in all creation, nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Ro 8:35-39) I live to hear but one thing: “Well done, good and faithful son!”
          As religious men pray before “breaking bread” at their tables, so true believers pray before “breaking the Bread of Life” at the Lord’s Table- as Jesus did at His last supper with the apostles! Only by His Grace can we “Rightly divide the Word of Truth!” (2 Tim 2:15) The two-word phrase, “rightly divide” comes from Gk 3718: “To make a straight cut; correctly dissect (expound on) the Divine Message.” This has two roots; the first is 3717- ortho (which gives us our word, orthodox) meaning: “Be right (as rising), also (perpendicularly) erect (fig. honest), or (horizontally) level or direct! Be straight and upright!” This is from 3735 oro, “To rise, as a mountain lifts itself up above the plain; a hill or mount”; 3733 ornis (root for ornithology- study of birds), which means: “A bird- as rising in the air; a hen or female domestic fowl.” This goes back to 142 airo meaning: “Air; to raise the voice (from speech once laid in the dust, to speech higher than all the stars)!” The 2nd root is 5114 meaning, “Cut in a decisive manner, be sharper [“than a two-edged sword [“The Word of God” Eph 6:17] “piercing to divide asunder soul and spirit; joints and marrow; and is a DISCERNER OF THE THOUGHTS AND INTENTS OF THE HEART!” Heb 4:12]
          God’s Living Word is His “Sword of the Spirit” that separates man’s soul from his spirit as when “The Lord God cast Adam into a deep trance and as he slept, He took one of his ‘ribs’ [Heb 6763 translates this 11 times as “side chambers” in descriptions of the House of the Lord] and He shut up that place with flesh instead.” (Ge 2:21) Church doctrines have long debated the significance of Adam’s “rib”; but if we see man as a triune being of body, soul and spirit, we can better see that the “chamber” God shut up with flesh was the soul! For the soul is a triune entity comprised of intellect, emotion and will- from whence comes “flesh-mindedness which is death!” (Ro 8:6) an adulterous affection for the things of this world; and an antichrist“self-will”! So it was the most “natural” thing in the world for the first “entranced” man to opt for things of this world instead of Godly things since “Natural man cannot receive the things of the spirit!” (1 Co 2:14) And that is why Jesus Christ was sent to the earth- to awaken the sleeping Adam within every man!
Bless His Holy Name forever!

[TO BE CONTINUED]