Why Do We Frame Things?
January 20, 2012 Leave a Comment
On becoming the perfect Adam for Messiah!
January 20, 2012 Leave a Comment
November 5, 2011 Leave a Comment
This is the question that one must begin to understand in order to understand the Good News of the Kingdom of G-d.
These verses in Deuteronomy 32 and the verses in Zephaniah 3 and those elsewhere that reflect these verses in Deuteronomy, portray G-d as bringing a demonstration of mercy out of a demonstration of justice, a demonstration of His justified anger. This demonstration of anger and justice and forgiveness and mercy is all directed toward Adam corporately, toward Humanity as one creature of G-d. In order to set a stage for this demonstration, G-d set one family, one corporate segment of Humanity, apart in order to be able to demonstrate His purpose of mercy toward Adam through that family at the same time as His wrath was being displayed toward Adam as a whole, through His curse upon Adam in response to Adam’s rebellion. Insomuch as this family, whom God called in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and named Israel, was a segment of Adam the wrath of G-d would be demonstrated in relation to them as well, but insomuch as they were set apart for the ultimate purpose of G-d, which was mercy and not strict justice, redemption and salvation would be demonstrated through them.
March 4, 2011 Leave a Comment
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January 20, 2011 Leave a Comment
The understanding in this study is the Key to the whole assembly of believers in Yehoshua, the Mashiach of Israel (concealed in the heavens), being allowed to go on unto the perfection of spiritual maturity. It has been primarily the lack of the knowledge of the relationship of the priesthood of Melekzedek and that of the priesthood of the tribe of Levi, which is holding the position of the the priesthood of the firstborn in Israel, which has prevented us going on. The following study is the key to that knowledge. I intend to update this post to further clarify it in the near future. May the God of Israel, through His kindness and grace, bring this understanding to all whom He desires to receive it.
The priesthood of Melekzedek is mysterious because it is the priesthood of Adam after Adam was sentenced to death but before Adam had been given authorization by God for such a priesthood, which represented the possibility of hope.
Indeed, this priesthood, that was carried by Noah to Shem, who was Melekzedek, was based on Adam having been the first human being. However, this was no longer simply a virtue, as Adam had become a sinner and was under the curse of God and the sentence of death. The hope that Adam and Seth (in place of Abel), and then Noah and Shem, based this priesthood on was a mysterious hope to them, as well as to the whole human race. Had not this priesthood been honestly represented as mysterious by them, a false testimony from the order of the priesthood could have resulted. A false impression could have been given to the world that Adam’s crime would not necessarily result in death.
Although it was Able, the firstborn, who first acted as a priest and expressed hope through sacrifice, that there could be mercy from God, Adam had himself laid the foundation for this priesthood when, even after they had sinned, he named his wife cHavah, the Mother of All Living. Adam did this after overhearing God promise that an offspring of the woman would destroy the offspring of the serpent. Abel had successfully begun this firstborn priesthood of hope and, while God did not formally sanction it he did show acceptance of it, and in time Adam, as head of Humanity, sanctioned it through his own act of repentance and expression of hope in God.
Thus Adam embraced the priesthood of hope, as it was carried on by other of his children, after Abel was killed. But, even when Adam fully repented and returned to cHavah his wife, so that Seth was born, God never formally sanctioned the priesthood of Adam’s firstborn, even when he saved Noah and his family from the great flood. For after the flood, God did not promise Noah that he would not destroy the world under any circumstances again, or that he would bless all the world through him. He only promised him and made a covenant that he would not destroy the world again by water.
All of this changed when God called Abraham and began to clarify the mysterious hope that caused the day of Adam’s personal death to be stretched out into a thousand years and was causing the death of corporate Adam to be stretched out to many more years. In calling Abraham, God for the first time gave the promise of the offspring of the woman to a specific member of the family of Adam. Before Abraham this promise had not been made as a promise to anyone but only as a promise against the serpent, which God had spoken in the Garden of Eden. Now, therefore, God did not so much sanction the priesthood of the firstborn, the priesthood of hope that Shem was maintaining, as create a new priesthood based on his own calling.
This fact is enigmatically taught by the commentary of the sages of Israel on the passage on Abraham and Melekzedek meeting that is recorded in Genesis. The sages teach that because Shem failed to bless God before Abraham the priesthood was taken away from him and given to Abraham, who never failed to honor God more than the creature.
This is a necessary teaching, in that there is an aspect in which there is a cutting off of the old order and of putting the new order in its place. However, on an other level, there was also an acceptance of Shem’s, Melekzedek’s, testimony that the true hope and blessing of Adam was to be found in the word of God spoken to Abraham. The accepted testimony of Shem is the prototype of the final and ultimate rejoicing of the nations with Israel in the final and ultimate redemption of Israel, because it is this that results in the blessing of all families of the earth.
And so there is a certain way in which the priesthood of the firstborn coming through Noah was redeemed and fully and formally sanctified by God, even as he was formally setting it aside for the sake of the priesthood of Abraham. For Shem, in blessing Abraham was making himself a convert to the faith of Abraham and not only himself but also the whole order of his priesthood. This was a great and mysterious act, for it was made the basis upon which Abraham’s relationship to Adam would also be redeemed.
When Israel was redeemed from Egypt it was on the basis of all of the firstborn of Egypt being slain, but the firstborn of Israel being preserved alive on the basis of the blood of the Passover Lamb. The death of the Passover Lamb was, so to speak, the death of the priesthood of the order of Melekzedek, which was, spiritually speaking, then resurrected in the priesthood of the firstborn of Israel.
There could be a priesthood of Abraham, called to the blessing of the world, called to the certain promise of the resurrection of the dead, but only on the basis of the carrying out of God’s word in the sentence of death upon Adam. Thus, the firstborn of Israel would forever always have to be redeemed by blood, in a way acknowledging the necessity of the carrying out of the sentence of death upon Adam, individually and corporately. This commandment was, therefore, the witness given with assurance through the very existence of the firstborn of Israel, that there would come a resurrection of the dead.
In this way, God had created for himself a priesthood of the firstborn, a priesthood of a certain hope. For Mashiach to be called a priest after the order of Melekzedek is to refer to him, by implication, as the Passover Lamb, which lamb represented the death of all of the firstborn of Israel, but did so in a substitutionary way. Because the blood of the lamb would be seen as the blood of the firstborn of Israel, the angel of death would passover their houses. It was not that they were any less subject to the sentence of death than any other children of Adam but that they were made to be a sign of the promise of the resurrection of the dead.
In this way, the priesthood of Melekzedek was redeemed from being a priesthood of a world condemned to death and was given over to the priesthood of the firstborn of Israel as a priesthood of the certain hope of the resurrection of the dead. When Israel sinned with the golden calf the priesthood of the firstborn of the tribes of Israel could no longer serve in this office. The place and the office of the priesthood was filled by the firstborn of the tribe of Levi. Now it is evident that this could only be until the one who God promised against the serpent came, the one who would be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It is he who causes the firstborn of Israel to live. Therefore it is to be understood that Israel’s sin is removed through him and the priesthood of the firstborn is restored to all of the tribes. This is the redeemed priesthood of Melekzedek. And the Mashiach of Israel, anointed of God, though not yet of all the tribes of Israel, is, being the firstborn of the dead of the tribe of Judah, made the High Priest of Israel eternally, in heavenly places, according to the order of Melekzedek.
October 29, 2010 Leave a Comment
I Corinthians 15 studies will lead us to understand that in the Hebrews 6 to Ephesians 4 journey we are not simply going on from the gospel, the good news. We are going on from the good news to the good news.
As with the disciples, the talmudim of Mashiach on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, we are going on from the place where the good news and the hope of Mashiach first took us captive to the place of fully understanding the good news “according to the Scriptures” – 1Corinthians 15:1-3. In Jewish Kabbalah, (non-occult Kabbalah), this is taught in terms of the waters from below ascending back to meet the waters from above, which are the blessings of grace. The meaning of this is that faith is ultimately corporate, just as salvation is ultimately corporate. It is the Kingdom of G-d that is ultimately saved, and it is the heart and service of all as one Kingdom that ultimately returns to G-d through this salvation. This return is called, faith. This is the meaning of corporate faith. Ultimately there is no other faith. We cannot in the end have faith alone by ourselves – even if it feels that way for a time. Thus, we learn that the idea of “whosoever believes”, and the idea of believing, is not ultimately about the individual in the way we have come to think of ourselves as individuals. It is about the believing or the not believing of Humanity, and of people-groups within humanity. When we are judged we will be judged as members of a group, as “sheep” or “goats”. We will show what faith we shared in with others, whether in the Humanity that produced fruits of repentance or in the Humanity that produced fruits of rebellion. Truth is one. It is not something that is self-centered. Though we are first found by the good news when we are lost and alone, we go from this experience of the good news to the place where Humanity hears the good news as one Humanity together in the obedience of Israel hearing the one God of Israel speak to all.
September 13, 2010 Leave a Comment
My life is characterized at its core by my seeking through a Biblical journey to understand the process of learning. I believe that this life for everyone was from the beginning, and still is, for the purpose of learning to choose life with G-d, to have faith in G-d. And this has come to mean learning to hear G-d. It has come to mean learning repentance. It has come to mean learning reconciliation. And it has come to mean learning the need for and the process of universal repair and renewal.
I have been drawn especially to understand the process of the learning that takes place within the process of interpersonal communication. The learning about learning that takes place in the academic theories of learning, while valuable, cover a limited aspect of the great challenge of learning that we face. Academic theories usually focus more on the learning of skills and subjects than on the dynamics of interpersonal learning. My Biblical journey has taught me to understand interpersonal learning in the first place as the interpersonal leaning that takes place between G-d and the Human Race, between God and His creature, Adam.
It is from learning how to hear G-d that we learn how to hear one another. And only when we have learned to fully hear one another have we learned to fully listen to G-d, for this is what G-d is telling us to do. There is a great mystery involved for us in the great challenge of learning what we have to learn in this life, but because G-d is our Guide we are able to do it.
G-d began to guide us in learning to choose life, to have faith in Him, by forming the family of Israel and giving Moses to Israel and by putting in the mouth of Moses words like these, “Hear oh Israel, the Lord, the Lord our God is one. Love Him with all your heart, with all your soul and all your strength in all you do.”
My Biblical journey has taught me that all the world is called to enter into the house of the family of Israel as children or, if not as children, then as honoured guests. The house of Israel is the place of the Bible. It is here that we can learn how to learn and how to choose life, by learning how to hear G-d and how to listen to one another in obedience to G-d, with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength in all we do.
July 8, 2010 Leave a Comment
There is a way that life works and there is a way that life does not work. And there is a way in which every person is sensitive to the way that life works and the way it does not work. There is also a way in each person that this sensitivity to the way that life works is broken. We might say that the way that life works is through righteous nurturing, or a righteous practice of love. The way in which people are most often broken in their sensitivity to knowing the way that life works is in their not recognizing righteousness. Virtually all people recognize the need of life for nurturing and the need for love. Many, perhaps most even recognize that love is something that needs to be practiced, not just felt. However many people, perhaps most people, will disagree with one another at some point about the right way to practice love. People even disagree about the right way to nurture life. The reason for all this disagreement is that people are, in one way or another, all broken within their hearts in a manner which makes them unable to perfectly recognize righteousness on their own. It is possible for people to perfectly recognize righteousness but to do so they need divine assistance. It was not always so. Human beings were created able to perfectly recognize and know righteousness, what a righteous practice of love is and what the righteous nurturing of life is. In the beginning human beings knew what life needed in order to work.
Now they do not. Not always. It is for this reason that the God of Israel gave his son to save the world and began this salvation by sending his Spirit into the world to show the world what the way of sin really is, that is to say, what the way that life does not work really is, so that they might also become able to learn what righteousness really is, and, finally, that God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man who he has raised from the dead. It is in this way that people are brought into the righteousness and the life of the one whom God raised from the dead. The Spirit of God brings the word of God to the place in the heart that is broken by sin, that has become insensitive to righteousness, and heals it. That place of brokenness is a place of great fear and insecurity, a place that is usually guarded and protected well and few things ever get through to it. However, when the needs of love and life call for the attention of the heart at the place where it is broken by sin, whether the sin of the first human beings or by one’s own sins or that of others, the heart is unable to respond in the right way. Thus the individual and the life around the individual becomes more damaged. However, when the Spirit of God brings the word of God, the word of the Good News of Israel and Her Messiah, into the human heart this process begins to be reversed. As this process can be seen with the individual, so it will be with corporate Humanity. There is a heart of corporate Humanity, a spirit of life in the one blood of all. This spirit of human life God has preserved according to his will and has nurtured and cultivated himself, personally, through the covenant of his word, for the time of ultimate healing. For that time, God has kept this corporate heart of Humanity beating in Jerusalem. As we see the individual regenerated and brought into the life of the resurrected suffering Messiah of Israel, so shall it be with Jerusalem, with the corporate heart of Humanity. For as the waters cover the beds of the oceans, so shall the knowledge of the God of Israel cover the earth.
July 7, 2010 Leave a Comment
>> so it is that it will be in this sense that the Book of Hebrews is read in these studies and in the paper
Let Us Go On
>> which will be written through the use of these studies as well as others like them.
July 7, 2010 Leave a Comment
Jesus/Yeshua/Yehoshua did not separate himself from Israel. For the sake of the world learning the nature of his faithfulness he has endured for a long time all efforts to separate him from Israel. He will not allow these efforts to continue forever. Soon he will make all the world to know that no one can call him Christ/Messiah/Mashiach before the Father who seeks to separate him from Israel. But anyone who has done so who has not known what they were doing will be forgiven. Zion Mashiach Shalom faith Bible Torah
{{ This is the permanent lead post on my new site, Scent Essence of Jerusalem. I will be posting Key Understandings there in the knowledge of the Good News of Israel and Her Messiah. }}
June 29, 2010 Leave a Comment

First read my Notes on The Sermon on The Mount. They can be found on my Hearing Seven Thunders blog here, or on my Mellow Wolf Matthew Files site, here.
From the understanding presented in these notes on the Sermon on the Mount it can be seen that to go on to perfect maturity we need be attached to the Messiah of Israel in the actions of God whereby he brings good news to Israel – and so to the world. This is the good news of forgiveness to Israel and of faith for the world.
We cannot attain unto these actions on our own, as individuals. Although we may “turn the other cheek” as individuals and in relation to the events and people in our lives as individuals, this will not bring the revelation of the defeat of the fear of death to the world. Only God’s own design of “turning the other cheek” by and with the Messiah of Israel toward corporate Humanity, as He chose and nurtured it and called it His own Humanity, can bring the revelation of the victory of faith over fear to the whole world. This is Messiah’s godly action of turning the other cheek to Israel and then Israel’s godly action of turning the other cheek with him to Rome and to all the nations, and all our turning the other cheek with the Messiah of Israel and with Israel to all Humanity in its enmity toward the God of Israel. For if we turn the other cheek in our own name we are the blind leading the blind into the ditch. If we do so by attachment to the Messiah of Israel we are a light set on a hill, opening the way for the whole world unto the God of Israel, the God of righteousness, justice and mercy, that the world might come before Him in repentance and hope and not in defiance and rebellion.
God will bring this testimony about in a full and complete final witness. First, He will bring it about as a witness to Jerusalem and Judah by his ingathered remnant of the followers of the Messiah of Israel in a role like that of the son of Joseph. Then He will bring it about through the witness of Jerusalem and Judah, together with all Israel, a witness to all nations, and then the world will know that the God of Israel is the Creator of heaven and earth.
We can only go on unto perfection with the Messiah of Israel with Israel