OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH ONE ANOTHER IN THE CALLED-OUT ASSEMBLY IS AS A HUSBAND AND WIFE COMMITMENT

It is in this context that we must return to Matthew Chapter 19, because the lord Jesus - Yeshua wants to tell us: when we are giving our best, what does he really expect us to give? Many times, we want to give our best, but we don’t know what the best is; we don’t know what we are supposed to give. Hence, we live in ignorance.

The lord Jesus - Yeshua doesn’t want us to be ignorant. He wants us to know exactly what your relationship ought to be with the person sitting next to you, what that relationship is meant to be to one another.

He tells us that in God’s-Yehovah’s plan, this relationship is meant to be spiritually as close as a husband is to his wife.

We are to become a group of people in whom God’s grace is so effective in our lives that we are truly committed to one another, open to one another, genuine and transparent in relation to one another.

If this experience is not happening in your congregation, then your congregation becomes simply a social gathering, a formal “congregation” of people who come in and out, having a vague relationship with one another as fellow Christians, and that is it!

That is not the way the lord Jesus - Yeshua meant us to be.

Will anyone coming into the church looking at the way we conduct ourselves in relation to one another really say, “Ah! These are disci­ples of Jesus! Now I have seen the love of God before my eyes!” If they don’t see this? Why? It is because we have not come to the commitment to one another that the lord Jesus - Yeshua is speaking about.

Divorce is forbidden because it is the annulment of commitment

Why is divorce forbidden? It’s because it is the annulment of a commitment, and commitment is something deeply spiritual – you give your whole person to the other. And it is precisely here that we dare not give ourselves to the other person for fear that in giving myself, I expose myself to the other person. I might be abused, mishandled, taken advantage of. I dare not give myself, and so we dare not trust each other. We don’t have faith in each other; hence we cannot have love for one another.

We must strive towards this goal that the lord Jesus - Yeshua sets before us: the vision of the called-out Assembly as it was meant to be. Most called-out Assemblies have a long way to go, but that is no reason why we cannot strive to become more like the Messiah Jesus – Yeshua.

Let us turn to Ephesians 5:21-27:

…submitting to one another out of reverence for the Messiah. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as the Messiah is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the called-out Assemblies submit to the Messiah, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as the Messiah loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her [set her apart], having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word [the message about the Kingdom of God], so that he might present the called-out Assembly to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Notice that as Paul is talking about the spiritual nature of this commitment in marriage, “as to the lord”, he is coming in and out of the subject all the time, one moment talking about marriage, the next moment talking about the relationships within the called-out Assembly, moving from one to the other and back to the one. For him, he has seen that marriage is meant to portray the spiritual reality of what the relationship of the Messiah to the called-out Assembly should be, and what the members of the called-out Assembly should have in relationship to one another. This is easy to follow because we have just seen that we are to deal with one another in the way that God deals with us, His called-out Assembly in the Messiah. We understand that the one follows the other automatically when you understand these principles.

Let us go on to verses 28-33:

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Messiah does the called-out Assembly, because we are members of his body. “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to the Messiah and the called-out Assembly. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Paul is talking about wives and husbands, which is a very deep mystery. Let me draw three points immediately from here which show you just how our relationship to one another in the called-out Assembly is meant to be modeled on the relationship of husband and wife.

1. Love your neighbor: fellow Christians in your called-out Assembly

First, you are very familiar with the saying, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18 quoted in Matthew 19:19, 22:39, etc.). I am sure if you have ever thought deeply on Scripture at all, you would have often scratched your head and thought to yourself, “How can I love my neighbor as myself?” How is that possible? We are willing to give our best, but how can we love a neighbor as ourselves? He is a neighbor; he is not me. I can love him to some extent, but I cannot love him “as myself” because he is not me. It’s as simple as that.

For the Jew, a neighbor is a fellow Jew, or a believer of the same God - Yehovah

The first thing to understand is that the word “neighbor” in Scripture does not just mean any X, Y, or Z.

The word translated as “neighbor” in English translates the Hebrew word “rea”, which means a friend, a companion.

It does not mean a person who lives next door. necessarily, because the word “neighbor” in the Old Testament referred specifically to someone who was your friend; that is, he/she stood in some kind of relationship to you even if that relationship was quite distant, in the sense that you were members of the same community.

For a Jew, “neighbor” did not mean any foreigner, or anyone who happened to sit beside you on a bus or a subway, etc. A neighbor had to be at least a fellow Israelite, or someone who may not be an Israelite but a proselyte, that is, he had the same religion as a Jew, even though he was not a Jew.

Now this is important to understand. Even in the lord Jesus’ teaching, we find that the word “neighbor” does not mean just anyone.

For example, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the Jew asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Quite rightly, the Samaritan was his neighbor. The Samaritans are very rightly the neighbors of the Jews, not only literally, by being next door to the Jews, but also because they believed in the same God and they read the same Bible. In fact, they shared basically the same faith. The Samaritans were very adamant in their devotion, particularly to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. For them, the words of Moses were absolutely authoritative, far more so than Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or anyone else. Moses was the lawgiver for the Samaritans, so the Jews and Samaritans shared the same lawgiver, and they had faith in the same God. They were indeed neighbors even though the Jews hated them.

After all, there is no hate as deep as a religious hatred, as you have long discovered. The hatred between Protestants and Catholics, between even Protestants of one denomination and another, is absolutely revolting! And such was the hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans, and vice versa.

“Neighbor”: a fellow-Christian in the same called-out Assembly

When you look in the New Testament, you will find that the word “neighbor” means, particularly and specifically, a fellow-Christian, a member of the same local called-out Assembly, for example, not just a question of different denominations. We can see this especially in Ephesians 4:25, which says:

“Speak the truth with his neighbor, seeing that we are members of one another.”

“Neighbor” is paralleled with “members of one another,” who are members of the called-out Assembly, members of the same body.

This is very important because of these words: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

In Ephesians 5:28 and 33, do you see that it says twice to the husband that he should love his wife as himself? I hope you will notice that very carefully. It is most important to take, for example, the last verse, Ephesians 5:33 – let each one of you love his wife as himself. Why can you love your wife as yourself? He just explained in the previous verse that it’s because you two have become one body, one flesh (v. 31). That is why you can love your neighbor as yourself. If you don’t see your neighbor as being one body with yourself, of course, you wouldn’t love him as yourself. That is the whole point. You cannot give a command like “Love your neighbor as yourself” and leave it hanging in the air without context. I cannot love my neighbor as myself if I don’t see his/her relationship to me. I can love my wife as myself because she is united in commitment to me, and I am united in commitment to her. We have been united in such a way that we have become one flesh, one body. So, in loving her, of course I am loving myself because we are one body together. But how can I love my neighbor as myself if I don’t see that he/she is one body with me?

You notice twice in this passage that the relationship we are meant to have with our neighbor parallels the relationship meant to exist between husband and wife. Can you see the parallel? It’s so deeply rooted in Scripture that it hit me with astonishing force that I had never considered my neighbor or fellow Christian as spiritually united to me in the same profound manner as my wife is physically united to me!

Look around at the people in the called-out Assembly. Is the person sitting next to me united to me as my wife is united to me? The thought is almost mind-boggling! So I have to love him/her as myself in the same way as I love my wife as myself. I love him/her spiritually, because “as myself” is the spiritual model. Note that it is not a physical connection. Can you look at each one around in the called-out Assembly and say, “I love that person because I am united to that person”? If you don’t feel united to that person, it is because you have not committed yourself to that person, and that person has not committed himself or herself to you. So, because of a lack of commitment to one another, we don’t have the sense of unity; we don’t have the love that enables us to be committed to one another. This takes place when we realize that we are one body. So, the first point is “as yourself.” We see this as true in the marriage relationship, and as true in the called-out Assembly. 

2. Love fellow Christians as husband and wife love each other

The second point is that this is possible only when we observe and accept one another as members of the same body – one body. Again, as you looked at Ephesians 5:31, “as one body” is exactly the whole basis of the marriage relationship. The two are no longer two persons but become one physical unit, one body, one flesh. And yet, in this same passage, in verses 30-31, Paul equates the unity of the called-out Assembly as one body (the Messiah’s body), to the unity found in marriage as “one flesh.”

In the Old Testament, the word "basar," which is translated as “flesh," literally means body. The first definition of basar in Brown, Driver & Briggs is body. It can be translated either way you like, as flesh or body. So, husband and wife become one body. The Catholic translation of the New Jerusalem Bible rightly translates Ephesians 5:31: husband and wife become one body. So just as husband and wife are one body, we, in the called-out Assembly, are also one body. The whole terminology of Paul, time and again, concerning the called-out Assembly is that we are one body (cf. Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12:13).

However, do you feel that we are one body? Probably not. Our Christianity is far too shallow for that. Our commitment to one another is simply a courtesy commitment. There is no depth in it. We don’t realize that, being bought by the blood of the Messiah, we have been baptized by God’s Holy Spirit into one body, so that we are so united and related to one another as indeed a husband and wife would be members of one body. That is striking, isn’t it 

3. Be subject to one another, and lay down your life for one another

Let us move on to the third and final aspect of this comparison of the internal relationships of the called-out Assembly to a marriage relationship. The wife is to be subject to the husband, and the husband is to love the wife. Remarkably, this is exactly the kind of relationship which defines the relationship between the members of the called-out Assembly. Notice Ephesians 5:21, “be subject to one another out of reverence for the Messiah,” belongs to the previous passage, which is on the internal relationship of Christians, to be subject to one another. This statement is repeated throughout Paul’s epistles, so I hardly need to give you a lot of references on that.

Paul repeatedly tells Christians to regard the other more important than yourself (cf. Philippians 2:3 [NAS]), which means “be subject to” the other one. And “be subject to” in Ephesians 5:21 is the same word in Greek as is used in verse 24 concerning the relation of wife to husband.

In what way should the husband love his wife? He should love her to the extent of being willing to lay down his life for her, “as the Messiah loved the called-ut Assembly and gave himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25). That is the same command given to Christians in relation to one another in 1 John 3:16, where it says we are to love one another even to the extent of laying down our lives for one another. In other words, what a husband would do for his wife is precisely what a Christian should do for a fellow-Christian. It is the same command. Isn’t that remarkable?

Now we can see from the whole Scriptural evidence that in whatever way you look at it, the marriage relationship portrays the spiritual relationship between the members of the called-out Assembly. This is how we are meant to relate to one another. 

Giving your best to God means giving ourselves to one another!

What are we supposed to do to give our best to God? Well, “giving the best” turns out to be giving ourselves to one another, and that turns out to be not so easy to do because you might look at that fellow in the called-out Assembly and say, “Give myself to that guy? Oh no! I might accept one or two people, and I can give myself to them, but not to the others.” Now if the Messiah loved us in that way, where would our salvation be? If the Messiah looked at us and said, “I see some good fellows here; I will die for them, but the others are not worth dying for. Put them on the side.” If we treat each other this way, God will deal with us at the Judgment in the way we deal with others. What will happen to us at the Judgment? God will reject us on the same grounds we rejected others, wouldn’t he? We would be wiped out at the Judgment!

So, I hope that you and I can catch the picture of what the called-out Assembly is meant to be. It’s a very exciting picture! I think you know that we are a long way from where we need to be, but we now have a goal before us we can commit to doing. We know what we must aim for. And when we say that we are going to give our best by God’s grace, what we have to strive for by His grace in this generation, the called-out Assembly will become again what it was meant to be. We must start with the called-out Assembly. 

God designed marriage to teach us the first step to a community

God meant the marriage relationship to be a kind of beginning in which two people begin to learn to give oneself to the other. For example, if you cannot give yourself to one person, how can you give yourself to the whole called-out Assembly? You start with one person. So, marriage was designed to teach us the first step to a community. That is the beauty of God’s plan. When you look at Genesis, that was exactly God’s plan.” What is the reason for marriage? Genesis 2:18 says, “It is not good for man to be alone.” It is not good for you to be alone spiritually. So, you have to start by entering into a relationship with someone else. You cannot do this with everyone at the same time, so you start with one person. And this is the model for us to begin in the called-out Assembly. Build a relationship with one brother or sister and then build one with another brother or sister. And then another, and another, and so the community grows.

“It is not good for man to be alone,” but if two people are in a marriage, they can still be alone in a sense. God goes on to show this in Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Marriage was meant to be the beginning of a new community. “Be fruitful and multiply.” Don’t just stay as the two of you, but increase until there is a whole community of you. This is the very intention of marriage. In the same way, we are to begin by building within the called-out Assembly these kinds of commitments, beginning with one and then two.

YOU MUST BELIEVE THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD TO BE SAVED

 MATTHEW 13:1-23

1 Later that day Jesus left the house and sat down by the lake of Galilee. 2 So many people came to him that he got into a boat and sat down to teach, while all the crowds stood on the beach. 3 He taught them many things using parables:

"The Sower went out sowing seed. 4 As he was sowing, some of the seeds fell on the road, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 Other seeds fell on stony ground where there was not much dirt. There they sprouted at once. 6 But then the sun came up and scorched them because they had no roots, and they withered. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil, and produced a harvest - some one hundred, some sixty, and some thirty. 9 Anyone who has ears to hear, listen!”

10 The disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Why do you speak to them using parables?” 11 He replied, “You are privileged to know the revealed mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven [God], but they are not given such insights. 12 For whoever already has understanding, to them more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But whoever does not have understanding, whatever they have will be taken away from them. 13 That is why I speak to them in parables. Seeing, they do not actually see; and hearing, they do not really hear, nor do they understand. 14 In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled: ‘Even though you hear, you will not understand, and even though you see, you will not comprehend. 15 These people have a stubborn attitude. They do not want to listen, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand in their minds, and return and repent, and I would heal them.’

16 Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. 17 I am telling you the truth: many prophets and good people longed to see what you are seeing, but did not see it, and longed to hear what you are hearing, but did not hear it.

18 “So, listen to the parable of the Sower.

19 When someone hears the Gospel [of the Kingdom of God] - the word and does not understand it, then the Evil One comes and snatches away what was sown in his mind. This is what happens to the seeds sown on the road. 20 The seeds sown on stony ground are people who hear the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] - the word and immediately accept it with joy. 21 They last for a while, but because they do not have roots, when problems and trouble come because of the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] – the word, they immediately fall away. 22 The seeds sown among thorns are people who hear the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] – word, but then the worries of this age and the temptation of wealth choke the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] – word and it bears no fruit. 23 The seeds sown on good soil are people who hear the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] - word and understand it, and who produce a good harvest - some one hundred, some sixty, and some thirty.”

MARK 4:1-20

1 Jesus began teaching again by the sea [of Galilee]. So many people came to hear him that he got into a boat and sat there offshore while the crowd listened from land. 2 He was teaching them using many parables.

3 “Listen!” he said: “A Sower went out to sow. 4 As he was sowing, some seeds fell on the path. The wild birds came and ate them. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground where there was not much soil. Immediately they sprouted, but because the soil was not deep, 6 when the sun came up they dried out because they did not have roots, and they withered. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns. The thorns grew up fast and choked out the sprouting seeds so that they produced nothing. 8 Other seeds fell on good ground where they sprouted and grew, producing a harvest of thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was planted. 9 Whoever has ears, listen to what I am saying.”

10 When he was alone, his twelve disciples and the others with him asked him about the parables.

11 “The revealed secret of the Kingdom of God has been given to you to understand,” he said to them. “All those on the outside get everything in parables, 12  so that even though they see, they do not perceive, and even though they hear, they do not understand; otherwise, they would turn back and be forgiven.”

13 He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? If you do not, how are you going to understand all the other parables?

14 The Sower sows the Gospel [about the kingdom of God] – the word. 15 Those on the path where the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] – the word is sown hear it, but immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. 16 Those on the rocky ground hear the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] – the word, and immediately they accept it with joy. 17 But because they have no roots, they survive for a while until trouble or persecution comes because of the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] – the word, and then they quickly fall away. 18 Others sown among the thorns hear the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] – the word, 19 but the concerns of this age, the temptation of wealth, and other desires choke the growth of the word, and it becomes unproductive. 20 But those sown on good soil hear the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] – the word, accept it, and bear fruit, producing thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was first sown.

LUKE 8:4-15

4 A large crowd gathered from many towns to see Jesus. He spoke to them using a parable.

5 “A Sower went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some seed fell on the path where people walked on it, and birds ate it up. 6 Other seed fell on rocky soil, and when it sprouted,it dried up for lack of moisture. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out. 8 Other seed fell on good soil and grew up and produced a harvest a hundred times as much.” When he told them this parable, Jesus would customarily shout out: “Whoever has ears to hear, listen!”

9 His disciples asked him what this parable meant. 10 Jesus replied, “You have been given insight to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but the rest have parables, so that, ‘Seeing, they do not really see; and hearing, they do not really understand.’ 11 “This is what the parable means: The seed is the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] – the word.

12 The seeds on the path are like those who listen, but then the Devil comes and takes away the word from their minds, so that they do not believe it and so are not saved.

Note: This is one of the most fundamentally significant sayings of Jesus, showing that salvation is conditioned on an intelligent reception of the Gospel of the Kingdom, the word of the Kingdom (Matthew 13:19; Mark 1:14-15; Luke 4:43; Acts 8:12; 19:8; 28:23, 31, etc.). Constant reference should be made by students of Jesus and his Gospel to 2 Thessalonians 2:10, where Paul, in a spectacularly interesting passage about the Antichrist and the spirit of deception, says that people are perishing “because a love of the truth they would not receive in order to be saved.” This is very much parallel to Luke 8:12, where salvation and believing the Gospel of the Kingdom go together.

13 The seeds on the rocky soil are those who listen and receive the Gospel [about the kingdom of God – the word with joy, but they do not have any roots. They believe for a while, but when difficult times come, they give up.14 The seeds that fell among thorns are those who listen, but they are choked by life’s worries, wealth, and pleasure, and they produce no fruit.15 But the seeds in the good soil are the ones who listen to the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] – the word with an honest and good heart. They hold onto it and produce fruit with perseverance.

Notice: 1 Peter 1:1-2: From Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Messiah, to the spiritual resident aliens who are living in the Dispersion in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, being made holy in the spirit, for the purpose of obedience to Jesus Messiah, and being sprinkled by his blood: Grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Note: We are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father – Yehovah, and made holy in the spirit, to be obedient to the lord Messiah Jesus, being sprinkled by his blood, for it was by the sin-offering sacrifice of the lord Messiah Jesus that he offered up to his God and Father Yehoshua that reconciled us – brought us back to God and made it possible for Him to forgive out sins. What amazing grace our loving God – Yehovah has poured out upon all who are His, who are new creations in the lord Messiah Jesus! 

Note: 1 Peter 1:3: Blessed be the God and Father of our lord Jesus Messiah,  who in His great mercy caused us to be born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Messiah from the dead.

To be 'born again' is the rebirth taught by Jesus in John 3:3, 5. Rebirth occurs in the NT when people respond to the Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] - the word, the main message preached by Jesus. The seed/word of the Kingdom (Matthew 13:19; Luke 8:11) is sown in the mind. The Gospel [about the Kingdom of God] - the word, includes an understanding of the substitutionary death of the lord Messiah Jesus and his resurrection.

Note: Acts 8:12 gives a perfect definition of what you need to do to become a 'new creation' in the lord Messiah Jesus: But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus the Messiah, they were baptized, both men and women.

Again, this verse emphasizes accepting and believing the message about the Kingdom of God, which is the message of salvation that you must believe to have salvation.

When Philip preached about the name of Jesus, that message would have contained everything about who Jesus was, i.e., the son of God, the Messiah, the one who offered himself up to his God and his Father Yehovah as a sin-offering sacrifice so that those who believe are reconciled - brought back to God!

He died for us and in place of us. See Isaiah 53:1-12:

1 Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?² For he grew up like a shoot before Him, and like a root from dry ground. He had no form and no majesty that we should see him, and no appearance that we should take pleasure in him.
³ He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering, and acquainted with sickness, and like one from whom others hide their faces, he was despised, and we did not hold him in high regard.
⁴ However, he was the one who lifted our sicknesses, and he carried our pain, yet we ourselves assumed him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted.
⁵ He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; the chastisement for our healing was upon him, and by his wounds we were healed.
⁶ All of us have wandered about like sheep; we each have turned to his own way; and Yahweh let fall on him the iniquity of us all.
⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was brought like a lamb to the slaughter, and like a sheep is dumb before its shearers, and he did not open his mouth.
⁸ He was taken by restraint of justice, and who concerned himself with his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living; he received a blow because of the transgression of my people.
⁹ He made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
¹⁰ Yet Yahweh was pleased to crush him; He made him sick. If you make his life a guilt offering, he will see offspring. He will prolong days, and the will of Yahweh will succeed in his hand.
¹¹ From the trials of his life he will see light; he will be satisfied. In his knowledge, the righteous one, My servant, shall declare many righteous, and he is the one who will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore, I will divide to him a portion among the great, and with the strong ones he will divide bounty; instead of that he poured his life out to death [as a sin-offering sacrifice] and was counted with the transgressors; yet he was the one who bore the sin of many and will intercede for the transgressors.

THE ASSYRIAN IN MESSIANIC PROPHECY

“The prophet Isaiah is convinced that the Assyrians, the instruments of God’s punishment, will overthrow not only Samaria but Jerusalem. As a state Judah will be destroyed” (“Remnant,” Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, p. 315).

“The very earliest messianic prophecies of the OT represent the golden age [the Millennium, the first stage of the worldwide Kingdom of God] as preceded by a time of conflict - the conflict which will destroy the particular oppression of Israel at the time, and wipe out the ungodly in Israel itself. The power to be overcome is in each case an actually existing empire - Assyria, Babylon, and Persia - whose downfall will immediately usher in the glorious reign of peace” (“2 Thessalonians,” Ibid, p. 372).

In history, Assyria never defeated Judah and Jerusalem. The golden age has never yet followed the defeat of Assyria.

“Micah 5:6 states that the armies of the Messiah will waste the land of Assyria…the important fact to maintain in the still unfulfilled Micah passage is that whatever be the particular weapons, there will be a conflict at the time and place identified, and with the results that are indicated” (Barton-Payne, Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, Baker, 1973, p. 81, emphasis added). Barton-Payne then says: “A.B. Davidson grants that ‘the Scriptures represented the Assyrian as existing in the time of the Messiah’ (OT Prophecy, pp. 164-166), but Davidson goes on to say that ‘we must distinguish between the general idea and the particular form not now likely to be realized.’ What then is the effect of this on the truthfulness of the Scriptures? Davidson is forced to say: ‘It makes them share in the imperfection of the dispensation to which they belonged’” (Ibid., p. 169).

These quotations sum up the conflict over prophecy, which has often prevented the simple predictions of the prophets from being heard. In some circles the devastating effects of “criticism” mean that anyone who thinks the Bible predicts anything is suspect! Barton-Payne, however, was among those conservative scholars who admit that Assyria is to be on the scene when Jesus returns. Davidson also admits that this is so; he then circumvents the information by saying that we cannot expect the prophecy to be fulfilled as the prophets say. He believes that the prophets wrote imperfectly.

But should believers in the inspiration of Scripture accept such a “low” view of the words of the prophets of Israel? This writer agrees with Barton-Payne that “the New Testament along with the Old speaks of an eschatological military campaign in the same area east of the Euphrates River (Revelation 16:12). It would appear best to recognize that while the particular people, the Sargonid dynasty of the 8th-7th centuries BC has come to an end, the land remains: and it is the land (i.e. of Assyria) which will experience precisely the events which Scripture forecasts in its regard” (Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, p. 81).

What information does Micah convey to us in Micah 5:5ff?

“This one [the Messiah, see v.2] will be our peace when the ASSYRIAN invades our land, when he tramples on our citadels. Then we will raise against him seven shepherds and eight leaders of men. And they will shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword and the land of Nimrod at its entrances; and thus he will deliver us from the ASSYRIAN when he attacks our land and when he tramples our territory. Then the remnant of Jacob will be among the peoples like dew from the Lord.”

It would be hard to imagine a more obviously Messianic end-time prophecy than this. We surely must agree with Barton-Payne (Ibid, p. 433): “Such a Messianic deliverance has never been accomplished in the past.” It is indeed a “still unfulfilled” passage.

In Numbers 24:23, 24: “Ships from the coast of Kittim will afflict Assyria and Eber.” “This prophecy is elaborated in Daniel 11:30” (Barton-Payne, Ibid, p. 204): “Assyria represents the Mesopotamian power. In Ezra 6:22, the King of Assyria designates the king of Persia” (Ibid.). It is important to remember that Rome was not a Mesopotamian power, its main geographical theatre being Europe, not western Asia. Prophecy focuses on the “northern,” Mesopotamian power.

The Assyrian in Isaiah

The Assyrian power of the end receives full treatment in Isaiah. Through the description of his destruction in Isaiah 11:4, he appears again in Paul’s NT picture of the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2:8. Paul quotes directly from Isaiah 11:4 when describing the destruction of the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2:8: “The lawless one will be at once revealed. Then the lord Messiah Jesus- Joshua will come in all his splendor; he will breathe upon him and destroy him and take away all his power. The coming of the Lawless One will be accomplished through the power of Satan.” Paul has in mind the Assyrian material presented by Isaiah. In this “evil one” he sees the final Antichristian figure (note “slay the evil one,” LXX of Isaiah 11:4).

Let us look first at the Isaianic material on ASSYRIA. It is fully granted, of course, that the Assyrian attacked Judah in 701 BC. His army was supernaturally dealt with. 185,000 died at the hands of an angel, and the king escaped to Nineveh, where twenty years later he was murdered by his two sons (Isaiah 37:36-38).

Can we say that this is the end of the story of the Assyrian? Several passages make us think not. In Isaiah 11:4 the king of Assyria is to be punished in a way hardly compatible with the demise of the historical king of Assyria. We pick up the story in Isaiah 10:16:

“Therefore Yehovah God of hosts will send a wasting disease among his [the ASSYRIAN’S] stout warriors and under his glory a fire will be kindled like a burning flame. And the light of Israel will become a fire, and His Holy One (Messiah) a flame, and it (or he) will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in a single day…Now it will come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel, and those who have escaped, will never again rely on the one who struck them [Assyria, v. 5], but will truly rely on Yehovah. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob to the Mighty God. For though your people, O Israel, may be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant within them will return. A destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness. For a destruction, one that is decreed, Yehovah of Hosts will execute in the midst of the whole land. Therefore, O my people, who dwell in Zion, do not be afraid of the ASSYRIAN who strikes you with the rod and lifts his staff against you, the way Egypt did. For in a very little while my indignation against you will be directed to their destruction” (Isaiah 10:16-25).

The same ASSYRIAN is then described as approaching Jerusalem from the north (Isaiah 10:28-32). Commentators are found in some embarrassment explaining why Isaiah’s geographical sense was so poor! The historical attack by Assyria in 701 BC was not from the north but from Lachish, southwest of Jerusalem (Isaiah 36:2). According to Isaiah 10:32, the ASSYRIAN will “shake his fist at the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.” Then (Isaiah chapter 11) “a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse.” A clear millennial scene follows, initiated by the destruction of the ASSYRIAN when “he [the lord Messiah Joshua] will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked (one)” (Heb. rasha, LXX asebe = “wicked one,” singular, Isaiah 11:4, 2 Thessalonians 2:8. Cp. the masculine participle in Mark 13:14 designating a single individual - “the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to stand.” See the Greek original, and cp. NEB, “usurping a place which is not his.” Also, Weymouth: “standing where he ought not to”).

Connections with Daniel and II Thessalonians

Remarkably, Paul cites this Assyrian text from Isaiah when he describes the death of the Antichrist at the hands of the returning Messiah (2 Thess. 2:8). It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Paul saw in the evil ASSYRIAN of Isaiah 10-11 the final antichristian tyrant. We have no difficulty in recognizing Paul’s quotation of Isaiah 10:22, 23 in Romans 9:27, 28 - “the remnant will return” - as a prophecy of the future restoration of Israel. There is no good reason to overlook his quotation of the destruction of the ASSYRIAN as the destruction of the eschatological antichrist. (Isaiah 11:4; 2 Thessalonians 2:8) deserves careful examination. The secret of much good Bible study is discovering the links between the Old and New Testaments. Most mistakes occur when the connections are broken, especially when the Old Testament is neglected. Much of traditional Christian orthodoxy is based on a Greek philosophical reading of the New Testament severed from the Old. But when Jesus- Joshua explained the Bible, he “began with Moses and with all the prophets, expounding the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27).

Another remarkable fact emerges from Isaiah 10:23: “a complete destruction, one that is decreed, Yehovah will execute.” This prediction is almost word for word identical with an end-time statement in Daniel 9:27b, where the Abomination of Desolation (identified as “he” in Mark 13:14, NEB, Weymouth, GNB) will cause desolation until “a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the desolator.” The destruction of the ASSYRIAN, which Paul sees as the destruction of the Antichrist (Isaiah 11:4; 2 Thessalonians 2:8) is seen by Daniel as the destruction of the final desolator.

Further Material in Isaiah

There is more data concerning the ASSYRIAN in Isaiah 30:25ff. It is very hard to see how this material has ever been accomplished in history. It must therefore lie ahead of us.

“And on every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter when the towers fall. And the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day Yehovah binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted. Behold, the name of Yehovah comes from a remote place; burning is His anger and dense is His smoke; His lips are filled with indignation, and His tongue is like a consuming fire; and His breath is like an overflowing torrent which reaches to the neck, to shake the nations back and forth in a sieve, and to put into the jaws of the people the bridle which leads to ruin…And Yehovah will cause the voice of His authority to be heard; and the descending of His arm to be seen in fierce anger, and in the flame of consuming fire, in cloudburst, downpour and hailstones. For at the voice of Yehovah ASSYRIA will be terrified, when He strikes with the rod. And every blow of the rod of punishment which Yehovah will lay on him [the Assyrian] will be with the music of tambourines and lyres; and in battles, brandishing weapons, He will fight them. For Topheth [the place of human sacrifice to Molech, Jeremiah 7:31] has long been prepared. Indeed, it has long been prepared for the king [of Assyria]. He [Yehovah] has made it deep and large, a pyre of fire with plenty of wood; the breath of the Lord like a torrent of brimstone sets it afire” (cp. “the beast and false prophet were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone,” Revelation 19:20). Then in the same context:

Isaiah 31:4-32:4: “So will Yehovah of Hosts come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill. Like flying birds so Yehovah of Hosts will protect Jerusalem. He will protect and deliver it; He will pass over and rescue it. Return to Him from whom you have deeply defected, O sons of Israel [cp. the Apostasy of 2 Thessalonians 2:3]. For in that day every man will cast away his silver idols, which your hands have made as sin. And the ASSYRIAN will fall by a sword not of man [cp. Daniel 8:25, “the little horn will be broken without human agency”]. And a sword not of man will devour him. So, he will not escape the sword, and his young men will become forced laborers. And his rock will pass away because of panic, and his princes will be terrified at the standard, says Yehovah, whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace [lake of fire] is in Jerusalem. [Then follows the Kingdom of God.] Behold, a King will reign righteously, and princes will rule justly [cp. Revelation 20: “the saints began to reign with the Messiah for a thousand years.”] And each will be like a refuge from the wind, and a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry country, like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land. Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded, and the ears of those who hear will listen. The mind of the hasty will discern the Truth, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak clearly.”

Can we seriously doubt that the ASSYRIAN is active in the punishment of Israel just before the lord Messiah Joshua intervenes; and that he will be supernaturally destroyed by fire in Messianic times?

Since Paul takes his Antichrist data from the Assyrian material in Isaiah 11:4, as well as from Daniel 11:36, it is reasonable to conclude that the final “Beast” is not only the ASSYRIAN but the King of the North of Daniel 11:21ff. Of the Antichrist Paul says, “he will exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4). This is a direct citation of Daniel 11:36. It is hardly surprising to find Jesus- Joshua elaborating his end-time prophecy in Matthew 24 by working from the same text-plot, Daniel 11.

It has been, in my view, a serious weakness of prophetic study to overlook the directed link, authorized by Jesus- Joshua himself, between Matthew 24:15 - “When you see the Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel” - and Daniel 11:31 - “they will set up the Abomination of Desolation.” Commentators seem to be determined to find an Abomination of Desolation other than the one to which Jesus- Joshua directs us in Daniel 11:31, where a final King of the North terrorizes God’s- Yehovah’s people and Jerusalem. Jesus- Joshua is our infallible commentator, and he sees in Daniel 11:31 (with the additional chronological information of 12:11) the Abomination which will trigger the Great Tribulation (Matthew 24:15-21). Daniel 11:31, Daniel12:11 locks us into a terrible period of 1290 days, or its approximate equivalent of 3 1/2 “times,” which in Daniel appears to mean 3 1/2 years, this being half as long as Nebuchadnezzar’s seven-year madness (Daniel 4:16, 25, 32). By synthesizing this data we may safely say that the ASSYRIAN (Isaiah 11:4 = 2 Thess. 2:8; Danal 11:36 = 2 Thessalonians 2:4) will go on the rampage for 3 1/2 years just before the return of the lord Messiah Jesus- Joshua.

Additional Evidence

It will not be surprising, then, that Micah promises deliverance from the ASSYRIAN through the Messiah at his Coming (Micah 5:5) and that Zechariah predicts that God- Yehovah “will bring back [His people] from the land of Egypt and gather them from ASSYRIA…and the pride of ASSYRIA will be brought down” (Zechariah 10:10, 11). This prediction was uttered in 520 BC. But the ancient Assyrian empire had fallen in 612 BC, a hundred years earlier! Its fulfillment must therefore lie in the future.

A similar prediction about the fate of ASSYRIA is found in Zephaniah 2:13. Its Messianic context suggests an eschatological fulfillment; moreover, it is parallel to the prophecy in Zechariah which has never been fulfilled. Zephaniah equates the North with the area belonging to Assyria.

Parallel also to the data we have collected so far is the remarkable prophecy in Zechariah 5:8-11 where “Wickedness” (Greek anomia, cp. “man of wickedness” in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 8) is sent back to Babylon and “set on her own pedestal” (5:11). This forecast of Babylon active at the end-time is confirmed by the reference in Revelation 16:10-13 to the Euphrates River in connection with the kingdom of the “Beast.” There is an obvious parallel between the plagues which ravaged Pharaoh’s Egypt and those which strike the Beast’s kingdom at Babylon on the Euphrates (Revelation 16). It should also be remembered that the prophecies of Babylon never being inhabited again have not been fulfilled in the way demanded by Jeremiah 50, 51, etc. This might also be the moment to question the commonly held view that the seven-hilled city of Revelation 17:9 is really Rome. The “mountains” are defined as “seven rulers” (v. 10); similarly the waters “where the harlot sits” (v. 15) are not to be taken literally, but are symbolic - so we are told - of multitudes and nations and tongues (v. 15).[3]

Zephaniah describes the ASSYRIAN as the king of the North (2:13). Daniel 11 similarly describes the king of the North at war with the king of the South, until the king of the North finally places the Abomination of Desolation in the temple (11:31). I submit that Jesus- Joshua understood Daniel 11:31 (against many commentators) to be an event of the future in Messianic times (Matthew 24:15-31), and Paul found the same Antichrist in Daniel 11:36. The king of the North of that verse is the king whose wicked career begins in Daniel 11:21. In Daniel 11:40 we find that “at the time of the end” the king of the South will collide with him (i.e. the king of the North - the only antecedent of vv. 36-39) and the king of the North (so described to avoid the ambiguous “he” which might refer to the king of the South) will storm against him (the king of the South). The same wicked king of the North “comes to his end” in Daniel 11:45 as does the wicked prince of Daniel 9:26. Neither reference can be to Titus in AD 70. He died naturally, and he was not “the king of the North.”

Moreover, the final king of the North meets his death at the time of the Great Tribulation and the resurrection (Daniel 12:1, 2). A quite specific piece of time information tells us that “from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished and the Abomination of Desolation is set up [11:31], there will be 1290 days” (Daniel 12:11). And the Abomination was set up by the wicked king of the North who does away with the daily sacrifice and desecrates the sanctuary in Daniel 11:31. The whole picture seems coherent when all the facts are gathered, and the all-important ASSYRIAN material is not omitted. Crucially important are Jesus’- Joshua’ instructions for understanding the Abomination to which Daniel had referred. We follow him by finding that Abomination in Daniel 9:27, and in 11:31 (12:11).

Francis Burnett dealt with the kings of the North and South at the Church of God Abrahamic Faith Ministers’ Conference of 1960, and Roy Johnson published several articles on the subject, notably “Prophecy for Today,” The Restitution Herald, May 24, 1949, and “The Latter Days,” The Restitution Herald, September 7, 1954. Johnson summed up his findings as follows:

“Thus will be born a super world-government, a composite of Babylon, Persia, and Greece, ruling the whole earth - truly a diverse ‘beast’ called Babylon, being located on the Euphrates River (Revelation 9:14). The ruler will be called the Assyrian because this ruler of Babylon, like Nebuchadnezzar of old, is Assyrian by birth. Isaiah 10:5, 25; 13; 14:23; 47, and Micah 5:5 confirm the fact that the super world-government will be located on the Euphrates and will be ruled over by a man of Assyrian birth. The ‘beast’ will have authority over the human race for 42 months and will make war with the saints.”

Conclusion

We have dealt with a fraction of the biblical material relating to the great end-time tyrant.[4] The sheer volume of the biblical data suggests that the subject is of the utmost importance. We should remember that during the awful reign of the Antichrist “those who have insight will give understanding to many” (Daniel 11:33; cp. Daniel 12:3 and Isaiah 53:11, where knowledge is indispensable for “making righteous the many”). May Bible expositors play their vital role in giving insight in every area of Christian teaching (including the important area of prophecy) to the many now and to many more in those terrible times which lie ahead. Our struggles to proclaim the Truth in the present evil age will be rewarded when we receive our “rest, when the lord Messiah Jesus- Joshua is revealed from heaven in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God- Yehovah” (2 Thessalonians 1:7), and when the Assyrian Antichrist will be eliminated by the brightness of the lord Messiah Jesus- Joshua’s glorious Advent. Prophecy is part of the “every word” by which man is to live, as a stimulus to holy living now in preparation for entrance into the Kingdom of the Age to Come, when the lord Messiah Jesus- Joshua returns in glory. The chronology of such predictions is not given in Scripture, and any application to contemporary events is speculative only. At least one can say that the political shape of the Middle East in 2026 makes possible the fulfillment a reality. Who would have believed until recently that a small cadre of Middle Eastern origin could have so profoundly shaken the West?

Jesus, the Word of the Kingdom and the Royal Road to Immortality

Amongst many most encouraging letters from radio listeners, I [Anthony Buzzard] received this from a Roman Catholic professor and author:

“I think it is relevant for me to say that I am a professor of theology and of New Testament at a Roman Catholic institution…and that I think that your publication Focus on the Kingdom is theologically important, however much it may be neglected by the sector that I represent. You address radically important issues in Christian theology which are entirely appropriate because, in fact, the theological exercise is only adolescent and in need of further guidance. I think you are doing a good work that I hope will eventually have an impact on my own church tradition. There is much work to be done before we can, collectively, think clearly and I am glad that your magazine’s honesty about these things is so unflinching.”

Words like this can embolden us all to communicate by all available means what we are finding in Scripture. They strengthen my conviction that the central truths of the Abrahamic Faith (the land/seed promise made to Abraham as the basis of the Covenant confirmed in Jesus’ Kingdom Gospel teaching and in his death and resurrection) do in fact reflect the “faith once delivered to the saints” which the brother of Jesus urges us, at all costs, to recapture (Jude 3). From email, internet and radio contact, as well as from the exciting new students who arrive at Atlanta Bible College, I am collecting more and more “case histories” of men and women who are excited and radically changed by learning for the first time in their lives that the Gospel in the New Testament is centered on the Kingdom of God; indeed that Jesus was the prototype preacher and herald of the Gospel, and that he never dreamed that he was God.

His understanding of himself was that he was the Messiah, the Son of God. The “Gospel of Jesus the Messiah” means the Gospel as it came from the lips of Jesus (i.e., a subjective genitive: Jesus is the author of the Gospel), not just a Gospel about how Jesus died and rose from the dead. Mark opened with “the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah,” and then began to describe the preaching of John and the preaching of Jesus. This is the non-negotiable foundation of the Gospel. John and Jesus were united in their concept of the Gospel as the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew 3:2; 4:17, 23).

If these premises are sound, the whole of church history is fundamentally changed. What is known as “orthodoxy” is in fact not that at all, but simply one of various belief options which competed with others in the early centuries AD and won out, setting the pace and the pattern for centuries to come. The dominant party won out, not because it was true to the Scriptures, but because it managed to muster more clout, especially as aided by the Roman state. Numerous scholars know that the faith fell away from New Testament standards of truth, starting in the second century, and that things have never been the same since. Dissenters like ourselves, and many who went before us, have challenged the status quo, and we must, if we are going to be any use to the Messiah and the world, continue to do this. “He who is ashamed of me and my words, I will be ashamed of him when I come back” (Mark 8:38). So said Jesus, and he also observed that salt that has lost its savor is of no value.

For some two thousand years the notion has prevailed in Christendom that the NT’s central, saving figure is really a preexisting, pre-historical, pre-human, pre-earthly person, the second member of an eternal Triune Godhead. It is admitted on all hands that this concept of God as three is nowhere directly stated in the Bible. The Oxford Companion to the Bible says, with a rather annoying British understatement, that the Trinity “cannot be easily detected within the confines of the canon.” But the prevailing opinion continues to maintain that an eternal “God the Son” is nevertheless clearly in Scripture by implication and is by all means to be embraced with conviction. Failure to do so, many say, will result in being burned for ever and ever.

Now this is a challenging theological world to live in! Michael Servetus paid with his life-blood for daring to question this false Trinitarian proposition. Calvin, the reformer, who also read the Sermon on the Mount, authorized Servetus’ judicial murder in 1553. But then John Calvin was fiercely unsympathetic to those “pestilent Anabaptists” (as he called them) who believed that the dead are actually dead until the resurrection. Calvin also accused the trained disciples and Apostles of Messiah of completely misunderstanding what the Kingdom of God is. Calvin, you will remember, in his commentary on Acts 1:6, “Is this the time to restore the Kingdom to Israel?” declared that in asking this question the Messiah’s students committed “more errors than there are words in that question” — some 11 errors!

I propose that we dissenters marshal our case against the Trinitarian cause, which features in Christian book after Christian book, in tract after tract, and systematic theology text after systematic theology text. We are up against a huge industry and propaganda, and, I think, a colossal ecclesiastical muddle, defended by astonishing verbal complexities. Our task is to witness on behalf of “the only one who is truly God” (John 17:3). Jesus identified that God- Yehovah as his Father. I propose that we urge Bible readers to go back to the beginning as Jesus did, to explain who he is. “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets Jesus expounded to them in all the Scriptures all the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).

It is impossible to imagine, if one has read Deuteronomy 18:15-18, that the Messiah was going to be God Himself. That text, a favorite of Peter’s and Stephen’s (Acts 3:22, 7:37), expressly states that the Messiah will not be God. The Savior is to originate in the family of Israel, a prophet like Moses arising from among the Israelites. How appallingly confusing, and misleading, if God- Yehovah were then to eventually send a Messiah who was actually God Himself, existing consciously from eternity. This would be to overthrow the sacred testimony of Deuteronomy 18:15-18 and many other equally unambiguous Old Testament promises.

The Messiah, so the Jews were informed by their holy writings - and this is their belief today - was to be “the seed of Eve,” “the star arising in Israel,” the son of Abraham and the seed of David. The record of his origin dated back to early times (Micah 5:2, NASV). He was to be born in Bethlehem, and he was to be superior to Moses. In the OT’s most celebrated divine utterance (Psalm 110:1, very prominent in the NT), the Messiah was to be “my lord” (adoni). Adoni in all of its 195 appearances is never a reference to the Deity. God- Yehovah did not speak to God, but to His human agent. Jesus loved that psalm (Matthew 22:41-46) and used it to settle all disputes.

If, after all, the Messiah was an uncreated eternal being, how, on this evidence, could Israel, or anyone else, have recognized the Messiah when he came, if in fact he claimed to be God Himself? No Jew would have countenanced the notion that God was going to be the son of David or of Eve! What in post-biblical times became the “orthodox,” required view of the Son of God implies a tricky curveball thrown at Israel. It contradicts the plain expectations about who the Savior was to be, as described in the pages of their Holy Scripture.

It also contradicts the earliest pages of the New Testament. Matthew has, in fact, not presented us with an uncreated, eternal Son. Matthew could not possibly therefore have believed in the Trinity.

If we begin at the beginning of the New Testament, we can make our case with success. Matthew has given us a detailed account of the origins of the Messiah. He is first said to be the descendant of Abraham and David (1:1), just as we would expect from the OT promises. But more than this, in Matthew 1:18, Matthew addressed the specifics of the “origin” of Jesus the Messiah. “Now the genesis[1] [origin, creation, origination, beginning] of Jesus was like this: When his mother, Mary, was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she found that she was pregnant through the action of the holy spirit.”

What could be clearer? Matthew speaks of the genesis of the Messiah, not just his birth. Admittedly, birth in the Bible, and outside, means that a new person enters into life, but genesis points to how that life originated. Matthew 1:20: “Do not be afraid, Joseph, to take your wife home, for what was begotten in her (to en autee genneethen) is from the Holy Spirit.” Note the slightly clouded translation in our versions, “conceived.” Mary certainly did conceive, but what the text emphasizes is the activity of the Father begetting, generating, initiating the life of a new person. We have already had that same verb “beget” 40 times in Matthew 1 (“so and so begat so and so”). It would be a grave contradiction of this matchless narrative to import into it the idea that in fact a previously existing Son of God was transmuted or transformed, or indeed transformed himself, into a new person or fetus. That whole idea is more akin to reincarnation. It is reminiscent of the very pagan idea that “the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men” (Acts 14:11) or of Nicodemus’ naïve question about entering from outside into the womb of one’s mother. What Matthew has described is the beginning, the origin, the creation, indeed, of a new personality in the womb of his mother. The miracle is local and historical. And that person is the Son of God. At that moment of history the Son of God comes into being. There is no suggestion that he is exchanging one form of existence for another.

Gnostics are not keen on history and fact, and so the story was changed in the second century by gnostically-minded Christians. Gnostics were the ones who sought to make Jesus less of a Jewish figure and more of a universal member of the Pantheon. This is the age-old ecumenical tendency: Let’s make Jesus a universal religious figure! Would he not then be more attractive to a greater diversity of people? What good would a Jewish Messianic Jesus be? (So the argument went.) The Gnostic twist showed good promotion techniques, maybe, but it was fundamentally false to the true, original Messiah. It promoted the ever-present danger of “another Jesus.”

So, then, a “larger-than-life” fictional, legendary dimension was added to the portrait of Jesus, superimposed on the biblical text, to the effect that the Son had not in fact been given existence in his mother’s womb but had engineered his own “conception” in Mary. A false halo was added to Jesus. He suffered the fate of other religious leaders like the Buddha. He was divinized. He was really not a human being after all but a visitor from another world. The remark of a Roman Catholic priest on TV was entirely explicable based on the new, revised story: “God came to Mary one day and said ‘Mary, will you please be my mother?’”

With this amazing alteration in the identity of Jesus, “the historical Jesus completely disappeared” (Martin Werner, The Formation of Dogma, p. 298). The same author, who was professor of Systematic Theology at Bern, Switzerland, observed that early Catholicism was really a new Hellenistic mystery religion with “Jesus” at its center.

Luke’s account of the beginning of the Son of God is equally clear. Neither he nor Matthew could possibly have been Trinitarians or even Binitarians, and would have been automatically disqualified from pastorship in the main denominations today. Thus Luke in his brilliant and succinct account of the visitation of Mary by Gabriel: “Holy Spirit will come over you [Mary], and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason precisely the one being begotten will be called Son of God.” “For that reason…” There is a clear causal connection between the Sonship of Jesus and his miraculous begetting. Jesus is the Son of God, not because of any prior existence in eternity (Trinitarianism) or from just before the Creation of the world (Arianism), but because he is the new creation in Mary and in history, under the direct influence of the Father through the Holy Spirit. This, surely, is the coming into being of the last Adam. This is God’s- Yehovah's ultimate Son, who arises as a blood descendant of David, as the prophecies demand for the Messiah. When the Solomon line was cursed in Jehoiakin (Jer. 22:28: “Is this man Coniah [Jehoiakin] a despised broken idol? Why are they cast out, he and his seed, into a land which they do not know? Oh earth, earth, earth, hear the word of God…Write this man down as childless, for none of his seed will prosper sitting on the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah”), Jehoiakin’s natural descendants were disqualified from sitting on the royal throne of Israel. Another Davidide was apparently “borrowed” from the line from David through Nathan (Luke 3:27-31), and thus the blood line from David to Jesus was established. Jesus was related to David through his mother and legally so through his father.[2] His real Father, of course, was God- Yehovah, who undertook the New Creation of the Last Adam, and he worked within an Israelite maiden. Paul confirms that this is the proper order of events when he says that the “first Adam was of the earth, earthy; the second Adam is to be the lord from heaven.” But “the spiritual man was not first” (see I Corinthians 15:45-47).

As early as the beginning of the second century, this story was being turned on its head: 2 Clement: “Christ- the Messiah, the one who saves us, being first spirit became flesh.” “That,” observes Harnack, “is the fundamental theological and philosophical creed on which the whole Trinitarian and Christological speculations [note the word!] of the Church of the succeeding centuries are built, and it is thus the root of the orthodox system of dogmatics” (History of Dogma, Vol. 1, p. 328).

What we are proposing about Matthew’s and Luke’s understanding of who Jesus is has been powerfully affirmed by the celebrated Roman Catholic scholar, the late Raymond Brown, in his detailed work on the Birth of the Messiah (Doubleday, 1979).

Raymond Brown and Preexistence

He shows conclusively that neither Matthew nor Luke believed that the Son of God had existed literally before his birth. Thus these writers could not have been “orthodox” in the modern sense. For them the creation/begetting/coming into existence of the Son was by miracle in Mary. They promote a Jesus alien to the Trinitarian Jesus of post-biblical Christianity.

The idea that Jesus merely changed form from spirit to flesh at his birth is foreign to the whole NT. “Incarnation” is in fact more like transmigration or reincarnation. If the Son was alive before his begetting, he was not really born at all. Birth implies the coming into existence of a new person. Jesus, the Son of God, was not in transit between two worlds or forms of existence. His beginning was in about 2/33 B.C.

“Matthew and Luke press [the question of Jesus’ identity] back to Jesus’ conception. In the commentary I shall stress that Matthew and Luke show no knowledge of preexistence; seemingly for them the conception was the becoming (begetting) of God’s Son. The harmonization whereby a preexistent Word takes on flesh...is attested only in the [later] NT period” (p. 31).

“The fact that Matthew can speak of Jesus as ‘begotten’ (passive of gennan) suggests that for him the conception through the agency of the holy spirit is the becoming of God’s Son. [In Matthew’s and Luke’s “conception Christology”] God’s creative action in the conception of Jesus begets Jesus as God’s Son...There is no suggestion of an incarnation whereby a figure who was previously with God takes on flesh. For preexistence Christology [Incarnation], the conception of Jesus is the beginning of an earthly career but not the begetting of God’s Son. [Later] the virginal conception was no longer seen as the begetting of God’s Son, but as the incarnation of God’s Son, and that became orthodox Christian doctrine. This thought process is probably already at work at the beginning of the second century in Ignatius of Antioch (Hoben, Virgin Birth, 20-21); Aristides, Apology 15:1; Justin, Apology 1:21 and 33; Melito of Sardis, Discourse on Faith 4” (pp.140, 141, 142).

“Just as one should not confuse the conception Christology found in Matthew and Luke’s infancy narratives with the preexistence Christology of John’s prologue[3]...[one cannot speak of] an incarnation in Matthew and Luke. Also one should not read ‘God with us’ in a Nicene sense, as if it were identifying Jesus with God. For Matthew Jesus is the expression of God’s presence with His people. Matthew is not one of the NT works which begins to call Jesus ‘God.’ And of course no NT work achieves the clarity of the council of Nicea in calling him ‘true God of true God’” (p. 150).

“It is the virginal conception that serves now as the begetting of God’s Son” (p. 181).

Luke 1:35: ’Will be called’ — calling brings to expression what one is, so that it means no less than ‘he will be’ (cp. Matthew 5:9: ‘will be called Sons of God’ and Luke 6:5: ‘you will be sons of the Most High’)” (pp. 289, 290, 291).

“The combination of spirit and power is very Lukan, occurring in Luke 1:17, 4:14, Acts 1:8, 6:5, 8, 10:38). Not knowing the rules of parallelism in biblical poetry which make it clear that ‘power from the Most High’ is synonymous with ‘Holy Spirit’ some patristic and medieval theologians thought that the reference in 1:35, b, c, were respectively to the Third and Second Persons of the Trinity, so that ‘power’ was the Second Person descending to take flesh in Mary’s womb. As we shall see, there is no evidence that Luke thought of the incarnation of a preexistent.”

Luke 1:35: “‘Therefore’ - Of the nine times dio kai occurs in the NT, three are in Luke/Acts. It involves a certain causality and Lyonnet (L’annonciation, 61.6) points out that this has embarrassed many orthodox theologians since in preexistence [orthodox] Christology a conception by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb does not bring about the existence of God’s Son. Luke is seemingly unaware of such a Christology; conception is causally related to divine Sonship for him.

“‘Will be called Son of God’ - It is tantamount to saying ‘he will be.’ And so I cannot follow those theologians who try to avoid the causal connotation in the ‘therefore’ which begins this line, by arguing that for Luke the conception of the child does not bring the Son of God into being, but only enables us to call Him ‘Son of God’ who already was Son of God.”

“However, there is no evidence that Luke had a theology of incarnation or preexistence; rather for Luke (1:35) divine Sonship seems to have been brought about through the virginal conception ...Jesus was conceived and born, and that is solidarity enough with the human race” (p. 432).

“First, in orthodox Christian belief, Jesus would be God’s Son no matter how he was conceived, since his is an eternal Sonship not dependent upon the incarnation...In Matthew and Luke the virginal conception was connected with an articulation of the divine Sonship of Jesus” (p.529). “Both narratives develop the Christological insight that Jesus was the Son of God from the first moment of his conception” (p. 561).

“Later Christian orthodoxy understood Jesus to have preexisted as God’s Son in a non-corporeal manner from all eternity...that view [does not correspond to any Lukan thought]” (p. 90).

Luke and Matthew: “There is more of a connotation of creativity. Mary is not barren, and in her case the child does not come into existence because God cooperates with the husband’s generative action...Rather Mary is a virgin who has not known man, and therefore the child is totally God’s work — a new creation....I have stressed...that Luke does not think of a preexistent Son of God...Only in second-century writings do we find the Lukan and Johannine concepts combined into an incarnation of a preexistent deity (see Ignatius, Ephesians 7:2, Smyrnians 1:1, combined with Magnesians 8:2, also Aristides, Apology 15:1, Justin, Apology, 1 21, 33. Melito, Discourse on Faith, 4)” (p. 314).

“Luke had no difficulty in stating that Jesus grew in wisdom and God’s favor…This saying caused great difficulty for later Christian theologians raised upon a Nicene Christology of eternal preexistence, for they could not admit that an incarnate Word could grow in wisdom or grace. Renie lists their theories on how such a growth could not mean a growth of grace of union or sanctifying grace, but only the exterior manifestation of a grace already possessed. Today we would see these as problems of systematic theology rather than of exegesis” (p. 483).

I think that the backing of a distinguished NT scholar for our view of Jesus is of great value as we present Jesus to the public. We might add that Paul speaks of the Son of God who “came into existence from a woman” (Galatians 4:4; Romans 1:3). Paul uses the word ginomai = to come into being, rather than the ordinary word “was born” (gennao). In Galatians 4:23, 29 he speaks of the birth of Esau using the normal word for birth (gennao). Paul appears to be stressing that the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, was not only his birth but his entrance into existence.

The Seed and the Seeds

It is well established, then, that Jesus is the seed of the woman promised as the world’s remedy soon after the catastrophic fall of man (Genesis 3:15). Galatians 3:19 makes Jesus the recipient of the promise. Not only is he the promised redeemer, but he is “the one to whom the promise was made.” Jesus, in other words, is the heir to the world-throne and commissioned to supervise a coming new world order with headquarters in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 23:5, etc.). The Bible is, after all, really about one thing: Who gets the land? What could be more pertinent to the present chaos in the Middle East?

Christians know how the story ends. It ends with the Messiah in charge, equipped to bring the wicked to justice and promote the righteous to positions of influence (Isaiah 32:1; Proverbs  25:5; Daniel 7:18, 22, 27). In the interim, by the way, it is important not to be misled into thinking that ethnic Israel can expect to dwell in the land peacefully, while she is in disobedience to the Messiah who has come and is coming again. Possession of the land was never unconditional. It was for unbelief that the exile under Nebuchadnezzar occurred. It was through unbelief that Israel was again expelled from the land in AD 70. And for the same unbelief she is destined to suffer the great tribulation, “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 31). Final repentance of the remnant of ethnic Israel will enable them to survive into the times of the Kingdom, the 1,000-year rule of the lord Messiah Jesus. So there is indeed a future for Israel when she accepts her Messiah. [Notice Zechariah 12:10-14] Acceptance of that Messiah would be immensely easier (as also for Muslims) if the Abrahamic version of who Jesus is were presented to them. Why should a Muslim or Jew accept a Jesus who is part of a Triune God?

Jesus’ story, indeed the story of the Bible as a whole, is nothing but a royal, Davidic, Messianic story. It is spiritual politics from start to finish. The Devil has really only one trick, and that is to separate Jesus from his teachings. You can preach “Jesus” endlessly, but is this really Jesus if he is divorced from his own teachings/Gospel? If we reread the New Testament with this in mind, we find so much of the writing there dedicated to saying “you must hold on to the Word, and by Word is meant the Gospel of the Kingdom.” “Word” in the Bible is not just a synonym for the Bible. It means the saving Gospel, the heart of the Bible. The “word” is to the Scripture as the “core” is to the apple or the bull’s eye to the target. Satan is a master of getting rid of the essential information. Muddle the language, and you have everything confused. While the public knows only that “the Bible is the word of God,” Jesus said, “the seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11).

Jesus counteracts this verbal confusion with his brilliant clarity. He had read Ezekiel’s parable of the royal cedar tree (Ezekiel 17). He knows himself to be God’s ally and bearer of God’s Gospel of the Kingdom. Thus he embarks on the work of spreading the news of the New Order coming. He is the purveyor of the formula of immortality. All life springs from a seed. Seeds bear fruit. Based on that fundamental notion about seeds presented also in Genesis 1, Jesus goes about creating the new creation. He sows the royal family, his own brothers and sisters, by sowing his seed (Luke 8:5). His name for a Christian is “a Son of the Kingdom” or a “disciple of the Kingdom” — royal sons or royal students. The Messiah, having redefined the family as “those who hear the word and do it,” conveys the secret about how this divine Kingdom life is to be acquired and propagated:

“The sower went out to sow his seed.” The analogy with reproduction is obvious. Jesus reproduces himself in others by transmitting the seed message of the Kingdom (Matthew 13:19), which dwells firstly in him. The seed Message has been part of his DNA, so to speak, since the moment God created the Son in Mary’s womb. The Son is marked out by the Father at his baptism at the hands of John, an important and necessary stage of the Christian career as the public sealing of our Kingdom confession. The voice of the Father provides the commentary: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to what he has to say” - not just “Watch him die and be buried and rise.” “Listen to what he preaches as Gospel. Listen to his instructions about being reborn for immortality. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” It is rather fascinating that Luke reports: “When he said these things [the parable of the sower] he would customarily raise his voice” (Luke 8:8).

WWJD (“What would Jesus do?”) ought also to read “WWJS — What would Jesus say?” Jesus provided the script for all evangelism when he commanded: “Preach that the Kingdom is at hand.”

How strange that the word Kingdom is absent from almost every evangelical tract that has ever been printed!

Before the massively important parable of the sower, Jesus has redefined the family. When his parents seek to talk to him, he diverts attention to a much greater truth. “Who are my mother and father?” Those who hear the word of God, the Gospel, and do it.

His real affinity is not with Mary and Joseph (who even thought at one stage that their son had gone out of his mind), but with those who respond to the Kingdom Message. Jesus, as George Ladd observed, “divides society into the two antithetical camps, those who hear and understand the Gospel of the Kingdom and those who do not.” These two camps represent the two races of human beings — the degenerates and the regenerates. Unless a man begins all over again, unless he is born from above, born again, “he cannot see or enter the Kingdom of God.” “If they understood and received the Gospel of the Kingdom [Matthew 13:19] they would repent and be forgiven” (Mark 4:11, 12). That is the bottom line of all of Jesus’ theology.

It is interesting to ask audiences: If being born again is absolutely essential for salvation - rebirth under the influence of the Spirit - why is it that Jesus, according to Matthew, Mark and Luke, did not ever use that phrase about rebirth? Why do Matthew, Mark and Luke not mention being “born again” in so many words? The answer must be that it is impossible that Jesus did not constantly speak of rebirth. The key is that he used different metaphors and parables (comparisons) to get his point across.

In the synoptics, at the heart of the New Covenant teaching of Messiah, the immortality program is described in terms of new birth from seed, namely the seed which is the “word of God” (Luke 8:11) = the “word of the Kingdom” (Matthew 13:19). The Gospel/Word of the Kingdom is presented by Jesus as the immortality formula, the elixir of life, the key to indestructible existence. With the seed of new life we are truly living spiritually. Without having taken in that seed, we are spiritually dead while we live. Two camps: the regenerate and the degenerate. Jesus is creating the personnel of the Kingdom by rebirth. He is breeding the new race of immortals. The carrier of this new life is the teaching of the Messiah, his Gospel of the Kingdom, the words “which are spirit and life” (John 6:63). As that seed germinates in the mind (heart) of the listener, a new existence begins. It is an explosive event, attended by massive excitement. A whole new vista opens up. The heart soars as it contemplates life forever, the Life of the Coming Age, the Life of the Kingdom.

If one scours Bible Dictionary articles on “regeneration” very occasionally one hits upon an excellent observation about what Jesus taught on this issue: “The parable of the Sower implies that the specific life of the Kingdom arises in the human heart by the sinking in of the Gospel (cp. “Let these sayings sink down into your ears”), and its producing, as it were, a new root of personality” (Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, “Regeneration,” p. 216).

The dictionary does not, however, elaborate on what that seed really is. Luke does. He says, “The seed is the Word of God.” Mark likewise says, “the seed is the word.” Matthew: “the seed is the word of the Kingdom.” No wonder Jesus accused the establishment of taking away the key of Knowledge, the Key of the Kingdom (Luke 11:52; Matthew 23:13).

Rather astonishingly, the head of Moody Bible College writes: “The Gospel of grace has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God per se” (from correspondence).

A very significant loss of information has occurred because the public has been taught to say “the word of God is the Bible.” Jesus said the word of God is the seed - his own Gospel. Many churchgoers speak of “the Word” or “Word of God” as just a synonym for the Bible. But it is not. The Bible generally calls itself the Scriptures. It largely reserves, in the NT, the term “word” for the Gospel as Jesus and the apostles preached it.

Once the essential creative seed of immortality is identified as the Gospel of the Kingdom, the rest of the New Testament presents itself as commentary on this central theme. Every exhortation to “abide in the word” or “let the word of the Messiah abide in you richly” is embedded in the idea that the Kingdom-Gospel is to govern all our thinking. John’s Gospel is largely a sermon on accepting “the word” and “words of Jesus.” Peter rejoices in the seed of rebirth as the “word of the Gospel which was preached to you” (I Peter 1:22-25, where seed, rebirth, and Gospel are the topic). James speaks of the “word of Truth” as the tool of rebirth (James 1:18). Paul also observes that Christians are those “born of the spirit,” that is, those born of the Promise (Galatians 4:28, 29). But Paul prefers the image of the new creation. Just as the light first shone in Genesis at creation so the light of the Gospel of the glory of the Messiah shines in our hearts (2 Corinthians 4:6). Paul is a dogged preacher of the Gospel of the Kingdom and sums up his whole career as the “heralding of the Kingdom” (Acts 20:25), where he identifies the Gospel of grace as the Gospel of the Kingdom (see also Acts 8:12, Philip, and Paul’s relentless emphasis on the Gospel of the Kingdom in Acts 19:8; 28:23, 31). John echoes his fellow apostles when he points to the indwelling seed as the key to triumphant Christianity (I John 3:9).

I believe the Abrahamic, Kingdom faith of Jesus must confront the watered-down version of the Gospel now massively widespread. Dispensationalism, either in its “ultra” form or otherwise, has achieved a separation of Paul from Jesus and thus a separation of the Gospel from Jesus. Romans 10:8-17 has been mishandled to give the impression that only the death and resurrection of Jesus counted for Paul as the Gospel. If that were so, Paul would have abandoned the Gospel of Jesus. Paul would have disobeyed the Great Commission. Paul would have put himself under his own curse for subtracting from the Gospel the essential Kingdom element so important to Jesus as the treasure of saving wisdom and understanding. But Paul did not depart one iota from the Messiah’s Gospel. He declared as his resounding conclusion in Romans 10 that “faith comes by hearing and hearing from Messiah’s word,” i.e., Messiah’s Gospel (v. 17). He observed in verse 14 that one must hear Jesus preaching to be saved: “How can they believe in him whom they have not heard [preaching]” (see NASV).

So everything goes back to Jesus, who for some 30 chapters in the Synoptics preached the Gospel without at that stage any mention of his death and resurrection. The royal road to immortality and rulership in the Kingdom to come - as well as peace on earth for the human race begins and ends with Jesus, who was adamant in his rejection of any notion of coequal Deity - “Why do you call me good? There is none good but the One God” (Matthew 19:17).

Our task is to announce far and wide (Luke 9:60) the Kingdom of God as Gospel, the message of salvation, and it is the Kingdom of the One God- Yehovah of Israel to be administered by the human Messiah, the Son of that Living God.

Edited by Bruce Lyon