SONG OF GOD Lecture Four: ORIGINAL SIN AND SPIRITUAL DEATH

[Rebbe]

The Song of God

A Fresh Appraisal of the Christian Doctrine of the Ultimate Destiny of Humankind:
IMCF Lectures on God's Universal Salvation

by

Les Aron Gosling, Messianic Rebbe



Copyright © BRI, 1996
Lecture Format © 2016
All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Originally Produced as a BRI Study Manual




LECTURE FOUR

ORIGINAL SIN AND SPIRITUAL DEATH

The Gospel (the "good news" or "glad [great] tidings") is "the power of God unto salvation" according to Rav Shaul in Romans 1.16. He went on to explain that the Gospel is the power that saves the irreverent and the unrighteous from the condemnation and wrath of the Almighty God (Romans 3.21-5.19). Indeed, it is the power that saves the converted from the negative rule of sin in their lives (Romans 6.1-23). This Gospel, this power of God our Saviour, was made known to Rav Shaul through a direct encounter with the Jewish Messiah Yeshua (Galatians 1.6-12). In fact, in its simplest terms, the good news is "the Gospel of God concerning his son" (Romans 1.1,2).

But this is all very academic. These Scriptures are well known to all professing believers, no matter what their schismatic predilection. What the majority of believers fail to ask, however, are the obvious questions about these plain facts of the Bible.

If these are the answers, what are the questions?

Well, I can think of at least two, and they are both pertinent and germane to an appropriate comprehension of the meaning of Grace.

Firstly, what "good news" or "glad tidings" concerning Yeshua the Messiah reveals the righteousness of God and is the power of the Absolute unto salvation and, Secondly, where does this "good news" or "glad tidings" leave the unbeliever?

After all, he who is an unbeliever is an unbeliever due to the fact that he has not had his mind and heart opened by God Almighty in order to believe in his Son in the first instance! Our Lord did say, did he not, that while "he who comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst" (John 6.35) ONLY THOSE who are "given" or "granted" such a high and exalted privilege from God in the first place are able to come to him (John 6.37,44,65).

Now, we may not like it this way, but it's the way God intends it. I for one cannot argue against such a proposition. The plan, purpose and intent of salvation is after all God's plan, purpose and intent of salvation. It is his plan, and he is Lord over it. His will and intent is purposed in himself and his scheme is executed according to his indomitable will, and all things that occur are being worked out in the exact manner he intends (Ephesians 1.5,9-11). Within that plan, purpose and intent "the firstfruits of the harvest" have become the children of God (Ephesians 1.5) to the praise of the glory of his Grace "wherein he has made us accepted in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1.6).

[N.B. When the Constantinian Church threw out the festivals of Israel they literally threw the Jewish Baby out with the Jewish bath water! The agricultural festivals of Israel reveal in sequence the cosmic Plan of Salvation for (at the least) the human race! Most Christians are not aware of the meaning of "Firstfruits" in this wonderful intention of God for the Adamic race.]

As far as electing oneself to discipleship, Yeshua made it very plain that "no man can come to me, except the [Spirit of the] Father which has sent me draw him" (John 6.44). Indeed, he was emphatic about it, repeating this statement later in his synagogue discourse. "Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father" (John 6.65).

It is interesting that as a result of this doctrine of sovereign election in Grace many of his disciples deserted his party, and refused to have anything more to do with him (John 6.66). What was certainly true in a religious sense of human nature in Yeshua's day and age is most assuredly true in this particular era. People desire salvation but it has to be on their terms. People desire to be saved as long as their "free" decision-making capabilities are not short-circuited by the Lord (John 1.13). Even the apostles, as we have discovered, originally thought that they had decided to "follow" the Messiah for it seemed like it to them. They sincerely thought that they had chosen to follow him. But Yeshua pointed out that salvation is entirely of God, not man. He had chosen and selected those who were to be trained as his apostles. It was not the other way around (John 15.16).

In accord with the basic teaching of Yeshua as regards spiritual election in Grace, Paul's doctrine insisted that before Mashiach came to save his "foreknown" (Ephesians 1.4; Romans 8.29) we were "by nature the children of wrath" (Ephesians 2.3), "without Mashiach" (Ephesians 2.12), "having no hope" and "without God" (same verse). Not only so, but Paul added that we were "alienated from the life of God," "ignorant," "blind," our "understanding darkened" (Ephesians 4.18) "beyond feeling" (Ephesians 4.19) and not merely "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2.1) but decomposing in death's "corruption" (Ephesians 4.22).

A cadaver is beyond response.

You can tickle its feet with a scalpel, but it won't giggle. You can trace that scalpel up under the ribcage ever so lightly, but it won't smile. That same scalpel can be agitated menacingly micro millimetres from its eyeball yet it will not flinch -- not an inch. Why? Because its dead. We are told by our dear Arminian friends that we must respond to the Gospel before we can be saved. Yes, even before we are given life. They claim, remember, that Yeshua ("Jesus") only "offers" salvation. He is only a "provider" of salvation. It is entirely up to the exercise of our human will to make "a decision for Christ"... To "ask him into our life." To "surrender to him." To say, "I am a sinner Lord, please save me." Such a "Jesus" is not a Saviour if he has to be urged by our repentance to be saved. This "Jesus" is definitely not a Saviour, unless he responds to our surrender in order to save us. However, the Scripture makes it clear that salvation is all of God, and none of us, otherwise Grace makes no sense whatever (Romans 11.6). Again, emphatically, not of Grace? Then not of God.

The righteousness of God (the justice of God) is revealed in the way the Lord dealt with his Son when he became, not just the most heinous sinner who ever lived, in his dying on the cross, but sin itself for us. It is in the dying and death of Our Lord Yeshua that we see God dealing justly with sin. What terrible disgrace our lives have manifested in the sight of such a holy God as God is to usher forth such a penalty as the Messiah underwent for humankind. If justice is anything it is certainly vindication and salvation for those that suffer oppression. One who has been justified by Christ's death at Golgoleth on the bloodied tree of torture has had justice secured for him. Indeed, to justify a person means even to champion someone's cause (Gottlob Schrenk in Kittel's (ed) Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 1964, 2:212) even the cause of God's enemies (Romans 5.10). After all, not only were his enemies oppressed by the state of rebellion, corruption, hostility and death (which reigned from Adam) but oppression such as this created an absolute inability in man to save himself. Man has never had the ability to save himself. It is quite impossible for any man to save himself. But it was God who subjected the entire solar system to rebellion, corruption, hostility, sin and death in the first place.

"The creation [the entire creation including that of Adam and Eve] was made [or, became or better, was appointed to be] subject to vanity [decay, futility, frustration, slavery to decadence], not willingly but by reason of him who subjected the same in hope" (Romans 8.20).

The entire chapter of Romans 8 spells out that the actual "Fall" occurred when God turned part of the spiritual realm into MATERIAL CONCRETE FORM. The creation itself had NO SAY in this precise act of God. The process of salvation, then, is to turn the MATERIAL CREATION back into SPIRIT as it was originally. In the meantime, the creation of evil (Isaiah 45.7) serves a vital function in the total surrender of the universe to God's salvation from evil. This is what "overcoming" is all about as far as human beings are concerned. Without evil, there can be no appreciation or apprehension of God's ultimate "good."

It is written in the Jewish traditions, "God decreed that the universe contain both good and evil, and therefore arranged that evil should be able to exist on every level where it possibly can" (Derech HaShem 3,2,7-8). "God willed... that honour be given to His Name when it is uttered over the angels... The angel is then forced to make use of its additional power in such a manner as directed by the one who utters this Name over it" (Derech HaShem 3,2,7). "And every object shall know that You have made it; and every creature shall understand that You have created it; and every thing that has the breath of life in its nostrils shall proclaim: G-d, the G-d of Israel, is King, and His Sovereignty rules over all..." (Extract from Rosh Hashanah prayers).

What is it in man, even in theologians, that resists the plain statements of Scripture? We know that all came forth from God and that what we see around us (even if we don't happen to like what we see) is God's plan of redemption in operation but we deny this vehemently. We deny it even to our own spiritual hurt. We inhibit and deform the spiritual growth that could belong to us. But the great impactive declarations of Paul will not go away, as much as some of his readers' would desire them to. All did come forth from God and out of God (Romans 11.36 Greek) and what we see about us is the plan and purpose and intent of the Lord (Ephesians 1.4-12; 3.9-11 Greek).

There are many references scattered throughout the Messianic Scriptures of the Yeshua School that speak of Our Lord as being slain from the "time" (SpaceTime) of God's creative intentions. One of these is located in the Messianic War Code of the first century Yeshua party.

"... the Lamb who has been slain in the mind and purpose of God since the time when the foundations of the universe were laid, and who is looked upon by God as the slain Lamb at present" (Revelation 13.8 Kenneth S. Wuest, The New Testament, An Expanded Translation, 1961, 7th Printing 1972).

The Self-emptying Sacrifice of Yeshua the Messiah was intended by God long before the proverbial Garden of Eden existed. So therefore, sin had also to have been a part of God's original intention and design. A little reflection should impress upon us that without sin there would be no Saviour. Without enslavement to sin there would be no Deliver or Redeemer. Without transgression of the Torah with resultant sin there could be no act of justification. Without estrangement from God there would be no opportunity of a reconciliation. God does have a plan and that plan is without any question a plan of salvation. Comments C.S. Lewis, "The glory of God, and, as our only means to glorifying him, the salvation of human souls, is the real business of life" (C.S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, 1967, 14).

Isn't it a tragedy that we Christians -- we of all people -- have lost the awesome knowledge of the purpose of sin and evil in the perfect design and blueprint of the God we claim to worship week in and week out?

Satan, the Lord's dark servant, has successfully blinded the eyes of many a simple saint to this understanding of God's salvation. Yet, for them, their blinded state is also the will of God. Yeshua quoted Isaiah to establish that this was within the sovereignty of God's purposes, although hard for humankind to grasp (Luke 8.9,10 cf Exodus 4.11). Why sin and evil in the pure purposes of God? We will touch on this a little later.

We Christians speak of "justice" being done, and being seen to be done. Yes, we shall heartily concur. Adam and Eve started it all back in Eden, and the ball has not stopped rolling since. In fact it seems the ball has somehow accelerated. Adam and Eve may have been entirely accountable for their sin in Eden. And they were. The author of Genesis makes that plain enough. But they were decidedly not responsible. Nor for that matter was the Dark Lord, if we stay true to the biblical revelation concerning the origin of evil and the genesis of sin. Satan was created a man-killer from the very beginning (John 8.44 Greek). It was God who was ultimately responsible for the entrance of sin into this world. And as a believer I hold God responsible.

A shocking statement?

No, not at all, if we understand, appreciate and hold in awe the biblical revelation. Sin entered our sphere and death through sin, according to Our Lord's previously perceived plan, design, scheme. There can be no other way of looking at our world, at nature and at ourselves if we remain true to the Jewish thoughtforms that gave us the biblical revelation. Present Gentile readings into the Scripture as interpretation, and onto the original Jewish theological impression (especially as understood in the Jewish society of the final Procuratorships of Judaea) makes God out to be the local village idiot who "lost the plot," if he indeed had the plot in the first place! Here is a God subject to accident. Here is a God who allowed Satan, Adam and Eve to create their own plans, designs, schemes in defiance of his original plan of the ages. This God had to produce a sacrificial Victim in his provision of a Son in order to retrieve what he could of the fractured universe. Christ, in this theological mold, is nothing more than a contingency plan for a scheme that went terribly awry. This God is not worthy to be called God. This theology leaves one with a sense of theological unease. This obviously will not do.

Rather, if the Lord is responsible for the present outworking of such a plan of redemption and salvation then his justice would be seen to be done at the cross by which the Subjector of all was himself subjected in order to show his immense Love for the world in his abject and total submission to sin and death. The act of justification would of necessity include the entire world, not merely a "Church" -- even if it was a "church [ekklesia] of the firstborn." And that is precisely what Paul recognised (Romans 5.18). Christ did not die for any transgressions he personally committed, or for any wrong that we or anyone else could impute. For, it is written, "He knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5.21). Nor did he submit to a cruel death imposed by man or devil. "No one is taking my soul from me, but I am lying it down of myself" (John 10.17,18). "Messiah died for the sake of the irreverent" (Romans 5.6-9). "He was given up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justifying" (Romans 4.25). Our Lord Yeshua was dying to show in open display his Love for us all and so he delivered himself up to the horrors of scourging, crucifixion and stoning and became you and became me. He became the ultimate "Reprobate Man." He became the ultimate "Lost Man." He became the most vile sinner who ever lived. He became sin itself (2 Corinthians 5.21 KJV, Darby, NIV, Peshitta).

If this is so, and as Christians we believe it to be so, then for true justice to be wrought it must be in the will of God that the lost be eventually reconciled to the Mashiach. Such a position has the approbation of human logic as well as the approval, sanction, and endorsement of Scripture.

What then is the Gospel? The Gospel is the fact that Yeshua haMashiach has died for our sins, was buried, raised from the dead, and now lives as the Saviour of the world (1 Corinthians 15.1-4). He was sent by the Father to save the world (1 John 4.14), to be a "propitiation [Hebrew, kapparah, atonement] for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world" (1 John 2.2). Literally, "propitiation" is from the Latin of Tertullian and means, simply enough, "to turn away divine wrath by satisfaction of justice."

Do we therefore believe God? Or do we insist on believing some theologians who listen to the Great Slanderer?

It is the Slanderer who seeks every opportunity to cloud the issue of Grace, especially from Christians. For Christ, says the Slanderer, died only for the godly.

In contradistinction to fables the Scripture informs us that the Messiah died "for the ungodly," for you and for me (Romans 5.6). Here is then yet another problem for the "eternal separationists." They will insist that the ration of sin is eternal death in a lake of fire. If Our Lord paid the penalty of sin in our stead, as either our unique Substitute or as our Federal Representative (theologically speaking), and that penalty was death (and indeed it was) then Our Lord Yeshua died. He may well have experienced a form of "hell" as emotional and mental (severe psychological) separation from the One he called his Father. There is no doubt that this was the case. But he did not "descend into hell" as one of our most hallowed creeds would have it. But, if we let our fertile imaginations ride the waves of intelligent thought for a moment we might become cognisant of the fact that if the ration (or, as some would erroneously insist, the "wages") of sin is to burn alive in some hell (and that for all eternity) then to properly be our Saviour, Substitute or Representative or both, Yeshua would have had to burn alive in hell fire forever.

Revolting thought, really. This is the presentation of a view which cannot be tolerated by any believer, Jew or Gentile or otherwise. Those who insist that the ration of sin is to die eternally, to be reduced to ashes after burning up in the lake of fire, are faced with a similar dilemma.

To properly satisfy God's sense of justice (according to the consequences of their particular theological perspective and taken to its logical conclusion) the Lord Yeshua would have had to be cast into the lake of fire and to have been burned up forever. Nothing but his ashes would have remained. This too, of course, is a most horrendous consideration for anyone to contemplate. Faith realises that such was not and is not the case. Our Lord Yeshua as our perfect sin-Substitute or Representative must, if any trace of logic exists in the doctrinal framework of the church, still be dead. He must forever be ashes of non-existence. For that, we are told, is the penalty for sin -- "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord."

But we believers all trust that Yeshua rose from the dead on the third day, just as he said he would. The length of time that he was to be entombed was the ONLY ACTUAL SIGN of his Messiahship which he would grant the religious leaders of the day. He was in the tomb three days and three nights (Matthew 12.40). His victory over death can be ours too. In Christ, by faith, it is ours already. The Lord resurrected Yeshua on the third day, which happened to be a Sabbath, as Our Lord predicted. Mashiach did not rise from the dead on a Sunday morning. If God had not raised Yeshua to life he would have stayed dead for eternity, thus satisfying our view of what God would have considered "justice." Really, if that were the case then justice could not have prevailed. It could not have been a perfect Substitution or Representation for any of us. No, for the "eternal destruction" enthusiasts Yeshua would have had to die -- and remain dead.

But, thank the God of all Grace, neither of these senseless non-biblical views is correct. Yeshua did die in our place. But just what death did he die for each and every one of us?

Eve sinned. Adam joined her in partaking of sin. He transgressed God's specific command not to partake of the "fruit" of the knowledge of good and evil, of the polarities of opposites. Adam had been informed that if he did eat of that "fruit" then he most certainly would perish. Adam ate that "fruit" and experienced a world of dynamic opposites. Our sacred texts tell us that Adam "died." Our western theological tradition tells us Adam died eternally. Our western theological tradition tells us he was forever irrevocably lost. Our western theological tradition says our first parents had no further contact with the Lord. Our western theological tradition would have us believe that he was in a state of absolute eternal separation from God. Well, that is what our western theological tradition tells us. But the Scripture seems to indicate something slightly more involved in contrast to this western theological tradition of utter hopelessness, this nightmarish Stephen King-style drama.

"And the Lord God commanded the man saying, Of every tree of the garden eating you shall eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof dying you shall die" (Genesis 2.16,17 Hebrew).

"And the enchanter said... God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods [Hebrew, elohim] knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3.5).

"And the Lord God said, Behold! The man has become as one of us, to know good and evil" (Genesis 3.22).

There is nothing in these accounts from the book of Genesis concerning an integral change in Adam's human nature occurring as a result of eating this "fruit" -- a disturbed psychological outlook and emotional upheaval at having sinned against God notwithstanding. Perhaps this is because there was no change in Adam's human nature as a consequence of his act. There was, however, the startling horror of immediate spontaneous mortality and corruptibility. Man suddenly mortalised. He was at once aeonially capable of decay. In his "eating of the fruit" -- in his experiential participation in the field of opposites -- a whole realm of sensuous fantasy and nervous trauma was at once emphasised. This point must be articulated in any discussion about the mythological Eden (I use mythological in its classic academic sense). Here was the Original Sin. And it was limited to our Created Originals. That sin was theirs, not ours. What was passed on from generation to generation was, not some "Original Sin," but mortality and death. This, in the first century Jewish thoughtform (which bequeathed to us the brilliance of Rav Shaul) is the plain and unequivocal teaching of the so-called "New Testament." Notice what Paul tells us:

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin: so death passed upon all men on whom all sinned" (Romans 5.12).

Look at the living testimony of any baby. Is this biblicism factual, even scientific? From the moment a baby takes its very first breath, it begins to die. Nothing can be more certain. It has no affliction of sin (despite what western traditions teach). It has no desire to sin. It is a bundle of pure joy, sweetness, lovely wonder. There is nothing in its nature which appears hostile to God and his perfect ways. There is only the perfection of beauty, totally dependent on the life-giving love of its mother. But the baby is subject to the process, even from birth, of decay, corruption of the flesh, and death. Death, not "Original Sin," is passed on to each and every one of us through memory genes. Death is hereditary. Adam and Eve began a process of putrescence as soon as they rebelled against God. Death made its "entrance" into their flesh, and Adam and Eve started to die. It was to be a lengthy process, to be sure, but it had a predictable conclusion: the grave.

Yet these Scriptures reveal something else about Adam (Genesis 2.16,17; 3.5,22). He had gone beyond the revealed God, caught in a web of a world of opposites: life and death, good and evil, light and darkness, the self and the not-self, the knower and the known, yin and yang, black and white, the organism and its environment, the solid and the space, the useful and the useless, love and hate, randomness and order, multiplicity and unity, freedom and determinism. Here was mortal man grasping at a lost immortality. Here was corruptible man pining for incorruption. Here was ultimate Reprobate Man seared with a knowledge of ultimate dualism. Here was Innocent Man, without a past, now brutally aware of the devastating consequences of intelligent decision-making. But such is the very nature of illusion.

Adam had not really "fallen." Man was "pushed." At his collapse into mortality he had yet become as a god (Genesis 3.22). The Lord admitted the wisdom of the Serpent (or, the Enchanter). "Now the man has become as one of us knowing good and evil." It is the verdict of Scripture that it was God's purpose, God's plan, God's scheme that the Father of the human race should be found to be naked: "naked of all sense of gratitude and obedience to the Divine Will." The Gracious and loving intent of God is ever and always Salvific and thus his plan is eternally a plan of redemption, of salvation.

The plan of God is a game the Lord is playing. We Christians are so serious about this game of salvation. Of course, we need to be sober. But, to relieve the stresses and tensions and to express God's basic nature he has imparted to us his Holy Spirit of comfort, encouragement, joy, gladness in the knowledge of the certainty of our salvation. This salvation is present and it is future. The outworking of the plan of salvation (which we see unfolding about us, and as we participate in it) is not only God's game but is very much God's dream. All of us as actors in this dream are as real as God's thoughtforms and only to that extent. We, with the Lord, are playing out the cosmic drama of hide-and-seek and lost-and-found if only we (as spiritual beings having a human experience) can have the childlike heart to actually comprehend this marvellous spiritual insight. God is, after all, a Child.

Remember that Yeshua said that not only are we to become spiritually mature as God is mature (Matthew 5.48) but unless we become like "little children, we cannot see the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18.1-4). Are we too religious in our austere adult view of life, of the Lord, and of his precious salvation? Many of us are! And if indeed we are we therefore fail to see in all of this primitive mythological enceinte of dramaturgy the Lord's playful sense of humour. May the God of gods deliver us from the wretched evil of terminal seriousness.

Of course, Yeshua died for our sins and for our opposition to God and his ways. But rather than mourn that he did so, we are encouraged throughout the Christian Scriptures to do the opposite and rejoice. And does not the Scripture declare, "God was in Messiah"? All of nature is one massive cycle of birth, death, burial and resurrection. God is ever and always a Self-sacrificial Deity. Yeho'veh is the Nature of nature itself. When Our Lord Yeshua hung like so much pulverised, koshered meat on the butcher hooks of Golgoleth (even unrecognisable as a normal human being according to Isaiah 52.14 in the Hebrew) the justice of God was satisfied. When Yeshua cried, "It is finished!" (John 19.30) he expired a satisfied Saviour. He well knew that in his act of the cross as the culmination, not only of his life's work, but of his minute, detailed, complex design of the ages -- thought out in blueprint form and submitted to the Father in eternal dialogue as the Word (logos) prior to any creative function in this universe -- the entire world had been saved.

John wrote, "The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world" (1 John 4.14). He further documented, "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made [including the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the Enchanter, even the circumstances surrounding Adam and Eve's temptation]. In him was life, and the Life was the light of men... That was the true Light which lights every man that comes into the world" (John 1.3,4,9).

It was also that life of which God prevented Reprobate Man from partaking and enjoying eternally (Genesis 3.22,23). It was God's purpose that in the form of the Jewish Yeshua he would die for each and every one of us, "lighting every man who comes into the world" -- not only for Christians but indeed for the entire world. Paul perceived this when he wrote, "We [Christians] both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe. These things charge and teach" (1 Timothy 4.10,11). The Messianic Community (the spiritual or mystical body of Mashiach, comprising both Christian Gentile believers and Messianic Jewish believers) is saved. This is the clear teaching of the Scripture, and all Christendom believes it. But Paul speaks here of a salvation within a salvation. The world was justified at the Messiah's death as we have already seen. Therefore, the world is awaiting its salvation and this is also the clear teaching of Scripture. Such is not, unfortunately, the prime teaching of western theological tradition and has not been since the rise of the apostate fourth century Constantinian church.

Scripture constantly challenges our cherished traditions but Yeshua the Messiah taught that his priests were to feel free in themselves to openly speak about these things. Yet to this day, the knowledge of the Grace of Messiah's salvation is shelved, gathering spiritual dust. John and Paul, especially in their later understanding of the significance of the Mashiach event, agreed wholeheartedly that the sacrifice of their Lord was truly efficacious. The Father had communicated to the Logos, in effect, "Go and save the world" (1 John 4.14). If ever there was a great commission from the invisible Father delegated to the One who became Yeshua the Messiah in the Incarnation, this was it. Yeshua did save the world. Yeshua is Lord. Yeshua did not fail to express in a satisfied way the Love of Deity toward a lost humankind.

"My little children... Yeshua the Mashiach the just... is the kapparah for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (1 John 2.1,2).

God's Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) inspired John and Paul to write these things. Has a conspiracy actually gripped the western and eastern divisions of the church to the point of all but silencing the first century documentation of Mashiach's awesome Lordship as Saviour of the world? One cannot help but consider that this is a credible possibility.

The Lord Yeshua did die for us and for the whole world. He paid the penalty for sin by becoming sin as he hung dying on the bloodied almond tree of Golgoleth.

During the last three hours of his torturous existence the Father alienated him in spiritual death and isolation from his presence while he was still conscious and capable of perception and reflection. In that dreadful moment the Messiah became the whole world and satisfied the justice of God. Yeshua entered a state of spiritual death. This was the death the Messiah died for the world. Not separation in everlasting torment, or everlasting unconsciousness. Rather, it was a state of separation for the purpose of reconciling the world and the universe to himself.

Separation, not for an eternity, but until God's justice was satisfied.

Put another way, until the game had been played out completely with himself not as defeated Victim and ultimate loser but as the only worthy Victor who took upon himself our personal identities.

Such a God as this One alone, is worthy of praise and worship.

QUESTIONS & ANALYSIS OF LECTURE FOUR

The Messianic Rebbe wrote: "Within that plan, purpose and intent 'the firstfruits of the harvest' have become the children of God (Ephesians 1.5)."

It has been the contention of this Messianic lecturer for decades that by the act of the Constantinian Church throwing out the "Jewish bathwater" along with the "Jewish baby" they lost all vital knowledge of the salvation plan and intent of God the Father for not just the human race but for the entirety of the universe.

Of course, we all know that the Jewish baby was Yeshua the Mashiach (replaced early by a cheap Gentile imitation and in the garb of Hellenistic homosexual philosophers -- long hair, effeminate features and long white frock from neck to feet -- and much later still called "Hail Zeus" and portrayed in similar fashion) and the Jewish bathwater was the Jewish trappings of the original Messianic movement, including (and in particular) the sacred agricultural (seasonal) calendar which outlined the several sequences of God's cosmic plan of salvation from the Passover to the Last Great Day.

The doctrine of the "firstfruits" of God in his Salvific intention for the human race -- which was associated directly with the festival of Shavuot or Pentecost -- therefore, was lost. In its stead confusion in relation to salvation reigns.

The Messianic Rebbe wrote: "Our sacred texts tell us that Adam "died." Our western theological tradition tells us Adam died eternally. Our western theological tradition tells us he was forever irrevocably lost. Our western theological tradition says our first parents had no further contact with the Lord. Our western theological tradition would have us believe that he was in a state of absolute eternal separation from God. Well, that is what our western theological tradition tells us."

Interestingly, Catholic theologians are beginning to slowly reassess the theology of Augustine. While staggeringly slow, such a move of the Spirit is welcome indeed. Catholic scholars now admit that prior to Augustine "in the Greek and other Fathers... there is in principle no doubt about the universality of God's salvific will... The later Augustine (at least after 418) no longer recognised in theological theory a universal salvific will for the massa damnata of fallen man." Rather, "God wills to manifest his just judgment by leaving many in the inherited ruin of sin... [Later] Prosper of Aquitaine once more teaches the universality of salvation, for this aspect of Augustine's doctrine was never regarded as binding. A not inconsiderate undercurrent can also be detected in the Fathers in favour of the apocatastasis [restoration or restitution] of all. Later the principle of the universality of salvation on God's part remained in essentials undisputed" (Karl Rahner [ed], Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi, 1975, 1502).

The Messianic Rebbe wrote: "Adam... had gone beyond the revealed God, caught in a web of a world of opposites... Here was ultimate Reprobate Man seared with a knowledge of ultimate dualism."

The surprising fact is (to some) that the very existence of hell (and I mean especially a hell that is unending) both undermines and then literally destroys God's UNITY and ONENESS altogether. This is because the existence of a never-ending torturous burning hell, where the incorrigible sinner continues on into a never-ending Christless night is the ultimate dualism. It remains a massive contradiction in relation to the Sh'ma as spelt out in Deuteronomy 6.4.  


The Messianic Rebbe wrote: "Here was the Original Sin. And it was limited to our Created Originals. That sin was theirs, not ours. What was passed on from generation to generation was, not some "Original Sin," but mortality and death."

Julian of Eclanum, a most articulate youthful Italian bishop and the leading intellectual of his day and age, engaged the great Augustine in the aging bishop's twilight years in a challenging, powerful theological debate involving the origin of evil and the drama of "Original Sin." The conflict between the two giants would ensue for twelve arduous years and end finally only with Augustine's last breath. With unusual insight and perceptive brilliance Julian systematically demolished Saint Augustine's internalised conceptions of human depravity.

Yet, paradoxically, Augustine's doctrines of gross ignorance have remained as a crippling legacy of despair to curse the western world while the very name of the man who vanquished his intellectually dwarfing superstitions has virtually faded from the records.

The questions remain. The conflict is now forgotten but to fortify their respective positions both Julian and Augustine were led back to a study of Genesis. Intriguingly, both parties claimed its authority in justifying their divergent theological positions. I am not suggesting for a moment that Julian was "good" and Augustine (no matter what I may personally think of him) must be classified as "bad" in comparison to the younger Julian. For, instead of the Gospel taking centre stage in their arguments, both antagonists were preoccupied with the dreaded evil of the spectre of death. From the documents I have studied they were both caught inextricably in a cycle of death.

THUS CONCLUDES LECTURE FOUR