ALIVE: Chapter 188 The Law, the Son, and the Spirit

Locking the gates of Paradise behind Him after expelling Adam and Eve, God ascended to His throne room in heaven to observe from afar the theater that is the earth and all of His creation, the vegetation and trees, the soulless sea creatures, the emotional land animals lacking reason, and the fallen human destined to live in vain and descend into Hades.

Thousands of years went by before God was ready to lift humanity from the quagmire of ignorance by giving Moses the Torah and the Law.

Psalm 1

Blessed is the man

Who walks not in the council of the ungodly

Nor stands in the path of sinners

Nor sits in the seats of the scoffers

But his delight is in the law of the Lord

And in His law he meditates day and night

….

2 Esdras 7:3-17

I said, “Speak, my lord.” And he said to me. “There is a sea set in a wide expanse so that it is deep and vast, but it has an entrance set in a narrow place, so that it is like a river. If there are those who wish to reach the sea, to look at it or to navigate it, how can they come to the broad part unless they pass through the narrow part?” Another example: There is a city built and set on a plain, and it is full of all good things; but the entrance to it is narrow and set in a precipitous place, so that there is fire on the right hand and deep water on the left. There is only one path lying between them, that is, between the fire and the water, so that only one person can walk on the path. If now the city is given to someone as an inheritance, how will the heir receive the inheritance unless by passing through the appointed danger?”

I said,  “That is right, lord.” He said to me, “So also is Israel’s portion. For I made the world for their sake, and when Adam transgressed My statutes, what had been made was judged. And so the entrances of this world were made narrow and sorrowful and toilsome; they are few and evil, full of dangers and involved in great hardships.  But the entrances of the greater world are broad and safe, and yield the fruit of immortality. Therefore unless the living pass through the difficult and futile experiences, they can never receive those things that have been reserved for them (I.e., the greater world). Now therefore why are you disturbed, seeing that you are to perish? Why are you moved, seeing that you are mortal? Why have you not considered in your mind what is to come, rather than what is now present?”

Then I answered and said, “O sovereign Lord, you have ordained in your law that the righteous shall inherit these things, but the ungodly shall perish. The righteous, therefore, can endure difficult circumstances while hoping for easier ones but those who have done wickedly have suffered the difficult circumstances and will never see the easier ones.”

…

One: the Law.

The Law is Life. Knowing what the Creator expects from His simple replicas was the first step closer to restoring Adam’s relationship with God, the relationship he had before the death sentence. Before Adam and Eve chose to disobey, because they distrusted God and chose rather to trust the serpent. Instead of one command, there would be ten, and then hundreds. Undoing the knowledge of good and evil is impossible. Each knowledgeable human being needs to squeeze through the treacherous evil to arrive at the wide place of hope and peace in the Lord God, and immortality, to receive the original design from humanity’s creator.

Naturally people, sometimes and some rabbis misinterpreted the law, or simply ignored it or disobeyed the law. But it was there, the law was as the north star shining brightly in the dark night sky. The chosen people of God who were granted this golden gift wanted to obey the law. They formed synagogues and the Temple where they worshipped and taught each other about their one and only God during the centuries when most human beings made their own gods to worship, even worshipping created nature.

Prophets arose, holy men and brave women heard God speak to them and relayed the messages to the chosen, the Jews. They lived in a world drenched in the juice of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, a zillion egos and wars, slavery, and ignorance, the narrow path.

The Law was the link, like a luminous rope to heaven to help them rise above the knowledge of good and evil. Moses taught them and led them. To the tribes of Jacob, Moses was like the moon shining in the night, with enough light to see where they came from and how to walk toward their God. The people fell and got up again, over and over and over again. They angered their God over and over, and then He forgave them in their repentance and blessed them over and over and over. The pressure from the evil one was too great to keep them from falling. They were like infants learning to walk after crawling.

Two: Jesus.

The next step up to reunion occurred when God visited the earth more than a thousand years later. Born as an infant, Jesus interacted with humankind by teaching, healing and performing miracles to show us the power of the original design. He was called the Son of God, and the Son of Man.

More importantly, the Son expiated the evil sin of disobedience and distrust that caused death, and then He overcame death by opening the gates of Hades to release the captives there, and resurrected Himself. He returned to the earth and His brethren to proove His victory. Through Jesus, God gave mankind the option of immortality. Jesus took the law to the next step of reunion with the Creator by annihilating the curse of death.

Jesus was of the chosen people, one relatively small ethnicity or nation among hundreds of nations around the world. At the time that He lived wise Greeks and powerful Romans were the more advanced in the world than the Jews. When the Greeks came to visit Jesus, He knew the world was ripe. The bud of uniqueness was blossoming and soon nation after nation, and all peoples would be offered the opportunity to join the universal multicultural people of God. But first the person had to want to follow Jesus, be washed clean in baptism, and be fed His body and blood, and finally experience Step Three.

Three: Pentecost.

Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, the incarnation of the Creator of the universe, the re-uniter of humanity with God, the annihilator of death, having returned to His heavenly Kingdom, sealed the reunion with God (who is the giver of life - hence becoming ALIVE in all caps) not just with the Jews, His chosen people, but through Jesus with all of humankind. Having been made in God’s image and likeness, humankind, like God who is free and sovereign, must also be free and sovereign. So, this reunion must be by the will of the human who may also be drawn, but not forced into union with God. We must want to be ALIVE.

“A little while, and you will no longer see Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me.”  Then some of His disciples said to one another, “What does He mean by saying to us, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me,’ and ‘because I am going to the Father’?”

Jesus knew what they wanted to ask Him, so He said to them, “… I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.  When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.  On that day you will ask nothing of Me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in My name, He will give it to you.  Until now you have not asked for anything in My name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.” John 16:16-18

“If you love  Me, you will keep My commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.  This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him because He abides with you, and He will be in you. In a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you also will LIVE.

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.  On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.  They who have My commandments (the law) and keep them are those who love Me, and those who love Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love them and reveal Myself to them.”

Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will reveal Yourself to us and not to the world?”  Jesus answered him, “Those who love Me will keep My word, and My Father will love them, and We will come to them and make Our home with them.  Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words, and the word that you hear is not Mine but is from the Father who sent Me. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.  “I have said these things to you while I am still with you.

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.  You heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.  And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur you may believe.  I do as the Father has commanded Me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us be on our way. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over Me.” John: 14:16-30

…

Fifty days after God freed His chosen people from their slavery in Egypt and they passed through the Red Sea as if on land, Moses brought down from Sinai where he met and spoke with God, the Ten Commandments. Moses relayed the Torah and the Law to the people. Step One to the restoration of our relationship with God, our Father.

Fifty days after Jesus  (His only begotten Son, light of light, true God of true God) overcame death, crashing through the curse, He completed the possibility of humankind’s reunion with our Father.

One Two Three. The Law. Jesus. Pentecost. Full Circle.

Pentecost. The finishing touch of reunion. Body, Blood, and Spirit of God renews the “volunteer” with the purity and strength of God. Unity. Love. Trust. LIFE.

Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit descending on those to whom It has been granted, in order to worship God in Spirit and in Truth is to live fully ALIVE.

Can it be a coincidence that the Passover and the Crucifixion are linked, followed by the handing down of the Law fifty days after Passover and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit fifty days after the resurrection? Impossible. It is a message that  reveals God’s plan from the beginning for immortal life of free human beings. Chosen and choosing.

It’s about return to the garden of Eden and reaching the tree of life planted in the center surrounded by the twirling flames. Genesis 3:24 “He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden He placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.”

First Jesus, and then we, crash through the sword flaming and turning to reach the tree of life. This is what it means to be ALIVE. Men and women throughout time, even during the long period before Jesus appeared, and only the Law and the Prophets were the guides, yet the Jews carried the torch, walking through the cold dark world they walked into sunrise. Son-rise.

Genesis quotes God as saying that the day begins at sunset and gradually the sun rises and brings daylight. So too the law and the prophets were as the moonlight, until the Son of God heralded the sunshine by offering union with God through the Holy Spirit.

ALIVE: The Beginning.

June 23, 2024