How Israel is Corporately Redeemed

The corporate understanding, first of Adam, then of Israel, is really the right starting place for understanding the good news of God for the world. If we want to say that the God of the Bible is our God, and that, for example, His ten commandments apply to us, then we must begin by acknowledging that He is our God - not because we lay claim to Him but because He lays claim to us. How he lays claim to Israel is very plain to see. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." It is because of this that Israel is commanded to have no other gods than the God who has corporately redeemed her from Egypt. But how is it seen that God lays claim to us who are not Israelites so that we might understand his ten commandments as applying to us also?

We need to take a step back. I am not sure what approach you take to interpreting the account of Creation in Genesis, but whatever approach anyone takes, it should be clear that if the Bible is read in its own terms of reference it teaches that Adam is defined by God equally as a corporate entity as an individual entity, equally as a family entity that is fruitful and multiplies as an individual entity that can be identified either as a male or a female. Indeed, it can be seen from the Bible that God did not design Adam as a self-sufficient individual or group of individuals who then had the choice to love or not to love, so that the individual could be defined as complete with or with out love and love could be defined as something that was non-essential to the individual's definition by the design of the Creator. To the contrary, it is written of the individual Adam that it was not good that he should be alone; he was not a complete creation like the other creatures until love was an inherent part of his definition, until he - and she - were able to be fruitful and multiply out of love, until Adam was corporate. So then, once Adam was a corporate creature, a creature of love, then the male was defined as an individual in relation to the female and the female was defined as an individual in relation to the male, and so would it be with their offspring. First the corporate, then the individual. In this way God was pleased with his creature and with all of his creation and saw it as being very good. Now before we can understand anything else, we must understand that when God acted to redeem the creature, Adam that he had made, he acted to redeem it in the way that it pleased him to create it, first as a corporate entity, then, out of the corporate the individuals who derived from the corporate.

We also need to look at the question of what it means to say that God, the Creator of all, is uniquely called the God of Israel. Why is this? When correcting the Sadducees for not believing in the resurrection of the dead Yehoshua (Jesus) said to them that God is not the God of the dead but of the living. We understand that the hope of the resurrection to eternal life is not the inheritance of all but only toward those who convert to the way of repentance from sin and of faith toward God. Adam, without repentance, is counted by God as condemned, as though he were dead already. Because Adam is first corporate, (not first an individual), by the design of creation, all who are of Adam are counted as dead, as though they were dead already, (Romans 5, II Corinthians 5). If Adam were first an individual and only then by an act of free will corporate then the condemnation that came upon him for his sin would have come upon him alone as an individual and not upon the whole of his corporate family. We must also see clearly that the promise made of the seed of the woman in the garden was not given to Adam personally but was made as a promise against the serpent and in Adam's hearing. Thus, there was reason there for Adam as an individual to have hope but corporately speaking this was a judgement upon Adam because the promise as a corporate promise for humanity was being given through and therefore to the seed of the woman and not to Adam. Only when, for the first time, God gave Abraham the promise of blessing and of blessing humanity through him and his seed was the corporate promise of good news first given to any sinner. Before this, the same promise was alluded to by God in dealing with sinners, such as in the case of Noah, but the promise itself was not given to Noah or anyone else before Abraham. The covenant with Noah and all creatures only specified a mitigated judgement; this was an allusion to good news but cannot be called the good news itself.

When all there was in the world was the curse of God, suddenly the good news of the blessing of God came in the form of God's promise, which was made both to Abraham and to the seed of Abraham, and was given by God personally to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. We see now that it was possible for God to make this corporate promise of blessing, and therefore of atonement and resurrection unto eternal life, to these fathers of Israel, who were sinners because he made that promise through and to that seed of Abraham who is his holy Mashiach (Christ). This is the understanding of the corporate redemption of Israel as the corporate redemption of Adam. As there is this chosen branch of corporate Adam which is given a new corporate head, the Son of Adam, the Last Adam, (Daniel 7:13; Matthew 9:6; Romans 5, II Corinthians 15), the first Adam is removed from the headship of the redeemed body of humanity. For Christian theology to have said for so long that Christ redeems only individuals and then God assembles them into a new corporate entity that never existed in any form before has only created confusion on every level. For replacement theology to continue to maintain this teaching today, after the Holocaust, is no longer tolerable. It is time for this to be rectified.

In my next installment in this series of emails I will speak specifically about how Israel as a corporate entity can be forgiven when even the majority of the Jews have yet to recognize the person and work of their Mashiach (Messiah).

May Israel's Savior save us in all our thought and words and actions.

John 8:6

In tractate Bava Basra 54a of the Babylonian Talmud, in speaking about the process of laying claim to property, one method that is refered to is that of drawing a picture upon the property, (such as upon a building), to show one's ownership of the property by beautifying it.

In John 8:6 we read that Yehoshua knelt down and drew or wrote upon the ground. This 'mark' is the only 'mark' that Yehoshua is recorded to have made by hand. He made it directly on the Land of Israel.

Repentance, Resurrection and Regeneration

Abraham was born cursed by God with all other people in his father, Adam, but God promised him blessing and to be a blessing to all families. Upon the basis of this promise of blessing repentance came to mean something far more in Israel than it could ever mean outside of the realm of this promise. This is the true meaning of Israel's 'baptism' in the Jordan river.

Only with the promise to Abraham could repentance bring hope in the face of the curse, yet repentance was possible for Adam even under the curse of God. Still, the possibility of Adam's repentance could never itself alter God's curse. It was not repentance under the curse of God that brought the promise of blessing into the world. It was the grace of the will of God alone.

*** Valley of the Jordan River near Beth Shean ***

The promise of blessing came as a word from God that would somehow overcome the curse of God. It could not simply take the place of the curse which came as an act of God's righteous justice on account of sin. Somehow the blessing of God promised to Abraham would have to transcend the curse of God without ever altering the judgement of God which decreed the curse, including the curse of death, for Adam's sin and all subsequent sin following in the wake of Adam's sin.

Repentance under the curse of God could have no reward other than its own goodness. Even if it brought forgiveness this would not entail a change in the word of God. This principle can be seen if illustrated by a case where someone murdered a loved one of a judge. After the judge passed a death sentence upon the murderer, it might come about that the murderer repented of the sin. It might also happen that a relationship ensued between the repentant murderer and the judge resulting in the judge personally forgiving the murderer. This would not change the sentence, just as it would not bring the murdered person back from the dead. For the death sentence did not come from the personal relationship between the judge and the murderer in the first place but from the justice of the law, which is applied to all people in the same way.

If after the sentence is carried out the judge were to have the power to raise the murderer from the dead it would then matter greatly whether the murder had been repentant or not and whether the judge had forgiven the murder or not. And indeed, God, who created all things from nothing had the power to raise the dead. Accordingly, the promise of blessing given to Abraham has everything to do with the resurrection of the dead.

When Abraham believed the promise of God he received the hope of the resurrection of the dead, and when anyone else believes the promise of God to Abraham, the promise of blessing, they receive the hope of the resurrection of the dead. In receiving this hope the soul receives a spirit from the power of that resurrection itself. This spirit is life that comes from the World To Come, the New Creation, the spirit of regeneration. In crossing 'through' the Jordan River Israel passed corporately into the world of God's promise, the world where repentance and regeneration were two aspects of one action. When all Israel came down to the Jordan to the prophet Yohanan to be immersed the confession was being made that the original crossing was spiritually deficient and needed rectification and completion in Israel's heart.

Poetic Commentary on Yehoshua's Prayer

Our Father who is in heaven - Israel's Father, our Father, who is in the Heaven of heavens alone,

hollowed be your name - Re-create our heart and lips with your name.

your kingdom come - Lift your kingdom, your daughter, up into your arms, your warm embrace.

your will be done on earth as it is in heaven - Flood the earth with the knowledge of your name and with those who do your will, as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread - Give us again today a share of your existence, for we can create no existence on our own.

And forgive us our debts - Forgive us the debts we owe to your Life-Giving Word, even those damages caused by the wind of our wings, as we forgive the debts that are owed by others to us.

And lead us not into temptation - for, even if we take one step without your Presence, light itself becomes a temptation to us.

But deliver us from evil - Deliver us from ourselves, for, without your Presence, we always turn the wrong way and fall into evil.

Bamidbar

G-d's commandment of the firstborn, of the Levite, of the Tabernacle, etc., is Israel. This means G-d's commandment to temporal Israel is to become eternal Israel. This is to say, The commandment brings Israel to G-d, and so, in coming to G-d by the commandment, Israel is Israel - brings Israel to G-d, that is, in accordance, in each commandment, with the "permitted purpose of Adam's existence," and so Israel is Israel. In this principle of the commandment bringing Israel to G-d and to herself, the commandment of the firstborn, and those commandments associated with it, can be fulfilled completely by Israel only together with Mashiach. See ArtScroll Interlinear Bamidbar p.9 nt. 51 > also, as per reference there, Menchos 27b.

This is the meaning of corporate Israel, which is to say, Adam according to the design of G-d, which allows relationship with G-d in a manner which sustains and does not destroy Adam. For if it were not for Adam being defined by G-d's mercy and judgment in Mashiach, the Son of Adam, Adam would be destroyed on account of the action of sin. According to this re-definition of Adam is the corporate redemption of Adam, that is to say, the corporate redemption of Israel through/in/by Yehoshua HaMashiach. "In this way God loved the world..." John 3:16. Every specification of the Torah is established in him. When anyone begins to think that they replace the Torah they immediately lose all true understanding and leave themselves and all who follow them with no hope except the non-expressible grace of G-d. And concerning this prospect for the nations, the gentiles, as we say, we have an example of this, for if they are cut off a second time there is no assurance, and the only hope left is the non-expressible grace of God. Romans 11:21-24. But now the grace of G-d is expressed for all the world to understand, for all who would hear. It is expressed in Yehoshua's laying down his life to save Israel from all humiliation. And just as he laid down his life to do this, so he took it up again by the commandment of his Father in heaven as the demonstration of the power given him to lead all Israel into victory over the fear and love of Egypt, the fear and love of Babyon, Persia, Greece and Rome in their hearts.

Truth and History

The term historicity refers to whether something reported is true in history.  In modern times the historicity of the whole of the Bible has been brought into question and denied by many.  The real question behind this issue is the question of why people believe that anything in particular is true and not false.

That people believe what they want to believe is shown clearly by the practice of idolatry.  That people can just as easily disbelieve what they want to disbelieve is shown clearly by the phenomena of Holocaust denial.

The supposed authority of science and scholarship is a movable foundation of sand for building any possible certainty upon.  Even the most honest court system is fallible.  There can be and is only one unmovable, infallible foundation of truth and that is G-d Himself and His Torah.  If we would be certain of the Good News of Yehoshua of Nazareth we can only be certain on the basis of conviction from the Spirit of G-d of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, a conviction that is based upon the Torah of G-d.

It is only through such a conviction that we can come to repentance and faith toward the God of Israel.  Questions about the historicity of the Good News or the Torah arise when we begin to think from an assumption that we are capable of seeing evidence clearly and judging it to come to a conclusion about what is true and what is false.  If we trust scholars or scientests as expert witnesses in making such judgments, we trust that their minds and hearts are pure enough from bias and all moral corruption to be able to cross-reference their evidence to be able to test their theories and prove them to our physical senses or sensibilities.

Thus when we judge according to the proofs of scholarship and science we buy into the philosophy of materialism, the philosophy that nothing is true or real that cannot be proved in terms of physical matter or physical energy.  By definition materialism rules out the existence of G-d who is spirit before it even begins to present its case concerning the veracity of the Biblical record.  There can, therefore, be no possibility of minds that are able to begin thinking only with the paradigm of materialism to understand the words of the Biblical record, and yet they proceed to give evidence against its historicity and to judge it.  As this is the case, there can be no discussion with such thought on this level.

There is only one leve of discussion that is possible and that is the level of morality.  Only when by the testimony of the Torah of G-d, given through Moshe or given by Yehoshua, has brought someone to actually listen to the words of the Bible will the Bible itself, with the help of G-d's Spirit, teach them how to understand it.  For to begin to understand the Bible one must begin to learn to understand the world in terms of G-d's will, then of G-d's wisdom, compassion, grace and judgment.  When one has learned to understand the world in terms of G-d's mercy then, and only then, will one be able to begin to learn to understand the nature of the material world and one's perception of the physical world of physical matter and energy.  For time and space are not what they seem to be to mortal beings.  The physical universe is not an existence in itself, but is an expression of the mercy of G-d, by which He allows it to exist conditioned upon His own eternal and unsearchable purpose of love.

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How We Can Obey The God of Israel

The reason that there is truth and goodness in Christianity is because all the things that its replacement theology has always said about Israel and the relationship of Jesus - Yehoshua - and Israel are not true.

God's Good News to the nations is not that some individual Jews received His anointed one. His Good News is that his anointed one came to his own as he was sent to them by their God and did not forsake them in death, but gave new life and salvation to his people, his nation, Israel, through his resurrection from the dead. This is God's Good News! And this Yehoshua demonstrated by sharing his own power of obedience to their God with that portion of Jews who then began to receive him. This is God's Good News to the nations, even as it is His Good News to Israel.

This now is how Israel can obey their God, with the power of the Messiah's resurrection from the dead. And this now is how the nations can obey the God of Israel, by repenting of going their own way and thinking their own thoughts, by instead believing this Good News about Israel and her Messiah, and turning toward her and joining with her, supporting her in her new resurrection power of Torah obedience.

Accordingly, because Jesus - Yehoshua - did not bring a judgment of rejection upon Israel, upon the nation of his own people, (for it was not possible that the natural mind of human beings should be able to receive the revelation of the new creation of God), there is truth and goodness within Christianity, (as the faith of those gentiles who have heard and responded to God's Good News for Israel has come to be called). And this is despite the fact that Christianity as an organization has come to teach replacement theology, replacing the whole of Israel, in their mistaken understanding, with the part, the part which those who teach replacement theology see as their own foundation.

Because the opposite of what is taught in replacement theology is true and replacement theology is false, because salvation was accomplished by Yehoshua for the whole of Israel, even the sin and error of replacement theology which is found in Christianity cannot take away the truth and goodness of Yehoshua which is found there and Christians can be forgiven for the error of replacement theology. For replacement theology shall fall away and be forgotten and only the beauty of the truth and goodness of Christianity shall remain, having been preserved by the glory of God's grace and love toward Israel.

See part two of this posting here:

How We Can Obey The God of Israel - Part Two