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Week 46: Ezek. 20 - 33, 1 Peter 2 - 5, 2 Peter 1, Psalm 120 - 125

The Sins of The Fathers

In ancient eastern cultures, people had a very different sense of identity than modern Westerners. Understanding how they thought sheds light on a lot of Bible stories, especially in the Old Testament.

Among ancient tribal peoples like the Israelites, they tended to see their identity as being a part of a family or clan rather than as an individual. If you could have asked an ancient man to tell about himself, he would have told you what clan he was from and the traits of the clan; whether they were farmers, warriors, or musicians, etc. He would have told stories about his brave ancestors with great pride, assuming that those were a part of his own identity. His family would have worked together in everything, and prospered or suffered together. Considering the great difficulty in surviving in those days, only a group working together would have a chance.

At that time, it was understood that a the fate of the person was inextricable with the fate of the whole clan, and that if one sinned, especially the leader, they would all bear guilt and suffer misfortune for it. They would have seen it in the same way that if one hand is wounded, the whole person suffers, not just the hand. To us it doesn't seem at all just, but to their logic, it seemed reasonable. In some places in the Old Testament, God seems to be saying this too:

This pronouncement is understandably problematic for us. Last week in Ezekiel, we may have gotten some insight on this difficult matter. In chapter 18 we hear the same thinking about ancestral guilt from the people of Judah in the form of a proverb that they used to quote:

They quoted this in response to the suffering of the nation before they are forced to go to exile in Babylon. This, in effect, was to blame their parents for their punishment and assume they were innocent personally of wrongdoing. While this let them avoid remorse for sin, it also gave them a sense of hopelessness - no matter whether they repented, they would still suffer for the sins that their families had committed before them.

God tells them not to quote this proverb anymore. He strenuously disagrees with punishing children for the sins of their parents! Much of the chapter is written to make the point that God judges according the individual on his own terms, not in terms of the actions of his ancestors. It appears that God had a difficult time convincing them!

So, we see that God Himself sees that each person himself is accountable before Him, and that it is unjust to condemn people for sins committed before their time. Instead, God offers them a wonderful message of hope, if they will recognize their own sin and repent from it:

How do we interpret Exodus 20:5-6 in the light of this passage?

The picture of several generations being condemned for a sin may be describing the generational pattern of sin that we see in families. A father who abuses his wife often has sons who are wife-abusers. The same is true with alcoholism and other vices. Families do teach and reinforce patterns of sins (or righteousness) to their members that go on for generations. Could it be that the children aren't being punished for their parent's guilt, but that the children have carried on in the family sins themselves? The answer from Ezekiel is that the consequences of sin only extend to the generations that keep on in the sin of the ancestors. There is always hope, if the children will just repent and change their ways. God doesn't take pleasure in the judgment of anyone, but bids us all to repent and live!

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Week 47: Ezek. 34 - 47, 2 Peter 2 - 3, 1 John 1-3 , Psalm 126 - 131

Living Water Flowing...

Ezekiel is a strange book, filled with symbolic visions that are hard to understand. But, several of these images describe the coming of Jesus and His kingdom. In chapter 47 it describes how the prophet observes a little trickle of water flowing out from under the threshold of the temple. After walking 1000 cubits downstream, the trickle becomes ankle-deep, and then that much further again it becomes knee-deep, and then waist-deep, and then finally it becomes a river so deep and wide that it can't be crossed. This paradoxical river does a strange thing - it gets fuller as it flows away from its source. How can that be?

We discussed the symbolism of living water, or maim chaim earlier in this series. (See If Anyone is Thirsty). Throughout the Bible, it is understood that God is the source of living water - rain or springs that deliver life-giving, precious water to this dry land. In Eden, water flows out from the garden, where God dwells with man, and in Rev. 22:1, a river flows from under God's throne. In Jer. 17:13, God is called the "source of living water". Living water is a picture of the Holy Spirit, God's presence that flows out from Him into this world. Several times God promises to pour out His Spirit on the world in the last days:

And in the gospel of John we read this same idea:

It is beautiful to see how the image of living water flowing from the temple in Ezekiel 47 describes the outpouring of the Spirit that occurred at Pentecost. Of course, the Spirit first fell on the people at the temple as they were worshipping there, as tongues of flame settled on them. It was as if the Spirit started trickling out of the sanctuary to that little "puddle" of believers. But the trickle became ankle deep as they shared the gospel and many in the city believed, and then knee deep as they carried the gospel to the surrounding countries. Instead of running out of energy as it flowed, the river of God's Spirit got deeper and wider as it flowed.

Ezekiel tells us even more about this river of God's Spirit and its effects:

This picture describes the river flowing from Jerusalem southeast until it reaches the Dead Sea, about 12 miles away. The Dead Sea and the surrounding country is an image of total desolation. No fish or wildlife live in or near it, and surrounding it is a wasteland in which nothing grows because of the high salt content of the soil. The vision describes a stream that can accomplish the impossible - to heal the poisoned land and the dead water. This is what the Spirit can do - bring life to the spiritually dead, and bring healing to what looks hopeless. The trees remind us of Psalm 1:3 and Isa. 44:4 - they are people who bear much fruit because of God's presence in their lives. Even in times of drought they bear fruit because their source of living water is without fail.

Our ministry, En-Gedi, gets its name from this passage and others. En-Gedi is a spring in this area of the Judean desert near the Dead Sea. The Essenes in Jesus' time decided to live in camps at En-Gedi and Qumran, a few miles away. They were convinced that soon God would make this vision a reality and make the desolate land a paradise. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found at Qumran - evidence of their expectant waiting for God's outpouring of living water.

But we chose En-Gedi because we want to be like it ourselves. En-Gedi is an oasis, a place of refreshment in the bleak desert. Jesus said that "whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." (John 4:14) and also of those who believe in Him, "from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water." We pray that through our ministry of teaching His Word, that the Lord will pour out His living water through us so that...

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Week 48: Ezek. 48, Daniel, Hosea 1-2, 1 John 4 - 3 John, Jude ,
Psalm 132 - 136

Son of God, Son of Man

We will be reading the book of Daniel this week. Like Ezekiel, Daniel has many symbolic visions, and even though they are strange, some of them are very important for describing the coming of Jesus and His kingdom. One of the most important passages is in Daniel 7:13 - 14:

This passage is about the Messianic king. God had promised David that one of his own offspring would have a kingdom without end (2 Sam 7:13), and this is who is being described here. Daniel has visions of many kingdoms rising to power, but the final kingdom that conquers them all is this kingdom of the Messiah. And this is the scene of the the great King coming to take His seat of honor and receive authority over all creation.

The most significant part of this passage is the description of the Messiah as "one like a son of man". The term "son of man" is often used poetically in the Old Testament to refer to a human being. Often it emphasizes that the human being is merely mortal and not divine, like in Psalm 8:

Many Christians have assumed that when Jesus uses the phrase to describe Himself, He is emphasizing His humanity. That appears to be true in some places. But people are often unaware that the phrase "Son of Man" was one of the most powerful Messianic claims, because of this amazing passage in Daniel that describes the incredible glory that is given to this particular "Son of Man", who is also the Son of David who is the Messianic King.

When we now look closer at how Jesus uses the phrase "Son of Man" to refer to himself, we can see that He is often referring to Himself in terms of this passage!

We can see these in scenes the Son of Man coming in the clouds and the picture of Jesus having great glory, just as in Daniel. Here Jesus is hinting to His great glory as the Messiah by alluding to these passages, as He does many places.

While Jesus frequently refers to Himself using the term "Son of Man", it is rare in the rest of the New Testament for anyone else to refer to Him in this way. In the places where they do, they are clearly reflecting the picture of the glorious messiah in Daniel 7:

So, the passage in Daniel predicting the Son of Man coming in glory is central to what Jesus says about his own future, and is a prominent image in the New Testament to describe the glorified Christ on the throne in heaven. This explains Jesus' usage of the term as prophetic toward His return as judge at the end of time, and also shows that He didn't regard Himself only as a humble human being, but as the predicted messiah who would have a kingdom without end.

The Suffering of the Son of Man

While it is clear that Son of Man is often used by Jesus to describe Himself as the Messianic King who has authority, glory and power, He also says something that is a paradox - that the Son of Man must suffer and die:

One scholar, Dr. Steve Notley, came upon a hypothesis for how the Jewish people had come to understand who the "Son of Man" was going to be. In the few hundred years before Jesus, during the rule of the Greeks, the Jews had suffered terribly for trying to be faithful to God. This was very difficult for them to understand theologically, because before they had been attacked by enemies when they lapsed into idolatry, but now they were killed if they were faithful to God. The rabbis began to ask how could God bring justice to all the people who had been killed because they refused to forsake him.

They looked back to their scriptures and saw the first innocent victim of murder in the Bible, Abel. He was murdered by his brother Cain because God accepted his worship because he was more righteous than Cain's (Genesis 4:4-8, 1 John 3:12). Abel became the forerunner and representative of all the righteous people that had been killed for being faithful. Jesus says so in Matt. 23:35: "And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar."

They noted that Abel was the son of Adam, or ben Adam. In Hebrew "adam" can be a proper name, or it can just mean "man" or "human", so "ben adam" can mean either son of Adam or Son of Man. So they imagined that in Daniel 7, the messianic king who came on the clouds of heaven was one like Abel, the first Son of Adam that had died for being righteous. Like him, he would suffer and be murdered, but then would come on the clouds in glory to judge. It appears that they understood that the reason God gave Jesus authority to rule over all mankind is precisely because He walked on earth as a human, and suffered and died as a righteous man!

This understanding of "Son of Man" links two paradoxical things we have known about the messiah - that He would suffer and die, as in Isaiah 53, but yet He would be a victorious king as in Daniel 7. This has been a problem for many, and some even postulate that two messiahs would need to come - one to suffer, and one to reign. But this figure of the Son of Man would first die as a righteous man, but then would be resurrected to glory, and be given authority to judge. It is fascinating that Jesus could link, extract, and create multidimensional meanings with such a "simple" phrase to teach us so much about Himself!

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