Messiah Before the Foundations - Part 2

[00:00:00] Good morning, friends. Now to the fun part. It's all been fun. It's all been good. [00:00:07] To the study, to the challenge, the promised series about. Well, I can tell you exactly when. About when we started the book of Bereshit, I made a statement that we're going to start learning about creation. It was an appropriate time to do that. Unfortunately, schedules and attendance and events and all kinds of things delayed that. But here we are at a different kind of beginning, the gregorian beginning, but nevertheless, still a beginning, the first service in 2017. So we're going to take a look at, if you saw my email, something extremely powerful. [00:00:57] Messiah in the beginning. [00:01:00] Now, last week, it was confirmed for me that this was the time, as I was speaking about Israel last week, and I was mentioning God in a certain way, as being hidden. And in some of my studies in creation, and a lot of stuff that I've learned over the years, there's also a thought of God hidden from creation as a whole. But the more important thing, the more important confirmation was that someone asked me a question after very seemingly simple, straightforward question, do you believe that Yeshua is God? [00:01:49] It's a good, good question. And the answer, it seems, should be incredibly easy. [00:01:59] But that depends on where you're coming from. [00:02:04] And so with that, I want to plunge into the depths of Torah and into the depths of hashem. This is truly my favorite part of my job, but it's actually somewhat from a selfish place, because in doing things like this, who benefits the most? Me. [00:02:29] Me. Because my spiritual development, my understanding of God, my relationship with him, and saying that God is our creator, our sustainer of the universe, our provider, our protector, our redeemer, these are very big jobs that we're giving him. Right? Giving him. That's a little presumptuous. But I want to understand some, because we'll never be able to understand the depths, depths, depths of God. [00:03:06] But in study, in prayer, I want to know as much as I can, and I think that's reasonable, and I think that God wants us to do that. I am not a huge proponent of the idea of blind faith. [00:03:24] I think God has revealed himself in so many ways that you don't have to do it blindly, but in understanding even some of the depths of God, we have these aha. Moments, moments that are life changing, really life changing. [00:03:46] And I love to transfer those aha. Moments. I have them plenty. [00:03:52] If you were in the synagogue during the week and I didn't know you were there, you might even walk by my office and hear me say, aha. [00:04:02] And I like to try to transfer those to you. As a matter of fact, that's why I do what I do. It's my job. But it is my joy to try to connect that and to hopefully allow windows in your mind to open that let in the amazing light of God's spectacular awesomeness to illuminate your eyes. But there is a challenge. [00:04:33] I spend hours, weeks, days, months, years learning about the things. And I know we're all in a certain way, students, but when you do it from this side, you better know what you're talking about. So I spend tons of time, and then what happens? I'm working through all these massive deep concepts and then I come here and I have about 40 minutes to share it with you. [00:05:07] And they're paradigm shifting things sometimes, and that is not easy. Someone one time described Nakumuami. They were comparing being here to where they had come from, and they said coming here is like getting a master's degree or a PhD coming out of an elementary school. The truth is, you do need to think. [00:05:33] I want you to think. I don't want you to come in here and sit down and say, wow, that really made me feel good. I'm going to go out here and develop these three ways to be a better dad. [00:05:47] Those are important things, but you can do that on your own. You can read smart dads, rich dads, or whatever it is. [00:05:57] I want to make you think. I can't make you think. But what I will give you is the opportunity to think. I will give you that. [00:06:08] And that's not to toot my own horn to say that I'm giving you a theological phd here. But what we're doing is pretty deep. Now, no offense, you have four types who are sitting in this congregation. Like any college class, you have four types. [00:06:29] And as I already said, no offense, did you get that? As I say, these, no offense. [00:06:36] Number one, the half twos. [00:06:40] I'm going to come to Shabbat because I have to. I mean, I'm going to just kind of let it go in one ear and out the other. Then we have the sleep throughs. [00:06:51] Do I need to say anything else? And I won't name any names. [00:06:56] Then we have the no shows. [00:06:59] I'm not coming to class today. I'm skipping. I'd rather stay in this warm bed. And then we have what I hope is all of us, the mind blows, the people who open eyes, pins working, hearts moving, things stirring. And God gets bigger. And the truth is, for the first three, I love you, but I don't have to worry about you. [00:07:27] The last one. [00:07:30] I'm here for you, baby. [00:07:35] Why push the envelope? [00:07:38] Push. [00:07:40] Why not just be happy with the status quo, with the five parts on how to love my wife more? [00:07:49] Well, first of all, the reason and the way to love your wife more is right there. [00:07:54] It's behind there, and it's written on a scroll, and it's embedded within you in the Holy Spirit. And Yeshua gave you that gift. Doesn't mean you don't study. It doesn't mean you don't learn. But why push the envelope in here? Because discussion, dialogue and even. Are you ready for this? Disagreement can breed growth. [00:08:18] And we need to growth, grow. As a matter of fact, I think that the idea of total agreement is one of the most stagnating concepts in religious history. Then, now and future. You will not agree with everything I say. [00:08:39] You just won't. And it's okay. [00:08:43] You don't have to. [00:08:47] But by the way, the idea of total agreement is very, very far from jewish thought. [00:08:58] Part of growth is discussion and sometimes disagreement. We can be okay with that. [00:09:06] I can tell you we're going to look at some things that you may not have ever thought of or heard about, and that's okay. And that's good. And you may have more questions when we're done, and that's good. [00:09:18] My prayer, my job, my intention is to lend clarity to make God bigger in your mind, in your mind. I can't make him any bigger than he really is, but I want to do that by lending clarity to big concepts. Big concepts that can be difficult to process. Asking, answering questions, praying for wisdom and insight. We, you and me, grow together in him. [00:09:49] And so does that sound good? [00:09:54] Then let's go. [00:09:56] Where will we go? To the beginning, of course. [00:09:59] To the beginning. [00:10:01] Boreshit bara elohim vetz et hashemayam v'etcha arats. Translation. You know it, right at or in the beginning, God created or was creating the heavens and the earth. See, even right there in the first sentence of the Torah, there's jewish disagreement. Was he creating or did he create or was it at creation or in creation? But anyway, that's how it all starts. Boreshit bara elohim et hashemayam veha. [00:10:37] And then we go to Inorhi in halogos, kihologos in prostom, teon kitos in hologos, utos in arhiprostom, theon. [00:10:51] Got it. [00:10:54] That's what I was looking for. [00:10:56] Thank you. It's all greek. To me, in the beginning in Arhi, in the beginning in Greek, who says this? [00:11:09] Yohanan. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God. And the word was God. Or better translated in the Greek, God was the word. [00:11:20] That's what it actually says. [00:11:23] He was with God in the beginning. All things came to be through him, and without him, nothing made had being. So there is the beginning of the world and mashiach, separated by some number of years, a whole lot of letters, a whole Torah, prophets, writings. And there it is in the beginning. [00:11:49] Where does this put us? First of all, in terms of, and I say this again, not in any kind of offensive or derogatory way, but in terms of traditional christian theology, where does this put us? [00:12:05] Well, Jesus, and I say Jesus in this context because I'm looking at it specifically from the greek way. [00:12:15] Jesus is his English, Greek, Latin, from Hebrew name. [00:12:21] So if we look at it from the traditional perspective, Jesus, or maybe some pre incarnate Jesus, we'll come back to that was there with God right in the beginning. He was in heaven. And when it came time to create the world, God said to this Jesus, he said, go do it. And everything was done. And there it was. [00:12:47] And the proof text is easy for this position. [00:12:54] Genesis 126. Let us create man in our image. Or if that's not good enough, let's go to Paul and let's look at Colossians in verse one, chapter one. He is the visible image of the invisible God. He's supreme over all creation, because in connection with him were created all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones, lordships, rulers or authorities, they have all been created through him. And for him. He existed before all things. He holds all things together. There it is. Bottom line, christian theology going back almost 2000 years says there it is. [00:13:40] What we've got here is the field of christology. [00:13:45] Different than theology, but still a theological concept. Right. Christology, the high or low christology, the study basically of Yeshua. [00:13:59] It's primarily concerned with the nature and person of Jesus as recorded in the canonical Gospels, the epistles of the New Testament. Here's the truth. Yeshua is a manifestation of God. Here are the assumptions that go into the christian theological concept of Yeshua. [00:14:18] Yeshua is God. [00:14:21] Yeshua and the Father are one. Yeshua existed hypostatically. That means fully God, fully human. He exists in three manifestations. [00:14:32] He's been active throughout the history of man, beginning at creation until now. Anywhere we see manifestations of God in the Old Testament, here we have who doing something. Yeshua. These are the assumptions that support the basic high Christology of most christian organizations, religions, churches, groups. [00:14:57] There is, and I just say it plainly, some challenge, there is some problem in some of those things based not on opinion, but based on the text, based on the scripture. [00:15:15] And this is one little, small consideration that I've tried to wonder. [00:15:24] How many times has Yeshua come? [00:15:29] Once, right? How many times is he coming? [00:15:34] Twice. He's come. He's coming back. So, if Yeshua was. [00:15:44] If Yeshua was who Joshua bowed down to, if Yeshua was who Hagar met in the wilderness, if Yeshua was any number of other things, then we're up to about his 10th or 15th coming, and the next one's going to be his 16th. That's not how it works, so don't get confused about that. I'm going to come back around and also back to what I said in the beginning. If you hear me say something that you disagree with, do not close your ears and tune out. You have to stay till the end, and the end might be six weeks from now. So, who was there in the beginning? [00:16:41] Who was there? [00:16:43] Well, we know. We just learned about what christian theology says and teaches, even to the degree that, of course, when God said, let us create, that there was Yeshua by his side, and he said, let's do it. [00:17:03] I gave you some opinions on that several weeks ago. As you might recall, it was a different take regarding who hashem, who God might have been talking to. Was Yeshua there? This is the difficult, arduous, challenging starting point. [00:17:30] The answer, again, in my opinion, though I would say it is shared by John, by Paul, by. [00:17:44] Supported by. Supported by Judaism. [00:17:52] Yes and no. [00:17:56] Am I safe with that answer? [00:18:02] Yes and no. Thank you. This works both ways. [00:18:08] From the text I read above, John, Colossians, and many others, the Messiah or something related to him was present at creation. There is no disputation. [00:18:27] Because we know that messiah is Yeshua. The conclusion we can draw is he was present. [00:18:38] But I want to take you to another translation of John, one from 1526 from the Tyndale Bible. It is our first authentic Greek to English translation, unlike the Wycliffe text, which came later. How far later? [00:19:07] I can't remember how later. [00:19:10] No, it came before 1380. The Wycliffe text. Not to bore you with horrendous details, but the New Testament that Wycliffe translated from Greek to Latin to English. Okay, so Tyndale gives us Greek to English. You ready for his translation of John one? [00:19:33] In the beginning was the word. And the word was with God. And the word was God. Sounds good. The same was in the beginning with God. Still sounds good. All things were made by it. [00:19:50] And without it was made nothing that was made in it was life. And the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not. [00:20:07] And what is the change? [00:20:11] What is the change? [00:20:14] It. Instead of he, the greek pronoun utos, he, she or it. [00:20:27] Obviously, there's a massively complicated part of greek grammar, structure and language which I want to get into now. Just kidding. [00:20:39] That talks about gender and singularity and all this other kind of stuff. The bottom line about all of that is it is a legitimate translation of the Greek to say it. Also, in the Delich Hebrew Gospels, we find that he translates it he, but down in the footnotes, parentheses, he also. It is a misunderstood messiah. [00:21:15] There is a thought in Christianity that before Yeshua, there was no discussion or thought of Messiah, that it was basically invented by Yeshua. And then the Church fathers of Christianity created this, that this is a christian process. And to that we say, not Kai, wrong the pre existence of Messiah, and I'll come back to it. And all that is not a christian understanding. It first appears where 150 years. Now, I'm not talking about the messianic texts that are within the Torah and the prophets and all that. The idea of a messianic redeemer, a coming king who would save the world 150 years before Yeshua in the apocryphal book. Apocrypha? [00:22:16] The apocryphal book of Enoch 150 years prior. Why are we reading from the apocrypha? I'll come back to that. [00:22:27] Here is something from the Book of Enoch. And I want you to listen to this and tell me if in your mind at all it sounds messianic or even for that matter, familiar. [00:22:41] And there I saw him, who is the head of days. [00:22:46] And his head was white like wool. And with him was another whose countenance had the appearance of a man. What does that sound like? Anyone know it? It's in the Bible, Daniel. And his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels. And I asked the angel who went with me and showed me all the hidden things about that son of man, who is he and whence is he? And why did he go with the head of days? And he answered and said to me, this is the son of man, who has righteousness, with whom dwells righteousness, and who reveals all the treasures of the crowns for the Lord of spirits chose him. [00:23:28] Another from chapter 48 of first Enoch. He shall be a staff for the righteous, whereon to lean, to stand and not to fall. And he shall be a light unto the nations, a hope for the troubled heart. And all the earth dwellers before him shall fall down and worship and praise and bless and sing to this Lord of spirits. It is for this that he has been chosen and hidden before him, even before the creation of the world and forever more. [00:24:01] This is the apocrypha. [00:24:04] Okay. [00:24:06] There is an emerging theme that comes from there, the Book of Enoch, and then begins to find its full development in the rabbinic writings in jewish thought. [00:24:21] The stream of thought that John picks up and continues in revelation. One. John. You know what John was? No one likes this word. [00:24:33] He was a mystic. He was mystical. Have you read revelation, by the way? January 15. No. [00:24:50] It emerges from there that before creation was. And here it is. The importance of Wycliffe's translation. [00:25:02] It before creation, the spirit of Messiah before the foundations of the earth. [00:25:15] Confused faces. It's okay. Stay with me. [00:25:19] Or how's this what Christianity would call, in essence, even if they don't really know that they're speaking jewish pre incarnate. Yeshua. [00:25:37] Is anyone with me? Have I gone way past the point? [00:25:45] So, depending on your lean, he or it was there. [00:25:54] And in particular, in a particularly appropriate text to our conversation, I'm going to read you some more jewish writing from the Midrash on Genesis, Rabbi Shimon bin Laquish explained, and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the water. [00:26:26] This is the spirit of King Messiah as it is written. And if the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, by what merit will the spirit of Messiah come? This is a different theme, but important by the merit of repentance. [00:26:44] Was Yeshua big on repentance? Was that embedded within his very spirit? Of course it was. [00:26:52] But I said, see, he's saying the spirit of Messiah was there. I just told you Yeshua was there. [00:27:05] So what's the reconciliation? Because some would say the idea of you generalizing it, depersonalizing it into the spirit of Messiah. No, I want to see this high exalted christology, Jesus there before. I want to see it. Well, what I can show you is the spirit of Messiah. But there's more. [00:27:33] There is another understanding of Messiah's pre existence in Judaism that is very relevant. [00:27:44] The spirit of Messiah was before all, reflected in our text. From Resh Laquish, from the spirit over the waters, from the biblical text, but also something related specifically to who the Messiah was again, in the Talmud. And I'll come back to these writings. Tractate Meghila 13, we read, listen to this. [00:28:10] The Holy One, blessed be he, does not strike Israel unless he has created for them a healing beforehand. [00:28:19] When it says, when I have healed Israel, then is the iniquity of Ephraim uncovered. That's the biblical text that they're using. In other words, to say, before the wound, the remedy. [00:28:33] God creates the remedy before the wound. In another midrash on Isaiah 60, where we're talking about Messiah's light. This is. [00:28:46] Or they're talking about the light of God. Isaiah is Yeshuyahu in 60. And here's what the midrash says. This is Messiah's light to teach you that the eternal saw the Messiah's generation and his ministry before the creation of the world. This is Midrash. [00:29:05] Messiah saw. I mean, sorry. That the eternal saw the Messiah's generation and his ministry before the creation of the world and hid him away under the throne of his glory. Satan asked him, lord of the universe. I love that. Lord of the universe. Little Hasatan is asking him, who, for whom is that light that is under the throne of your glory? And the eternal answered him, it is reserved for the one who will make sure that you are crushed. [00:29:43] This is Midrash. [00:29:46] How? [00:29:47] How did he create the remedy? We know what the wound is. Yeshua very clearly elaborated on what the wound was. We had, as had Judaism, since almost the founding of the relationship, Torah had been turned. They had turned from Torah. Torah never turned. So how? How did God create this remedy? And what does it have to do with. Yeshua? What does this have to do with Messiah spirit? For that, we read again the Midrash. [00:30:18] Six things preceded the creation of the world. [00:30:22] We talked about this in nothing but the blood. [00:30:26] This is the one that says six things. Some of them were actually created. Some of them merely arose in the thought of God to be created. The Torah, the throne of glory, were created. The fathers, Israel, the temple, and the name of the Messiah arose in the thought to be created. Pick up the last one. The name of Messiah before creation. [00:30:57] The spirit of Messiah was there over the waters. And we'll see next week, maybe creating, creating. [00:31:08] But even more, even more. And this ties together. [00:31:16] The future was seen, established and named, named before the creation of the world. [00:31:30] Yahshua. [00:31:33] Yahshua. [00:31:35] God is salvation. [00:31:38] See, we had a long message one time about the name, the name Yeshua, and how everyone, especially in Messianic Judaism, says Yeshua means salvation? No. Yeshua means salvation. [00:31:53] Spelled differently. Yeshua means salvation. Yeshua is a nickname. Yeshua is an aramaic paraphrase of the name what? Yahushua, which means what God is salvation. [00:32:13] So how fitting, then that the name, first of all, that Moshe would take Hoshea and change his name to what? [00:32:25] Remember Hoshea? [00:32:28] Joshua. But it later was Joshua. First it was Hoshea. What did he change his name to? [00:32:35] Yahushua. Who was Joshua? Moses was the great Redeemer. But what did Yahushua, Joshua do? He led them into the promised land. He took them and led them in. And so Moses changes his name to Yehoshua. Was that arbitrary? Was that just a chance? No. The name of God's chosen redeemer. Yahushua. God is salvation, had been established before the foundations. [00:33:09] Yehoshua, the spirit and the name of Messiah were before the creation of the world. [00:33:22] And so we see the spirit of Messiah was there from the beginning. The name of Messiah was known from the beginning. And Messiah was active from the beginning. [00:33:36] Are you with me? [00:33:43] You can get the audio. [00:33:46] What about the no? The answer was Yeshua. There? Yes and no. What about the no? It won't take as long as the yes to imagine Yeshua as a man sitting in heaven during this time, conversing with God, giving him counsel, chatting. It doesn't work. [00:34:04] It just doesn't work. [00:34:07] Yeshua was flesh, blood and bone created from the dna, at least one dna. There's a whole nother discussion we could have about which dna was what. [00:34:24] At least Miriam's dna was involved. Was Miriam's dna in heaven. When Yeshua was created before the foundations of the world, Yeshua was flesh, blood and bone. When he came to earth, he was a man. Then John says, and the word became flesh. And he's talking about in his time before that, the word was just with God. And we're going to talk extensively about what that word was. Not now, but next week. [00:35:02] So to imagine Yeshua as a man know, we've got this picture of Daniel with two thrones, and here's the creative story. And Hashem's there with his big white hair. And here's Yeshua sitting there like Gandalf or like the Samantha on the show bewitched. And the mountains spring up. [00:35:37] But it says all things created by him, through him, in him. [00:35:47] Does he have to have a form to do that? [00:35:53] Not really. [00:35:55] But the answer is yes and no. [00:36:03] He may not have to have a form in the way that you've previously imagined. [00:36:11] This is so much bigger than Yeshua the wizard, Yeshua with the wand, yeshua the know, sidekick of God. [00:36:23] It's so much bigger and deeper than that. [00:36:31] But we need to see it as John saw it. [00:36:35] And how did John see it? [00:36:41] How did John see it? Well, shouldn't we be using more of the Bible? One would say you've quoted the apocrypha, you've quoted the midrash, you've quoted the Talmud. I've heard you quote the Bible, like, twice. [00:36:59] You're basing Theology on that. [00:37:04] Well, I hate to break it to you, but these texts and these ideas, that is how John saw it. [00:37:17] Do you know why? [00:37:19] Because those texts, that culture, that context that informs the writings of all of the authors of the New Testament, this did not spring out of nowhere. It wasn't Gandalf who created these things I talked about 150 years before Yeshua. We're seeing these emergences of certain themes. This is the culture. And this, my friends, is the worldview within which Yeshua lived, walked, breathed, and taught. [00:37:57] Even his language reflects some of the concepts that we've talked here. And you cannot understand what John's talking about without understanding where he's coming from, what's informing him. [00:38:20] And so back to the beginning. [00:38:23] That's where we started. When we compare Bereshit and John, we see three key themes emerge. I sung about all of them. The only thing that would have really tied it all together if I had sung word of God speak, would you pour down like rain? [00:38:42] But we talked about that. And there's one of the themes. [00:38:49] Three themes, as I said, was it happenstance that John connected revelation to Bereshit? I mean, I'm sorry, John one. In the beginning. In the beginning, was it happenstance that he's connecting this to the Torah for his readers? Was he reinventing, creating a new religion, superhero, new God, messiah? [00:39:18] No, he wasn't doing that. He was speaking the language they would understand. [00:39:24] John, also, this mystical dude, author of Revelation, he connects three themes that we're going to explore over the next three weeks and three themes that will indeed revolutionize your understanding of a lot. [00:39:38] Creation, messiah, yeshua, the sovereign plan of Adonai and the ultimate redemption for you and your future hope. And what are they? In the beginning, the word. [00:39:52] Why is it the word? Because God said, let there be. [00:39:59] God said, let there be light. And there was light. [00:40:03] And in the beginning was the word. Very, very connected. In the beginning, the word and the light, those are the things Yehi or vayahi or let there be light. And there was light. And John says, and the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it. [00:40:35] Onward and upward we go, my friends. Till next week. [00:40:39] Shabbat shalom.