Bible Study Seattle

How will people be judged in the Kingdom?  Will they be judged by discerning judges like this:

“Then two women who were harlots came to the king and stood before him.  The one woman said, “Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house.  It happened on the third day after I gave birth, that this woman also gave birth to a child, and we were together. There was no stranger with us in the house, only the two of us in the house.  This woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on it.  So she arose in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your maidservant slept, and laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead son in my bosom. When I rose in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead; but when I looked at him carefully in the morning, behold, he was not my son, whom I had borne.”  Then the other woman said, “No! For the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.” But the first woman said, “No! For the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.” Thus they spoke before the king.

Then the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son who is living, and your son is the dead one’; and the other says, ‘No! For your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’”  The king said, “Get me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king.  The king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.”  Then the woman whose child was the living one spoke to the king, for she was deeply stirred over her son and said, “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him.” But the other said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him!”  Then the king said, “Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him. She is his mother.”  When all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had handed down, they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice.”  1 Kings 3:16-28

Will this be the case when they are no other witnesses and two people claimed they were wronged by the other?  Or will it be like this:

“The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.”  The woman *said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.”  John 4:17-19

Will people’s bluff be called supernaturally?

“Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down,
That the mountains might quake at Your presence—
As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil—
To make Your name known to Your adversaries,
That the nations may tremble at Your presence!
When You did awesome things which we did not expect,
You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence.
For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear,
Nor has the eye seen a God besides You,
Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.
You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness,
Who remembers You in Your ways.
Behold, You were angry, for we sinned,
We continued in them a long time;
And shall we be saved?
For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;
And all of us wither like a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
There is no one who calls on Your name,
Who arouses himself to take hold of You;
For You have hidden Your face from us
And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.
But now, O Lord, You are our Father,
We are the clay, and You our potter;
And all of us are the work of Your hand.
Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord,
Nor remember iniquity forever;
Behold, look now, all of us are Your people.
Your holy cities have become a wilderness,
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation.
Our holy and beautiful house,
Where our fathers praised You,
Has been burned by fire;
And all our precious things have become a ruin.
Will You restrain Yourself at these things, O Lord?
Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?”   Isaiah 64

He will rend the heavens and come down!  When all hope seems lost and all the enemy nations are ransacking Jerusalem and the surrounding land:

“And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.  His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself.  He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.  And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses.  From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.  And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, “Come, assemble for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great.”  And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army.”  Revelation 19:11-19

The longings of Isaiah will come true.  YHWH will not let Israel perish.  But they will have to repent first.

“For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, Nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.”  Isaiah 64:4

This God the eye has seen is Jesus.

“No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”  John 1:18

The only begotten God is also Jesus.

“Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father.”  John 6:46

The One who is from God is Jesus.

“No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.”  1 John 4:12

If no one has seen the Father, what about all the appearances of YHWH in the Old Testament?  It turns out that most of the appearances of YHWH are Jesus speaking for YHWH.  This is clear in the comments to Moses:

“Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!”  And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”  But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” Then the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by.  Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”  Exodus 33:18-23

I highly recommend The Third Day Bible Code and Warrior from Heaven by Kermit Zarley.  Third Day looks into many of the third day symbolisms and their relation to the resurrection.  Warrior from Heaven stitches together prophecies of Jesus’ second coming and Armageddon in a literal way.

Some people insist that Hebrew days were reckoned from dawn to dawn rather than sunset to sunset.  It’s true that daylight hours were divided into morning and evening i.e. The 9am morning sacrifice and the 3pm evening sacrifice.  Jesus died at the time of the evening sacrifice, 3pm.  But that evening really just represents the going down of the sun, not actual nighttime.  Some say that only the Sabbath was sunset to sunset.  But what about Genesis: Evening and morning, the first day.  Evening and morning, the second day, etc.  All seven days were evening then morning.  The only real offset is the start of the Jubilee year, which starts just past half way through the Sabbath year.  This ordering of the day is important because it has prophetic implications.

One of the amazing tactics of particularly sinful people is blaming you for doing what they are doing.  The ultimate example of this is:

“All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?”  But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.”  Matthew 12:23-24

The Pharisees were calling Jesus evil!  As if he was calling on Satan to do his miracles.

This coming Sabbath, April 11, 2015, is the first of the seven Sabbaths to Shav’uot or Pentecost.  Firstfruits is already past.  That is the waving of the barley sheaf.  Shavuot is the wheat harvest.  Both barley and wheat represent the faithful.  Both are part of the firstborn.  As are priests and Levites.  Fifty days to Pentecost is reminiscent of the Jubilee in the 50th year.

These are the greek words often translated as first day of the week in reference to the resurrection of Jesus.  The problem is that it means the first of the Sabbaths.  There was a seven Sabbath count until Shavuot.  The women came to the tomb at dawn of the first of the seven weekly Sabbaths before Pentecost.  This is important for typology, since the church will be raised at the beginning of the Sabbath Millennium.  More discussion:  http://torahtimes.org/commentary/refuted.htm

“For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”  Matthew 12:8

“ Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.”  Daniel 9:26-27

Daniel’s prophecy has multiple fulfillments, but it is implied that Messiah will be cut off in the middle of the week.  Jesus most likely rose before dawn on the Sabbath, not Sunday.  He was crucified and died 3pm Wednesday, the middle of the week.  He was dead part of a day Wednesday, a full day Thursday and Friday, Thursday night, Friday night, and at least part of Sabbath night.  This satisfies the prophecy of Jonah.  We don’t know exactly when Jesus rose.  This is probably for our benefit.  Since resurrecting will happen for at least 500 years, that covers a long part of that ‘Day’.  But the firstborn will rise first.  There is more than one resurrection:

“Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection.”  Hebrews 11:35

We know that there will be a heavenly resurrection and an earthly one.  Heaven is the better resurrection.

March 29, 2015 was Palm Sunday.  Friday is celebrated as the execution day, and Sunday April 5 is celebrated as the resurrection.  Scripture demands that Jesus be crucified Nisan 14.  The lambs were to be chosen Nisan 10.  If Friday was the crucifixion day, then it would’ve had to have been Palm Monday.  Furthermore Jesus said he would fulfill the sign of Jonah: three days and nights in the heart of the earth.  Even if we allow for partial days or nights, that still requires at least 2.1 days in the grave.  Scripture is clear that Jesus died about 3pm.  That means he couldn’t have risen till after 3pm Sunday!  Nobody proposes that Jesus rose that late.  Therefore the traditional Friday to Sunday scenario is impossible.  Scripture doesn’t explicitly state when Jesus rose.  Some propose that he rose with the earthquake of the angel rolling away the stone.  We can’t know.

“And on the eve of the sabbaths, at the dawn, toward the first of the sabbaths, came Mary the Magdalene, and the other Mary, to see the sepulcher, and lo, there came a great earthquake, for a messenger of the Lord, having come down out of heaven, having come, did roll away the stone from the door, and was sitting upon it, and his countenance was as lightning, and his clothing white as snow, and from the fear of him did the keepers shake, and they became as dead men.”  Matthew 28:1-4

It seems that the earthquake and appearances like lightning were to scare away the guards so the angels could talk to the women without interference.  (Although it seems the angels could of made fast work of the guards if they chose to fight.)  There is some controversy what day this was, although the traditional understanding is Sunday morning.  To get 2.1 days from Sunday morning requires Jesus to have died Thursday at 3pm.  That would make Nisan 10 a Sunday.  But Jesus could’ve rose on the Sabbath.  Then the crucifixion was Wednesday and Nisan 10 was also a Sabbath.

Some will say, “Who cares!”  But it matters for typology.  If we want to see how and when our resurrection might be, we need to know as many details as we can about Jesus resurrection.