Tuesday, 22 April 2014

The Lord speaking of the Lord (1)


Jn 147If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. 8Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” Jesus is speaking of God, not in His manifestation as the Son, but as the Father, and to hear him speak, it seems he is talking about someone else.
What upsets the eleven (because here, Judas has already gone out to betray the Lord) is when he says they have seen the one else. The eleven look each one around him and around the room; each one reckons only ten companions beside the Lord. They do not see the thirteenth person, the Father, whom Jesus says they have seen. One of them does not manage controlling himself, while all people are thinking that the Lord exaggerates with parables, even in the absence of the crowd, or he might be out of his mind. Under pressure from the anxiety he asks Him to show them the Father to close the debate.
Now it is the turn of the Lord to be upset by such a query that makes Him exclaim, Jn 14 “9Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? 10Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”  The Father He was talking of was with them, and they were looking at Him, touching Him, eating with Him, drinking with Him and walking with Him, and they were asking Him questions, and yet Philip as his companions did not know him. The problem revolves around the language of the Lord: God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and His language is not our language. God has a language that He alone understands. Therefore, it takes to be born of God to understand the language of God by the Spirit of God.
No scientist, scholar or genius has access to the language of God sealed to be revealed only to the sons and daughters of God. After Jesus had given this explanation, the disciples now found that his language was so clear that they had no more question to ask about the Father: Jn 16 “29His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. 30Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God.”
This means that for the sons and daughters of God, there is no more confusion about this: 2Co 5 « 19To wit, that God (the Father) was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. » It is only those who have the Spirit of God who access this understanding, because it is the language of God. Chicks understand the language of chicken, the sons of man understand the language of man, and likewise it takes to be sons of God to understand the language of God. Proof is that despite this clarification evidenced by the eleven, until today, there are those who profess faith in Jesus Christ, and yet seek or represent to themselves the Father out of Jesus. Even after this statement, only the children of God will get helped, but those who are not concerned will remain in the position of "I understand nothing!”
Let's get into the Old Testament to find out the language: Jehovah speaking of Jehovah. In Exodus Jehovah or the Lord speaks of His angel: Ex 23 “20Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. 21Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. 22But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. 23For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in…”  Ex.32 « 34Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee » In these passages, the Lord speaks of his angel, and the angel of the Lord in question is the Lord God Almighty in person, because it is him who went before his people: Ex 13 « 21And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night.” Neh 9 “11And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters.” But he who is not born of the Spirit of God will see there two distinct characters: an angel of the Lord on one side and the Lord himself on the other.
Let's look a little here on the angel of the Lord to understand a little better the language of God. We find the scene in the sixth chapter of the book of Judges where the terms ‘angel of the Lord’, ‘Lord’ and ‘angel of God’ are used interchangeably to refer to Jehovah God: « 11And there came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. 12And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.”  The angel of the Lord did not say « I am with thee » but « The Lord is with thee » as though he spoke of a third party. « 13And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us?”  
Here, Gideon does not recognize Him as the Lord (Jehovah), he has no revelation of who he is yet, and he calls Him lord (a single notable). « 14And the LORD looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?”  The same character talking to Gideon says he is sending Gedeon. So far Gideon does not know who is talking to him and still calls him lord (v. 15) “16And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. 17And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that thou talkest with me.”  The same character uses once again the first person, ‘I am with you,’ while above he used the third, ‘the Lord is with thee.’
Gideon begins to realize that this is a strange character and wants to confirm his hypothesis.20And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so. 21Then the angel of the LORD put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the LORD departed out of his sight. 22And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, Alas, O LORD God! for because I have seen an angel of the LORD face to face. 23And the LORD said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die.”
One character chatting with Gideon and this character is the angel of the Lord, the Lord, and the angel of God. In his speech he sometimes seems to speak of a third party when he talks about himself. Whoever has preconceptions of Trinity or any other form of polytheism can already see here three characters, whilst the story clearly shows that they are rather three designations of a single character. A similar story is found in Exodus 3, when the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a burning bush, we find in this story different designations of the same character: the angel of the Lord appeared to him ... (v .2), the Lord saw ... (v.4), God said ... (v.5), the Lord said ... (v.7) And he who spoke to Moses in all these names appears in verse 6 “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God (not the angel of the LORD) »
The same story is repeated in the announcement of the birth of Samson in the thirteenth chapter of the book of Judges. Here God is sometimes referred to as ‘the angel of the Lord '(v.3, 13, 15, 16, 20, 21), ‘man of God’(v.6,8), 'the angel of God "(v. 9), 'the man' (v.10, 11). And the angel of the LORD was God in person: “22And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.” and yet, we see in verse 16 that he speaks of the LORD, as if speaking of a third party:16And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the LORD. For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the LORD.”
I thought I could exhaust the subject in one release, it proves to be impossible. The Lord who entrusted me this mission to publish his Word on Facebook has given me a spirit of synthesis to avoid boring my readers. In terms of preaching, one publication takes hours. So every time I reach the end of the second A4 page, I think about a (sub) conclusion and commend myself to reserve the rest of the spiritual food for the following release(s). I also apply this principle in relation to this topic; I will deepen it in the next release(s). But now, dear readers, we discover together with the help of the Holy Spirit that our Lord has a language of His own, especially when he talks about himself.
When he walked on the earth, treading the dust of Galilee, Jerusalem and surroundings, He kept the same language. He well knew the home language could not be understood in the world, but he did not have the slightest fear that one single son or daughter of the Kingdom can be confused about this language, because home children are well familiar with the home language.

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