Mashiach our Soul
Monday, May 28, 2018
House of David <> Notes <> #1
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Commentary on Revelation 14 / Part 1 Introduction
Read these notes together with the notes on the surrounding chapters of Revelation on the Hearing Seven Thunders site.
Revelation 14 (KJV adapted)
- A vision of spiritual reality - where Mount Zion in heaven and earth are one…which takes place outside time and eternity…in the mind and communion of the Word of God. This is the key to understanding this whole vision. This is what is meant by “heaven” in the context of these visions which begin in chapter 4. The 144,000 are not seen on earth, neither in time nor in eternity, but are seen always in visions in the heaven of heavens. This is the place of this revelation, the place where the Mashiach of Israel, sits at the right hand of God, the place where he has appeared as a Lamb standing before the Throne of God, and now appears standing on Mount Zion. Though God is rightly called the Eternal One, God’s eternity has no beginning as well as no end. Now there is also an eternity that has a beginning, while it has, together with God, no end. This eternity is the eternity of time having been redeemed and transformed in Mashiach. So, eternity itself has now become something created in relation to time, and God, while his presence is in time and eternity, is himself outside of all that is created, either in This World of time or The World To Come, which is the world of eternity. His Word is the power that forms eternity and is the Word of Eternity entered into Time. In His Word is His Thought, the true spiritual reality. And from that true spiritual reality we are shown this vision...
- …where the 4 camps of Israel’s 12 tribes are camped with Mashiach on Mount Zion, which is seen, in the mind and communion of the Word of God, as in the case in Ezekiel’s vision of the Temple, which is also seen in the mind and communion of the Word of God. We will see that the Lamb and the 144,000 are on Mount Zion as a personal embodiment of the Temple of God.
- It is not that Ezekiel’s vision is a vision in time or in eternity, but that it is the "blueprint", the print in holy light, for God’s Temple in time and in eternity. In time the Temple is built according to the accommodations of God, which must be made for the sake of mercy and grace. In eternity the Temple is built according to the rectifications of those accommodations, which are accomplished through the outworking of God’s Torah mercy and grace, in accordance with his Torah justice and righteousness. This "blueprint" is called the Torah of Mashiach, the Wisdom of God as spoken of in Proverbs 8.
- In the foreheads of the 144,000 is the complete rectification of their knowledge that was damaged by the sin of Adam, this is the knowledge of God personally, that is, the true knowledge of his Name.
- Having said this, we are left only with asking what the meaning and significance is of Mount Zion in the Torah of Mashiach. And we then can ask what it is that is being revealed to us in this vision of Mashiach in the form of the Lamb on Mount Zion with the 144,000.
- The voice which Yochanan has already heard, which is the Divine Voice, but before always in context of revelations in time and eternity, now in a context outside time and eternity. Therefore the Voice is itself at first the vision. Each phase of this vision outside time and eternity is itself a vision revealing the mind and communion of the Word of God.
- In this second phase the Voice of God is itself the vision and is therefore accompanied by the harps of the harpers of heaven, introducing the next phase of the vision. All of the seven thunders of that voice are hear in one great thunder. This vision shows that the vision of the seven thunders and the vision of the 144,000 are one vision.
- The harpers who harped in accompaniment with the Thunder of God’s Voice, now sing the song of Israel’s eternal redemption, the song of the salvation of the world, the song of the revealtion of the true name of Israel’s Father and God. This is the whole revelation that is given through the revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach. This singing of this song by the harpers of heaven is the third phase of this vision, which, while it is one phase of the vision of the Lamb and the 144,000 on Mount Zion, is also like a vision in itself.
- This song of Israel’s redemption and the world’s salvation is a version of the Song of the Lamb and of Moshe which is only heard outside time and eternity, here in this place where the Lamb and the 144,000 are together on Mount Zion.
- What does this say about the nature of the 144,000, about the way in which they prophetically repersent Israel? And what does this say about the relationship between the Lamb and Israel? Everything in time and in eternity hinges upon the relationship between the Lamb and Israel. Here, at this point in the Revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach, when the truth about the Beast and the works of the Beast have been revealed, the secret of the relationship between the Lamb and Israel, which was concealed at the time of his death and resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God, is being made known.
- The question has been raised, what does this vision say about the 144,000 and their representation of the relationship of Israel and the Lamb? If in the mind of the Word of God the 144,000 are virgins, then in the mind of the Word of God it is Israel who is a virgin.
- If the 144,000 follow the Lamb wherever he goes, then in the mind of the Word of God, Israel follows the Lamb wherever he goes.
- If the 144,000 are the firstfruits to God and the Lamb redeemed from among the children of Adam, then, in the mind of the Word of God, Israel is the firstfruits to God and the Lamb redeemed from among the children of Adam.
- Having said this, we are left only with a deeper question of why Israel is represented as the 144,000. We began to see the answer to this question in chapter 7. Now we will see the answer more fully.
- This is the final phase of this vision, which concerns the testimony of Israel in accordance with the Scriptures to the One God and His Torah's Good News. Like the other phases of this vision, this phase is like a vision in its own right. Before the 144,000 were described in terms of their attributes, revealing their identity in their prophetic representation of Israel. In this phase their accomplishement is described.
- If in the mouths of the 144,000 there was found no imperfection before God and the Lamb, then in the mind of the Word of God there is found, by the Judge who sits upon His Throne, no imperfection in Israel’s testimony given on the witness stand before the nations and before the angels of heaven, concerning the truth of God and his Anointed One.
- We will see the significance of this being revealed to us in this place.
- Having left the vision of the Lamb and the 144,000 on Mount Zion in the place of spiritual reality beyond time and eternity, in the mind of the Word of God, with the fulfillment of the Scripture that Israel is Hashem’s witness, we come immediately to a new vision of angel, coming from eternity into time with the everlasting Good News of God to announce to the world. For this is the testimony given by Israel in the mind of the Word of God.
- We see that this Good News is preached to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people". This is the designation of those to whom it was said Yochanan would again preach, having eaten the Little Scroll.
- We now will consider what that means.
- We have reference again to that place in time when time no longer is dominate in its own domain but eternity has become dominate there in the domain of time. This is the hour when judgment is come, the time of the sounding of the seveth shofar. From here we will see the revelation of that judgment. And therefore from here there is nothign left but for the world to repent and to hear the testimony of the 144,000, which brings from beyond time and eternity the witness of Israel’s redemption in the Lamb of God from among the nations, and makes that testimony known in this hour of judgment in all the earth.
- The purpose of this testimony of Israel is that the whole of creation should repent and turn again, as in one Adam, to the fear of Hashem Elohim and to his praise.
- How can this happen, even before Jerusalem is fully united with her Mashiach upon the earth? It can happen because, invisible to the world, she has already turned to embrace him in her heart, as recorded in Revelation 12:13, and because now, with the ascent of the Beast the truth of the evil one in the world is out in the open, so that Babylon has lost her power, which is the power of the lie. For she was given this power to chastize Israel, to help the work of the Spirit of God in bringing her to repentance toward her Mashiach. And now that work is accomplished. Therefore Babylon’s power is taken away from her.
- And because Babylon’s power, which she used through the deceptions of secrecy, is taken away from her she is now to be held openly accountable for seducing all nations into her service against God and against the Jews.
- The dethroning of Babyon leaves only the Beast in power on the earth, and now all people will be held to be accountable without excuse in turning away from God to serve the god of this world.
- At the very time of the fall of Babylon, which comes through the destruction of the system holding Israel in captivity in blindness to her redemption in Mashiach, the evil one will shift his control of the world to the mark of the beast, through the image of the beast, as has been discussed.
- As has been said, because at this time there will no longer be any room for confusion or pretence but every person on earth will stand either openly against the God of the Bible or in repentance toward Him, a final judgment upon the nations will come upon the whole earth.
- The aftermath of the judgement upon the nations, when Israel has openly been redeemed from her sins and from captivity among the nations, is that there will be no place anymore for repentance for those who, even like Esau seek it with tears, once they see Israel’s glory, if they have chosen under the leadership of the Lying Messiah to graduate from replacement theology to full blown outright enmity with God’s Two Witnesses.
- Once bottomless pit of foolishness and embarrassment for having worshipped the Beast is revealed throughout all the universe, those who are guilty of this choice will torment themselves with their own shame, so that there will be no help for them.
- Just as the Nazis sent the Jews up in smoke to the heavens, so they and all who follow in their spirit to worship the Beast, so Mashiach, seated at the right hand of God, shall smell the scent of the torment with which they torment themselves without relief.
- We have read that all the world, that is, a majority of people in all the nations of the world, will worship the beast, taking the mark and number of the beast. In this ‘apocolyptic’ context worship is to be understood as a comprehensive concept. Whatever one gives their loyalty to and whatever one gives one’s heart and mind to, whatever one believes in and commits one’s life to and invests one’s industry in, that is worshipping. Projecting today’s society, we could say, anyone who chooses to be in the consumer society of the Beast, where the Beast and all the Beast stands for is the ‘product’ that is consumed, worships the Beast. Likewise, we can project the devices of our science and technology today to create a near future picture that can explain, in the form of a picture, why those who take the mark of the Beast will not be able to repent. By, for example, forming a picture of the mark of the Beast as being a computer-human interface, joining all human minds directly to the Image of the Beast as a global AI hub robotically embodied, we can see how the human being could in this way be dehumanized beyond redemption. It was through just such an organic interface with fallen angels that the human being was dehumanized beyond redemption at the time of the great flood, when only eight souls were saved.
- It is first that the people who God has made holy have waited for this day of truth, which the world will experience as a day of open rebellion and great tribulation. It is second that when that day comes the people who God has made holy will overcome the world and the evil one by faith in the promise of Mashiach, whom they know and whom they await to come from heaven.
- These ones who God has made holy are, in the vision, represented in heaven by the 144,000, and in the unfolding days and years they are all Torah observant Jews who attach themselves to the True Tzaddik, the True Righteous One, that is to say, to Mashiach; and it is all those children of the nations also, who attach themselves to the tzitzit of the Jews, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you! (Zechariah 8:23).
- Martyrdom has always brought the greatest blessing. Now it will bring its greatest blessing, because the truth is out in the open in all ways.
- To live in the Spirit of Mashiach is also to be a martyr, and not only to die in testimony to the faith. This has always been true, but at the time of the judgment, it will be true even more than before. The evil one, dwelling in the hearts and minds of all who take the mark of the Beast, not being able to destroy the Woman or her anointed Child, will pull whatever of her children apart limb from limb on a scale far greater than has happened at any time except in the Nazi Holocaust.
- The vision of the Lamb has become a vision of the Son of Adam. For now, while he is yet in the place of the vision of the mind of the Word of God that is beyond time and eternity, he is acting not in the capacity of redeemer of Israel from her sins but of redeemer of Israel from the bondage of the nations, that is, as judge of the nations.
- Yochanan describes him as one like unto the Son of Adam because, at first, he is not fully certain in viewing the vision whether this, indeed, is the Son of Adam. And this occurs because he is not yet revealed on earth in his glory, coming openly from Heaven. Yochanan is hindered slightly in suddenly seeing the Mashiach in his role and form as the Son of Adam, when he has become accustomed in the vision to seeing him in the visions of the Revelation as the Lamb that was slain. Nevertheless, the very vision of the Lamb with the 144,000 on Mount Zion has come to show us that the time is come for Mashiach to begin to take on the role of Judge.
- Because of this, “the time is come”.
- The harvest of the Gentiles, leading to the turning to Moshe of corproate Jerusalem, and the removal of the veil…leading to the vision of the seven vials…. All of these things and more will be heard by those able to hear what the seven thunders said, due to their communion proceeding underground through the ages with the apostle Yochanan.
- The earth is ripe because it has been cultivated by the Word of God through all the generations of history and the seed, of the Torah's Good News of Israel and Her Messiah, has in many places sprouted and taken root.
- …as we will see when this vision comes from beyond time and eternity into the domain of eternity and into time.
- And as it was first envisioned beyond time and eternity in the mind of the Word of God, so it shall be on earth.
- ...the angel over those who will come with the vials…
- The series of angels come one after the other as if it is all one vision, but again, each one is in content like a vision in its own right.
- Here the angle appearing with a sharp sickle confirms that God, who gave this Revelation, would have us know that nothing remains to prevent His judgment coming in full upon the nations.
- …this angle has the office of mitigating the judgment for the sake of the children of the Woman…
- Now that the time of judgment between Israel and the nations is come, “the grapes are fully ripe”. Looking at the same picture through another window, the “wheat” will be harvested, and the “tares” will be gathered up to be cast into fire.
- So it will be… All the chief angels for the time of judgment have announced their readiness to perform their assignments. We therefore now see the vision of the harvesting of the earth that will take place in the hour of the judgment of the nations and the redemption of Israel from the Egypt of its own Adamic nature and the Egypt of the the Adamic nature of all nations.
- The wrath of God is not against Adam, but against the rebellion of Adam. Were it against Adam, no soul would be saved; not even "the elect”, the Chosen People, Israel, would be saved. But because God turns His wrath against the rebellion of Adam and not Adam, Adam is corporately saved in the salvation of the nation of Israel, and all who bless themselves by coming under the wings of Jerusalem and of the Mashiach of Zion are saved from that wrath which is to come.
- …this is to describe the coming judgment as being the full measure of judgement…
- The winepress of wrath is trodden everywhere on the globe, but not in the city of Jerusalem, so far as that city has repented and turned to God and to His Lamb.
- In this vision taking place in the heaven of heavens a poetic picture is portrayed of all the armies of the nations surrounding Jerusalem on horseback. This is to represent the war of rebellion that has been waged against God and against the revelation of His Mashiach from the beginning. As soon as the sickle of the Son of Adam is swung, the trampling out of the winepress of the wrath of God against that rebellion is immediately shown as being accomplished in terms of all the armies of the nations which have, in every way, come up against Jerusalem, being turned into a lake or sea of blood, extending for about 200 miles all around the city. This red sea of blood is so deep as to drown not only the last Pharaoh’s armies but also his horses as well.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
But I Am Prayer
Foreseeing the expression of the opinion of the natural human thought concerning Mashiach, David describes it as the essence of falseness and hatred. He pictures it articulating itself in scorn or treacherous flattery and other multitudes of false expression and false claims concerning him. David speaks of Mashiach saying his response is singular: “I am prayer!”
2 For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me,
speaking against me with lying tongues.
3 They encircle me with words of hate,
and attack me without cause.
4 In return for my love they accuse me,
but I am prayer.
5 So they reward me evil for good,
and hatred for my love.
Friday, November 25, 2016
Revelation 4 - paraphrased with inline interpretive notes
"Come up here! I will show you the things that must take place afterwards".
Instantly I was in the Spirit, and I saw [the appearance of] One seated on a throne in heaven. The appearance of the One sitting on the throne was like jasper and carnelian stone, while an emerald rainbow circled the throne. Around the throne were twenty four thrones of elders. Twenty four elders sat upon them, wearing white robes and golden crowns of victory.
Flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder came from the throne. Directly in front of the throne were seven blazing torches [as in a seven branched menorah] these [lights] were the seven spirits of God. Approaching the throne was something like a sea of glass, like clear crystal.
Adjacent to the the throne in each direction there were [joined as one] four living creatures, all of them having eyes in front and behind. Of the four living creatures, one was like a lion, another like an ox. A third had a face like that of Adam. And the fourth had the head of an eagle [appearing] as though it were in flight.
Each of the four living creatures had six wings [being able to move and carry the throne in every direction] and [individually and together] they possessed eyes to see in every direction. Day and night the four living creatures never cease to say, “Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot, asher haya v’hoveh v’yavo!" [Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts, who was and who is and who is to come!”]
At those times when the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to the One who sits upon the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty four elders bow down and worship the One who lives forever and ever.
They throw their crowns of victory down in front of the throne and say, "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to [be the One recognized to] have [the] glory, honor, and power, [in salvation] because you created all things; they came into existence and were created because of your will."
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Knowing
Holy Blessed One
Your Presence is love
I cannot know without You
I cannot learn without You
I cannot think without You
Adam tried to know without You
but learned only to be faithless
Our every thought now circles endlessly
in self-centredness
How can we be forgiven?
How can we be restored to You?
How can we expel from our soul the fruit
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
How can we think again only with You?
How can we learn again only with You?
How can we know again only with You?
How can we enter with You into Your rest?
See this poem in expanded layout here:
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Our Approach to Knowledge and Our Repentance #1
We have been following this way that leads to death ever since. We cannot correct ourselves from this action, from this process of seeking by means of our own intellect alone to possess the knowledge of the essence of all things, the good and evil of all creation, the knowledge that we think contains all wisdom and understanding. We cannot correct ourselves from trying to make our own intellect the God and Master of all things. We cannot change ourselves from being what we have made ourselves to be: the thieves of Divine understanding. We have destroyed ourselves. But there is One whose love sustains us despite ourselves.
How has this One sustained us? He has transformed the knowledge of good and evil into that which transcends itself. What does this mean? He has revealed His own understanding of good and evil, the understanding of good and evil which is possessed by the Creator, which transcends the knowledge of good and evil which has destroyed our intellect. This is His wisdom to reveal this higher Divine understanding.
In acquiring in the isolation of our own intellect the knowledge of the essence of all creation, the good and evil of all creation we acquired the knowledge of the essence of ourselves and ourselves knowing ourselves in isolation in endless reduction. We have made our knowledge of ourselves to be infinitely alone. We have destroyed ourselves through endlessly knowing ourselves knowing ourselves, with no escape of knowing ourselves through God, through God's knowing us. For we rejected God's knowledge of us by disobeying His commandment and eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, attempting to acquire all knowledge with our own intellect alone.
Now God has revealed the hope of our salvation in revealing His own understanding in His own wisdom as the Creator of the good and evil of all creation, including His creation of Adam. In this His revelation of His own mind, He has attached us to Himself. Only by being and by remaining attached to Him through His revelation can we be saved from the death of our lonely self-knowledge, caught in the hell of infinite endless reduction. This revelation from God is His revelation of the Anointed One of Israel.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
THE GRAND FEAST
Shemos: 22:30
Sources: Midrash Tehillim 766, Torah Shleimah p.147
The Torah warns: "Do not eat flesh torn off in the field by a predator. Cast it to the dogs". (22:30)
Rabbi Berachia said in the name of Rabbi Yaacov: "If someone eats animal flesh torn off by a predator, he will be judged by Hashem". But if he keeps this mitzvah, then a grand feast will be prepared for him. When Moshiach comes - He will eat the Livyoson fish and special meat, as it says: "And you will eat food and be satisfied". (Joel 2:26)
http://www.congregationlubavitch.org/page.asp?pageID=%7B33101C19-832E-41C2-B722-7A63D9D4AAD2%7D
What is the meaning of this feast? This commandment is given to the nations of Noah. It is given to restrain the lust of devouring G-d’s creatures. Should humans become no different from predators the hope of Mashiach could not shine through them to all creatures.
The livyoson, like a dragon of the sea, is a symbol of the very nature of the earth and its ecology in the absence of G-d’s immediate and personal presence. This is due to Adam’s sin. The poetic image of feasting on the livyoson is the promise of all creation being resotred to a state that is equal to and greater than that which would have been had Adam never sinned. A choice to east in a manner that is in contrast to that which the predators are forced now to eat can be a choice to testify to this hope and faith in the promise of Mashiach in the Torah and Scriptures.