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Is Jesus Christ Really God Himself?
You Should
Download and Install the Hebrew and Greek Fonts Before Continuing
I nstalling
the fonts is, of course, not required
but you might see several Greek or Hebrew words in this teaching
that
appear to be unusual or strange characters.
Is Jesus God?
Is Jesus God in the Flesh? There are many people today who believe
Jesus was only a fleshly man with a Godlike nature, but not God himself.
The intent of this study is to show, from a Jewish belief perspective that
Jesus IS God. I will be presenting the viewpoint using the Hebrew
and Renewed scripture and the King James Bible. Please bear with me
in my usage of Hebrew and Jewish terminology.
There is no doubt among the Messianic Jewish faith that
Jesus is Messiah. When asking the question, however, "Is Jesus
God?", the answers are varied and many lack understanding.
Many of the Jewish faith reject the teachings of the
Apostle Paul (Rav Shaul) as authoritative writings, but in the words of
Jesus we find in the Gospel of John (John-Yochanan)
14:15: "If you love me, you will
keep my commandments..." and again in
John-Yochanan 14:21:
“Whoever has my commands and
keeps them is the one who loves me, and the one who loves me will be loved
by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”
You can remain a follower of the Torah if you wish, but
the Renewed Covenant speaks for itself and is truth. Please bear
with me as I show you from the scriptures just who this Jesus is.
Let's Begin at Ruth
(Ruth-Rut) 4:4
“I resolved that
I should inform you to this effect: Buy it in the presence of those
sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you are
willing to redeem, redeem! But if it will not be redeemed,
tell me, that I may know; for there is no one else to redeem it but
you, and I am after you.” And he said, “I am willing to redeem.”
The redeemer said, “Then I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I
imperil my own inheritance. Take over my redemption responsibility
on yourself for I am unable to redeem.”
Let's focus on the word redeem for a moment. We see
that there is reference to both the person who is the redeemer and also a
reference to the act of redemption.
Look closely at the definitions of the Hebrew:
lag
(gaal) redeem,
avenge, revenge, ransom, do the
part of a kinsman
ylwag
(giulay)
redemption
hlag
(giulā)
redemption, right of redemption,
price of redemption, kindred
lag
(goel) redeemer
The act of redemption or "to redeem" in this passage of
scripture (Ruth-Rut 4:4) is the word ga-al. The person performing
the redeeming is go-al.
As you can
see these are both words that come from the same root.
1350
lag
ga'al {ga-al'}
to redeem, act as kinsman-redeemer, avenge, revenge,
ransom, do the part of a kinsman, to act as kinsman, do
the part of next of kin, act as kinsman-redeemer, by
marrying brother's widow to beget a
child for him, to redeem from slavery, to redeem land, to exact
vengeance, to redeem (by
payment), to redeem (with God as subject), individuals from death,
Israel from Egyptian
bondage, Israel from exile, to redeem oneself, to be redeemed
We need to
understand the concept of the kinsman redeemer as practiced in the Hebrew
nation of Israel and as history records probably other nations in the
Middle East.
The kinsman
redeemer was a blood relative who had the right to redeem, avenge,
revenge, ransom, etc. We see this role played out between Abraham
and Lot when Lot and his family were taken captive. (Genesis
Chapters 12-15). Abraham goes and frees his nephew.
In the case
of Ruth, Boaz was a relative to her deceased husband and her mother-in-law
Naomi. But in this case it turns out that there is one relative who
is closer than Boaz and therefore he has the first right of redemption.
What happens here is that the relative realizes that in accepting the role
of kinsman redeemer he will have to give up his right to inherit the
property of Ruth and Naomi as his own because he would have to purchase
the property from both Naomi and Ruth and Ruth’s name would remain
attached to the inheritance.
Why is this
important in the context of what we are studying here?
The concept
of the kinsman redeemer applies to the Messiah Jesus (or Yeshua if you
prefer) because He is the only begotten Son of the Father.
Because of this, He inherits the right to the role of kinsman redeemer
through His Father (God or Yahweh).
So what
does this mean to us? It means that if we can grasp the concept of
the kinsman redeemer we will realize that if we were created by God
through His Son Jesus, then we are
ALL, each and every
one of us, related by blood to Jesus (or Yeshua)!
And if that
were not enough in and of itself each and every one of us who accept
Yeshua as Messiah become further entwined with Yeshua through the Holy
Spirit of God (Ruach of Yahweh) in that we become spiritually connected to
Yeshua.
This
extends the idea of the kinsman redeemer right on down from Yeshua to you
and to me and to everyone who will ever be or has been.
It is the
rejection of Yeshua as Messiah which causes us to then reject Him as our
kinsman redeemer. When we do this we are acting just like the relative in
Ruth who rejected the role of kinsman redeemer because he did not want to
forfeit his own inheritance.
The relative to Ruth then gave up all rights and was counted as one
removed from the family obligations.
So having
laid out the premise for understanding the concept of the kinsman redeemer
and the role the redeemer possesses, let’s examine how this role
ties Jesus (Yeshua) to God (Yahweh).
In doing this,
we can show that
Yahweh and Yeshua are entwined and that one cannot and does not exist
without the other and that they are joined
inseparably. Let's examine
also, some other passages of Scripture:
Exodus-Shemot 15:13:
"With Your kindness You guided this people that You redeemed; You led with
Your might to Your holy abode."
This
passage of Scripture says that it is Yahweh who redeems. He has redeemed
His people and we have in the preceding passages of scripture that "His
people" is Israel.
Who then is Israel?
Is Israel only
the Jewish people? Many would have you think so and would deny that anyone
else could ever be "Israel" Why?
Because the House of
Ephraim was scattered to the four corners of the earth and only Judah
returned from their exile with some resemblance of structure.
Look if you will, though, at
Deuteronomy 29:13-14.
"Not with you alone do I seal
this covenant and this imprecation, but with whoever is here, standing
with us today before Yahweh, our God,
and with whoever is not here
with us today."
According
to the Hebrew rendering, the covenant that was established between Israel
and Yahweh involved each and every person that was standing before Yahweh
that day and each and every person who was not there that day. What does
that mean?
It means
that all who joined themselves to
Israel would become part of Israel and would therefore be entitled to
the covenant that Yahweh made with Israel.
That means you and me!
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