God's Logic

Yet, after His having done so many signs in front of them, they believed not in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet, which he said, may be being fulfilled, “Lord, who believes our tidings?  And the arm of the Lord, to whom was it revealed?”  Therefore they could not believe, seeing that Isaiah said again that He “has blinded their eyes and callouses their heart, lest they may be perceiving with their eyes, and should be apprehending with their heart, and may be turning about, and I shall be healing them”.  John 12:37-40 Concordant New Testament

          Lord, who believes our tidings?  It is quite impossible to comprehend the restoration of all things apart from illumination by the Holy Spirit.  If you have seen it dear reader, but no one will believe your glad tidings, do not become discouraged. 

           The careful reader will observe that prophecy is “being fulfilled”, and the same prophecy may have application to different people in different generations at different times.  In the case of Isaiah’s prophecy (Chapter 53 and Chapter 6) it was initially applied to Judah and Jerusalem in Isaiah’s day, then again by the Lord Jesus to Judah and Jerusalem during His first coming.  We believe it has been being fulfilled from that day until our day on a worldwide basis.  As with all prophecies, there comes a final fulfillment.  And after that, there comes a day when they may be perceiving with their eyes and be apprehending with their heart, and may be turning about, and He shall be healing them.  We are saying that day commences the restoration of all things. 

          We also say that until such time, God bears the responsibility for “blinding their eyes and callousing their heart”.  It is offensive enough to most of the modern church that unbelievers, along with the rest of creation, will be restored–that is, that they will not be punished by burning eternally or (somewhat more charitably) merely annihilated.  But to acknowledge that the Lord Jesus attributed the blindness of the world to Himself is beyond the most generous sensibilities of the modern church.  These words are troubling for those who feel man’s free will is the highest and most powerful force in the universe and that God’s justice requires Him to punish forever unbelievers: 

Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.  In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, “You will keep on hearing but will not understand; you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive; for the heart of this people has become dull, with their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes, otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return”, and I would heal them.   Matthew 13:13-15  NASB

          Because Isaiah’s prophecy ends with “and be healed” (see for yourself in Isaiah 6), we believe the Lord Jesus ended His quote with “return” (there are no quotation marks in the original Greek).  The last five words were the Lord’s conclusion, not part of the quote from Isaiah.  Basically, the Lord was saying, “Father and I do not want them to see, perceive, hear, comprehend, understand, and repent, because if they did, I WOULD HEAL THEM.”   A time has been set by Father for this healing, and it was not in Isaiah’s time, and it was not during the Lord’s first coming, and has not occurred yet.  But one day it will occur, at which time He will heal them of their sin condition (symbolized by leprosy in the Bible).

          Until that time, all who have been blinded, who cannot see, whose hearts have become dull, are God’s responsibility, because He has blinded them.  The Lord Jesus said so; first, through Isaiah, then Himself, then finally through John.  This fact has been legally established by the Law of the Double Witness.  Deuteronomy 19:15; Matthew 18:16  Under the Law of the Blinded Servant, God must set free all whom He has blinded for the sake of their eye, or their ear, or their heart, etc.:

If a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave, and destroys it, he shall let him go on account of his eye.  Exodus 21:26

          Are all men the slaves of God?  Yes, under the Law of Redemption, Jesus Christ paid on the cross the sin debt of all men.  Because all men are dying, all men have committed legal offenses (hamartia), and also have missed the mark (hamartano), therefore each and every man has a sin debt.  When the debt of a man is paid by the kinsman redeemer, that man is transferred to the one paying the debt and thus becomes the slave of the redeemer.  Leviticus 25:47-55  The man shall be a slave to kinsman redeemer until the set time when the slave is set free.

          And so, some will be believing our tidings, and some will not.  Perhaps most will not.  But one day, they will.  Until then, dear reader, keep on loving!  As Dr. Stephen Jones has so eloquently stated it:  “There are only two kinds of people in the world; believers, and future believers!”

Blessed are You, O Lord, our wonderful God, our healing God, YHWH Rapha.  You are the God that healeth us.  Blessed is Your holy name forever!

And-he-will-be  in-last-of  the-days  he-will-be  mountain-of  temple-of YHWH  being-established  as-chief-of  the-mountains  and-he-will-be-raised  he  above-hills and-they-will-stream   to-him  peoples.  And-they-will-come  nations, many-ones,  and-they-will-say  “Come!  and-let-us-go to mountain-of YHWH and-to  house-of God-of  Jacob.  And-he-will-teach-us  of-ways-of-him  so-we-may-walk  in-paths-of-him.  Micah 4:1-2  Kohlenberger Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament

And-he-will-be  in-last-of  the-days  being-established  he-will-be mountain-of  temple-of  YHWW  as-chief-of  the-mountains  and-he-will-be-raised  above-hills  and-they-will-stream  to-him  all-of  the nations.  And-they-will-come,  peoples,  many,  and-they-will-say,  “Come!  and-let-us-go-up  to  mountains-of  YHWH,  to house-of  God-of  Jacob.  And-he-will-teach-us  of-ways-of-him so-we-may-walk  in-paths-of-him.  Isaiah 2:2 Kohlenberger Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament

          We have used the Hebrew interlinear above, which gives a word for word translation; the hyphenated English words are a single Hebrew word.  It shows two very important things about these two passages.  First, while similar in large degree, Micah’s prophecy is definitely different from Isaiah’s.  Micah, writing about twenty years after Isaiah, is quoting YHWH, not Isaiah.  (Micah 3:5)  He is in fact establishing the subject matter of the prophecy as a second witness to Isaiah, according to the law of the double witness.  (Deuteronomy 19:15, Matthew 18:16)

          The second important thing: The subject of these prophecies is clearly NOT an “it”.  Rather, the subject is a “he”, and the “he” is none other than YHWH-Jesus.  The Hebrew word translated “and-he-will-be” is repeated twice by both writers for emphasis in the opening words of each passage.  The passages are emphatically personal throughout.

He will be being established, he will be…..

He will be raised up, he……

They will stream to him, all of the nations…..

They will come to him, many nations……

He will teach us his ways……

So we may walk in the paths of him……

          It is the emphatic repetition by which the Holy Spirit signifies that the subject is a masculine person, as opposed to a masculine, but inanimate, noun like “house.”

          The phrase, “the last of the days”, in Hebrew is “acharet hayamim.”  It has special prophetic significance, and is believed by many Jews to refer to the rule of Messiah.  We believe they are correct.  (See for example, Hosea 3:5, where the sons of Israel will come trembling to YHWH and to His goodness.)

          When will these “latter days” occur?  Many claim to know, and have said so.  However, we are content to wait until the time that is appointed has actually arrived.  From the texts we can see that the process of “being established” will be on-going. 

          “Established” is the Hebrew word “kun” (Strong’s Conc. #H3559). The breadth of its many applications illustrates its utility in meaning a process.  It can mean a) to be set up, fixed in a permanent sense, b) to be directed rightly, c) to prepare and to be prepared, and d) to be arranged and to be ready.

          We believe the first sense is intended, because the text complements this meaning by also saying “he is being raised up”, not just in a resurrection sense.  Rather, He will be given authority over the kings (mountains) of the earth, as well as other rulers (hills), probably referring to elected officials.  This of course could happen overnight, but we believe a longer period of time will be involved as the stone kingdom grows into a mountain.  (Daniel2:35, 44)

          The symbolism used in Daniel is the same as the texts here.  The symbol “mountain” is to be taken for the King inseparably united with His kingdom.  Daniel says the kingdom will fill the whole earth and will endure forever (Hebrew, “olam”, meaning an indefinite period).

          The passage in Daniel creates a large problem (no pun intended) for those who insist that Isaiah and Micah are talking about Jerusalem as it is located today and a “house of God” meaning a Third Temple.  No one has seriously contended the physical city, much less a physical building within that city, will expand to fill the whole earth.  If Daniel, Isaiah, and Micah are all talking about the same occurrence and even use the same symbolism, who decided Daniel was figurative but Isaiah and Micah were literal, or vice versa?

          If this is a physical house, having a physical location, then there is another problem lurking beneath the translation.  It is the small prepositon “to”.  As used in the above texts, it is only a single Hebrew word that can be used in different ways.  Does it mean “in the general direction of”?  Or does it mean “into”, denoting motion from the exterior towards the interior?  Clearly, the nations and the streaming people have a destination in mind.

          In the Greek language, the preposition “into” is the word “eis“.  It is used as a mathematical and geometric term.  Think about a straight line, one end of which dead-ends into the center of a circle, and you have the idea.  “Eis” means motion along the straight line into the interior of the circle as a destination.  (See The Companion Bible, Appendix 104, Bullinger, for an excellent discussion of prepositions used in scripture.)   In the Septuagint, an ancient Greek translation by Hebrew scholars of the Old Testament, the word “eis” is used to translate the “to” used in each of our texts.  The result was translated this way:

Come! Let us go up INTO the mountain of YHWH, (and) INTO the house of God….

          Here is the point the Holy Spirit wants us to get:  YHWH-Jesus IS the mountain AND the house of God!  He is the desire of all nations–all will want to be IN Him.  All will want Him to teach them His ways.  All will want, from the bottom of their hearts, to walk as He Himself walks.  To know Him is to love Him.

          He has promised to write His laws, teachings, precepts, commandments, and instructions on the hearts of all men, from the greatest of them to the least.  Jeremiah said so; the writer to the Hebrews established it according to the law of the double witness.

“BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD,
         WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT
         WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH; 
   
    ¹⁰FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL
         AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD:
         I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS,
         AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS.
         AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD,
         AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.
    ¹¹AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN,
         AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, ‘KNOW THE LORD,’
         FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME,
         FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM. Hebrews 8:8,10-11 New American Standard Bible

          When all men see that He is what they have desired all along, they will want to walk in His ways, as John said in his epistle.

⁶the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.  1 John 2:6

          The house of God is not now, and will not be, a church, a mosque, or a temple, or any other structure built by the hand of man, any more than the “house of Israel” is.  It will not be “located” here, or there, or in the wilderness–if you  hear of such, do not go.  Where the carcass is, there will the buzzards be gathered.  Meaning, if you are looking for a new and living way, an incorruptible way, it has been inaugurated through the veil of His flesh, which is never to die or become corruptible again.  Buzzards aren’t really interested in living things.  Look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.

Blessed are you, O Lord.  Our wonderful God, you are the mountain that will fill the whole earth!