Desire Of My Soul

God’s Story Threads: Beginnings within Beginnings [Part 2]

 

God’s unfolding story thread. Genesis 1:1 is usually translated “In the beginning, God created.” But is it saying something more? Walk this way . . .

 

This series is related to a spiritual call (started in the early 90s) for me to walk a bridge—from the Judaic camp reaching out to the Messianic/Christian camp and then vice versa—crisscrossing it, realizing and later sharing who and what the real bridge is. Walk with me to discover God’s revelations and passionate plan for our souls.

 

© desireofmysoul.faith (.com & .org) & SoulBreaths.com. All rights reserved.

 

HIGHLY SUGGEST FIRST READING: Beginnings within Beginnings [Part 1]

 

READING TIME: 3 MINUTES.

 

Discussions—heated or otherwise—span the ages regarding the Genesis 1:1 wording, which is often translated “In the beginning, God created.” But considering a point of Hebraic grammar, is that what it’s really saying—and how does any of that fit into God’s redemption-focused story thread?

 

Some scholars and/or grammarians say those first words aren’t exactly as traditionally translated. There’s no “the” in the Hebrew text. So they translate with a one-word shift: “In a beginning.”

 

A stirring literal translation on a gazillion levels. And how that ups the game on God’s story line. This in-a-beginning view has been discussed many times over the years at Torah study tables—and always sets my mind spinning in a thrilling, isn’t-God-amazing way.

 

Three other views help us branch that concept even further . . .

 
 

 
 

THE BEGINNINGS STORY THREAD: A FEW STEPS MORE

 

Stephen Rayburn points out in his 2009 “D’var Torah: Bereshit” article, that Rashi (esteemed medieval rabbi/Talmudic commentator) regarded the word b’reshit as a statement not about “the absolute beginning of everything” but when “God turned His attention to our own world.”

 

Now add a point of biblical consistency—discussed in this two-minute Genesis 1:1 Hebrew grammar note—the construct in Genesis 1:1 (needing a noun) would be translated . . .

 

“In the (or a) beginning of God’s creating.”

 

And lastly, factor in this intriguing view from Rabbi Jeffrey W. Goldwasser . . .

 

Back in October 2011, Reb Jeff wrote in his blog post (“Bereshit: In the Beginning of What?”) a more illustrative translation based on the grammatical analysis and infusing spiritual innuendos of timelessness.

 

He says the “world never stopped being created” since it “has a beginning, but it is a beginning that has never ceased.”

 

Goldwasser’s Genesis 1:1 translation goes like this:

 

“In the beginning of the beginning that is always beginning, G-d created the creation that is still [beginning and creating].”

 

The Creator is always creating. He “rested” from His earth project but never really stopped creating—everything He creates is in a forward, unfolding, beginning-within-a-beginning motion. Contracting, reaching down, extending out . . . beginning anew.

 

God IS the beginning.
 

The One who has NO beginning.

 

Yet WITHIN HIM is the beginning within a beginning within a beginning that is unfolding and still beginning and creating.

 

Simply complex, right? In light of creation alone, we’re talking about the mind-bending, humanly incomprehensible dunamis power of our holy God.

 

QUESTION FOR YOU

 

What was going on with these beginnings within beginnings . . . when there was absolutely no beginning because God has no beginning and no end?

 

We know He birthed creation with a WORD. Scripture confirms it. Even rabbinic teaching says that the WORD God spoke in the creative process did the creation.

 

I couldn’t agree more.

 

In fact, it’s the apex—the critical story thread—linking God’s beginnings within beginnings and the reveal of the redemptive gift to humanity.

 

So let’s climb that summit to discover what has been waiting there for us all along.

 

READ THIS NEXT: Beginnings within Beginnings [Part 3].

 

GOT TWO MINUTES?

Read quick examples of God’s many beginnings, those in the past, those in the works now, and those on the horizon.

Side Bar [Many Beginnings]

 
 

PHOTO CREDITS for this Beginnings series:

Cloud/Light by Marcus Dall Col on Unsplash.com

Steam Punk Minister w/Bible by Nathan Bingle on Unsplash.com

Steps with child by Jukan Tateisi on Unsplash.com

Follow the Line on asphalt photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash.com

Woman in jeans with Bible by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash.com

 
 

Resurrection, Real or Not: Part 4—Rabbi Scholar Defends Jesus’s Resurrection

The resurrection event that changed everything—on both sides of the Judaic-Messianic bridge. What an orthodox rabbi and Jewish scholars have to say about the resurrection of Jesus (Yeshua, his Hebrew name).

 

© desireofmysoul.faith & SoulBreaths.com. All rights reserved.

 

READING TIME: 7 MINUTES.

 

HAVE YOU READ THE FIRST POSTS IN THIS SERIES?
What God Revealed
Real-Life Accounts
Real-Life Accounts Cont’d
The Resurrection Thunderbolt From Heaven

 

The world’s history has long encompassed extremes—light and darkness, goodness and evil, sagacity and folly, hope and discouragement . . . and the ultimate dichotomy, death and resurrection.

 

It’s the stuff authors love to write about, carefully mirroring our up-down, soul-body existence in their art, which sometimes is reflected back into life. Remember the seesaw duality of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities?

 


It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . .
it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness


 

Thankfully, God doesn’t leave us in our fractured state. We will rise from the abyss of death.

 

But in sync with life’s duality, even the resurrection event is good news/bad news. There will be a resurrection to everlasting life for the righteous . . . and a resurrection to judgment for the others. (Daniel 12:2 and John 5:28-29.)

 

This is serious business. So God gave us ten resurrection accounts—seriously, count them—to encourage us, to help us see our lives down here via a more heavenly lens. (See prior posts in this series.)

 

And yet, all those resurrection accounts beg the question.

Since resurrection is an obvious biblical teaching,
then why do some people give
an acknowledging nod
to many of those accounts . . .

but discount 
one resurrection in particular?
Namely, the historical resurrection of 
Jesus.

 

Well, one modern-day orthodox rabbi didn’t.
Nor did some other Jewish biblical scholars and rabbis.

 

note: stock photo, not Rabbi Lapide

 

MEET RABBI PINCHAS LAPIDE

author, Jewish scholar, theologian specializing in the New Testament

 

An Orthodox rabbi, Lapide had a real bridge-crossing view. He even wrote a book in 1979 about it: “The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective.”It made quite a stir back then, even garnering attention in Time magazine’s religion section.

 

Lapide (1922-1997) and his scholarly process were all about rediscovering the Jewish aspects of early Christianity. After all, Jesus (Yeshua) and his followers were Jews.

 

Lapide’s convincing Judaic arguments in favor of Jesus’s resurrection as a historic event are worth examining.

 

I mean, rabbis, some of the Sanhedrin, and Pharisees—not to mention multitudes of Jews—recognized in the first century CE that Jesus (Yeshua) is the Messiah. So when a modern-day rabbi studies the totality of the scriptures and supports Jesus’s resurrection, it’s a red-letter moment.

 

Per Lapide, the “Hebrew Bible knows of the translation of Enoch (Genesis 5:24), a transfiguration (Saul: I Samuel 10:6), an ascension (Elijah: 2 Kings 2:11) and three resurrections[which God] carried out through the hands of His prophets.”

 

Namely: I Kings 7: 17-24; 2 Kings 4:18-21, 32-37; 2 Kings 13:20-21.

 

Not a single case was met with unbelief in Israel, per Lapide.
Nope, not one.

 

The hope and belief in resurrection were so ingrained in Judaic thinking, it became part of the daily prayer from renowned 12th-century rabbinic scholar, Moses ben Maimonides and his Thirteen Articles of Faith:

 

Lapide also commented that postbiblical literature gives reports of several miraculous healings, multiplication of bread, diversion of a flood, victory over demons, rainfall after prayer, etc.

 

So the historic resurrection of Jesus
wasn’t a bizarre, non-Jewish event.
And it wasn’t so-called magic or a scheme.
It was real.
From the hand of Adonai, God Himself.
In fact, over the 40-day period following his resurrection,
Jesus appeared to his disciples, others, and over 500 people at once.

 

In addition to Lapide’s scientific analysis of Jesus’s resurrection—which includes support for the genuineness of Saul Paulus’ Damascene experience—he mentioned two other points as further support:

 

(1) God permitted the women to be the first to witness and give testimony of that resurrection—when they held no value in the culture.

 

(2) Many Jewish believers were willing to die defending their belief in Jesus’s resurrection.

 

Per Rabbi Pinchas Lapide:
“Without the Sinai experience—no Judaism.
Without the Easter [Crucifixion/Resurrection] experience—no Christianity.
Both were Jewish faith experiences whose radiating power . . .
were meant for the world of nations.
For inscrutable reasons, the resurrection faith of Golgotha was necessary to carry the message of Sinai into the world.”

 
marija-zaric-ZcXEmpelsoU-unsplash
 

THREE FINE POINTS

 

Point #1. Messiahship. Now I don’t agree with Lapide’s initial inference that Jesus (Yeshua) is only the messiah for the Gentiles (the Bible prophesies/mentions only ONE messiah)—but Lapid did say that in Jesus’s parousia (second coming) he would manifest himself as Israel’s Messiah.

 

To clarify that . . . the prophet Zechariah says that what actually happens at the second coming is this: Israel’s spiritual eyes are open, the veil is removed, so they can see Jesus (Yeshua) for who he is and always has been, the Jewish Messiah of the world.

 

I will pour out on the house of David
and on those living in Jerusalem
a spirit of grace and prayer;
and they will look to me, whom they pierced.
They will mourn for him as one mourns for an only son;
they will be in bitterness on his behalf
like the bitterness for a firstborn son.
Zechariah 12:10

 

There is one Messiah—per scriptures—sent by God
for the Jew first and then for the Gentile.
And Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies, over 100 (some classify 300 or more). Including the Messiah’s initial coming for spiritual redemption,
which will be followed by the final physical redemption,
ushering in the Messianic Age, the Millennial Kingdom.

 

Point #2. Probability factor. The scientific probability of Jesus (Yeshua) fulfilling the many messianic prophecies is mind-boggling. As Lion and Lamb Ministry aptly states on their site, referencing the noted work of now-deceased mathematics/astronomy university chair Peter Stoner:

 

“The chances of fulfilling 16 [of the 108 prophecies] is 1 in 1045.
When you get to a total of 48 [prophecies fulfilled],
the odds increase to 1 in 10157.

Accidental fulfillment of these prophecies is
simply beyond the realm of possibility.”

 

Point #3. Lapide and the hotly debated three-days-in-the-tomb issue. Even Christians battle out the calculations. [An easy method to me—keeping the literal meaning without gagging on a calculations gnat—is using our Judaic/biblical view that a day is measured sundown to sundown: (1st “day”) Friday daylight buried before Shabbat began; (2nd day) Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, still in the tomb; (3rd “day”) Saturday sundown to Sunday morning, arose on that third day.]

 

Lapide offers another layer: He says the three-day time frame is also a biblical expression in the Hebrew Bible.

 

>Those with ears biblically educated, per Lapide, the three-days-in-the-tomb expression refers to the clear evidence of God’s mercy and grace that is revealed after two days of affliction and death by way of redemption.

 

  • Genesis 22:4. On the third day, Abraham lifted his eyes . . . [before the Akedah, the binding of Isaac]
  • Exodus 19: 16. On the morning of the third day, there was thunder . . . [before God’s Sinai appearance]
  • Genesis 42:18. On the third day, Joseph said to them . . . [before releasing his brothers—except one—to return to Canaan]
  • Jonah 1:17. Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days . . . [before he was saved]
  • Esther 5:1. On the third day, Esther put on her royal robes . . . [Israel saved after bitter affliction]
  • Hosea 6:2. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up . . . [before He comes like the spring rain to water their souls ]

 
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JESUS & JEWISH BIBLICAL SCHOLARS

 

Per Lapide, the Pentecost testimony of the apostles—claiming the crucified Jesus had risen—proved a big pain you know where for the Sadducees. But for the Pharisees or the majority of Jews, it was a “problem seriously to be investigated.” They knew a resurrection was “entirely in the realm of the possible (Sanhedrin 90b).”

 

And also per Lapide’s book (pages 137-138, 142), the spiritual heirs of those Pharisees—today’s Jewish rabbis and biblical scholars—have commented on the matter from different angles.

 

J. Carmel—Israeli teacher/author—had an interesting view, saying he regrets the Gospels aren’t at home in the framework of Jewish literature. “If the prophet Elijah has ridden a fiery chariot into heaven, why should not Jesus rise and go to heaven?”

 

Exactly. Point is, Jesus didn’t fit the mold the pharisees (then and now) had devised. God had His own plan.

 

A plan of immeasurable love and forgiveness. A restoration plan from the throne of God.

 

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV)

 
 

READ THE NEXT POSTS IN THE SERIES

Why A Bodily Resurrection

His Righteousness Can Be Yours

 

HAVE YOU READ THESE EARLIER POSTS IN THIS SERIES?

What God Revealed

Real-Life Accounts

Real-Life Accounts Cont’d

The Resurrection Thunderbolt From Heaven

Rabbi Scholars Defend Jesus’s Resurrection

 
 

PHOTO CREDITS:

Resurrection/Tomb photo by jchizhe, purchased on iStock.com (Stock photo ID:1243063771)

Western Wall photo by Dave Herring on Unsplash.com

Bridging the Distance photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash.com

Lion photo by Jeff Rodgers on Unsplash.com

 

Resurrection series initially created between March 30, 2016 – July 3, 2016, then later divided into various posts for easier reading

Resurrection, Real or Not: Part 5—Why A Bodily Resurrection?

Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale shadows our soul-body journey. But what’s that got to do with needing a resurrection? A few things, as it turns out.

 

© desireofmysoul.faith (.com & .org) & SoulBreaths.com. All rights reserved.

 

READING TIME: 5 MINUTES.

 

HAVE YOU READ THE PRIOR POSTS IN THIS SERIES? IF NOT, START HERE: WHAT GOD REVEALED

 

Shakespeare’s plays often navigate spiritual waters. The Winter’s Tale is no exception. The tragicomedy travels the barrenness, brokenness, and blackened leaves of our wintry lives and moves to a spring-like moment.

 
 

It’s a light nod to God’s promised latter rain in the Bible. This rainy season—as the Talmud, Judaic scholars, and even some Christian Bible teachers call it—is the glory rain, the promised resurrection.

 

So what’s with the withered leaves and wintry tales? In the Psalms—such as Psalm 1, Psalm 52 and the one below—God likens us to trees. Some good, some not so good. The condition of a tree varies from season to season, choice by choice. Like our souls.

 

A good, solid tree is vibrant, flourishes, bears fruit, stretches its roots and branches. Other trees may appear lively for a season but are slowing decaying from the inside out.

 

The righteous flourish like the palm tree

and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

Planted in the house of the Lord,

in the courts of our God they will flourish.

—Psalm 92:13-14 (12-13)

 

In winter, all the trees are dormant, still, laid bare. Not that much different than the time of our individual wintry tale when we are laid still . . . waiting for that latter rain resurrection.

 

But we don’t all have the same resurrection ending.

 
The body and the soul are reunited in resurrection, then face litigation in God’s court, are judged, and subsequently step into one of two places: everlasting life (for the righteous) or everlasting contempt (for the unrighteous), per Daniel 12:2 and John 5:28-29, among other scriptures.
 

Certain things impact that judgment . . . but simply said, it centers on what the soul-body did down here in light of God’s ways.

 

More to the point, what it did regarding one eternity-driven move of God in particular: His redemption plan centered on Jesus (Yeshua), the Messiah.

 

On our way to that vital eternity-tipping choice, let’s begin by reviewing some plausible reasons why there’s even a need for the resurrection.

 

 

CUES FROM THE BARD

 

In Act 1, Scene 2 of The Winter’s Tale, Polixenes—King of Bohemia—describes his childhood relationship with Sicily’s King Leontes as being like twins, buddy buddies, innocents.

 

That is, until life happens and they’re cast out of their Garden-of-Eden-esque existence and into the Sicilian King’s irrational rampage, where he goes all Othello on his alleged “slippery wife” (Hermiones) and her alleged lover, Polixenes, the king’s friend.

 

The king is wrong. Like really wrong. For the sake of the plot—not unlike our own soul stories—the king and some others choose anything but the humble, righteous path.

 

The tale bulges with jealousies, accusations, misjudgments, malicious lies, for-the-better-good lies, over-the-top emotional reactions, bitterness, relationship splits, disloyalty, paranoia, tyranny, expulsions, broken hearts, death, and more.

 

Along the way, Shakespeare exposes familiar elements of the soul’s journey—its rise, decline, fall, redemptive resurrection (Queen Hermiones is brought back to life after being dead sixteen years).

 

He even turns the physical tables of the atmosphere to mirror the inner soul rumblings of his characters—Sicily’s Mediterranean warmth and light are shrouded in a wintry gloom.

 

Veiled, fractured souls.
Adrift.
Out of sync with God’s ways.
Self-focused. Earthly tethered.
Becoming a wintry heart of darkness.

 

Enter two reasons for an end-of-days resurrection . . .

 

(1) accountability—of what every soul-body has done, said, thought along its earthly journey.

 

(2) divine reconstruction of every soul-body God sovereignly raises in His righteousness—so it no longer is earthbound/self-focused but able to move with the give-receive love flow of heaven.

 

Let me explain . . .

 
zdenek-machacek-_QG2C0q6J-s-unsplash
 

EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR

journeying between weight and responsibility

 

Okay, so you’re not exactly like Shakespeare’s Antigonus, the king’s advisor who teeters between loyalty to the crown and loyalty to truth, makes concessions to protect, and then is chased off stage by a bear and killed.

 

But believe it or not, bears and their presumed Shakespearean connotation have their place in your soul experience and its aftermath, your future resurrection.

 

The word bear appears about twelve times in the play—where a person bears the onus for their actions and their related guilt. And, yeah, the fierce “bearish” beast appears in the midst of it all.

 

How bear/bearing translates to the soul’s journey and end-of-days accountability goes like this:

 

Bearing your soul—transparent before your Creator, God.

 

Bearing the weight of your actions—good and not so good.

 

Bearing the scrutiny of others and our internal self.

 

Bearing the hardships and testings along life’s journey.

 

Bearing the responsibility for what you’ve said, done, thought, written, shared, taught, imposed, desired, touched, took, gave, blessed, cursed, healed, harmed, lifted up, brought down.

 

Bearing the yoke of Heaven (surrendered to God, His word, His Messiah—your identity is in Him).

 

Bearing the final outcome of it all—with your soul’s work salted by His holy fire, tested by His holiness, so the work is either reduced to ash and stubble or glorified in Him.

 
 

Both the soul and the body must face their shared judgment.

 
 

For God shall bring every deed (every action, work)

into litigation (for His judgment),

everything that is concealed,

whether it be good or evil.

—Ecclesiastes 12:14

 

And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it.

The earth and sky fled from his presence,

but they found no place to hide.

I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne.

And the books were opened, including the Book of Life.

Revelation 20: 11, 12

 
 

THE STICKY WICKET

transformed from a fractured soul to a future glory in Him

 

At times, the journey down here can cause the push-pull of the soul-body union—with the God-breathed soul called upward vs. the earth-tethered body drawn to things below—to become . . .

 

flooded with spiritual darkness, doctrines of demons

a one-way receptor—receiving for self, no capacity for authentic giving

compelled by the things of this world

defiant, resisting the yoke of heaven.

dissonant, clashing with God

 

In other words . . . a

Ravaged. War-scarred. Vessel.

 

REALITY CHECK: No one is exempt. All have fallen short of God’s glory, His righteousness.

 

For a resurrection to righteousness,
your soul-body will need a reconstruction worthy of God’s presence.

Raised. Recalibrated. Renewed.

Made Holy with His righteousness—not yours.

 

SO HOW CAN YOU GET THERE FROM HERE?

GOD MADE IT POSSIBLE.

 

The Lord can come to you like the rain—a glory rain, the true latter rain (resurrection to righteousness)—after the barrenness, brokenness, and blackened leaves of your soul’s winter tale.

 

The veil that covered your wintry soul can be gone.

Death, gone.

All things made new.

 

Here’s how.

 

READ GOD’S ABC STEPS FOR SALVATION AND A RESURRECTION TO RIGHTEOUSNESS IN HIM: ABCs of SALVATION.

 


On this mountain he [the Lord God of Hosts] will destroy

the veil which covers the face of all peoples,

the veil enshrouding all the nations.

He will swallow up death forever.

Adonai Elohim will wipe away

the tears from every face . . .

Isaiah 25:6-8 excerpts


***

 
 

Photo Credits:

Resurrection/Tomb photo by jchizhe, purchased on iStock.com (Stock photo ID:1243063771)

Shakespeare by Jessica Pamp on Unsplash.com

Bear Running by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash.com

 

Resurrection series initially created between March 30, 2016 – July 3, 2016, then later divided into various posts for easier reading

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