What do you think of when someone mentions a priest or a high priest?
Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem
Alexander I – Bishop of Jerusalem c. AD 107-225
Exodus 21:5-7
A religious ceremony? A regal religious robed man in charge?
As mentioned previously in Hebrews 2, an anointing or separation of a priest from common impurity symbolizes holiness, a perfection by which he may approach the Lord.
Again, returning to a Jewish understanding of the Priesthood, the writer of Hebrews points to Jesus the Messiah as a High Priest. G_d the Father appointed Jesus, just as Moses and Aaron were anointed by the LORD.
5 Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s household, as a testimony to what would be said in the future.
but Messiah is faithful as a Son over his house; whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.
“Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness,” a direct quote (KJV) from Psalm 95:8 reiterated for emphasis also in Hebrews 3:15.
Do you claim Scripture – the very Word of the LORD?
Listen up! so that there won’t be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.
Was God angry for forty years? The bodies of those who sinned – those who did not believe – fell in the wilderness. Who will not enter God’s rest?
κατάπαυσις – the heavenly blessedness in which God dwells
Will you, my fellow Hebrews, enter into rest? This, through Scripture, is what the author asks his readers.
So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
Hebrews 3:11 KJV
And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
Hebrews 3:18 KJV
19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Do you believe the scriptural evidence that Jesus is the Messiah?
Will you enter into God’s perfect rest? Or do you persist to rebel in the wilderness of sin in these last days?
He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 20:2 CSB
A Sign for followers of Moses
The Apostle John mentions the serpent in Revelation and also as a sign to the Jews in the Gospel of John. Jesus knew well the symbolism presented to Nicodemus associated with Moses, but He presents a connection to the Cross and what the Lord will teach to all as the purpose of His Incarnation.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
John 3:14 KJV
You may have missed the familiar symbolism of the serpent in some translations using ‘snake’ or ‘bronze snake on a pole,’ so we will explore this from the Book of Numbers. But first, let’s return to the context of this conversation in John’s Gospel.
“Are you a teacher of Israel…?
We began our look at a theological debate between Nicodemus and Christ Jesus which the Apostle John records in God’s Love Through John: Of water and the Spirit. We associate Nicodemus mostly with Jesus’ clear answer to the initial question of the Israelite leader.
John 3:4 KJV Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
Nicodemus is already old by measure of lifespans of his day. He is a ruler of the council and the most prominent Pharisee of the Temple, who must come to Jesus at night to have this conversation.
He receives reports from others, including Pharisees and other Temple officials sent to John the Baptist, who testified that Jesus IS the Messiah, the Promised One. And Jesus’ bold actions have already made this Messiah even more controversial than John the Baptist.
Most certainly, Nicodemus was either present at the Temple as witness to the earlier destruction by Jesus in the Temple courtyard, either as it happened or immediately after the disruption of the order of ritual sacrifices.
15 After making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers’ coins and overturned the tables. 16 He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”
Do you suppose Nicodemus and other officials of the Temple council had a few questions for Jesus about this incident during the profitable Passover pilgrimage festival? Of course they did.
John records (perhaps from a later memory after the Resurrection), 17 And his disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
He quotes the scriptural songbook of Israel of the day.
4 Then they set out from Mount Hor by way of the Red Sea to bypass the land of Edom, but the people became impatient because of the journey.
5 The people spoke against God and Moses: “Why have you led us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!”
6 Then the Lord sent poisonous snakes [fiery serpents – KJV] among the people, and they bit them so that many Israelites died.
7 The people then came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede with the Lord so that he will take the snakes [serpents] away from us.” And Moses interceded for the people.
8 Then the Lord said to Moses,
“Make a snake image [a fiery serpent] and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will recover.”
9 So Moses made a bronze snake [a serpent of brass] and mounted it on a pole. Whenever someone was bitten, and he looked at the bronze snake, he recovered.
A Sign of Healing
The great symbolism of the snake raised in the wilderness connects
to the very power of the Lord and Creator as well as the intercessor for the people; in the wilderness, Moses, and in the presence of Nicodemus, the miraculous intercessor healer,Christ Jesus.
שָׂרָף saraph described as a poisonous serpent (fiery from burning effect of poison) is also the description found of a seraph or seraphim – majestic beings with six wings, human hands or voices in attendance upon God.
… and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
Numbers 21:9b KJV
Are you a Teacher of Israel…?
John 3:
9 “How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.
10 “Are you a teacher of Israel and don’t know these things?” Jesus replied.
Every teacher of Israel knows that the LORD requires sacrifice as substitution for sin. And all Pharisees knew the significance of the ‘Lamb of God,’ as the Prophet John had witnessed of Christ Jesus.
Teachers of the Law and the Prophets recognized the challenge of the analogy of Jesus. Jesus next addresses the association of the healing of the Cross and the Resurrection to Nicodemus.
Contemplation of Justice by James Earle Fraser – US Supreme Court building
Justice
At the beginning of this series I outlined topics which included justice. Here we will explore their linked applications.
Commandment
Law
Justice
Judgment
Penalty and Sentence
Redemption
Justice – n. 1) fairness. 2) moral rightness. 3) a scheme or system of law in which every person receives his/ her/its due from the system, including all rights, both natural and legal. – source: dictionary.law.com
The multi-branched tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
“but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” – Genesis 2:17 CSB
Paradise by Lucas Cranach the Elder – painter, draughtsman, printmaker and court painter – 1530
We move now from relatively calm waters of Adam knowing the difference between good and evil to a more tumultuous current of original sin flowing through the generations.
Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the LORD your God is giving you. – Deuteronomy 16:20
Ma’at (“connective justice,”) governed personal moral behavior, as can be seen in religious texts, as well as the proper relationships between gods and men, between kings and society, and between individuals. Thus it literally connected everyone from the gods, through the king, down to the lowliest farmer. It was the mirror of the divine order of the world and also the foundation of private ethical behavior. Ma’at was the most persistent and pervasive idea in ancient Egyptian society.
Importantly, the most visible and the longest lasting image of Ma’at in a private context, at least to the modem observer, is the famous “last judgment scene,” in which an individual faced his or her mortality by having his or her life deeds weighed in the balance against the symbol of justice, the ostrich feather, in front of all of the gods in Egypt.
If found wanting, the person’s soul was devoured and his or her existence was extinguished. On the other hand, if found “true of voice,” one gained eternal bliss in the afterlife. This was not the public representation of state justice, but, rather a more intimate depiction of the expectations of private moral behavior.
Do you recognize this universal connection to the truth in the Law given to Moses on Sinai by the Lord God?
Delegated authority of the Law
Application of law ultimately leads back to the same question Adam would have to judge after gaining ‘knowledge of good and evil.’
What is right? Is this good or evil in the eyes of the Lord?
Basic precedents of law include English Common Law and other fundamental documents.
of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, … and secure the Blessings of Liberty … ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Bill of Rights & evolving societal amendments
Religious Law
Hammurabi a Babylonian code of law
The contemporary legal systems of the world are generally based on one of four basic systems: civil law, common law, statutory law, religious law or combinations of these. However, the legal system of each country is shaped by its unique history and so incorporates individual variations.[1]
A Stream Towards Justice
We have examined the role of authority in the law. It is here that the roles of God, government, family and community all come into play.
The basis of all law is the authority by which it is given. Justice requires effective application and fair administration of remedies by a righteous and impartial judge. – Roger Harned
A commandment comes directly from Almighty God. Call it ‘religious law,’ but an absolute over-riding Authority connects God’s word to man’s actions.
Hebrew followers of Moses heard the Lord speak directly and were afraid. Even so, they disobeyed the direct command of God even before Moses later descended Sinai with the stone tablets – the Law, carved by the finger of God in stone.
This inviolable Law would be carried in the Ark of the Covenant; not as reference, but as witness to their own promises to God. Yet many would violate (trespass) their solemn covenant promises to God many times and in many places throughout the long history of Israel.
Penalty of the Law
Even though prescribed specifically for certain violations in specific contexts of the Law, ‘penalty’ is not mentioned by name in the King James Version of the Bible. The overriding issue, simply, is innocence or guilt and not particularly the punishment.
A divine sentence is in the lips of the king: his mouth transgresseth not in judgment. – Proverbs 16:10 KJV
Have you ever considered that the ‘sentence’ of the court is the spoken judgement against the convicted violator of the law?
Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. – Ecclesiastes 8:11 KJV
Perhaps you have even noted the legal principle of a right to a speedy trial in the wise advise above.
Now note the usage of the Hebrew root for the consequence of guilt:
דָּם – dam
blood (342x),
bloody (15x),
person (with H5315) (1x),
bloodguiltiness (1x)
bloodthirsty (with H582) (1x),
vr blood (1x)
Again, this goes to the higher authority of Almighty God. Perhaps a good Biblical example of commanded penalty would be ‘capital punishment.’
“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans his blood will be shed, for God made humans in his image.
“But you, be fruitful and multiply; spread out over the earth and multiply on it,”[Gen. 9:7] God commanded Noah and his family who were spared by the judgement of the earth.
Looking upstream through the generational sins even in the time of Moses, redemption from bloodguilt against God hardly seems attainable.
Kings and Nations under God
And what cause soever shall come to you of your brethren that dwell in their cities, between blood and blood, between law and commandment, statutes and judgments, ye shall even warn them that they trespass not against the LORD, and so wrath come upon you, and upon your brethren: this do, and ye shall not trespass. –2 Chronicles 19:10 KJV
reign of Jehoshaphat ~873–849 BC
From later records of Israel (and Judah after David), we learn of the continued importance of the Law or Commandment of God to this ‘chosen’ nation. The above quote from 2 Chronicles is recorded in the time of Jehoshaphat, in the 9th century Before Christ.
Note the distribution of authority given by King Jehoshaphat to others from 2 Chronicles 19:
A King’s delegation of justice
4 Jehoshaphat lived in Jerusalem, and once again he went out among the people from Beer-sheba to the hill country of Ephraim and brought them back to the Lord, the God of their ancestors. 5 He appointed judges in all the fortified cities of the land of Judah, city by city.
6 Then he said to the judges, “Consider what you are doing, for you do not judge for a mere mortal, but for the Lord, who is with you in the matter of judgment. 7 And now, may the terror of the Lord be on you. Watch what you do, for there is no injustice or partiality or taking bribes with the Lord our God.”
8 Jehoshaphat also appointed in Jerusalem…
some of the Levites and priests
and some of the Israelite family heads…
Delegated authority from the Lord to the King, then to officials responsible for religion, for community and for family. Even warning of how to manage outsiders (foreigners and servants), all under delegated authority of the Lord through others. Not freedom, as we know it. Certainly not license to choose whether to obey or defy any law or regulation.
10 For every dispute that comes to you from your brothers who dwell in their cities—whether it regards differences of bloodguilt, law, commandment, statutes, or judgments—you are to warn them, so they will not incur guilt before the Lord and wrath will not come on you and your brothers. Do this, and you will not incur guilt.
11 “Note that Amariah, the chief priest, is over you in all matters related to the Lord, and Zebadiah son of Ishmael, the ruler of the house of Judah, in all matters related to the king, and the Levites are officers in your presence. Be strong; may the Lord be with those who do what is good.”
God will judge
God is a righteous judge and a God who shows his wrath every day. – Psalm 7:11
He will judge your people with righteousness and your afflicted ones with justice. – Psalm 72:2
Psalm 111:9 Christian Standard Bible (CSB) 9 He has sent redemption to his people. He has ordained his covenant forever. His name is holy and awe-inspiring.
