The New Bereans

Moses and the Burning Bush by Arnold Friberg

The first allusion to the resurrection of Christ comes prior to the first mention in scripture of His death.  Right after the fall of Adam and Eve, God tells the serpent how the “seed” of the woman would bruise his head, and that the serpent would bruise his “seed’s” heal.   (I have often wondered what the seed of the serpent was exactly, but I would not be surprised if it has something to do with 1Cor 2:8.)

So we are faced with a prophetic ultimatum.  This is chronologically before the time of Job’s conclusion which I discussed in the last post, and from a Christian perspective we know what this means.  While we have insight into this prophecy now, for thousands of years, God was content and absolutely patient in waiting for the actual event to unfold before declaring (I will explain later what I mean by this) what it meant.  What does this say about the nature of God?   It is arresting that the resurrection is mentioned first, and the death of Christ (at the hand of the serpent’s seed) occurs second.  It is of interest that this is one of the first major prophecies in the Bible.  From the time this prophecy was given no-one could have known it spoke directly of the Resurrection of Christ unless the Holy Spirit had revealed it to them. Though I may be wrong (and if anyone knows please tell me) I do not think there is any revelation on this at all anywhere until the actual event.

The next allusion to the concept of resurrection that I know of (my study will not be exhaustive because I am flawed, I am sure there will be many I miss) is found in Exodus 3:6.  This was when God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush and said, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.” If you know your bible well, you are not scratching your head…

In the gospel of Matthew, in the 22^nd chapter, the Sadducee’s think they have the Christ in a corner with their willy question about the woman wedded to seven brothers.  According to Alfred Edersheim in his book, “Sketches of Jewish Social Life,” the Sadducee’s were a reactive sect*.  Their way of thinking was the result of being anti-Pharisee.  Who held to the concept of resurrection, but the Sadducee’s contrarily postulated that, because the Pentateuch never mentioned resurrection, it could not be true.  The living Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob evidenced resurrection.  This is likely why Jesus quoted from Exodus and not from the Psalms or the Prophets in Matthew 22:32.  This tells us a few things as a side-bar: 1) be very careful about filtering all of scripture through one lens of thinking (aka systematic theology, I am not saying don’t use them, just be very cautious.)  2) Don’t raise men (like Moses) on a pedestal above Christ,  not even Paul.  3) If Christ were sought sincerely, and He so desired, He could annihilate sectarian beliefs without batting an eye or opening a concordance.  4) This point is a bit mystical maybe, and I will understand if some disagree with me, but it is no irony to me that the mention of the truth of resurrection through God being the God of the living and not the God of the dead is the point which basically dissolved all of the Sadducee’s theology/doctrine/dogma, whatever you want to call it.  In one stroke, Jesus made being a Sadducee rather pointless.  I suspect that if the Church began walking in the fullness of Christ’s resurrection power,  all of our prideful differences and divisions would also dissolve.  To look at it more micro-cosmically, when we die to self and Christ’s resurrection is manifest through us as individuals, our tendency to backbite, strive, be bitter, and react to others in an un-spiritual fashion will also dissipate.

Now I am getting a bit ahead of myself.  Consider that an allusion and a taste of things to come in this series of posts.  Stay tuned for the next blog!

* “Sketches of Jewish Social Life,” -Alfred Edersheim, Hendrickson Publishers – 1994, Seventh Printing, March 2003.

“And he (Hezekiah) did that which was right in the sight of the LORD according to all that David his father did.  He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.”  -II Kings 18:3-4

That which was intended to bring healing from the curse of the wrath of God had become an idol to the children of Israel.  Hezekiah did what was right and destroyed it.  Was the serpent healing anyone of flaming poison at this time?  Not likely.  That which God deemed useful metaphorically had been replaced by itself in a physically limiting sense.

By implication, burning incense meant that the brass serpent had become just another Idol of compromise to the children.  In Hosea, God lamented over a wife whom never verbally or contractually denied their bridegroom, either through covenantal divorce or complete apostasy.  Rather, they continually tried to maintain their connection to YHWH, all the while fornicating with the Gods of Canaan.  Are we much different?  He who has ears to hear!  That which had once symbolized salvation from wrath had become a seal of adultery.  While dumb idols, in and of themselves were just elemental objects fashioned by hands, Paul tells us that when the Gentiles sacrificed they did so to devils. _{I Cor 10:20} I am not entirely positive that a Devil had inhabited Nehushtan, but I would not be surprised to find out that one had.

In the book of Jude, the archangel Michael disputed with the devil over the body of Moses.  I have heard it suggested that one reason could be because Satan wanted to use his body for idolatry.  I cannot be absolutely confident in that assertion, but conceptually speaking I can see the reason behind such a claim.  Whether that is accurate or not, does not negate the idea that Satan often uses physical constructs to hold men sway to his power.

I suspect the Shroud of Turin is not much different.  First of all the word of God only gives us one main physical description of Christ and it is found in the book of Revelation.

It says that His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and His voice was as the voice of many waters. _{Rev 1:14-15} This description of Christ speaks of very many things, and it is not the point of this post to discuss them.  But I think it is significant that this is how the word wants us to visualize our Lord.  Not lying down covered in blood, bruises, and with the shadow of death upon him.  He wants to be known as the God of Judgment, risen and ascended.  Satan does not want to be reminded of this, every time it happens, the bruise on his head grows sore and tender. _{John 16:11}

I wonder if Satan chuckles every time someone pays to see that shroud…for you are then stuck with an image…an image that does not bear any semblance with the reality of eyes which consume with fire.  Pay incense to it (the shroud) if you wish, just remember it could be fornication.  Satan would be much more satisfied if we only remembered Christ in his “bruised” state…Genesis 3:15.  Christian websites ought not to be promoting this.  Unfortunately I have seen more than a few promoting it as if it is a good thing.  However, search the scriptures yourself and see if the Lord is concerned about his grave-clothes.

The internet is vividly abuzz with the supposed “Evidence,” or proof of the resurrection of Christ.  It is obvious that the debate around the shroud of Turin is heating up once again, but my purpose is not to debate the authenticity, or the validity of these claims.  I have not seen the documentary from the History Channel, and to be honest, I have little interest in it.  The fact that this documentary was released so close to Easter is obviously to generate as much hype about it as possible, and who can blame them?  It is great marketing.

However, I have to say that the whole premise of needing a “scientific” proof of the resurrection is symptomatic of quite the consistent modern problem concerning genuine faith.   The Bible proves the point over…and over…and over…and over…that genuine saving faith is not generated in the realm of the miraculous.   Nor is it generated through scientific reasoning.   The wonders of the exodus resulted in most of its witnesses dead in the desert, for when the gospel was “preached, the word did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” (Hebrews 4:2)   Elijah saw God consume a soaking wet altar with fire, and soon after he doubted Gods ability to save him from Jezebel.   Jonah saw an entire nation repent at his few words…and still wanted to see them consumed in wrath.  The disciples were told numerous times by their own Lord that He would die and rise again on the third day!  How many of those disciples were twiddling their thumbs outside the tomb waiting for him to fulfill that promise?  Judas saw all the miracles a human had ever had the privilege of seeing, yet he found his guts spilled all over the place for his selfish treachery and wickedness.

If God wanted to give us rationalistic evidence of Himself…he would have done it.  We ought to be FAR more concerned about Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Our lives, when transformed by the resurrection power of Christ, are the only valid proof we need of the resurrection.  If that be lacking, then maybe the shroud will make you feel a bit better about yourself and your intellectual comforts.

Job and His Friends by Ilya Repin

In the midst of ash and accusation, boils and belligerent philosophy, a spark of trouble flew upward, beyond the lowly crags of mountain heights, into the deep blue etherium of divine contemplation.  His name was Job, which means “hated, or persecuted.”  According to his accusers, he must have done something to offend the Almighty.  His suffering dictated that it must be so.  It is no wonder that the oldest book of Hebrew lore deals with the deepest questions humans have tried to apprehend.  In the midst of extreme suffering, we have all inevitably questioned the point of life.  Job’s bitter query did not proceed until after seven days and seven nights of silence amidst the conjoining of dust, ash, rending, and “friends.”

There he sat in silence so long…I am sure the day of visitation was fresh in his mind…being replayed like a video again and again and again.  No doubt his silence was one of agonizing mental anguish.  Once the silence is broken, Job basically says that the day of his birth ought to be cursed into eternal blackness. _{(Job 3)} His deep pondering begs the question.  WHY LIVE??? Why live if suffering is our bread, if misery is our drink?

Once Job finally broke his silence…Eliphaz was quick to speak the abundance of his heart and accusation against Job.  He starts off with a few quick words of flattery, probably out of cultural respect, then promptly begins to develop a thread of thought that Job must not be innocent, of course his suffering must be the result of sin because, “Who ever perished, being innocent?”  Or, “They that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.”  _{(Job 4:7-8)}

Like so many councilors that lack any form of humility, Eliphaz completely ignores the questions Job raises, and displays the true motive behind why he sat seven days and nights on Job’s pile of ash.  His motive was to bring accusation against his friend.  Job had asked why it was that he did not just die when he was born.  Then he would have moved on to the indomitable vault of equalization…the grave.  Where the, “Prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.  The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.” _{(Job 3:17-18)} Job was concerned with the deeply subterraneous questions of his soul.  Eliphaz was concerned with emanating his own religious pomposity via his theology.

The temptation to give a ringside, blow by blow account is difficult for me to withstand; however, for succinctness sake we must jump forward numerous arguments later, after Job has received jabs, hooks, uppercuts and below-the-belt accusations from his “friends.”  In the midst of his suffering and incrimination Job raises one of the single most important questions that suffering must force someone to ask.  Keep in mind this is probably the oldest book of the Bible, if not one of the oldest written manuscripts ever.   In Job 14:14, he laments, “If a man die, shall he live again?  All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.”  God had not yet been fully manifest and in the Son, so total revelation about life and death had not yet occurred to humanity.  Job did not know yet that eternal life was knowing the Father, and the one whom he would send.

Eliphaz proves his religious ignorance once again by calling Job’s questions an, “uttering of vain knowledge and a filling of his belly with the east wind.”  Why think deeply about your pain Job?  Just repent for your ox-dumb pride.

Job then responds to this indictment and receives one more from Bildad.  It is at this point in chapter nineteen where Job reaches a crescendo of angst.  He points out that his miserable councilors have accused him ten times, and he begins to lament that he has been forsaken by every last person whom he valued.  He first laments deeply of God forsaking him, and how God had stripped him of his glory and crown. _{(Job 19:9)} Job was destroyed on every side…troops had been raised against him, his brethren were put far from him, every acquaintance of his had become completely estranged from him.  His kinsfolk failed him, and his familiar friends forgot him.  Those most intimate with him, his maids and dwellers of his home, now viewed him as an alien and a stranger in their sight.   His breath even became strange to his own wife.  The word strange in the Hebrew is metonymous with the word for adultery.  So it could be said that his very breath was as the breath of an adulterer to his own spouse.  This gives us a sense of just how disgusting Job’s suffering was to his kin.  His own children also rose up and despised him and spoke against him.  All this would be bad enough but the dagger in his back is twisted a little bit more when he says that even his “inward friends” have turned on him as the hand of God touched him.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death by George Inness

It is as if the veil of fellowship had been drawn and stitched.  It was woven from the fabric of solitude, and the stitches were the condescending glances of accusation he received.  No man is more forsaken in the midst of people than this man.  He was so alone that his bones clove to his skin and flesh.  This was likely due to malnutrition from prolonged fasting.  Eating no longer meant anything to him.

Finally, it is within this broad context that Job laments, “Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?  Oh that my words were printed in a book!  That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever.  For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.  And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:  Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.”

Was it not Christ our Lord, whom upon the cross asked from the bottom of the deepest well of trepidation ever probed, “My God my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  Did not all of Christ’s sheep scatter into hiding?  Did not Jesus become as an adulterer to them?  Were they not completely ashamed of His suffering?  Was Peter not in the valley of the shadow of death?

By now, I hope you have noticed the parallel between Job being forsaken by all, and Christ being forsaken by all, even His Father.  These continuities are absolutely staggering.  I will let your imagination continue to connect these concepts.  It is at this point, of Job’s deep suffering, where deep calls unto deep.  Some divine tremendous light has perforated the subterranean expanse of his tragedy, and he concludes the only thing an open mind, a humble heart, and a suffering soul can conclude…there must be, there has to be, I know there will be…a resurrection from the dead!  My Savior will stand upon the earth someday and I will stand with him.   So it was that He (our Lord), for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.  The broadest depths of human suffering when contemplated with a view of God in mind, require resurrection to be true.  Were it not, sanity would become pointless…

For the last three or four months I have had a singular obsession as I study the Word…the resurrection of Jesus Christ.   My (spiritual) curiosity had been peaked because over the years I have noticed that among a great deal of the Easter sermons I have attended, I have noticed very little discussion about the meaning of the empty tomb.   All too often I have heard sermons preached out of the end of one of the gospels, and we are reminded often about how the women beat the disciples to the tomb, that it was early in the morning…no-one was waiting there.  All the details are often commented on, but I have often been left feeling as empty as the tomb Christ vacated when the sermon is over.

The purpose of this blog series is not to debate the technical validity of celebrating the resurrection on Easter.  If eating meat sacrificed to Idols bothers you, then don’t celebrate it on Ishtar, my emphasis is rather on the fact that on the day we do commemorate the resurrection, so often the point of it is missed.  Our Christian life is un-arguably to be one of resurrection power and the tendency to celebrate this concept only once a year is a very distilling tradition.  I find it to be a bitter irony that many Americanized religious folk only go to church twice a year and one of those days is Ishtar.

All the while I was studying this I was completely oblivious to the fact that Easter was once again coming about on the calendar, so I thought it would be fitting to share some of the insights I feel the Lord has shown me in His word that may help to take you deeper in your walk with Christ.   This is going to take numerous entries because the nature of the study does not lend itself to a blog post very well as it has been a long, prayer-filled meditation on this powerful truth from the word.  Please be patient as I will build up the thesis to a crescendo over an estimated 10 – 12 blog posts.  This may take me a month or more to complete.

It is my hope that my blogging silence over the last few months will be noted as I have given very little time to the usual little nuggets I proffer.   My silence has been due primarily to this obsession.

For the purpose of maintaining only the things I think are important to us as believers during the following blogs, I will take the remainder of this post to state that if you have been bit by the Zeitgeist Tom-Foolery and think that somehow the resurrection of Christ is not a unique concept to Christianity, I would ask that you consider watching this documentary.  While the concept of a god being resurrected may not have been entirely unique in a technical sense…I would propose that the meaning of the empty tomb, to Christians, is hands down, the singularity around which the entire galaxy of Christian sanctification doctrine gravitates.  And I would propose that all the “meaning” around the technical god-resurrections of mythos-gone-by does not hold an inkling of meaning by means of comparison.  For example, if you think that Osiris being reconstructed by Isis for the purpose of demi-god near necrophilia has much meaning to compare to the Krakatoa of purpose behind Yeshua Hamashiach rising

and conquering the power of death, then certainly the meaning of Christs death-resurrection-and ascension has not been articulated well enough (not as the fault of scripture, but ours to portray it.)

The tendency to view it alone as an historical event has probably invited and begged mythological criticism.   I suspect that all this mythos has been a result of such a lack of the display of Christ’s resurrection in us.  We ought to take note of the winds of criticism…even the murmurings of dark hearts can be an exhortation for us to seek deeper meaning, and to discover our own failures.   If you do not know what Zeitgeist is all about…don’t waste your time.  I am only saying this for the benefit of those who have had their flesh exposed to the poison Zeitgeist’s fangs excrete.   Please stay tuned or read the next post; I think it will be of great value to many.

-Your brother in Christ (if you are born of the Spirit)…Jeremiah Dusenberry.

I pray that God would send another revival to our generation similar to this, yet new in His end-time purposes.

In reading through Genesis 46 today I again ran across one of those great scriptural themes, division.  And it struck me because I’ve never thought of it as a major scriptural theme like faith or love, but it most definitely is.  Joseph instructs his father and brothers to tell Pharaoh they are just shepherds, because “every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.”₁ This is quite important because their very livelihood caused a deep and immediate rift with their Egyptian hosts.  They were completely separated from the world around them.  This kept them from eating with or marrying, the Egyptians; it kept them from being absorbed into Egypt.

The world as in the Tower of Babel is always emphasizing unity but God wants no part of it.  He is always dividing, separating and creating disharmony, case in point . . . the Jews.  Out of the entire world God chooses one man, and from him, he builds a new nation, through which he will reveal himself to the world.  He didn’t work through an existing nation he separated one man from his nation; He is a God of separation.

Jesus put it this way . . .

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.  And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.  Matthew 10:34-36

If we are his disciples, we should expect division to follow in our wake.  If no one hates or maligns us we should be quite worried, for Christ promises us that these are the natural fruit of following him.  We are not to go out of our way to pick fights and be Jerks for Jesus, but need to realize that if we are living for Him, opposition and division will always follow.

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.  John 15:18

1. Genesis 46:34

In the modern western world we are a curious breed. We are neither strict idolaters nor iconoclasts (destroyers of idols), we are both. We love to take a normal human being like Tiger Woods and confer godlike status upon them; then we wait for a character flaw or misstep to occur, as soon as they falter we destroy them. It can be a sweet old lady like Susan Boyle or an oversexed ego driven athlete like Tiger. We are willing to deify then destroy almost anyone.

This begs the question, why? Why do we engage in this bizarre behavior? Is there something in the water? A cursory glance around makes it plain that none of us meet the high standards we hold our heroes to. Is the media to blame? Is it some sort of mass psychosis? I don’t think so.

I believe that Paschal was right, there is a “God shaped hole” in the human heart and nothing but God can fill it. What fools we are. We vainly attempt to make men into gods, and then we despise them once they fall short. If we seek perfection there is but one place to look. Only Christ qualifies.

“For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God!”  The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. Deuteronomy 32:3-4

“The word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying fear not, Abram: I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.”  – Genesis 15:1

To be one who would seek the eternal king only for the blessings he can procure, would be nearly criminal.  The trial of which would be held before the very creation that groans, as only earth, space and stars could groan.  Such things groan, shatter, collide and quasar, in eager expectation of one solid permanent edifice of reality to protrude beyond the limitations of itself.  That thing is the revelation of God’s Sons.

The sons of God will be those who, like their Father Abraham, recognize and believe that their heavenly father is far more than just being some cosmic blessing dispenser.  Our Lord told us that the very definition of eternal life was to, “Know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” John 17:3

In Hosea 7:13-14 God laments, “Woe unto them! For they have fled from me: because they have transgressed against me: though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.  And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me.”

Do we gather to ask of the Lord for mere provision of the things of the flesh?  Or do we gather that his kingdom would come?  That his will be done?  In earth as it is in heaven?  And from this right posture of desire do we then recognize that the purpose of our daily bread is to bolster and follow the desire for every word that proceeds from the mouth of God?

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  Colossians 3:2

We are here instructed to set our minds on things above, this implies 2 truths.  1. Our minds are not naturally set on things above.  2. If our minds are to be set on things above i.e. heavenly things, we must set them there.

This is not an idea, or a suggestion, it is a command.  Notice Paul does not say “God sets the minds of his elect on things above when, and where, and to the degree he wishes.”  No!  He commands us to set our minds on these things.  This is no monergistic act of God; it is either a willful or synergistic act of ours.  This is not something we wait for God to do; this is something he is waiting for us to do.

Now herein lies the challenge for 21st century Americans,  there are innumerable things vying for our attention, attempting to draw our eyes away from the eternal and onto themselves.  We must intentionally separate from these things in order to focus on the eternal.  What am I getting at?  Merely listening to contemporary Christian music, praying before meals, or reading a 5 minute daily devotional will not give you an eternal mindset or perspective.

So how do we set our minds on things above?  Reading your Bible and prayer are a good start but there’s more to it than that.  In the following verses Paul lists sins to put away, and godly things to replace them with, this is getting closer.   Then he adds the final piece of the Puzzle, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you . . .“ To have a heart for God you must have a heart occupied by God.  Without His indwelling, a heavenly mindset is impossible to gain or maintain.  If we desire to be his disciples, and see things as he does, we must have a relationship with him.