Firstborn Sonship of Christ
Vol 26 No 2
February 2001
The New Birth
Series Number: 27
INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT
Each reader who has not read and studied the preceding 26 articles in sequential order is urged to do so.
CHRIST IN PSALM 89
A COVENANT WITH DAVID
3 "I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn to My servant David:
4 "'Your seed I will establish forever, And build up your throne to all generations.'" Ps 89:3-4.
This psalm is a covenant psalm: of course, all the psalms and all the Scriptures belong to and are God's covenants; however, this psalm, among other psalms, pointedly draws attention to the solemn and binding covenant relationship between Jehovah and His covenant people. The covenants are founded on God's promise and oath of "life and good," for those who choose life, "and death and punishment," for those who will not endure the severe disciplinary training which the covenants require, 1Co 10:1-13; Heb 3 & 4; 5:8-9; 8:6-13; 9; 10; 11; 12.
The covenants, commonly called "commandments," promise "life" (Deu 30:10-20; Mt 19:17-30; Mk 11:17-30; Lk 17:18-30) within the firstborn sonship, only to those who choose life and overcome the covenant discipline by grace through faith. On the other hand, the covenants also promise "death" away from the covenants and away from the divine "life" which God promised through the covenants. The covenant people are in position to receive this divine life by way of constantly believing into the firstborn sonship of Christ, who prepared this sonship for us through His human life, death, burial, and resurrection birth into a divine human body, Col 1:18; Rev 1:5; Act 13:29-33; Heb 1:5-6; 5:5; 1Co 15:44-50 (1-4,29-58).
A COVENANT WITH MY CHOSEN
3 "I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn to My servant David," Ps 89:3.
This covenant is referred to as God's covenant with David, and this is true, but the covenant was first made between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit before creation, Eph 3:1-11; 1Pe 1:18-20; et al. It is like God's covenant with Abraham, which was initially made within the Godhead before creation, yet within the time capsule it was primarily between the Father and "the Seed" of Abraham, Gal 3:19. This is true with all the covenants, and is seen in God's foreknowledge and predestination, Phi 2:6-11; Act 2:23; Eph 1:3-11; 3:9-11; 2Ti 1:9; Ti 1:2; 1Pe 1:2,18-20.
The covenant was made with David, however the chief focus in the covenant and in all the covenants is the Seed of the woman (Gen 3:15), the Seed of Abraham (Gal 3:14-19), and the Seed of David, Jn 7:42; Rom 1:3; 2Ti 2:8. David, in Ps 89, is chiefly the Messianic David – Immanuel, Jehovah Elohim in the flesh.
CHRIST IN PSALM 89
4 "Your Seed I will establish forever, And build up your throne to all generations," Ps 89:4,29,36.
The word "seed" is singular, but may be used generically to include the physical seed of David, but the primary emphasis is on Messianic David and His spiritual descendants, Isa 8:17-18; Heb 2:13-16. These Messianic psalms are enriched greatly when we project Christ into each verse of the psalm as Jehovah in the flesh singing and praying the psalm.
What thoughts did Jesus have and what emotions did He feel as He sang each verse of these Messianic psalms, knowing that He was Jehovah in the flesh, predestined as the Son of David to fulfill each prophetic utterance, as well as personally share each expression of weakness, of need, of prayer, of praise, of waiting on God and each emotion of the psalmist resulting from selfishness, infidelity, rejection, persecution, etc., on the part of mankind? Thus, each Messianic psalm generates a greater richness and fullness of meaning and understanding (on our part) of the inward emotions and daily life of Christ.
The "will" of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is always the same. Christ always did the will of the Father (Jn 4:34; 5:30; 8:29), and the Holy Spirit always does the will of the Father and the Son, (Jn 14:26; 15:26; 16:13-15), therefore the will of one is the will of all three. Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me," Jn 5:39.
Jesus learned from the Scriptures (Lk 24:26,46) at an early age that He was Jehovah in a human body, and that His human body was predestined to be born of God in His resurrection, Lk 24:26,46; Col 1:18; Rev 1:5; Act 13:29-33; Heb 1:5-6; 5:5; 1Co 15:44-50. This is clearly what He learned from many psalms (Ps 2:7; 16:7-11; 17:15; 24; 40:6-8; 45:6-7; 68:17-18; et al), and from all the Scriptures, as we will continue to see.
In the above psalms, for instance, endeavor to discern the understanding and emotions of Christ as He sang and prayed every
verse. When the psalmist speaks of his own sins, see Christ compassionately bearing our sins in His own bosom (Ps 89:50-51), just as parents grieve over the sins of their children.
Of course, Christ was not made sin until those hours of darkness on the cross, 2Co 5:21; 1Pe 2:22-24. ONE CHOSEN FROM THE PEOPLE
19 "Then You spoke in a vision to Your holy One, And said: ‘I have given help to one who is mighty; I have exalted One chosen from the people.
20 "‘I have found My Servant David; With My holy oil I have anointed Him,'" Ps 89:19-20.
The Septuagint says "holy ones" (plural) in verse 19. Whether singular or plural, it applies well either way. David was a chosen one from among the chosen ones, so was Solomon, and so was Jehovah as the Son of David. The covenant is with David, with Solomon, and with Jehovah as the Messiah – the Messianic David.
They were all anointed with the holy oil, and were all mighty ones in God's projection. However, the Messianic David, or the Son of David, is the true "mighty One" because He is Jehovah, Isa 7:14; 9:6-7; Zec 12:10. Christ was anointed with the Holy Spirit above all others, and without Him there would be no salvation and no mighty ones.
Jehovah (Jesus) was born as a human into the family of David that He could be the Son of David and could be chosen from among the covenant people. The purpose of God was to create a new kind of man, a new kind of Son of God – a race of firstborn divine sons of God.
I WILL MAKE HIM MY FIRSTBORN
26 "He shall cry to Me, 'You are My Father, My God, and the rock of My salvation.'
27 "Also I will make Him My Firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth," Ps 89:26-27.
David was the eighth son of his father, and was never a firstborn except by covenant standing, Ex 4:22-23; Rom 8:29; Heb 12:23. Solomon also was not David's firstborn son. The primary application of the passage and the psalm is to Christ as the "Firstborn from the dead," Col 1:15,18; Rev 1:5; Act 13:29-33. As the Firstborn from the dead, Christ is the first human whose body was born into a divine state of being, so that now all the fullness of deity dwells in the human, now also divine body of Christ, Col 2:9; 2Cor5:1-5,16-17,21.
SEED OF THE WOMAN
"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel," Gen 3:15.
Immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, God gave this monumental prophecy that looms high as a major landmark leading to the divine glory of the human yet divine Redeemer. From the beginning God intended for this promise of redemption hope to catch the attention of everyone, and for those who pursue it and come to understand it, to then broadcast it likewise to everyone we possibly can.
Eve was deceived and ate the forbidden fruit, but nothing happened – nothing happened: it was when Adam ate of it, that the pristine nature of both of them was changed to an incurable and inherent sin nature. "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned," Rom 5:12.
MADE OF A WOMAN
"But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law," Gal 4:4.
The Seed of the woman, the virgin birth, and born of a woman, all harmonize and point to the sinless human body for our Kinsman Redeemer. God knew what He was doing in the beginning, and in human terms set about to produce that grand objective. In doing so, He utilized a large number of types or symbolic portraits of the sinless Seed of the woman. We will indicate a few of these and later deal with them in detail. They flow through the Scriptures, in multiple variety and often repeated, presenting a cloaked yet remarkably descriptive image of Jehovah in a sinless human body made divine.
A VIRGIN SHALL CONCEIVE
"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel," Isa 7:14; 9:6-7.
This is indeed unequivocally monumental. Nicodemus and all in Israel should have understood that one within the Elohim Godhead would be born of a virgin and become God in human flesh – and who else could He possibly be but the prophetic Son of David to sit on David's throne and rule the nations for that "seventh day of rest," Gen 2:1-3; Ex 20:8-11; Isa 2:1-4; 11:1-9; et al. And who else could he be but the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world – the perfect "burnt offering" and the perfect "sin offering" which were repeatedly offered every day that the Levitical priesthood was functioning in the tabernacle and temple.
Did anyone in the Old Testament days ever think of this and consider what purpose God would have in becoming a human? Do you suppose anyone ever thought that God becoming a human would have anything to do with redemption of the human race? Could we suppose any of the Old Testament saints ever associated God in the flesh with the many animal sacrifices, who would become the Lamb of God, the sinless "sin offering," "without blemish and without spot?" Lev ch 1 thru 7; Jn 1:29; 1Pe 1:18-19.
Did anyone ever associate this virgin birth with Gen 3:15 which prophesies that the Seed of the wo-man was predestined to crush the head of the serpent (of Satan), because Satan was the one who deceived the woman – that Immanuel in the flesh would put away sin and redeem those who believe and obey to such lofty heights as immediately began to be described and portrayed after the fall of Adam and Eve?
Obviously, there were those who understood these truths, and Simeon and Anna were two among those many who understood, Lk 2:25-38. Can you read the words of Simeon without shedding tears of under-standing, thanksgiving, and joy?
THE MIGHTY GOD
6 "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 "Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this," Isa 9:6-7. This Child, this Son who is given to us is explicitly "Immanuel."
He is "God with us," and He is the Son of David who will sit on David's throne and rule the nations through that seventh day of "rest." Those faithful Old Testament saints 1) saw Him as the Seed of the woman (Gen 3:15; Isa 7:14; 9:6-7), the Seed of Abraham (Gen 12:3; Gal 3;8,14-19), the Seed of David (Jer 23:5-6; 33:15-16)), 2) they saw Him as the anointed Servant, despised and rejected, but ministering to the poor and helpless (Isa 50:4; 53:1-3; 61:1), 3) they saw Him as God in the flesh on a lowly but divine mission to finish God's work and create unsearchable and heavenly riches for those who believe and obey (Isa 50:4-7; 53:1-12; 64:4; 1Co 2:9; Ps 45:6-9), 4) they saw Him as the spotless Lamb of God who would suffer God's wrath on the "altar of burnt offerings" as the daily "burnt offering," and "sin offering"(Ps 22; 40:5-8; Isa 53), 5) they saw Him dying, descending into sheol, leading captivity captive out of sheol, and creating a divine human body by His resurrection birth, Ps 2:7-9; 8:1-9; 16:7-11; 110:1-4; Isa 8:13-18; Heb 2:13.
TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU
"I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, 'You are My Son, Today I have begotten You,'" Ps 2:7
This is not vain repetition. This is what Simeon saw, Lk 2:25-35. This is what so many saw who took time to believe and obey by grace through faith. This is what all the Old Testament saints could have seen and should have seen, and this is why Jesus lovingly rebuked Nicodemus by saying "Are you a teacher in Israel, and do not know these things?" Jn 3:10. Nicodemus should have known, as we are seeing the Scriptures so clearly and universally demonstrate.
"I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, 'You are My Son, Today I have begotten You," Ps 2:7.
This is the day the Son of David became "the Firstborn from the dead," Col 1:18; Rev 1:5; Act 13:29-33; Heb 1:5-6; 5:5. This is the day that Immanuel in the flesh arose from the dead and was born again into a divine human body, yet that day has always been in the knowledge and experience of the Father and the Son, who have always been infinite in both knowledge and experience. This is the day the Father said to the Son, "Today I have begotten you." This is the day that Immanuel in the flesh no doubt remembered these prophetic words and sang them before the Father and the angels. This is the day to which the angels were constantly looking forward with unspeakable anticipation, 1Pe 1:12.
This is the day of the "new creation" – the "new birth" of the mere flesh body into a divine spirit, heavenly body, Col 1:18; Rev 1:5; Act 13:29-33; Heb 1:5-6; 5:5; Eph 2:10-15; 2Co 5:16-17; 1Co 15:44-50. This is the day that the church as the body of Christ was born, and this is the day that the human bodies of all in the body of Christ were generically (in a metaphor) born again into divine, heavenly, spirit bodies, as members of the born again, divine, flesh body of Christ, 2Co 5:1-5,16-17; 1Co 15:44-50; Jn 3:1-18; Rom 4:17; 6:1-13.
IF HIS SONS FORSAKE MY LAW
30 "If His sons forsake My law and do not walk in My judgments,
31 "If they break My statutes and do not keep My commandments,
32 "Then I will punish their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
33 "Nevertheless My lovingkindness I will not utterly take from Him, Nor allow My faithfulness to fail.
34 "My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips," Ps 89:30-34.
The disciplinary training of the Lord in under consideration. God is also demonstrating His love, mercy, forbearance, and justice (Heb 12:1-17; Rom 9:22-23), and in the process He is teaching us to possess and exercise these virtues or attributes. It was not only the Father's will for Immanuel to learn obedience by the things He suffered (disciplinary training), but that we must also be trained and overcome in the same abrasive and treacherous environment, Heb 2:10-18 thru 5:9.
I WILL NOT LIE TO DAVID
34 "My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips.
36 "His seed shall endure forever, and His throne as the sun before Me;
37 "It shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky," Ps 89:34-37.
God has taken a covenant oath concerning David's throne and David's seed that they will continue into and through the age (the seventh day Millennial age). The oath of God is clear and steadfast, and all the promises of God will be fulfilled perfectly as God intended. It is our part to present ourselves as living sacrifices in order to discern His good and perfect will, Rom 12:1-2
.
The Scriptures have many passages like this: the language is so strong that, although it is said that "we are killed all day long and counted sheep for the slaughter" (Rom 8:28-39), we come to think that we cannot be cut off from the election – we cannot fail to make our calling and election sure, in spite of Jn 15:1-6; Rom 8:5-6,13,23-25; 11:11-22; Gal 4:21 thru 5:4; 2Pe 1:9-10; 3:16-17; and many, many others which reveal explicitly that the seed of Abraham and of Christ must walk daily in the steps of the faith of Abraham and of Christ – same cloud of witnesses as above and in Heb 11.
YOU HAVE CAST OFF YOUR ANOINTED
38 "But You have cast off and abhorred, You have been furious with Your anointed.
39 "You have renounced the covenant of Your servant; You have profaned his crown by casting it to the ground," Ps 89:38-39.
The lamentations of verses 38 through 49 do not apply to the glory days of David, but expressly apply to the last two and a half millenniums of God's bitter judgments on Israel because of unbelief and hardness of heart, following the few centuries of idolatry and rebellion against God in pursuit of selfish lusts, Isa 1; 6:9-12.
I BEAR IN MY BOSOM THE REPROACH OF ALL THE PEOPLES
50 "Remember, Lord, the reproach of Your servants; how I bear in My bosom the reproach of many peoples;
51 "Wherewith Your enemies have reproached, O LORD; wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of Your Anointed," Ps 89:50-51.
This keenly calls to mind Ps 69:9,19-21, another clear Messianic psalm, where we will also be greatly enriched when applying the emotional pain experienced, not only to David in his troubles, but primarily in the bosom of Christ as He was "in ALL points tempted (and tested) as we are, yet without sin,"Heb 4:15. "In all points" (in every way) that sinful humans have been tried by God and tempted by Satan, Christ was also tested and tempted, yet without sin. No one enjoys being reproached, mocked, falsely accused, yet perhaps none felt it so deeply and compassionately as Christ did as He learned obedience by the things He suffered, Heb 5:8-9.
Likewise, Jesus daily experienced inexpressible love and compassion toward us as He, in His heart, empathized with us, compassionately bearing in His bosom our short comings and rejoicing with the angels and with us in our repentance and faith obedience, Lk 15:10. See Jehovah Elohim in Ps 89 in a lowly human body as our Kinsman Redeemer, especially in verses 46-51. More than any other human, Immanuel with human emotions experienced and expressed the love, mercy, forbearance, and justice of the divine Trinity.
THEY TWO SHALL BE ONE
31 "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become ONE flesh" (Gen 2:24).
32 "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church," Eph 5:31-32.
Here is the heart of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. From the largest of creatures to the smallest there is male and female which are joined together to produce offspring, bearing testimony in varying degrees of two becoming "one." God created Adam without a mate, then out of Adam created woman who was also bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh; and these two He joined together to become one flesh in a fullness of oneness of enduring life experience.
And this serves to augment God's witnesses in nature of a resur-rection and of the faithful covenant people being made "one flesh" with Christ (Eph 5:31-32), therefore and thereby being filled with all the fullness of God's divine attributes of deity.
ONE WITH GOD
21 "That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
22 "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:
23 "I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me," Jn 17:21-23.
God's grand plan of redemption not only delivers the faithful covenant people from death, hell, and the grave into an eternally immaculate and blissful utopian society, but far more than that. God's greatest pleasure is that His faithful covenant people be "one" in divine relationship with Him. His purpose is to bring them into a divine "oneness" with Himself, and though the eye has seen, the ear has heard, the hands have handled this Word of life in the person of the deified body of Christ, and God has revealed this to us (1Jn 1:1-3; Mt 17:1-5; Jn 20:16-28), yet these "unsearchable riches" of Christ are only faintly understood by His chosen people.
This unique "oneness" with God means God being in us and we being in God, as the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father, which is also true of the Holy Spirit. It is on this basis that the Holy Spirit is given to the covenant people as an earnest (guarantee) of that divine relationship, Gal 4:4-7; 2Cor 5;1-5,16-17, 21. By covenant reckoning, we are counted as being divinely born of God, on which basis the Holy Spirit is given to us to aid us to qualify us for that firstborn sonship through severe covenant training, Heb 2:10 thru 5:9; 12:1-29.
GLORY TO NO OTHER
10 "Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
11 "For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it; For how should My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another.
12 "Listen to Me, O Jacob, And Israel, My called: I am He, I am the First, I am also the Last," Isa 48:10-12.
Israel is God's covenant people. They are His "called," His "elect,"Isa 45:4; Rom 11. Israel is God's "glory" (Isa 46:13), His special people who will show forth His attributes, Isa 43:21; 1Pe 2:4-9. And Jesus said, "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one," Jn 17:22. God has promised that His glory will be given to His faithful covenant people of all ages that they may be "one" with and in the Father, "one" with and in the Son, and "one" with and in the Holy Spirit, Eph 1:22-23; 3:19; 5:31-32; Col 1:19; 2:9-10; Jn 10:30-36; 14:8-11; Jn 17:21-23; 2Pe 1:4.
GOD WITH US
14 "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel," Isa 7:14.
6 "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 "Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this," Isa 9:6-7.
In order for us to become "one" with God, God had to become "one" with us. "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness (the fullness) of God in Him," 2Co 5:21.
In the body of Christ we become the "righteousness" of God, 2Co 5:21; Phi 3:9. In the body of Christ we become the "fullness" of God, Col 2:9-10; Eph 1:22-23; 3:19. In the body of Christ we become "one" with God (10:30-36; 14:8-11; 17:21-23) – one with and in the Father, one with and in the Son, and one with and in the Holy Spirit (Gal 4:4-7; Rom 8:10-13,23-25; 2Co 5:1-5) – we in Them and They in us, Jn 17:21-23.
THE SEED OF THE WOMAN
"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel," Gen 3:15.
God had shortly before created Eve out of Adam and had joined them together as "one," Gen 2:24. The Seed of the woman is Immanuel (God with us) – God becoming "one" with us. Nicodemus should have recognized, as Simeon obviously did (Lk 2:25-35), that the Seed of the woman and the virgin giving birth to Immanuel spoke of the same mighty God, the son of David to sit on David's throne, Isa 9:6-7.
CLOTHED THEM WITH SKINS
"Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them," Gen 3:21.
God could easily have made clothes of numerous kinds of material. Why shed blood and take the life of animals? Because as through-out the Old Testament, the sacrificing
of animals portrayed God in the flesh (Immanuel) shedding His blood and giving His sinless human life for our redemption from sin and its consequences, 1Pe 1:18-20; Jn 1:29.
21 "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him," 2Co 5:21.
7 "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready."
8 "And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints," Rev 19:7-8.
6 "But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away," Isa 64:6.
The righteousness acts of the saints are the works of the Holy Spirit in us as we believe and obey, Phi 2:12-13; Mt 10:19-20. We have no righteousness before God, Isa 64:6. It is God's righteousness in which the saints will be clothed. In order to clothe us in His righteousness (His divine nature), God had to become a human, live a sinless perfect life, die for our sins, be buried, and then be raised out of the grave in a new born divine body. This divine body is clothed in the divine righteousness of God.
THE LAMB OF GOD
29 "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'" Jn 1:29.
1 8 "Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
19 "But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
20 "He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you," 1Pe 1:18-20.
The blood of the Passover lamb, for instance, was sprinkled on the outside of the door posts and above the door, and the whole household ate the whole lamb. The sprinkled blood speaks of cleansing from sin, and the eating of the flesh represented eating of the flesh of Christ, as the true Lamb of God, Jn 6:1-67.
Of course, we do not eat the flesh of Christ, but the Old Testament saints ate the flesh of the Lamb. And we eat the unleavened bread in the Lord's Supper which represents eating the flesh body of Christ. Both eating the flesh of the Passover lamb and the eating of the bread in the Lord's Supper are symbolic of believing and obeying God's Word.
Believing and obeying God's Word transforms our thoughts, our speech, and our deeds, and conforms them to that of Christ or of God, Rom 12; 2Co 3:18; 4:7-12,17-18; 5:1-21; Col 3. When we observe the Lord's Supper we commemorate the Lord's death, burial, and new birth resurrection. That is precisely and most importantly what God intended for the Israelites to do in observing the Passover. For instance:
7 "Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
8 "Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth," 1Co 5:7-8.
BE YOU HOLY, AS I AM HOLY
45 "For I am the LORD who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy," Lev 11:45.
26 "And you shall be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine," Lev 20:26.
Holiness is a state of separation from sin and dedication to God. Divine holiness is an attribute of God, which He has promised to share with His covenant people:
10 "For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness," Heb 12:10.
14 "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord," Heb 12:14.
When God rolls back the heavens, all devils and wicked humans being will see God, and He will laugh at them and chide them for their wickedness, Rev 6:12-17; Ps 2:4-6; Pro 1:24-27; et al. However, to have free access into God's presence and behold His face, the covenant people must possess His attribute of holiness and thus be "one" with Him, Heb 10:19-22; 12:14,22-24; Rev 3:12; 22:14.
THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL
3 "The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib; but Israel does not know, My people do not consider."
4 "Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward.
5 "Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints.
6 "From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment," Isa 1:3-6.
Jehovah (Jesus) in the flesh is the holy One of Israel, but see how despised and rejected He is in these verses. This sets the stage for the book of Isaiah: a sad picture indeed of the human race, specifically and especially of the covenant people with whom the Holy One of Israel is specially working.
Twenty-five times this very meaningful and appropriate expression, "the Holy On of Israel," is used in the book of Isaiah, but only a few times otherwise in all the Scriptures. Jehovah is very specially the Holy One of Israel, with whom He has a covenant relationship which covenant contains a holy code of disciplinary training. This discipline is uniquely designed to convert the psyche and therefore the life or lifestyle from a sinful, selfish function into an instrument of the Holy Spirit to produce a holy lifestyle as Christ exemplified in a sinless human body.
Webster defines the psyche as "1 the human soul 2 the intellect 3 Psychiatry the mind considered as a subjectively perceived, functional entity, based ultimately upon physical processes but with complex processes of its own: it governs the total organism and its interactions with the environment."
The "psyche" or "mind" is not an "entity" within itself. The psyche or mind is an integral and inseparable part of the human spirit, and when the human spirit is separated from the human body, the mind goes with the spirit, and the spirit possesses form and members as the body, Lk 16:19-31.
While the spirit is in the body,the mind governs the functions of the body through the human brain. In the body environment, the mind is influenced by the needs of the body and its sinful emotions. This results in an inevitable natural lifestyle, which requires that the mind be controlled by the Holy Spirit.
God's purpose in grace is that the Holy Spirit bring the mind to a state where the mind can make choices toward righteousness instead of toward the sinful needs and emotions of the body, Gal 5:17; 2Co 10:3-5; Rom 7:14-25.
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