Speaker 1Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Apostolic Classroom. I am your co-host, Stephen Gill, joined by my two fellow co-hosts, Jeremiah Suniga and Andrew Herbst. We are so thrilled to be back. Excited, if you will, Andrew.
Speaker 2Yeah. Is this also the episode where we talk about my name?
Speaker 1Yeah. OK, let's just get that first. OK, well, before we do that, give a quick shout out to Truthbook Co., our producer of the show. If you haven't yet visited our website, Truthbook.co, of course, I knew that. And so we are excited to be able to do this episode talking, continuing our series on the Godhead. But before we do that, let's just we should probably do a segment at the beginning. Let's just do a segment at the beginning of every episode doing mea culpa from the previous episode. Case in point, we'll start with we'll start with Jeremiah's name. Let's let's do that first. Explain, explain to our listeners. Well, what we need to know about you.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm so important. I my name gets translated based on the audience. I had I was mentioned to. Yeah. You know, I tried. I tried to reach audiences. So I had someone yesterday call me Jeremy. And my wife, of course, was like, he just got your name right when he talked to you. My name is Hedemius, which is just Spanish for Jeremiah. And I usually tell people, if you get anywhere close, I'm going to assume you're saying my name. That's just kind of part of my personality. But also, I mean, I work with translation quite a bit. And one thing I point out to you guys is, you know, you have Matthew two where it's translated Jeremy. And you've got some other places in the gospel where it's translated Hedemius. It's the same name, Jeremiah.
Speaker 1So so Hedemius Zuniga. Yeah. If I were to say it, I actively choose not to. I just need our listeners to know that I call him Jeremiah is what I call him Jeremiah. We joked about every time we would
Speaker 3say your name, we would say it differently. And then some of the nicknames, too, just to confuse me. I've got millions of nicknames.
Speaker 1A hundred percent. Further, Mea Culpa's last episode to me, just totally whiffing on the Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology. I was trying to read my own footnotes, which was not not not quick to pull up. Not as quick as I thought it was going to be pulling up. Control F. Control. Control. F apparently would help getting Truthbook Co.'s website wrong. Just yeah, we're off to a great start. Andrew, do you have anything anything you'd like to apologize for? Nope. OK. Awesome. Well, I just edited the perfect. We edited. I can insert a few things in my voice. I'm totally down with Mea Culpa's. Nobody's batting a thousand, as I tell my students. So I will say just maybe a team Mea Culpa of our last episode on the Davidic Covenant, which basically ended. It's the Davidic Covenant. We did a lot of build up. Yeah, a lot of it was important. We said we said we before we talk about this today, IBC, we said, hey, let's well, you know, it would have been great is, you know, the episode could be could open with just brief background data, right? Like background information. And then we'll get the Davidic Covenant. Well, then we go to last week and we we do this episode and almost the entire thing is background data. And then we've you know. So whatever, you know, is what it is.
Speaker 2Which to some of that point, I'm not I'm not intending this to send us down a rabbit hole. But one thing that I've I've learned is things that I had maybe just from spending time in the text assumed others would know naturally some of that background information. It's to some extent just oddly not there, you know. And so perhaps we can attribute that to biblical literacy or just some things that we might assume to be. And so, you know, I think that's really important as people who have the opportunity to study this daily. You know, it's just kind of overlooked.
Speaker 3Yeah. But today's the prophets.
Speaker 1Yeah. We're covering today are continuing our series on the Godhead this this semester. This is our primary subject matter. And last week when we had discussed the Davidic Covenant, the primary motivation behind that was to disclose God's kingship through the Davidic line. You know, we talked about the Pentateuch, the first five books of
Speaker 3the Bible, we could go into the history. And we talked about the first five books of the Bible. Of course, the Pentateuch is historical, too. But these sections of the Bible, when we get to the prophets, we're not saying, well, here's this section over here in this section over here. Really, how we should think about the prophets is it's almost like if we were to look back 20 years ago and read a newspaper, but then also in the same year, listen to a sermon from our pastor. Right. That's that's kind of the comparison is the history books is the newspaper. That's the events that are going on from maybe the kingdom of God. That's the prophets of the kings perspective going around with the nations. But the prophets, they're living at the same time. They know these kings. They're interacting with the people. That's the preachers. So essentially what I'm trying to say is that when we're reading the prophets, we're reading
Speaker 1the sermons from the time. And just to drive that point home really quick, just the continuity, the what we call the historical books are included in the books of the prophets in the Tenach, like in the Hebrew Bible, their threefold division is Torah, Nabim, Ketubim. Like law, prophets, writing prophets. Yeah, exactly. And so in the first and second Samuel is in the books of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible. And so we're not way off. We talk about them as historical books, because to your point about the distinction of the four books of the Kings constitute narrative. And then the books of the prophets are the sermons, the writings, the prophecies within that happen within those narratives. But they're not chronologically speaking, they don't happen after the books of the Kings that
Speaker 3happen within. And you mentioned, I think last time, Isaiah is in Kings and Chronicles. He's got his own book, but he's in Jeremiah. Micah is mentioned in, I think, the book of Jonah. Jonah is mentioned. Yeah. And that's a good, yeah. Jonah was real.
Speaker 2This is the most random thing.
Speaker 3Fan fiction. Well, we mentioned that, didn't we talk about the first week? We might have.
Speaker 1Yeah, we probably did. I just, Jonah is real.
Speaker 2You notice how he pointed that to you? Not to me, because you need to question that. I know Jeremiah's stance on Jonah, I'm not so much sure about you.
Speaker 1Okay, I think what, yes, Jonah was real. I guess I have to disclose that for our listeners. I do believe in a literal Jonah for a lot of reasons. I think the way it came up. Okay, prophets. Did we talk about, was it because of the C.S. Lewis thing? Because I shared with you the slideshow I showed in my class where he talks about Jonah strikes him as a moral metaphor. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, that was, wow.
Speaker 2Okay. Yeah. The prophets. So, yeah. There was a radical. There was a rabbit trail I wanted to go down there for a second, but I'm going to refrain. I'm sure it will come up again and I'll insert it there. Too many rabbit trails.
Speaker 1Okay. I think moving forward with the actual subject at hand, when we talk about God's kingship in the prophets, what's unique about the prophets as opposed to what is seen maybe in, certainly in the first five books of the Bible and in the historical books is we get this, this is where we really get the verbiage, God as king really makes a lot more appearance in the prophet than it does in the books of the prophets than it does in the other books we've mentioned. So for example, we've, we've talked about in the first couple of episodes, how God is disclosed as a king, as the ruler of his people, as a rule of the world in Genesis, we've talked about, um, between the transition between the judges and the kings, uh, God's ruling and reigning over his people. But in the prophets. This is in the actual phrasing, like when, when we actually call God as the king, like God is king. This is phrased this way throughout the prophets where it goes beyond just, uh, implicit it's explicit. And so, um, if you guys maybe want, I don't know what books of the prophets you guys want to start with.
Speaker 3I think we're doing something good with, as far as looking at some overview stuff, because I think we can dig into some specifics here in a second, because not only do we have to look at God as the covenant ruler, being the king of Israel. But in Judah, um, for, uh, this, the split kingdom, but we also could continue talking about the Davidic covenant because those are going to be lines that continue through. But I think as to the first element with the prophets are, are reminding the people you have a, you have a high king. We talked about Mount Sinai and how Yahweh is depicted as, as the Zuzerain, the high king in Israel is the vassals, the servants, the prophets are constantly reminding the people, the prophets are constantly calling the people back to the Pentateuch repent, get back to who the rightful king is. It's not these idols, right? The idols are not your king. The idol is not your, your high king, your Zuzerain king, that Yahweh is your king. So get back to him.
Speaker 2Yeah. This is where I get to insert my, my rabbit trail that I wanted to, to go down. We got back to it. Yeah. I see. I just knew it would come up. Um, I was not operating in the prophetic. I was operating in the pathetic, but that's another story. Um, to that point though, uh, they're reminding, some have called them covenant watchers. right um but even to the point that i think sometimes we especially within pentecost and i don't mean this is like beating up on us but just a reminder sometimes we can in some way over spiritualize something uh that is very uh just very plain um and i don't mean plain as a pejorative there or as like a negative thing clear it's just very clear right um when they are prophesying hey you guys are breaking covenant in this way it is quite literally to your point earlier where i wanted to initially insert this is it's a sermon it's a sermon right um right they're preaching to to a congregation that has they're walking away they're breaking covenant with their king and i think almost immediately of jeremiah chapter two where the lord is telling jeremiah it's his first his first prophecy yeah there begins in chapter two and he's telling them hey my people have um they have forsaken me right um they they they've hewed themselves out cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water right and i'm working from memory so if i've misquoted that i i apologize um but the king james version of me i will unite naturally talking in the king's english so um it's it's interesting though because it is quite literally a hey this this is what the lord did and a lot of the language is repeated directly from exodus and this is also where you never saw him fail he kept up his end of the bargain question mark right like where are you guys at we think about jose and his marriage to gomer and it's like that he is he's demonstrating in a very challenging sermon illustration right if that's your pastor getting up preaching to you on sunday and his sermon illustration he was single and he's like hey i just married someone i got married over the weekend y'all and his sermon illustration is who he married right and he's doing that to to preach a message to you about how you broke covenant with him and guess what this is an ongoing sermon illustration that you guys get to keep seeing exactly what you're doing wrong and not not that
Speaker 3yeah i think we did a good job of this in the genesis episode to show that not everything of the ancient near east was was brought into israel in that god was copying but there are some parallels as far as and you can you can correct me but there are some parallels with or connecting points where you have a king is viewed as the father of his people and not only is the high king is the protector and the defender and all you know all this but he's a father figure and i'm reminded that you're talking about a couple couple illustrations there of where god is viewed as the father of israel i mean he even in exodus 422 uh that uh pharaoh's supposed to let israel his firstborn yahweh's firstborn let my son out of egypt and when you get to isaiah 1 it starts off by showing that god has been this loving father he's done everything for you he's brought you out of bondage to bring you in to something better and isaiah 1 is i joke that that is the only time that being born in a barn would be a compliment right because god says that these barnyard animals have more sense than you you are stiff-necked you are rebellious and it's it's tragic in a way because god is god is lamenting through the prophet isaiah god has bruised you disciplined you to where there are sores from the head from your head all the way to your feet what is left to do to a rebellious son well the obvious answer is if all discipline is expounded you know i mean what what i said i said obvious answer it's not it's not obvious but it's it's the statement would be death but what good father wants to kill his child yeah and we're fast forwarding a little bit or maybe even deviating i don't want to go too far but with within isaiah the issue of that isaiah 1 is that god has been this loving from isaiah 1 they have stripes on them and they have bruises on them and the only thing that's left is death unless someone else comes to receive the stripes and the bruises from isaiah 1 that by the time you get to isaiah 53 for he was bruised right by his stripes are we healed so god provides another option now that's the servant we're not talking about servant the servant today but god's kingship as a king but also as a loving father calling his people back because covenant is where protection is and it's where protection is and it's where protection is and it's where true blessing is going to come from from right and and that is
Speaker 1played out of course in the new testament is that if any man be in christ he is a new creature christ that that king figure not just figure that king like that that true king um is is the culmination of all that working through isaiah since that that's obviously there's so much uh to unpack in isaiah can we can we talk about the relationship between isaiah chapter 7 and isaiah chapter 9 because this uh this came up a lot in her 7 through 12 yeah yeah that this this came up a lot through hermeneutics and uh i of course i don't know about you guys i take of course a very strong stance that isaiah 9 and 6 is a hundred percent a well can
Speaker 3we just do context really quick so so i'll really quick isaiah 11 you have the evil king of judah ahaz he's confronted with two particular enemies father has a guy's father who's a good king but ahaz is confronted confronted by a coalition he does not want to rely on the lord he's a wicked king uh but isaiah the prophet is sent to this evil king who's supposed to be a son of david right but we find out from second kings he would rather be called the son of assyria um he even says he calls the king of assyria his father yeah yeah so that's a whole thing where you're going that's a sorry jeremy you gotta get you
Speaker 1gotta jump in faster bro we're moving
Speaker 3but isaiah goes to this evil king and says god's gonna do something ask him for a sign and he has feigned spirituality he says i would never ask god to do that and isaiah says okay well god's gonna give you a sign and a virgin is gonna conceive and you're gonna call or his name shall be called emmanuel and this is seven this is isaiah seven yeah when you get to isaiah eight there's there's language there that connects so the unit within isaiah i taught isaiah at ibc last semester so i spent a lot of time here so that was a lot of fun but as a unit uh isaiah seven connects all the way to isaiah 12 and so when you have that virgin in emmanuel prophecy of chapter seven it directly connects to chapter eight and so where you have this viewpoint and and you guys obviously interject where you would but there's this imagery that there's going to be some kind of child born at that time period and if you can read through it you can see how the language is there it looks like the immediate fulfillment we talked about this last time i think an immediate fulfillment of prophecy something that's going to happen right then it looks like that's isaiah's son but there's a bigger and a greater prophecy an actual virgin someone who is going to give birth in the future that will truly be emmanuel god with us that's that is disclosed and revealed even more as we go on which is what you were steven referring to from chapter nine because immediately this child from isaiah is going to be born by the time he is he's going to be young and this coalition is going to be destroyed well what do we find out from history is that happens within 10 years of this prophecy both of those enemies are are completely defeated but then when you get to isaiah nine he isaiah keeps revealing a little bit more about this child because it's not just one child that's born yeah i
Speaker 1remember talking to a bigger i talked to brother kilman about this um shortly after we had talked about it in hermeneutics was the impression i get from isaiah between chapter 7 and 12 and certainly in that 7 to 9 window is that we are talking about two children is that we are talking about a a somebody that's born and somebody that is to be born and
Speaker 3it's like mountain peaks that's kind of the description is that you have a mountain peak here but then you have a valley you don't know how long that valley goes but there's a mountain peak in the distance that's even greater
Speaker 1than the first one yeah and nine and six really in my view nine and six is the apex of what is described about this son to come mighty god everlasting father prince of peace the government will be upon his shoulder and he says of that kingdom of his kingdom there will be throne is he going to sit
Speaker 3on his father david it says upon the throne of david and upon his kingdom to order it yeah and
Speaker 2shall be no end forever
Speaker 3yeah yeah which just to
Speaker 2make a quick point uh just to clarify something i was mentioning earlier it's a lot of these things were were where the prophet was preaching to a people that were they had walked away from their covenant with their king but there were there are moments in these texts where there's there's clearly something more that's being looked at or something more that's in view um so there is both the immediacy of preaching and that prophetic that thing that we call prophetic uh that is uh not yet fulfilled right
Speaker 1so may can we talk about that then first like the difference in the prophets between between dual and immediacy and fulfillment is like these are not the same thing so
Speaker 3well i think it goes back to we we've said numerous things throughout these episodes where something like the passover you have the passover and then there's an even greater Passover that's coming. You have the imagery of Aaron as a high priest, but there's a greater high priest that's coming, right? So there's, there's these things in the moment. Isaiah can say, there's going to be a child that's born. And I, I don't know how far in depth we want to go here, but, but I see that as saying, cause we, we, we see the very next chapter, Isaiah has a son. And so, um, and it looks like before this son, because what is said about this Emmanuel in chapter seven is then set on Isaiah's son in chapter eight.
Speaker 1But cannot apply to Isaiah's literal son in Isaiah chapter nine.
Speaker 3Well, we don't, it doesn't say that this is about Isaiah's son from chapter nine. And that's what I'm getting at is that we're talking about things too here is that of course we have Matthew and I know this could open up a whole issue and we probably don't want to go too far. I feel like I keep saying that. It's part of it. When Matthew, he's very clear that this is Parthenos. This is the virgin. This is the virgin birth that Isaiah talked about. And so even in that moment, some people try to say, well, Isaiah, you know, in Isaiah nine, six, and seven, he's talking about Hezekiah, or he's talking about this other ruler from that time period. It's only about Isaiah's time period. Well, we know that's not true, right? Because you can't match the descriptions. No. To anybody but Jesus fully.
Speaker 1I'm going to just read nine and six. So, so people, and I'll read seven with it. For unto us, a child is born unto us, a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace of the increase of his government and peace. There shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it, to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
Speaker 3So that should not only be read at Christmas time. No. Right. This is directly about the Davidic covenant.
Speaker 1And going back to the immediacy and fulfillment, this is the responsibility of readers is to parse these things out about what is spoken of. What is spoken of in immediacy is immediately the context of it is immediate. What is spoken of in fulfillment, its meaning is with regards to fulfillment. The issue that people come into with prophecy is they think that because they see immediacy and fulfillment, because they see something that's clearly a prophetic utterance about something to come. Hosea 11 is another example. They think that that gives them a license to read all the prophets allegorically and that everything represents something else and that something else is largely dictated by their private opinion. To the extent that you get misreadings, I talked about in her news class with Ezekiel is a huge one. Where from the Valley of Dry Bones to the chapter immediately after, how many times that is applied to the church. And the reason why they read the Valley of Dry Bones and the chapter immediately following with the grafting in and all these things, they see all this and they think of the church, the church, the church is because in our zeal to preach the prophets into the relevancy of the church, we find the things that we think it ought to apply to in the body of Christ. The things that it should. The things that it should mean to us. Can these bones live, et cetera. And we, whether we make it about something apparently harmless, like, like victory or resurrection or whatever, that's all, you know, benign for the most part. But then where it becomes harmful is when you take passages that are definitely meant to refer to natural Israel passages that are definitely meant to refer to a particular person in a particular place in a particular time, and you rip it out of that context and force it. Like superimpose a meaning on it that was not necessarily self-evident. Now, again, like I stress in the prophets, there is, there are passages of fulfillment. Isaiah nine and six is a perfect example of this where, yes, there is a natural son that's clearly spoken of, but that is not all that is spoken of. However, each thing in its own context means only one thing. It can't, it doesn't mean everything it could possibly mean. It means what it means in its context. The challenge for the reader is identifying. What applies to what? And I think that's where people go astray is they, they give up on the task and they just say the prophets just mean whatever I want them to mean.
Speaker 2And I will just say, just say, this is like a, not a word of caution, but a word of encouragement to, to anyone listening is you can understand the prophets and you can teach or preach the prophets. Well, right. This is, this is not mean, Hey, stay away from preaching this. You you're getting it all wrong. That's not at all. What I don't think any of us are saying that are intending to say that I should say. I don't think any of us are saying that, Hey, you're getting it all wrong. But if you're going to do it well, um, something that I will remind, uh, our listeners to that we've, we've probably have said a bunch last week is you've got to understand the covenant that they're in, right? You've got to understand the Pentateuch because if the prophets, which they are right, since the prophets are, they're preaching something that's very important to an audience that is as a prophet described backsliding, right? If they're preaching that, what are they sliding away from? Um, I, I think it would be much more encouraged, encouraging to a congregation to hear, Hey, here, here's the covenant that we're in. Keep doing this. Y'all are making it right. Um, we don't see some of these failures that, that, uh, in, in this time period, Israel saw because we're not doing, and I'll
Speaker 1qualify that to Paul didn't dismiss the idea that the old Testament, especially the Pentateuch could not be applied the same way in the church. He says in first Corinthians 10. These things were written for our admonition to the, to the, uh, what does he say to the end that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted, right? These things were written for our benefit. They were written for our warning, for our caution. So I say that just to stress that you, you should be learning. Like when you, when you read these things, going back to the Andy Stanley types, where you could come away with the impression for me in the old Testament that, Oh, no, this is really relevant to me. That was for them. It's like, well, no, it's, it's for you too, but you're only going to know that if you read it really closely.
Speaker 3I'd like to try to do two things really quick with, with looking at Isaiah, because I think it's relevant to what you guys were just saying is that we need to, as the church, we need to take a step back to look at all of scripture because the church is not all that there is. And the church is not all that there will be because when we eventually get to eternity, uh, and we get to, so maybe I could just say it like this, the theme of the Bible, hence why we're talking about this is God's kingship. The theme of the Bible is the kingdom. It's not just the church. So when we're looking at the prophets, what we're seeing is yes, there are prophecies about the church. We can, we can see those things. We can see elements of the spirit being poured out. We can see things that are connected directly to the church, but there's so much in the old Testament that are about God's kingship in a restoration of proper kingship and that's laced throughout the prophets. So if we're going to talk about relevancy, we're in the church now so that we can be in the kingdom in the future.
Speaker 1Well, and so, yeah, I agree. I think that. Some of this though is going to come down and we're no doubt eventually, if not now, eventually going to have listeners that have a covenantal view of scripture. It's very popular in Pentecost. And so there are people that have the attitude that, um, every scripture in the old Testament, every scripture is the prophets were writing to the church is when you see Israel in the old Testament, it's code for church or. Well, then this gets into hermeneutics
Speaker 3and we would have to do a lot of. Well, and I think that some of
Speaker 1that's worth talking about because I don't know how there, there are some passages. Just go back to Ezekiel. There are some passages that you read in the old Testament and if you read them in isolation in a vacuum, uh, with no surrounding context, you're going to, you, you could, um, come to the conclusion by just drawing a couple of dots. If you'd be Christ, then you're Abraham's seed. The Israelites were Abraham's seed. This passage is about me. Terrible syllogism. Well, let's talk about that though, because that is the, that's the basis of covenantal theology in a nutshell. That is, I am sure. I'm sure that they would nuance it, but that, that is the foundation of it is that the church is the new Israel. Therefore, all that is written of Israel is written of the church. The issue being started with Isaiah nine and six under us, a child is born unto us. The son is given. What is the qualities of this King? Mighty God, the God is going to be King everlasting father. He's going to be everlasting father and Prince of peace. That's interesting. Um, when you fast forward to Isaiah 41, um, he says, uh, in 41 and. Uh, 20 and 21, he says that they may see and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord has done this and the Holy one of Israel has created it. Produce your cause, say at the Lord, bring forth your strong reasons, say at the King of Jacob, King of Jacob, and that you have to square some circles because if you start making, if you have the view that everything in the old Testament, maybe it used to apply to the Jews, but now it applies to the church. You, you do yourself an injustice. Number one, because you will eventually come up against a passage like the final chapter of Ezekiel. And the only way that you could read is allegorically like you can't everything outlet 12 tribes represents or the last chapter of Isaiah or last chapter of Isaiah.
Speaker 3Well, let, let me, let me do this because I, I think that this will be relevant, uh, especially with looking at the prophets, because when you're looking at Isaiah or Ezekiel to really look at the books and how they are. They are laid out will really help you understand their whole message. So when you're looking at Isaiah. it's a big book. I'm not going to go chapter by chapter, but the first five chapters tell you what's wrong, right? This is the rebellion. This is what you should be chapter two, but this is what you are chapter three, right? This is what you should be chapter four, but you're a vineyard and the vineyard is going to be destroyed chapter five, right? But then God's kingship chapter six, Isaiah, the, the, um, the king is dead, but I saw the true king sitting upon his throne, right? And we can dispel the idea of the train filling the temple being all his, you know, they cut off part of the robe and added it. That's not just, just, can we talk, just talk about that for just a second? Yeah. Can we, I don't know of any ancient source, Jeremiah might critique me here, but I don't know.
Speaker 1Explain what you're talking about.
Speaker 3Okay. So I, I've heard a lot of worship leaders get up. I'm sorry, but I've heard a lot of people get up and say that his train filled the temple because, uh, in, in ancient Kings that when they would defeat it, another King, they would, they would cut off part of the defeated King's robe and the, the winner would attach that part of the garment to his own. So by scalping by ancient scalping. Uh, so by saying that the, the, the train of his robe filled the temple, that means he's never lost about all this. I I've, I've never seen a source that actually says that. So I know that there's things that look like it, but as far as the grandeur of a train, but not that take away
Speaker 1from what the passage is saying, then that he is,
Speaker 3the King, he is seated on high. He is the King. He has, he's glorious. His train fills the temple. It is talking about his majesty, but I don't know. You're about to say, no, I was just going to say
Speaker 2you sent that question to me. Um, what was it a few months ago?
Speaker 3I think it was probably a year or two. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2And it sent me down a rabbit hole of reading, um, and looking at as many reliefs and, um, uh, inscriptions, uh, royal inscriptions, things like that, that I could find. And I think the, uh, I'm sure someone got it from somewhere. And so there, there's probably some source
Speaker 3somewhere. You can't find it either. Yeah. I'm not saying that sarcastically because if I'm wrong, I want to know, but I've, I have personally not seen that anywhere, but, but maybe at the bottom line, we need to understand that the true King is still on the throne in Isaiah six. Yeah. And so Isaiah is on the, or Isaiah sees the throne. He has this transformation of his heart, right? The cleansing. Well, then the rest of the book is about how is Israel going to get to this? Israel has to go through what the prophet went through. So how is that going to happen? The virgin is going to conceive and Emmanuel is going to be born. Yeah. And if I can make a small point there,
Speaker 1sorry, I keep doing this every time you jump in, but Isaiah, he says, this is a sign like that. And that's something people get. They lose that. And I, between Isaiah seven and nine, I don't know which chapter verse it is exactly, but it says that that son that would be born. Yeah. Seven. That this is a sign. Okay. Like by definition, a sign means a symbol of something to come. Right. And I think it's fair. So anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 2Yeah. Well, the, the point that I wanted to make there is, uh, the, you have this, the scene where Isaiah is there, you have the, um, seraphim that, that are flying. Um, and you have the, the question from the Lord to Isaiah. I, I, I think it's most natural to the text to read that the Lord is asking someone who has just had their, their mouth purified, right? He has just changed heart. And because he's experienced that now the Lord can ask who's going to go for us because he recognized Isaiah's recognizes, Hey, I am unclean. I come from a people that are unclean. The angel touches his lips with the coal. He's purified. And then the Lord says, all right, now you're changed. Who's going to go to which the natural answer from Isaiah is send me.
Speaker 3He's already said, woe is me, but now he can say, here am I. Yeah. And then God says, okay. And by that, you're going to have revival. So it's like, we don't like to talk about that part. God talks about the hearting of the heart, but, but to continue the progression is that chapter seven is now going to tell us how is God's plan for the redemption of his people going to begin. And he starts talking about this son, the child that's going to be born, the one that's going to be the King by the time you get to. So we've already read chapter from chapter nine. When you get to chapter 10, the enemy is going to come in, but then God is going to defeat that enemy. Isaiah envisions this whole field of like a cut down forest. There's tree stumps everywhere. That's how chapter 10 ends chapter 11. And, and I love chapter nine. Those are two verses that are very significant, but the end of chapter 10 begins with all of these tree stumps. Chapter 11 says, and there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, a branch shall grow out of his roots. There's going to be one stump, one branch shall grow out of the stem of Jesse, a branch shall grow out of the stem of Jesse. Right? So the next verse and the spirit of the Lord is going to rest upon him. The spirit of wisdom, understanding goes through all of these features of this King that's coming. And we talked about last time, how the Messiah means the anointed one. This passage from Isaiah 11 is talking about the Messiah, the anointed one, this passage. And I hesitate to read more, but the whole passage goes through the anointed one. And I hesitate to read more, but the whole passage goes through the and is talking about when Jesus comes to rule as the King, he's going to be the greatest King that this earth has ever seen. We have not seen this passage come to pass yet.
Speaker 1Can you read verses 10 through 12? Read verses 10 through 12 of that and 11, just so contextualize some of this.
Speaker 3And in that day, there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people to it shall the Gentiles seek and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again. And the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria to Egypt, from, uh, Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath. You just wanted me to read all these names and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. And you correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1Yeah. And you correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm, I feel that this chapter is, has a strong relationship to the end of Ezekiel as well. Oh, definitely. Like we're talking about the same thing.
Speaker 3So let's, let's tie that in a little bit. Cause again, I feel like I'm, uh, I want to show kind of how Isaiah progresses here because as you're going through Isaiah and you're seeing, um, the, the calling out of the idols and you see, um, the calling out of the nations, right? Chapters 13 through 23. Uh, woe to this nation, woe to this nation. You see judgment there against the nations. You get to, um, Isaiah 24 through 27. There's a lot in Isaiah 24 through 27. That's directly in revelation. You have the, what looks like the marriage supper of the lamb. You have the resurrection there. You have, uh, we, uh, thanks to you. We, we discovered that Leviathan in the old Testament is translated as dragon in the new Testament. Isaiah 27, one is a prophecy of the downfall of Satan. So, so much of these passages. So I say all this to finally get to eventually God is going to bring his people back. There is going to be an exile. They have left their King for the idols, but there's going to come a time when it says that, um, comfort you, comfort you, my people, right? Isaiah 40, there's going to be a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord. And then the passage that you read from chapter 41, God is saying, I am telling you this. Now, Isaiah is writing this. Over a hundred years before what's going to happen is going to happen a couple of hundred years, maybe. And God is saying, I'm telling you this now. So you can't give credit to your idols later because I am the first, I am the last.
Speaker 1So in light of all of that, because having now the context of Isaiah nine and the promise of the King to come, we know we talked about a little bit last week, but the King to come this Messiah, this anointed one is synonymized with God himself. And this is, and this comes out a lot in Isaiah is that when we talk about God as King, we, yes, we are talking about the anointed one, the son of David. What is the character and the quality of this son of David?
Speaker 3Isaiah 59, he looked for one that could be righteous to bring in. I know we're going to hit Ezekiel. Ezekiel looked for one to make up the hedge. Uh, Isaiah 59, this whole passage is just so striking about the wickedness and the perverseness, not of Gentile or of pagans, we could say, but these are supposed to be God's people, but they have turned pagan. And so all of these things, there's no judgment in the streets. Truth, truth has fallen. All of these things, um, they grope for the wall, like the blind, but then you finally get down to, um, verse 16, verse 15 says that the Lord saw all the evil. It displeased him that there was no justice or no judgment. Verse 16 said, God saw that there was no man, and he wondered that there was no intercessor. There's no one in the middle between God and man. Right. Therefore his arm brought salvation unto him, his righteousness. It sustained him for he put on righteousness as a breastplate. God couldn't find someone to make up the hedge. So he did it himself.
Speaker 1And we, you and I talked about this the other day when I texted you, asked him about the arm of the Lord, this con this, this, all of this happened, man. There's, I got four other questions I want to ask you here in just a second, but, um, I'm talking too much.
Speaker 3No, no, no, no, no. This is good.
Speaker 1Cause like this comes up is that when people ask about the imagery of, uh, Jesus, at the right hand of of god in the book of acts or they talk about um the the it's not personification it's an anthropomorphism of like god is a spirit okay so let's settle that he's an omnipresent spirit he's uh no man has seen god at any time and yet in the scripture we get these these images of the arm of the lord that shall save is by his own arm by his own and the eye of the lord is upon them that love him hide me under the shadow of thy wing does god have literal eyes literal wings or a little arm by which he reaches into the earth it's like no but jesus christ is the arm by which he reached into the earth that when you talk about that intercessor that intermediary um how is it in the new testament he says that um oh i see this in hebrews for this cause he's the mediator of the new testament but when we talk about in um is it uh uh galatians i i think i talked about it in our last episode as well um now mediator is not an intermediary of one but god is the that picture of mediation job this is alluded to in job when he says he's he's lamenting that that this is an unjust thing that's happened to him and he says um i would that there were a daysman between us between me and god if only there were a daysman between us they could lay hands upon us both daysman is a mediator and so you get this picture of somebody standing between god and men with a hand on each you know and that's and you get that same picture in isaiah says that god saw that no man was worthy and so he he did what he did himself what no man could do
Speaker 2really quick for our audience can you give us a definition of anthropomorphism uh anthropomorphism
Speaker 1you would ask me to to give it i'm not going to give the oxford's definition but an anthropomorphism is applying physical characteristics to an otherwise not physical or not animate um not alive uh i shouldn't say alive and not visible material seeable things so you're it's not personification because you're not animating something we're almost
Speaker 3giving human characteristics
Speaker 1to something not human yeah yeah exactly and so um that's um yeah so when we talk about uh his role in isaiah not seeing this is the same thing john saw in revelation is that um when he sees the book sealed with seven seals and he looks and he weeps why does john weep because no man was worthy to open the book and to lose the seals thereof isaiah 59 the judgment yes exactly there
Speaker 3was no one that could judge and when we say judge you don't get justice without a just judge yeah and so how is isaiah he's talking about this this nation that was supposed to be under god's kingship they're pagan but god has a plan to bring about a righteous king that will rule them well and all the chaos all that chaos is going to be reversed when that king of isaiah 11 the anointed one to rule with all power from god right so we talked about this i when was this king you see yes who he was well when john says i'm a voice crying out in the wilderness prepare you the way of the lord in isaiah it's all caps it's yahweh it's here comes the lord to jerusalem when it's applied to john yeah who comes
Speaker 1what is what notice what he says too he says he that cometh after me was preferred before me for he was before me he's like there's somebody coming so the the king that's coming has already come in a way like it's he is he is coming but he is from everlasting everlasting maybe you could say but he's coming now yeah in a way that
Speaker 3you can see him so well let me clarify because isaiah 40 there's a voice crying the wilderness and that's john right in isaiah it's the the lord it's god that's coming to jerusalem but in john's day it's jesus that comes yes when he's baptized and the spirit comes upon him the spirit's not a dove but it's a it's a visible way to show everybody this is the king that i've been talking about from the old testament david this is the son of david yeah this is you you're talking about psalm 2 this is the psalm 2 king this is the isaiah 11 king this is the one that's coming to restore everything that was broken one of my
Speaker 1many questions for you so um the i want to back up to you made a comment earlier about when we were talking about covenantal theology um the church replaced israel or supersedes israel or in some way and there are varying shades of covenant so i don't want to paint everybody with a broad brush if you're somebody who has a covenantal approach um in my younger years i probably tended toward it um because of the the church culture that i was raised in i was unfamiliar with the bible when i was much younger and just didn't have a strong grasp on these things but as you progress through the old testament becomes evident that this literal king who literally will come and not just come but he will come again and which you read in isaiah this this his coming and then his coming again um why you mentioned you said it is bad if we be christ and we be abraham's seed therefore if we are abraham's seed we are israel therefore if we are israel then all that is written in the prophets is actually about the church it talk about that for just
Speaker 2a minute yeah so um see i had you clarify a term that you use that was a two dollar word and i used one and i never clarified it um so the syllogism is it's a uh uh way of arguing it's a it's a bit of formal logic or reason uh where it's essentially if a equals c and b equals c then a equals b c or a equals c yeah i know what you're saying
Speaker 1if a is equal to b and b is equal to c then a is equal to c right yes i got what you
Speaker 2mean so um it's easier to write it on a whiteboard you know then i don't lose track of what i'm saying uh but the the point is is like we can sometimes if i say if i were to say one of the examples i've given to some of my students at at the school and i i do this sparingly so i do it with my senior class uh when i'm teaching them to write good arguments for their papers uh but trying not to overload them with things that you know they might not need to know um if i were to say a banana is a fruit and an apple is a fruit therefore a banana is an apple that's essentially what we're doing there yeah right so we can follow bad lines of about texts that we probably shouldn't and do it with good intentions can and
Speaker 1so how does that happen with covenantal theology because i do believe most of the time it happens with good intentions most of the time i think it does
Speaker 3yeah have we even defined covenant theology yet uh go right ahead so covenant theology is a view basically if you take the bible as a whole how do you see the storyline of scripture covenant theology as a term sounds wonderful right we believe in the covenants and theology and theology hopefully but covenant uh covenant theology teaches that you you essentially start with uh i know there's different nuances i've read different ones that you know they started at or um define um the first covenant maybe different ways but you pretty you have the adamic covenant and then that expands uh and connects to all the covenants after it until you finally have the covenant that jesus would bring and so um it's it pretty much then says that okay the the church once you get to the new covenant the church has um become israel and i know a lot of covenant theologians theologians do not like the idea of it also being called replacement theology but that is what it is but that really is what they're doing uh they're they're saying that the church has now taken what was israel's because and they they
Speaker 1justify that on the on the claim that the effectively the church is the end the church is the end of the story and i and also i want to qualify this we we believe in covenants the bible is full of covenants there we've talked about it for a few weeks yeah there's a covenant with adam there's a covenant with noah there's a covenant with abraham there's a covenant with david we believe in covenants the issue is is the presentation as though um the covenant that was made uh with the through christ in the new testament that is a a superseding of not just all that was before but this covenant um retroactively in in replaces all that whatever place the jews had with god before they no longer have that standing with god it all has been replaced in the church and and in some ways i think it leads to an amillennial view and so i you know what i mean because i
Speaker 3i think that post mill or a mill yeah and and this gets into eschaton i mean this this really is a a really big um element to to chew on but when it comes to whether you are something like dispensational you know to look at how god has worked with you know how god has worked with you know how god has worked with you know how his people throughout time different different because that's still based on covenant too but um it's it both issues come down to your hominidics how you read scripture do you allow for allegory or spiritualizing a text because like what you were saying earlier if you have these texts about the restoration of israel if that literally means a restoration of israel then that means that israel has to be restored but if it's about the church it's spiritual yeah then you can make it be about the church right so it comes down to the fact that israel has to be restored it comes down to how do you approach scripture and do you make it symbolic or do you approach it and this goes back to the issue with the
Speaker 1prophets is there are some people who will slip out of it by saying well it's both it's about israel and it's about the church and it's like well no um it can't be about both it's it's um there are certainly times in the prophets where both are discussed but it's about one or the other um and so when you talk about the the issue with um especially in israel it's about the church and it's about the church and it's about the church Especially in the prophets, it seems like it comes most pronounced, but applying things that are definitely meant to talk about natural Israel and then applying them to, uh, the church, the issue becomes when you get to the new Testament, what do you do with, it doesn't just mean reading the old Testament allegorically. It means reading the new Testament allegorically Romans 11 being one of the biggest issues. And I've covered this and to short to short, cause I know this isn't the core of the episode here, but just to abbreviate some of what we're talking about. Um, all of us, I think sitting here would say that the reason why we, uh, the reason why we take a, a, a, the, the view of a literal millennial reign that we do is because we believe God is not done with Israel. And if you don't believe that God is done with natural Israel, if you believe that natural Israel has a place going forward in the kingdom, then you're, you're on the right track, like to start, cause that is going to influence the way that you read everything that we're talking about. Um, but back to the, the, the question about, well, if you'd be Christ and you'd be Abraham's seed is, um, they, they jump on the second part of that Abraham's seed with, and missing the first part of it. If you'd be Christ, it's like, well, Christ, yes. If you'd be Christ, you'd be Abraham's seed and your heirs, according to the promise and joint heirs with Christ because of Christ's place as the son of David. But also keep in mind that that Christ King, that son of David is going to rule as well over natural. It's not one or the other. These things, these things go together on the throne, on the throne of David. And maybe we can, maybe that maybe can segue us if you, unless you guys want to jump in and add anything, but that could segue us into Ezekiel.
Speaker 2I just wanted to make a quick point about, uh, when you had discussed anthropomorphisms, um, you had mentioned the arm of God, right? That's a text that's used there. There's another, uh, another anthropomorphism that's used in, in the prophets and also in, in the Pentateuch. Uh, but that's this phrase, uh, and it's quite literally translated, uh, to be of a long nose. And in your Bibles, it's typically translated as he is, uh, he's long suffering or he's slow to anger. That's the phrase we're probably the most familiar with is slow to anger. And that's used to describe God. Right. And so when we read texts that say something like arm of God, or Jesus has sat down at the right hand of God, where's the
Speaker 1right hand and omnipresent
Speaker 2spirit. Yeah. So those are, those are anthropomorphic ways of describing, uh, in, when we talk about the, the long nose of God, right? Like that's an anthropomorphic way of saying he is slow to anger. Right. But also when we say like the right hand of God, that's another anthropomorphism to say he is powerful, the hand
Speaker 1of a powerful and a saving God. Yeah. And that's
Speaker 3important. Yeah. So can I just conclude with a thought with Isaiah, just to bring it all to, to close this section of Isaiah, we've worked through all the chaos of chapter one, all the sinful and rebellion going through that the King is coming. You have throughout the passage, we're going to see that it's Yahweh that's going to come. But what I love is Isaiah 63. And if you read through Isaiah 63, I'll summarize it quickly where you have a, a watchman, so to speak, and he sees a warrior that's coming. And this warrior is, he has the stride of a very powerful, strong soldier, but his garments are soaked red. And the warrior asks him, why are your garments all red? And he says, because I I've been in the wine press. I've been treading out the fear. And you look at the wording, it's like fury, rage, vengeance, all this language for this warrior. That's coming. He's coming to defeat God's enemies and defend God's people. And we see that all throughout the Bible. Okay. When Israel gets across the Red Sea, it says the Lord shall reign forever because when God is King, the enemies are defeated and his people are delivered. We see that all throughout the ending of Isaiah. Well, why this is critical is because the work of the Messiah, the work of this great King in Isaiah, by the time you do this study listeners, when you get to Isaiah 66, the last chapter, everything that was wrong in chapter one is corrected. In chapter 66, the God is still viewed as a father, but he's viewed or Israel as a child, but now they're back in covenant, the worship where God says, I hated your worship. Stop singing to me. All the worship is corrected to where you have Levites made up of Gentiles and Israelites. Now you have a priesthood of both and you have God's enemies defeated and they're in hell. And so why I wanted to end with this Isaiah 63 is because where do we see that passage in the New Testament is Revelation 19, right? It says, I saw a white horse and I saw it starting in chapter 19, verse 11 of Revelation. And that one on the horse is the King of Kings, which is the language. Sorry, the language really quick is it talks about Jesus coming to the battle of Armageddon. And the language is the same from Isaiah 63. His raiment is red because he's been defeating so many enemies. The blood is splattering on him, but all, the saints all behind him were clean and white robes because Isaiah 63 says he's fighting by himself. Yeah. So the imagery there is that this King is coming and when he comes, he's going to establish a kingdom like this world has never seen. So sorry, I cut you off.
Speaker 2Yeah. I just wanted to say two things to that point. I recently heard a preacher preach on that, that very, very theme there. And we don't often hear it preach something like that, right? So it can be challenging to hear like blood everywhere, you know? Um, but, but there is this beauty in, in recognizing that, that the Lord is King, right? But he's not just this King who is absent, this King who is, um, far withdrawn, this King who sits in his temple and sends others to do his bidding, right? This King is someone who is, who is involved himself. And, uh, I loved the, the way that the preacher, he preached at church. Uh, and so I love that the way that he, he really focused in on, he is, he is not just, or he was not just the King in Isaiah's day. He's the King today. He will be the King in the future. Yeah. And he has always and always will be the King, right?
Speaker 1He that, he that ascended is the, is the one that who first descended is like that, that picture that you get in Ephesians uh, one and another and one telling the other, Hey, I think you should go down and do it. It's the, he, and he did it himself. Yeah. And what I love
Speaker 2is we've got some preachers that just get things right. You know? Uh, and I know we've mentioned a couple of times where we've, we've got some things where we've heard it preached and it's like, ah, maybe we should correct that, that train of thought, but you have some beautiful texts like this. And I think we just got to preach them. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's a full view of who God is.
Speaker 1And let me, let me steal man, the, um, the covenantal view. On Isaiah 60 on the final chapter of Isaiah 66, uh, well between 63 and 66. Um, let me, um, I, let me, let me, uh, uh, just kind of throw this out there that, that when you were talking at the, the end of that, and you said that there will be priests, Gentiles and, and Jews alike, um, their view would be, and I'm, and, uh, and speaking as somebody who is not one of them, um, I, I don't want to misrepresent their views, but I think that I can make a, I think I can make a solid claim here on this. They would say, okay, yes, um, he is going to be king. And, uh, there's going to be this singular priesthood. This is talking about the grafting in of the Gentiles to the church. And that, uh, we see this in the new Testament, you are a kingdom of priests, you're a holy nation, a Royal priesthood, et cetera. And that, that has been when you receive the gift of the Holy ghost, that what he is talking about is, is an imagery of a spiritual kingdom. If I could say it that way. And that, that imagery is presented in Isaiah as, as one body, there is neither June or Greek, neither bond or free, neither male nor female, all one in Christ. So talk about what is right and what is wrong about that presentation of it in Isaiah, like where, where that goes wrong, uh, and qualifying what is right. Cause obviously there's nothing.
Speaker 3I don't think that it's, it's too terribly off because I mean, the one thing with Isaiah that does get a little murky is that in 65 and 66, I think he's giving this broad view of when the millennium begins. And then when eternity begins there, there's a little bit of, um, murky lines as far as when one starts and the other one begins. And I think we see this throughout, uh, other prophecies, um, you know, where, um, we might see how, um, um, God says, you know, this is going to happen and then this we don't know the exact timeline. Um, I think that's kind of what's going on here, but not just on Isaiah two, Isaiah 65, 66, Zechariah 14, uh, all over Ezekiel, you get not just from one isolated passage, but you get comments from so many prophets where there's going to be a restoration and, and I know we haven't even gotten to Ezekiel yet. So I want to save a couple of things for if Jesus is truly the son of David, and truly all of those elements are going to be literally fulfilled, he has to be a temple builder. So that is, I think, one argument for Ezekiel's temple is that there's so many passages in the prophets that show there will be sacrifices in the millennium unless you allegorize them and make them appear to be something.
Speaker 1That really comes out in Ezekiel, the very detailed articulation of the sacrifices that all have to become some kind of allegory.
Speaker 3And there's attacks, you know, people try to say, well, you people, you know, you deny the complete work of the cross. No, we don't. I don't have all the answers as to why there are sacrifices in the millennium. They're not for remission of sins. No. But there's a lot.
Speaker 1To be fair, sacrifices weren't for the remission of sins all the time in the Old Testament either.
Speaker 3Right, they're the cleansing for the flesh, Leviticus 16. And also in praise and
Speaker 1worship, and there's all kinds of, you know. And my thing that I would tell people that they say, well, what I see in Isaiah is a unified body. I would say. I would say yes, in the sense that.
Speaker 3You have the saved and the unsaved. I mean, that is by Isaiah 66. You have, we're going to be able to, well, some of this, we're going to be, there's going to be people in hell. And you're going to have to save that are with the king.
Speaker 1What I would say is that in spite of the unified body, you still have, even if you only say it's nominally, it's still there. You still have a distinction between Jew and Gentile. And that's what people miss is that we're not talking, if you're, if you're, if the question you're asking me is, will Christ be ruler over all, all the earth, Jew and Gentile, like in the end, I would say yes. And I think that most covenantal theology people would, would lean the same direction. The question is over timing. And the question is also over what does it mean to be a Jew? What does it mean to be a Gentile in this, in this time period? And what is evidently clear in Isaiah is that natural Israel after the flesh is something qualitatively different, not just from the church, but even from Jews that would be in the church. And the reason why I say that is because Paul makes those exact same distinctions in Romans 11. He talks about unsaved Israel, unbelieving Israel, believing Israel and the believing Gentiles.
Speaker 3These are, you know what I mean? Exactly. And in Romans 9 and 11, that, that can only be national or ethnic Israel. Unless you allegorize it. Well, you can't. I agree. I agree, but I'm just saying. And I know you know this, but, but from the grammar of the Greek in Romans 9 and 11, you cannot have, what Paul is talking about being a spiritual Israel. He is talking about it has to be physical.
Speaker 1Yeah. Which, which lines up with Ezekiel, which we can, we can hit now if you want. Um, I, I want to hit the last chapter of Ezekiel. So if you guys want to talk about some stuff leading up to that,
Speaker 3I'll just, maybe again, just give a high, this will be faster than Isaiah, but the, um, the overview of Isaiah that I think it, or excuse me, of Ezekiel that I think is wonderful is in the first few chapters, you have the exile, right? The nation has been exiled. Exiled to Babylon. Ezekiel is there. Daniel's already been there for a number of years. Uh, so you have the exile, you have the downfall of the king, right? You have a king that's taken from the throne. He is in Babylon the same time that Ezekiel is in Babylon. A little bit later, you see a departure of the glory of God from the temple, and then the temple's destroyed. So in the first 10 or so chapters, you see God's still on the throne. Ezekiel said, this is how he gets his call. He sees a vision of God on the throne, but you see, all of these elements of, uh, the, the exile, the King's downfall, the removal of the glory, and then the temple being destroyed. Well, flip that now, uh, to going toward the end of the book. This may not be the best way to say it, but God does not want a second exile. He tells the people you're going to come back, but he says, you're going to come back and I'm going to wash you with water. And I'm going to put a new spirit within you. And then the same unit, 36 and 37 of Ezekiel, he's going to restore. The kingdom, Israel and Judah is going to become Israel again with the, the King, the Davidic King as the ruler. So going back to that Davidic covenant, and he's going to rule over a restored Israel when he's going to build the temple.
Speaker 1When you say he doesn't want a second exile, what are your guys? Cause we, cause we think of, we think of 80, 70 as a generally in history, we think of 80, 70 as a second exile. Is that the way the Bible?
Speaker 3What I meant by that is that, I mean, God, God could bring the people back and restore the kingdom, but he doesn't, so to speak, want to send them to Babylon again. Like he wants to have, he wants to have relationship. He doesn't want broken covenant again. So he's going to make a way for those people to live in the kingdom the right way. So that's where he says, I'm going to wash you with water. And I'm going to put my spirit within you, which is why.
Speaker 1And then at that point, correct me if I'm wrong. At that point, we're talking about the church.
Speaker 3I mean, we're talking about, well, I think the church is included, but I think it's bigger than that. Because like we said, with chapter 37, the kingdom will be restored to. So now fast forward a little bit is that now you have a restoration of the kingdom. Again, that's chapter one that was fallen, but now it's restored. You have the king back on the throne, the right Davidic king, which he was in Babylon before, but now he's restored. You have that king building a temple because the temple was destroyed. Jesus as a true Messiah will be a temple builder. And, and then finally, how does the book of Ezekiel end? Glory has returned. The Lord is there. So what was lost at the beginning of Ezekiel is now going to be restored at the end with the Davidic king on the throne. And so I think this is why when, and several scholars are pointing this out. When Jesus tells Nicodemus, you're a master of Israel and you don't know this stuff. Because the issue of being born of the water and the spirit and the issue of the kingdom is laced throughout the prophets to where Ezekiel 36 and 37. Okay, Beal. And, um, I'm trying to remember the, the other scholar, Belleville, maybe, uh, she makes the case that Ezekiel is the only passage in the old Testament where you have water cleansing and spirit infilling. So when Jesus says, don't you know what this means? Did she mean together?
Speaker 1Okay. I was going to say, cause Joel, but yeah, right.
Speaker 3No together. So when Jesus says being born of the water and the spirit, he's like, you have Ezekiel. You should know what this is about. Yeah. So it's about, it's something big. I say the church is included, but it's bigger than that because. Because you have to have a righteous transformed people and that Davidic king ruling. And so that to me, that's a really good way to look at the overview of Ezekiel is that God is, is reversing what was broken, reversing what was lost and his kingship will ultimately rule overall.
Speaker 1So how does this get twisted? And, and I have my thoughts about it, but in our preaching, it seems like, you know, how you said with last episode, you're talking about David and you said, uh, the only thing we ever preach about David is the ark returning and Bathsheba. Well, I feel like the only thing we ever preach in Ezekiel. And if I gave you guys two guesses, you'd probably only need one valley of dry bones. Yeah. Um, it's the only thing we ever preach. Why is that? And like, what is, yeah.
Speaker 2I think it's, I think it's that, that impulse to preach right things. Right. And I, I, I don't fall. And I, I think that, that it could come across as being unkind or, or unfair. Right. So I want to be very, very careful when I say this. I think that there can, there can be an impulse to preach what we know is true from every text that we can find it in. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's a great passage, right? That's a good point is, is you
Speaker 1take something that you know is true and find a passage. We do. I told our hermeneutics students, we do that with giving a lot. Yeah. It's like the two things can be true at once. It can be true that, um, there, that giving is, is both a commandment. And there's promise attached to sacrifice and also true that pressed down, shaken together, running over. It has nothing to do with money.
Speaker 3Well, in Ezekiel focus, since we're focusing on Ezekiel, Ezekiel is, is a hard book as, as far as there's some very strong things in there. You know, Israel, you are a harlot and your sister is worse than you, Judah. Yeah. You know, I think that's chapter 23.
Speaker 1And Ezekiel is made to endure all of these. Yeah. It's like his, it's like his own. His trials, all these things. And his trials are like teaching tools. If I could say it that way, that's very, it's, you know, but anyway, back to what you were saying about, like, we, we take the truth that we know and we, and we find, we preach out of any passage we've preached, you know.
Speaker 2I think, I think it can come from a number of things though, right? I don't want to take a guess at everyone's, you know. We're not attributing motive here. We're not attributing motive. You might have some people who, where they have so many competing responsibilities as a pastor. And it can be difficult to make the time to do some of this hard work, right? And to your point, some of this is hard work where you're digging into context.
Speaker 3Hard work and just some of it's hard to preach. Yeah. Like some of it is, it's straightforward. It's, and that's what I meant by hard is that there are some depth to it. Yeah. But some of it's like, man, there's some of it's rebuke. Yeah. That's maybe a better way.
Speaker 1And even the apostles, like, despite the fact that they had the Holy Ghost, despite the fact that their understanding had been opened. Even they felt as senior leadership, it is incumbent upon us to devote more time, not less, to prayer and to the study.
Speaker 3Which I think, you know, to bring everybody back to the heart of why we're doing this is not to seem superior or anything. But to really just be like, you know, this is stuff we're looking at and having fun talking about. And if we can help somebody along the way, I think that's.
Speaker 2And maybe even take some of the guesswork out of it for some, as a pastor somewhere or someone who's giving Bible studies who hasn't had the time to sit down and devote to. Yeah. I was listening to a fantastic podcast a couple of weeks ago weeks back and they were talking about music. And, you know, there are some songs that I hear where I'm like, ah, it's probably not the context of that verse that you just used in that, in that song. Right. Like Christian songs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, it, it was, uh, a gentleman who is very, very involved in, um, the Christian music industry and, uh, an old Testament scholar and the old Testament scholar, funny enough, had a lot of the same challenges that I had with some of the songs that he was mentioning. And he said, well, you know, why, why is it that we don't use, uh, uh, some of these precatory Psalms. And for those of you listening, uh, precatory Psalm would be something like Psalm 137, where it is a curse against some kind of nation. And, uh, to, to the music guys, uh, point. And it was a, it was a good point, right? You have a congregation of people who are dealing with different things. And sometimes it's, it's a lot easier to bring them up than it is to bring everyone down. Right. And so you, to your point about it's hard stuff to preach. Sometimes, sometimes it's harder to, you've got everyone in the congregation that has had a tough week with whatever's happening in their, in their life. Right. And preaching something like, uh, some of these texts, it's, it can be very, very challenging as that impulse to say, well, I don't want to get on everybody's bad side. Right. Or man, if I do this, I'm going to want to be encouraging. Yeah. And, and it is a, it is a good thing to not want to abuse sheep. Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1Right. Yeah. Um, it's a good, it's a good impulse.
Speaker 2Yeah. And so sometimes it can be just be easier to allegorize or easier to say, well, I haven't had the time because I was at sister Sue's at the, at the doctors with her all week. Yeah. And I haven't had time to, to, to really focus in on this. You know, I know that this is truth. And so I will preach this doctrine. It fits with this text. I'll preach it from this text. I'll give three points and I'll roll with it. Right. And so that impulse to preach maybe even truth from the wrong text, right. Doctrine, wrong text, right. To, to borrow someone else's, uh, book title. Uh, I think that that can be the danger that we run into is just rather than spending time in the text, preach something that's familiar.
Speaker 1And I think that too, some of that comes down to calling is like without, I mean, I know we're, we're kind of in the weeds here, but whatever. Um, you know, when you're called to be a pastor and you're called to, um, whatever, whatever your calling might be, you're, you know, trying to, trying to fit in that mold, uh, the, the responsibility of, uh, we expect our pastors to be pastors, teachers, evangelists, prophets. Like we, we, we actually in, I, I, I, again, I, I've brought this up before in, in classroom settings is we've, uh, we're very one dimensional in our approach to ministry. If I say apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher, evangelist, most people get a vision of one thing, a pulpit and a microphone. And that's kind of, we don't really have a strong discernment between what these things are. And I do think that that creates a problem because when there is a lack of good teaching, there's a lack of good teachers. I'll say it that way. It's a, it's a responsibilities on the people when, if you've been called to teach and you neglect that calling, or if you've been, um, called by God in any capacity and you neglect that calling, you burden the other ministries as well. And, um, I, I just think that, you know, again, I very rarely do I attribute a bad motive to, um, our, I don't, I'm not going to call it an inability. It's a refusal to acknowledge these other passages of scripture that would really shed a lot of light for a lot of people on certain things. But I agree is that it's, it's very hard to convince somebody that the best thing you could possibly do in this moment is bring down the mood, you know, and like the answer to everything is not higher energy and more shouting and more dancing and more clapping that has its place. But it can be misplaced as we talked about in first Samuel, again, going back to that example, like, yeah, even, even worship has, it's, it can be misplaced. Isaiah, Isaiah stopped singing, stopped singing to me. And, and, um, we see that even in, uh, certainly, and, you know, I think all throughout the province, first or second episode, when, when Samuel tells Saul obedience is better than sacrifice, that includes a sacrifice of praise. I don't want your sacrifices if you don't have the rest of it.
Speaker 2Right. And, and here's the, the, the, the beauty within that, right. Is even if you're preaching a, a challenging passage, obedience is better than sacrifice. Well, if you're being obedient,
Speaker 1why is that challenging? Yeah. Yeah. But now we're coming. Yeah, exactly. So,
Speaker 2yeah. So I think that, I think that it's important, right. I think some of these texts are just, they're, they're overlooked and sometimes they, sometimes they can be preached out of context, uh, just because either there's not enough time to devote to studying the context, or they just feel the need.
Speaker 1Like, I think that some of it is seeking application, maybe in a wrongheaded way, but it's like you read, I,
Speaker 3maybe seeking application first. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like I need something to apply to my
Speaker 1church. And so you go to Ezekiel chapter 48 and you're like, what in the world does this have to do? And so you think, well, it doesn't apply. And that's, that's the, that's the word that we say in our head is it doesn't apply.
Speaker 3And that's maybe just a little hermeneutic help. Sure. With, with interpreting scripture is something that's very helped me again, going through Isaiah and Ezekiel. Yes, we need to, we, we need the facts. We need this, the small details, but you also need the big picture. They, they both work hand in hand. You have to have both. You can't neglect one or the other. I know some people will give me the big picture. Well, what builds the picture are the details, right? But then you don't want to get too far in the details. So I've really tried to help students by, okay, take a step back, get a Bible that has like the layout of the chapters and then see kind of what's going on. It might, it might be a little bit more, but it might be a little bit more, but it might be a little bit more, but it might take you a little bit to think through and obviously pray. And, you know, God's going to help you with your reading and understanding, but to look through and see like, why is Isaiah writing these chapters the way that he is? Why does Ezekiel begin with the exile and the downfall of the King? And then by the end, everything's restored. There's a point to that because in all the chaos of does God glory or does God, is he pleased with the death of the wicked? Ezekiel 18. No, he, he wants there to be righteousness. He wants the people to be transformed. He doesn't want them to be in exile. Their sin and their idolatry have brought them to this point. So there's a transformation that must take place. And that's kind of what we're talking about. So I think just as far as to help people reading their Bibles, you know, figure out what's going on, get the big view and then go through and see why is the prophet saying these really hard and rebuke type type things. elements. Why is he doing that? Because there's something better that God has for them. Yeah. There's a kingdom. It's not an end.
Speaker 1It's, it's a point to the end. And when you think about the, um, when you're talking about, um, you, you've got to have a view of the whole Bible. Like, and so, and so really the, the first call is like, it sounds simple. You got to read the whole Bible and like, you got to, you got to digest it. You got to study it. Um, one thing that I use still, and I, and I enjoy it. And I, if somebody has one of these Bibles out there, um, my Allen Bible has new Testament use of the old Testament. Um, and I, and I enjoy it. And I, if somebody has one of these in the back of it and for like, if you don't have time to sit down and read an entire book of the old Testament in one sitting, something as simple as that, where you can go back and look at old Testament quotations in the new that in and of itself will help at least illuminate what exactly it is that they're talking about. When we take for granted so much of the things that are said in the new Testament, we think they're novelties. Like we read the new Testament, we revelation, especially, and we're like, Oh, that's it's, it's all. Things to come that have just never been thought of and never seen before. And it's like, well, actually pretty much all of it's in the old Testament, pretty much all of it.
Speaker 3And so I know we're getting to, I will, we're getting to new Testament books, but I mean, the stats on revelations use of the old Testament is so wonderful to me where there's, I forget the stats off the top of my head, but if there's 550 verses, there's like 450, um, illusions or, or, um, not, not quite direct citations, but references maybe is the best word references back to the old Testament. I mean, we just, we shared the one with Isaiah 63 in revelation 19. They're all over the place. It's just, it's wonderful.
Speaker 2I love that. Maybe this is just a, a study tip point, help, whatever we'd call it. Maybe it's not help at all. Um, but I'm going to share it anyway. Uh, so one thing that, that I think that you guys have, have, uh, just encouraged, uh, everyone to, to think about is getting a lay of land. I think that that's important, right? So you've got to understand what's going from start to finish throughout the Bible. Now you don't have to have it all in, in, in mind at the same exact time. I don't know that anyone's possible. It's possible for anyone to just remember every single verse in scripture. Um, but you've got to understand where things are in the Bible and you have to understand the, the way that the text that you're reading that you want to preach from that you want to teach from where that fits within the whole of that book. So I always, uh, recommend when, when students ask me like, how do I read my Bible better? Well, what text are you reading? Okay. Read your way out and then read your way back in. Uh, I think that that's important. Uh, I always recommend, Hey, what are the two chapters before it's saying, what are the two chapters after it's saying? Well, that's going to give you a lot of clarity on that verse that you've got a question about. Cause there are some things that might be repeated. There are some things that might not be repeated, right? So read your way out, look around, uh, and then look within
Speaker 1those four chapters and are coming to, uh, there, you find them hard to be understood if given the option between teaching or preaching something else or. are resting the scriptures, teach or preach something else. Like it's okay to have humility and say, man, like I, I don't, I'm not, my head's, I can't get my head wrapped around this right now. Um, but I need to teach, I need to pray. And so I would rather you find a passage that you can preach and teach in context with application, you know, and here's the
Speaker 2beauty of that, right? If you stew on something, it's gonna, it's gonna taste a lot better, right? Uh, just because it's slow cooking. Um, now you don't want to burn it, but that's, you know, that's another story. Um, but I think that some of that, like you mentioned earlier, starting off trying to land application somewhere, one, one danger. Now I think you can get to the place once you have studied this way for a while, but I think that's a much more matured preachers approach. Um, one thing that I've heard from, from peers, from people who are just starting to preach is, man, I've got this idea. I need to find a text to preach this from. And I'm like, okay, slow down. Maybe you should let the text talk for itself.
Speaker 1Right. And your idea that, cause that's the danger. Your idea could be right. Yeah. Your instincts might be good. You might, your thought might even be inspired by scripture, but you could also be wrong. Like it could also, you could be
Speaker 2sideways. And I think if you have, if you've done enough time in the word and you understand you have read your way in and out left and right up and down, right. You're, you're going to know there's some texts that deal exactly with what I'm thinking right now. So if there's, I need to make a rebuke against this, this group of people that are, that are, that are, that are, that are right. Well, I've got a text for that, right? Because you've done this, this work, this hard work, this foundational work where you can do that. But usually that's going to come with, with maybe a little bit of age. What I would really, really recommend someone who's wanting to, to be a good preacher, wanting to have these, these profound thoughts, whatever profound means start with the text, read your way out, read your way back in. And then right. Make some observations from your text. What does your text say? Okay. What doesn't it say? Okay. If it doesn't say it, maybe don't say it.
Speaker 1Yeah. And that goes back to the, like the right, like you can have like the right thought with the wrong passages. Like you might, if you, if you have a thought, like, like for example I don't know, you're giving, I use that example earlier. There are appropriate passages to talk about giving a sacrifice from, but that doesn't give you the right to talk about them from any passage. And that there are right passages. To talk about holiness and separation from, that doesn't give you the right to talk about them from any old passage or God's judgment or God's mercy or the church or Israel. And like all of these things are discussed in the Bible, but it's your responsibility to find the right place. Wait, how does the Bible frame it? You know, what is the Bible saying? What doesn't it say?
Speaker 2To another point, um, context is going to be important. And I, not just the, the biblical content, you've got to understand the biblical context. I think before you, you look for other contexts because sometimes we can read into the text historical context. It's not there, right? So we can imagine that something is, is a direct parallel to something or something is a direct rebuke against something that's in the culture of the day. And we're reading that in there because we have presupposed something from a historical setting. And I think that we have to be very, very familiar with what the text is actually saying and then venture out into, uh, so what I'm saying is that we have to be very, very familiar with what the text is saying. So what I've described is like you, you, you observe your text. Then you look for this, not just observation, but correlation, right? Then you look outside of your text. What does the rest of scripture say? Now, the danger with that is finding a word that matches in another text and saying, these are related.
Speaker 1Yeah. Cause they could be, but they could also not be.
Speaker 2Yeah. And very often or not. And so that's why you've got to do the work of, of spending time with the text and then finding appropriate support scriptures. Okay. That's going to really build that sermon.
Speaker 3So an example of that might be something where you have Mount Carmel. Now this is a whole ordeal, but just to zone in on one element would be that you have water flowing around the sacrifice and you have the fire falling. That is not the day of Pentecost or Acts two 38, right? That there are similarities there, but that's not what is going on. However, if you look at the tabernacle, the spirit filling the tabernacle, the spirit filling the temple, the fire even falls at the temple, right? You have imagery of Mount Sinai with fire and the noise from heaven, all this stuff connect that to the upper room. Those are very, those are consistent theological points that are made by the writers that are made by the writers, not by something where it's, Oh, wow. You know? Yeah. The giving of the law is the day at the day of Pentecost. So that would be an example of
Speaker 1Peter said, this is that which was spoken to by the prophet Joel. What did the prophet Joel write about? The law written on their hearts, that the law written on their hearts, that the law written on their Jeremiah, Jeremiah, exactly. I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. And these, these things go together. And so, and we know that they go together because the new Testament told us they go together. Yeah.
Speaker 3Those golden threads. So I think that would be an example of, you know, here's a couple of things that look similar, but you have to be careful not to insert a little bit in there to make it, uh, make it happen.
Speaker 2Yeah. We should not, I, we just, we shouldn't be connecting dots where scripture does not lead us to, to connect dots. Right. And that doesn't mean
Speaker 1there aren't dots to be connected.
Speaker 3Yeah. Yeah. They are there. That's the beauty of study. And I think that's what we're trying to do is lace, uh, or not lace, but, but look at these golden threads through scripture. So go ahead.
Speaker 2I was just going to say to, to that point, I think about one of the reasons why these texts can be challenging to, to understand is looking at that and taking that step to that historical context that, um, I think we've, we've alluded to in some ways, but there is a real exile that Israel is experiencing. We're going to experience in, in these texts, right. And there are some, some chief nations that are mentioned throughout both of these books. You see this in Jeremiah as well. You see this in, in Jonah, you see this in, in Nahum, you see this in, um, uh, what is it? Uh, Nehemiah there, they're coming back from Persian captive, right? So you see these in these various texts, you see this in Daniel. And one of the biggest things to, to think about is where do you start studying some of the, this historical context and you don't want to, you don't want your sermon or your lesson to become a data dump, right? We do, we do a bit of data dumping here. So that way, you know, hopefully you are, our listeners don't have to do, uh, a lot of this heavy lifting yourself. Now, this is not a supplement for doing study, right? This is, this is an hour, an hour and a half, two hours.
Speaker 1Yeah. These are just our conversations about some things that we study. And I guess, you know,
Speaker 3that is an interesting point you bring up because we, we, I think we're drawing a lot of ideas out, but we're, we're really not applying as much. I mean, I think we have, and there is application in kind of a broad sense, but we're talking about the Godhead here, but you know, last 20
Speaker 1minutes, notwithstanding, that's, that's the, the, the focus is supposed to be on quiet.
Speaker 2I'm not guilty this time.
Speaker 1I know it's been fine. And I think, and all of this matters because at the end of the day, and I, before we wrap up, I do want to read the end of Ezekiel 48, because that very much matters to what we're talking about. But, um, the bottom line is, is, uh, the people that have questions most often about oneness, about the end times, about, um, holiness, which those three topics characterize a lot of the questions I get. Um, so many of those questions could be answered by doing exactly what we're doing right now, which is if you will spend time, look in the places that you haven't looked and you know what they are, like whoever, like somebody listening to this, like they know what parts of the Bible they've never read, or they know what parts of the Bible they've, they've read quickly through their Bible chart. But it was just, it was just, it was just, it was just, it was just their eyes racing over the page and they weren't really like, if you'll spend time in those places, like you're, you're going to find, you know, the answers to the things that, that you, that you've been looking for. And to your point about not letting your teaching be a data dump. I mean, Bishop Billy McCool used to say, you need to know everything that you preach, but you don't have to preach everything that you know,
Speaker 2you know, and to, to that point, right? Like this is, and like I was mentioning, right, this is an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, whatever of us talking about, um, even more time than that study, right? So it's not like we studied for an hour to say everything that we studied, right? So our listener, you will have to go do some of that, digging into some of those things that we, we mentioned. Um, but to, to kind of, um, I don't know if we're running out of time here, but, um, I, to give a shout out to my, my mom, right? She, she mentioned to me one, one time, uh, you know, we sing that song exceedingly abundantly, above all we can ask or think. And she was like, you know, I was reading that verse and is it Ephesians? Is that where it's at? Um, she's like, as I read it, that comma is after abundantly. So I flip over and I'm like, yeah, that's true. Right? So we can assume some things about the text just because we've heard things about the text. And when you slow down and read it and you observe what's happening in your text, you might catch that it says exceeding abundantly. Right? So it's like, it would be like me saying even much more better, right? You know, it's like exceeding abundantly. There's, there's this not exceeding comma abundantly. Yeah. And so there's this build even within that. And it's an emphasis there. Like this is even greater. And so, yeah, just to encourage our, our listeners to slow down as you read. And one thing that helps me is listening to the text while I read it. It helps me stay focused. It helps me to read it slower. It helps me to, to remember more of what I'm reading. But I do that with just about everything. I think it's important to do that. that. Looking at the context of our text and while we talk about kingship, God's kingship, those nations that conquered Israel, those nations that came against Israel, that Israel would be enslaved to, different periods of their time, their rulers were feared. They were renowned throughout the ancient world. And looking at their reliefs, and I wanted to mention this earlier, you're talking about this figure that is anticipated as coming with this garment that's gory and it's covered in blood and it's a gruesome picture, but there's this hope in this, right? I read some of these royal inscriptions from Asher. And when I say Asher, you will find it spelled A, there will be two S's, U, R. The S's will have these little arrows above them. Those arrows are telling you that that should be pronounced as like a shh, like shut up, kind of shh, right? So it should be pronounced Asher. And it depends because you have Asher, the God, the land, the people, right? And it's usually translated differently to denote those different things.
Speaker 3But you're not talking about the tribe of Israel.
Speaker 2Yes, that's correct. I'm not talking about A-S-H-E-R. I'm not talking about the tribe of Asher. But I read. I read some of these royal inscriptions for some of these kings of Asher or these kings of Babylon. And they talk about their conquests and how they kind of put down rebellions and how they brought Corvi or taxation to different civilizations, different groups. Some even how they wiped out entire groups. And they talk about their wars. And you'll see where these kings will say. Well, it will be inscribed of them where it's said that they died the mountains red with the blood. And it's this picture of they utterly destroyed their enemies, right? But there's a limitation to those things. And I don't. I have not yet, I should say, come across a single king who said, my garments were stained because I was the warrior. Right. Yeah. And even when they are. It's very clear. He's the only one fighting. Yeah. And even when the kings are seen as warriors, right? Those are distinct from. They still have an army that's engaging in the battle with them. Sure. And the king that we have, and I think the king that Israel was being reminded of that they had is a king like no other. He's getting his hands dirty.
Speaker 1And when you get to talking about restoration is the final chapter of Ezekiel. I'm not going to obviously go through the entire chapter, but it is descriptive. I'm not going to go through the entire chapter, but it is descriptive. Measurements, identifying borders, the size and quality of sacrifices that are going to happen in a literal land by literal people at a literal temple. And they're offering these sacrifices. I mean, in verse 20, the oblation shall be five and 20,000 by five and 20,000. You shall offer the holy oblation for square with the possession of the city. It goes through the borders, the border, the possession of the city. It goes through the borders, the border, the Levites, the possession, very much like Joshua. Like you're, it's, it's following this kind of parsing out, parsing out, parsing out. And then you get to verse 29 and I'm going to read 29 through 35 to give just, just kind of my closing thoughts on, on this, the question talking about God as King and the prophets. He says in 48 and 29, this is the land which he shall divide by lot unto the tribes of Israel for inheritance. And these are their portions say at the Lord, and they shall Lord God. And these are the goings out of the city on the north side, 4,500 measures. And the gates of the city shall be after the names of the tribes of Israel, three gates northward, one gate of Reuben, one gate of Judah, one gate of Levi and the gate. And at the east side, 4,503 gates and one gate of Joseph and one gate of Benjamin and one gate of Dan. In verse 33, it says, and at the south side, 4,500 measures and three gates, one gate of Simeon, one gate of Issachar, one gate of Zebulun. At the west side, 4,500 with three, with their three gates, one gate of Gad, one gate of Asher, one gate of Naphtali. Verse 35, it was round about 18,000 measures. And the name of the city from that day shall be, the Lord is there. And that last line, the ending, that last closing line of Ezekiel, the Lord is there. First of all, it's a tetragrammaton. So we, we, we acknowledge that. But in light of everything that we've already talked about in Isaiah, who is the Lord that will be there? And when they say the Lord is there in revelation, we see this, the Lord shall be with them and he shall be their God and they shall be his people. And they shall see his face. They shall see his faces. We are not talking about two different things. We are talking about the God of Israel who, when there was no man, clothed himself and put on that breastplate of righteousness, that when there was no other man, he reached in and did himself. And how did he do it? He did it as this King. And I think it's interesting too. We don't, obviously we're not going to get to it this episode, but when it's breaking down the tribes that Joseph is named, not in Ephraim and Manasseh, we always see, we talk about them as the half tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, each representing a portion of Joseph. And, uh, and that's interesting, but here it just says, Joseph. And I think that that's, that's probably a conversation for another day, but suffice it to say that last verse when it, it names the 12 tribes, and this is talking about the literal restoration of a real place. You have two options. You can either allegorize all of this and say, this is typology of the church. And I don't even know where you would begin with that. I would love to hear if somebody has that view, uh, you can email the show. We would love to talk about
Speaker 2that a little bit.
Speaker 1We will, we will talk about it, but I, but I don't know how you could make an allegory or an analogy or spiritualize this about these 12 gates and especially the specificity of chapter 48 and knowing that it correlates perfectly with the book of revelation that from that day on the name of that city will be the Lord is there. And, uh, and we know of course that that is, is Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3I'll just add this. This can be my last thing here, but looking at Isaiah, he sees the Lord high and lifted up. He sees the seraphim Ezekiel chapter one, chapter 10. He sees the Lord high lifted up on a throne. He sees the chair of him, the old Testament prophets saw. And of course their description or Ezekiel's description is, you know, you see the chair of him described in great detail, but when it comes to the one on the throne, it's like, as like as constantly. So even they could not describe the indescribable, right? They could not completely see God on the throne, but they saw God on the throne to a certain degree. And then they saw the angels, but they did not see something else. By the time you get to John, he sees the same thing. He sees the Lord on the throne. He sees the beasts, but he also sees the elders and the great multitude around the throne, because finally through the work of the Messiah, what the old Testament prophets couldn't see has now become a reality that humans are around the throne and not just angels.
Speaker 1And you see that too, with, uh, between Daniel seven and revelation, I think it's five. Is it Daniel seven, revelation five, the son of man. Yeah. The ancient day son of man thing is like the way that Daniel describes it. And then the way that it's seen in revelation is it's a bringing together of these things that are heretofore maybe veiled or, or I won't say veiled, but they were hard to be understood as Peter said.
Speaker 2So maybe I can just, uh, just leave, leave us with a small word of encouragement, right? Some of these texts can be difficult, especially if we're approaching with the assumption that there is something we want to land, right? Uh, but if we take that step back and just let the text talk for itself, it can be, it can be a very beautiful thing to think about that future, uh, which I think both of you have alluded to, right? There's something that is ultimately seen in these texts and now it's going to take work and it's going to take effort, but effort is not a bad thing, right? Effort is a good thing. If you don't, if I mentioned something to you and you don't understand what I'm saying, you're going to ask me some questions. You're going to dig in to understand, uh, we don't just give up when we run across the text. That might be a little difficult to understand, right? But I think every, every listener, especially if you've made it to this far in, in our show, you're on this episode, which is episode four. Yeah. You're, if you're, if you're listening two hours into, to a conversation of, of thoughts on, on the prophets, you're more than capable of doing it. Yeah. You, you, you've got it. You can do it. So I can't believe we did an entire
Speaker 1episode on the prophets and God's kingship and didn't get to, I even, I am the Lord and beside me, there is no savior,
Speaker 3but, well, I mean, we kind of did, I guess we came to it with those latter passages in Isaiah where he is, he's saying, God is saying, I am the one. There's so much. I mean, there's, there's so much there. Well, and the cool thing is, I mean, when we are going to get to new Testament books, like, I think the last one we're doing is revelation. I mean, we're, we're going to pull in some of these things cause we can't, cause we've cheated and we've already
Speaker 2pulled revelation in this.
Speaker 1Yeah. We've already put, we pulled in Matthew. It's impossible not to just because we are, we're trying to, we're trying to not just be forward looking, but we're trying to contextualize. what's being talked about. And it's kind of hard to be like, stay tuned. Matthew is going to have a ton of Messiah passages.
Speaker 3So, I mean, we're, we're going to, we're going to come back to the
Speaker 2prophets. No cliffhangers here. No. Next week we'll get to the Davidic covenant. What is our
Speaker 1next, uh, New Testament, right? I think we start, are we starting New Testament next? So Gospels maybe? We did, uh, Old Testament was Genesis, Exodus, uh, Davidic covenant prophets. Yeah. So I think Gospels. Uh, Gospel sounds right. Yeah. Or Hebrews. Come back to, come back to listen to
Speaker 3all the weird stuff Jeremiah is going to say about Gospels. Well, you know, how many Gospels do you believe there are? Uh, at least two. Yeah. Okay. Awesome.
Speaker 1Well, thank you so much to Truthbook Co again for putting this all together for us, for producing, uh, the show truthbook.co. Uh, no mea culpa's next week. Uh, we appreciate you all listening and tuning in and we'll see you for our next installment of the Apostolic Classroom.
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