Present your bodies – (plural) – a… (one) living sacrifice

The Bible Project has been doing a great job of showing us how to read the Hebrew Scriptures by exposing the methods and means of their style and composition. The Original Testament often sets up a conflict in the story that it answers later. This is how Romans 12 is to some extent. We can read Romans 12:1 about presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice and think it is something we are doing or being by our religious adherence. However, the answer comes later in Romans 12:5. If we would just take that verse to heart, then we would not have this self-centric – I mean Christian-centric view at all.

CJB so there are many of us, and in union with the Messiah we comprise one body, with each of us belonging to the others.

AMP so we, who are many, are [nevertheless just] one body in Christ, and individually [we are] parts one of another [mutually dependent on each other].

ERV  In the same way, we are many people, but in Christ we are all one body. We are the parts of that body, and each part belongs to all the others.

The ERV does a great job of translating the first word of 12:5, so that we realize it is referring to “present your bodies a living sacrifice.” Living Sacrifice is singular and it is Jesus, especially Who He is. I often refer to this as His heart trajectory. I think Paul would call it the mind of Christ. I know the prophet Isaiah referred to it as the Higher Way and Higher Thought of God in Isaiah 55:8-11.

Jesus – Who He is – makes us a living sacrifice, because He is the Slain Lamb standing in Revelation 5:6. He is the lamb slain before the foundation of the earth. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His heart trajectory in us, is the Living Sacrifice we all experience together when we lose our soul-lives to know Him (Matthew 10:39). As Romans says just before 12:1, all things are out from Him, through Him, and unto Him.  Let’s not waste any time conforming to the world as 12:2 says, but rather be in it, but not of it… be of His heart trajectory that ended our oppressively special identities and self-care importance.

Only His dying process, “nekrosis,” active in us means life manifest in our body to others (2 Corinthians 4:10). Him being Who He is, is how He forgave us and saved us on the cross. Him being Who He is, is also How He sanctifies us, makes us holy and set apart. As 1 Corinthians 1:30 says, he is our sanctification-holiness. It is not a thing we get, but Him being it.

As He is-being, so also are we in this world! 1 John 4:17 Only Jesus’ Heart Trajectory, His Way of Being… only Him this way is Life and Reality.

Within Son… That is Reality

In the past, at many times and in various ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, and made the universe through him. Hebrews 1:1-2

The quote is an amalgamation of many popular translations. My point is to show you that what this verse means is typically missed, because the awareness of The Jesus Pictures and their Hebrew root patterns are missed.

First, lets look at this phrase about, “by his Son.” In the Greek, it literally says en Huio, which is “within Son” https://biblehub.com/interlinear/hebrews/1-2.htm . You can see that the literal translator cannot resist to add [His], because they do not understand what the author of Hebrews means by comparing first with second, which is a Jesus Picture pattern. Your Bible is a first and second pattern that has its roots in dozens of first and second pairs. The five easiest to discerns are:

  • Cain (1st) and Abel (2nd)
  • Ishmael (1st) and Isaac (2nd)
  • Esau (1st) and Jacob (2nd)
  • Moses and the first exodus generation (1st) and Joshua and the second exodus generation (2nd)
  • King Saul (1st) and King David (2nd)

After mastering these, the pattern goes deeper into a treasure trove of what it means to know Jesus by His crucified life in the Original Testament (OT). This is what the writer(s) of Hebrews are getting at in their introductory statement. it goes like this:

In the first, God used a mode of various stories that pictured the reality, but did not give us The Reality. In the second, we have The Reality “within Son” – in Him Personally, in Him as new creation, in Him as high priest, in Son as a body, a house, a temple, and so on.

Then we are supposed to ask, what for, why, to what purpose? Then that is when verse 3 becomes super powerful! The Son is the radiance of God’s glory! The Son is the exact representation of God’s Nature! The reason why God only talks now to us within the realm of His Son, “in Son,” is because there is nothing outside of Him that is really living or saving us from this present darkness. Knowing the Son through The Jesus Pictures like first and second is actually leaning Jesus “as He is.” Moreover, I’m referring to the OT. Seeing Jesus in the second ones listed above is powerful. It is so powerful that the Apostle Paul had this to say:

Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts, but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit-Ruach, and where the Ruach-Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Ruach-Spirit. 2Co 3:15-18

(Look further down into the posts about the Ruach of the day from Genesis 3:8. That is what the Holy Spirit-Ruach shows you in The Jesus Pictures when you compare first with second. He is Living! He is The Way! He is the only Reality that increases with endless life!)

Greater Love is Jesus being the Grain of Wheat

In John 15:12-13, Jesus defined greater love this way:

This is my end goal for you: that you all love one another according to the pattern I love you all and have loved you all. No one has greater love than this: that the one would lay down his life for his friend.

In Philippians 2:5-11, Paul pictures this greater love in the midst of that assembly of beleivers: Let this regulating mindset be in and among you all, which was also within the Anointed One Jesus… Then Paul goes on to explain how Jesus was above and one with God, but like a lone seed came down, emptying Himself. In Bible-lingo this is called, “kenosis” – the idea of rendering your rights and status void. It is the idea of becoming of no reputation, the servant of all. Philippians 2:8 takes it right to the bottom where the seed falls into the ground and dies: Jesus humbled Himself, even becoming obedient unto death – like Isaac – and even the worst of deaths: on a Roman cross.

But since seeds have to die before life can spring up into increase, often do not understand this point of Jesus being the Grain of Wheat in John 12:24. Jesus said, “Most assuredly this is how it is: I conclusively say to you all, if a grain of wheat doesn’t actually fall into the ground and die, it remains alone. However, if it actually does what an obedient seed does, then it bears much fruit!” Jesus is claiming to be the Seed!

Greater Love is just like this, a willingness to be with Jesus in His Anointing One Reality of a seed going to increase. It looks like death, but it is how life goes and grows. I cannot make myself do it, but I can be with Jesus in such a way to hear His heart and see pictures of this reality in Old Testament stories. And seeing the pictures and templates in the Old Testament, means I see the Spirit of Him being active. And since Genesis 1:26 tells us that this is our design, His Image and Likeness in us, then seeing Him “as He is” in this way means we are being with Him in His Way. He is the Way, so it is Him! As He is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17). Thus, within this situation, love has been brought to its end goal with ongoing reality with effect for us, so that we may have confidence in the day of crisis that sees what we are really made of (1 John 4:17 too).

…LORD God walking in the garden in the ? cool ? of the day…

It is translations like this that cause me worry. They are missed opportunities for expressing the power and awesomeness of the LORD God. Let me suggest an alternate translation and explanation for Genesis 3:8 that is more literal, straight forward, and explains how Jesus sanctifies us. My primary target is this word, “cool.”

You are reading this on the web, so open this verse on Biblehub’s interlinear in another window at this link: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/3-8.htm You will need to read it backwards from English, right to left, in fact. Make sure you become familiar with how the interlinear functions. The top number is called a Strong’s number. It is for those of us who do not read Hebrew and would like some definitions of the word. Biblehub ups that to include all the instances where the word occurs. Biblehub offers 2, 3, and sometimes 4 different sources for a definition.

The line below the number is also something you can click on. It is how you pronounce the word using the English alphabet, but the link is also a search that includes the various conjugations and spellings according to its placement in Hebrew grammar. The line below that is in Hebrew script as it has been since the Babylonian Exile, then below that is an English translation, and then below that is the parsing tag to tell you what part of the Hebrew language the word belongs to.

I want you to take note of the word with the Strong’s number of 7307 and translated as “in the breeze.” Click on that and it will say “7307. ruach” with various definitions. Notice that the three definitions are essentially say “breath, wind, spirit.” Ruach is all of these together. When we talk about God’s Spirit, we are also talking about God’s Breath and God’s Windy Breeze. Bible Project has a great video and podcast on this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNNZO9i1Gjc or https://bibleproject.com/podcast/holy-spirit-part-2/ . The ideas are all conflated in Hebrew as they are in Greek. Spirit is wind and breath, because it is an invisible animating reality. A wind rustles the tree leaves and a person is alive because they breath. So is it with God’s spirit.

Also, towards the end of the verse, click on the word number 8432 that is translated as “among.” Keep it in mind. It means “midst.”

Now let’s apply this idea to Genesis 3:8. Cool of the day is a horrible translation. Breeze of the day is a little better, but they still all miss reality of the story. Why not go for the jugular and translate it as spirit, or even spirit-wind? Below is an amalgamation translation from all the popular translations, except that for the words “spirit-wind” and “in the midst of;” those are mine.

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the spirit-wind of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God in the midst of the trees of the garden.

I don’t know about you, but chills just went down my spine! If that didn’t happen for you read it again and more slowly. God walks by the spirit-wind of the day means that he breezes through all the trees of the garden equally and unchanged! Just like wind blows through a forest, God’s spirit blows through all trees, and God is still Who He is. But Adam and Eve on the other hand, having just ate from the one tree they were forbidden to touch are now entrapped in its matrix. This ontological entanglement expresses itself as abhorrence and fear of God’s spirit just being Himself. (Ontological means how a thing is being and existing.)

The serpent was not lying when he said Adam and Eve would be like God Who already knows good and bad-evil. What he did not tell them was that this knowledge hopelessly entraps all finite beings in its matrix like an inescapable vortex or blackhole. Once ingested it is a severance from Life. Sure, Adam and Eve did not drop dead physically in that moment. Rather, like a branch sawn off a tree, they were dead.

Functionally it is by trajectory of being. That may sound odd to you until you ponder how a seed brings about life increase by first dying. Perhaps the words of Jesus may sound familiar to you? Lose your life, carry your cross? Or how about Jesus talking about Himself as a seed needing to go into the ground in John 12:24? God’s spirit goes His Way. He goes through all the trees equally, even the tree where the serpent is still entrapped and was forbidden to us.

Adam and Eve had just eaten of the tree and now with their inverted trajectory of being to that of God’s, there is a “friction of being.” Adam and Eve want to self-preserve now. But God, Who makes the seed go its cycle, wants give all selflessly, completely, and with no hold back like a seed falling into the ground. And since He is Infinite, the tree forbidden to us is just another tree to Him. With any tree, even the forbidden one, He gives Himself away through it like all the rest. His Spirt breezes through all the trees and He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

The cross had this reality on display. Jesus came in the fullness of God’s Spirit. Jesus was hung on a tree. Maybe you are saying, “No, Jesus was hung on a cross.” Well, my answer to you is that it depends on which language you speak. In Hebrew, and Greek by the way, a tree is any wooden construct that includes Roman crosses, wood clubs, scaffolding, and trees. Jesus died a death like no other that the veteran Roman centurion who had seen hundreds, if not thousands, die by crucifixion, realized he had never seen anyone die like Jesus. Seeing the whole process, He explained, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

How did Jesus die? Well, not like any other man, ever! He never lashed back or claimed innocence. His inner reality remained selfless in giving just like a seed falling into the ground. He forgave those killing Him. He loved his enemies. And he asked for his mother to be cared for. Never once, even remotely did anything within His heart stir up against any person for this grossly unfair death drummed up on false charges. He remained in union with His Father, breezing through that tree unchanged in Who He is: Greater Love.

Moreover, this is not only how Jesus saved us, but also how He sanctifies us. He is always Who He is. And because He became a human, He made it so that humans can learn His heart and share His Spirit that breezes through all the trees of the garden alike. I hope you have heard what I wrote. Jesus has not only forgiven you from sin, but He also has given you a highway out from the forbidden tree, so that you can too can walk through the garden where He is in any tree, situation, or circumstance.

Sanctification is not trying harder next time, or exerting fleshly force to mortify the evil within. Rather, it is as simple as knowing Him where He governs, which can sound like a poster slogan until you realize one of the huge tools He has given us to make this a reality. I am referring to The Jesus Pictures. Because the same Spirit breezing through all the trees can breeze through history and people and events the same too. The Hebrew Bible is this record. You can learn His Spirit by beholding that trajectory of being for yourself. 2 Corinthians 3:18 is the goal in that success story. Galatians 3:1 is the failure when you stop.

To discover more, read The Jesus Pictures, Spiritual Knowledge, 24:27, and Life Portals.

First and Second

Bible patterns, like First and Second, exist in the Scriptures to show us Jesus. They are important on two levels. First, they actually show our intellect that there is a grand design to the Scriptures, specifically the TaNaK / Old Testament (OT), that leads to Jesus. Second, they are for learning how Jesus leads a person’s heart by The Spirit of His heart.

As to the first level, these Bible patterns I call “Jesus Pictures” are the prime evidence for me that the Hebrew God is real, Who He says He is, and only really known in the face of Jesus. Moreover, this is most gloriously realized when Jesus gave Himself on the Roman cross. Apologetics, the defensive of the faith, has been a lifetime endeavor for me since college in the 1980s when I had to chose what I believed. I was a Bible Answer Man junkie back in those days. But at the end of 2011, I had a vision of the cross that changed everything, and I realized that most people simply miss the greatest reality in their Bibles: Jesus Pictures.

When that time of clarity began, it became more real to me than anything else. In other words. I define reality according to what is most real to me. Thus, when God blended the picture of how He made Eve with a vision of the spear hole in Jesus’ side on the cross, involving me somehow, I started to know firsthand what it means to be formed as a complement to God’s Son, the Last Adam: flesh of His flesh, bone of His bone. In fact, I would be so bold to say that I have direct knowledge of Who Jesus is and “What Kind” of Person He is. This is reinforced especially now after years of His forming of this personal and relational knowledge through what Jesus Pictures in the TaNaK / OT really exist for. They are not merely for the intellect, but are designed to catch us up into the trajectory of His Being. This is best realized by mystically contemplating the flow of blood and water out the “doorway” in His side where a spear pierced His heart.

The First and Second template addresses this basic level of knowing God. The intellect can identify and learn these pairs, but since the devil has done a crack job of hiding their life-giving reality from the Church, our default intellect is skeptical, even agnostic. First ones always think they know something about God. Moreover, they tend to take the positions of leadership. Furthermore, when encountering a second one, their way is baffling to a first one, even seen as subversive. As a result, whether overtly or unconsciously, a first one naturally persecutes or marginalizes a second one. Cain, Ishmael, Esau, and King Saul all did this to their second one of the pair.

Thus, the great value in spending time with the Holy Spirit on Bible stories is that if you allow Him, He will gladly start exposing you as a first one, so that in seeing Who Jesus is being in TaNaK / OT stories, exposure to His Second Man[i] Reality is transformative. We are all born as first ones; we remain so even after becoming what passes these days for a modern Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, or other type of Jesus follower.

Where do you start? Choose the obvious pairs in the TaNaK / OT. Start with the low-hanging fruit of the OT There are many First and Second pairs in the Scriptures, and much that comes from learning the basics, including a resurrected-risen version of the second, which some people think of as a third.[ii] Once we understand the obvious stories as the root system, then the Holy Spirit will branch off from there. The five basic pairs are listed below in order of first one followed by who the second one is:

  1. Cain and Abel[iii]
  2. Ishmael and Isaac[iv]
  3. Esau and Jacob[v]
  4. First generation and Second Generation out of Egypt[vi]
  5. King Saul and King David[vii]

Master these five above by seeing Jesus in the second one by the Holy Spirit and then you can move on to the next level in the pairs, some of which crop up in the New Testament (NT). These are (and I am sure that I am missing some):

  • Abram-Sarai and AbraHam-SaraH (Both had an H added to their names)[viii]
  • Hagar and Sarah[ix]
  • Leah and Rachel[x]
  • The un-named, first kinsman redeemer and Boaz[xi]
  • Peninnah and Hannah[xii]
  • King Saul and Jonathan (1 Samuel 14-15)[xiii]
  • The two callings of Jonah[xiv]
  • Shebna and Eliakim (Isaiah 22)[xv]
  • Vashti and Esther[xvi]
  • The first leg of any roundtrip story and its second leg including Isaiah 55:10-11[xvii]
  • Martha and Mary at the end of Luke 10[xviii]
  • The Pharisees representing the first covenant and Jesus representing Jeremiah’s new covenant[xix]
  • Anything the NT says about the flesh vs. the spirit.[xx]

From there they start to be more sublime in varying degrees, literally woven into the warp and woof of the TaNaK / OT such as Noah on both sides of The Flood and the two attempts to bring The Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem.[xxi] Moreover, what you will discover is a new appreciation for why the book we call Hebrews was written, because upon closer examination after time spent with the Holy Spirit, the overall content and goal of this letter will be obvious. You won’t fall for the typical mistranslation of Hebrews 9:28 with the extra added word “time.” Scholars only add that out of their ignorance of these Bible patterns that fed the New Testament authors with Jesus’ crucified life. In fact, you will walk away from reading the book, especially Hebrews 10:7-9 with a new understanding that the writer of Hebrews had been literally spelling out the pattern, even being overtly explicit here, and the best educated Christian minds of us were blind to it all along! That is when that first one second one starts to hit home more deeply about the personal nature of human blindness.

Finally, I will leave you with some last words on this post about First and Second. This is just one pattern designed to operate with the other key Bible templates: the Doorway, the Roundtrip, and the horizontal line that divides what is above from below and represents the covering. Taken together, these reveal to us the Nature of Jesus’ Own Crucified Life. And what I mean by that is: He is living. Eternal Life is knowing Him (John 17:3). Exposure to Who He is in these stories is transformative when the Holy Spirit, Who is the stories’ Main Author, breathes on them. Jesus is as living now as He was 2,000 years ago. Moreover, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That includes Who He was showing Himself to be through a chosen people in TaNaK / OT Bible stories. Jesus put the first away in a cosmic sense, and the TaNaK / OT is filled with a many classroom dealings where we can learn the reality of our co-death with Christ on that cross as Galatians 2:20 says. After all, this is all the early church ever had.  They were mostly Jewish background believers who only had memory knowledge of the TaNaK / OT they heard read to them on Saturday.

Thus, our time on this earth should be filled with time spend with the Lord where the early church spent time with the Lord revisiting these stories in our hearts and minds throughout our days with each other. Each discovery of Jesus as He is BEING in that record of old is a gem most precious today, and forever! Once you have seen Him, you can not unsee Him, for truly these are the gifts upon which He adorns His bride. Avail yourself of this precious time with Him where He is.


[i] 1 Corinthians 15:45-47

[ii] Seth and King Solomon are two examples.

[iii] The key is in what kind of offering. These two represent the foundation that all other pairs rest on. Moreover, you do not need to believe me, just believe Hebrews 12:24.

[iv] The key is on what happens if we try to help God out with generating the Promised Son reality with our good ideas. Not yet convinced? Read the end of Galatians 4.

[v] The key is in their descriptions as what kind of sons they are. Who else despised their birth right?

[vi] The key is in Joshua-Jesus’ view of how to enter the finished work of what God gives in the form of the Promised Land. Where did the water cease from when they crossed the Jordan? Think of Jesus’ view on the cross.

[vii] The key is in what it really means for David to be flowing by God’s heart. Pay attentions again to their physical descriptions. Moreover, pay attention to how David treats Saul in the cave and later when Shimei was casting rock at him. How did David gain or keep power? Who else had close companions who didn’t understand his view?

[viii] “H,” hay, as a letter in Hebrew has a meaning in and of itself. “H” means beholding in a full-spectrum way, from what is terrifying to what is joyfully wonderous. The old script depicts a stick figure with arms raised.

[ix] The end of Galatians 4 even tells you why Paul called Christians brothers.

[x] How does Jacob see them? The flesh easily cranks out more flesh, because they-we have a seeing problem.

[xi] A key is the names of the dead and their inheritance. There are so many in Ruth! Simply listen to Naomi’s advice to Ruth when she sends her to Boaz’s threshing floor. Take her advice to heart and contemplate that most glorious picture of the cross. It is rich like a treasure trove! Stay there until He speaks.

[xii] The song of the second will tell you all you need to know about what happens when we allow What Kind He is to rule in and through us.

[xiii] A key is seeing that the first one has all the power, can even detect when God is moving, and takes over movements of God, and in the process, he condemns the one living the flesh crucifying reality of Jesus life. By the way, here is a freebie, all staffs and wood poles in the Bible are pictures of the cross and the crucified life reality on display on the cross.

[xiv] The key is the “doorway” trajectory in this story. Jesus spoke about it in terms of three days and nights in Matthew 12.

[xv] The key is pondering the motivations and what people are watching from the rooftops as Assyria destroys Israel.

[xvi] The key is knowing what your Husband the King of kings wants. Who is the real bride? What phrase best in the book characterized her motivation?

[xvii] Line up John 12:24-33 with Isaiah 55:8-11 and consider Moses leaving Mount Sinai and returning to Mount Sinai.

[xviii] The key is realizing that Martha really is trying hard to serve Jesus! What do Martha’s words do to Mary? What is the one needful thing? My recommendation to you is do that one needful thing!

[xix] The key is realizing this is the culmination and all the TaNaK patterns. Hebrews 1:1-2 is real, especially verse 2 because of verse 3. But you would likely not see it unless you read it in Greek at Biblehub’s interlinear. For the text actually says God speaks to us today within Son. That is the context, sphere, and realm now for wherein God speaks. Why? Because of what we can see in verse 3.

[xx] The key is realizing that the NT authors had in mind the very things I am sharing here (2 Corinthians 3:15-18).

[xxi] The default issue with Adam as humanity’s forefather is woven in us from natural conception and birth in the same way. Only He Who from nothing is hidden can be the sword in us (Heb. 4:12-13).

Psalm 16, XLP

Guard me, O Elohim, for I have taken refuge in You.

I have said to The-One-Of-Transcendent-Being, You are my Adonai; my goodness is nothing apart from You.

The holy, priestly ones who are in the True Land – the majestic nobles in whom is all My delight.

Those who hasten after loves other than You will have sorrow multiplied

I will not give up lifeblood to other lords as an offering; nor will I take up their names upon my lips.

The-One-Of-Transcendent-Being, You are The Portion of my inheritance and my cup! You secure my lot!

The lot lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; yes, an attractive inheritance is Who I have.

I shall bless The-One-Of-Transcendent-Being, Who advises me; even in the night times He reforms my inner being.

I resemble The-One-Of-Transcendent-Being, Who is faced continually before me (as cruciformed tribes facing each side of The Tent in the wilderness)!

I shall not be shaken, because He is right here!

Thus, my inner man is glad and rejoices! My glory, even my flesh, shall trustingly settle down resting where He rests.

For you will not leave my soul with its whole life in this place of the dead;

Nor shall You allow Your Faithful One to see decay in the pit.

You make me intimately know The Way of Life!

Eden’s multiplied joy is Your Face and Presence!

Eden’s delight is always ever with You right here!

Acts 9:1-5 XLP

Here is an excerpt from my devotional journey through the book of Acts that looks at Paul’s conversion, if we can call it that. Everything in the XLP (Crucified Life Paraphrase) is designed to explore the themes of the crucified life from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 and all parts in between. Related content and explanations can be found on the next page and other posts below:

Meanwhile, as Philip is being blown to wherever the Spirit goes, Saul was still in a state of bellowing out murderous threats to the learners of the Lord Jesus. Saul had gone to the high priest and requested personal letters from him detailing his desire to stamp out this Jewish uprising. These orders gave Saul the authority to seize whoever he found engaged in The Way at the synagogues. He would need these in Damascus, in order to put people into chains and bring them back to Jerusalem for judgment.

Damascus was a long journey, 14 days on foot. This gave Saul plenty of time to meditate on the Scriptures. As was the custom, the heavenly visions were primary portions of these scrolls many meditated on. It just so happened that on this last day before arriving at Damascus, Saul had chosen to meditate upon Ezekiel’s opening vision. Having every word memorized, as he did with every one of these visions and most of the Bible in general, Saul carefully set his heart to explore the imagery, line by line.

Ezekiel’s vision was a classic crescendo to the earlier visions of God from His mountain top location. Heaven and earth overlap at these high places. These overlapping locations in the Scriptures afforded the wise disciple the opportunity to approach God and perhaps even hear The Voice.

It was not uncommon to meditate on Jacob’s journey and the God of Bethel calling to him from the ziggurat stairs. This was often followed up with Mount Sinai’s appearings of God such has His feet seen on sapphire pavement. Moreover, the later songs reflected on God’s heavenly throne and dwelling place throughout the psalms. The prophets also had this body of writings before them to further elaborate upon regarding the YHVH’s Day. Saul had saved such an example, Ezekiel’s vision filled with Mount Sinai imagery, for last.

After all, Ezekiel was the prophet that made it clear that Eden was a garden mountain. This realization which came after Genesis had been translated into Greek had many, including Saul, wondering about the correct way of understanding the part in Genesis where God walks in the cool breeze of the day. Everyone knew that this was not a literal translation; rather it literally said that God walks in the Spirit of the Day. The big debate in some circles had been how God’s Breath can be like a wind spiriting all through this mountaintop garden? In other words, what does it mean for God’s Breath to blow through any tree, even the forbidden tree? How can all trees be alike to Him?

Saul’s earlier meditations had brought him to contemplate the burning bush on Mount Sinai. Its flames burned, but the bush did not. It had him recalling lines from Isaiah that said, “A bruised reed He will not break off… steady faith flows into justice.”  The Seneh bush of Exodus was a little testimony to that, so it was hard not to go there. God is glorious regardless of the thorns. No bush – or tree – changes how God reveals Himself. In fact, even with the weakest of things – or in case of the bush, the most flammable of things – He still can be Himself without destroying the vessel.

It was commonly thought that the Seneh bush was a little thorn tree such as an Acacia. Trees, mountains, God speaking, and even altars were all related traceable themes in the Scriptures. Saul set that debate aside as his heart turned to ruminate over the lines of Ezekiel’s opening vision. Yet, since his little revelation of God’s glory displayed in weak and potentially flammable things, he could not get the last look of Stephen’s face out of his mind, “receive my breath…do not hold this sin against them.” Since maintaining God’s honor by having him killed by the community, Saul had seen the same look on the other Jewish rebels he had squelched. “…a smoldering candle wick, He will not squelch…”

“God’s honor had to be maintained! I can only meditate on the honor God shall bestow me when I see Him face to face. The rebels who maintain Jesus is the Jewish Messiah must be snuffed out for our religion to survive and remain pure in the hardworking hands of the elders. How is it that Jesus can be the sacrifice that ends all sacrifices? It is absurd,” Saul mused as Isaiah’s voice unexpectedly echoed in the back of his mind, “Behold My Servant… I have put My Breath upon Him… I give You as a Covenant for the people…”

Saul was conflicted deep down. Cracks of Another Truth seemed to find gaps in his determined heart. It was not normal to forgive those who ended your life. Stephen, and those who followed, did not fit the standard infidel scheme of dying with pride and obvious stiff-necked resistance. Rather, it seemed that they loved to give their lives away for love of them… Saul could not go there in his contemplations. They made no sense. It did not fit the normal good and bad narrative.

With boiling zeal, Saul began to concoct the imagery to Ezekiel’s stormy vision that opened that scroll. The great cloud crackled in the amber-colored fire and lightning as he felt its north blast of heavenly breath shudder his heart. And from within the cloud something like four very alive things, creature crackling with the life of that same energized heavenly blaze, made themselves known as a man.

They came out in four directions with a human appearance that further came out in four directions with four faces. Every Jew recognized this four-faced presentation as speaking to how God came to tabernacle in the midst of Israel. In the wilderness it was said, “You shall set the tribes of Israel facing off at each face of The Tent.” God had married Israel at Mount Sinai, then they exchanged vows under the bowed down heavens. Now, just as Eve was made to be the helpmeet and complement to Adam, all the tribes were to keep that same complementary form relative to each of the four facades of The Tent where God dwelled. Three tribes faced off each Tent façade to show their bridal faithfulness.

Our Jewish sages further noted how the marriage produced offspring by the four-directional flow of the seed promised to Jacob at Bethel. Saul had camped for two days on that vision when the first night went awry with pictures of the Roman cross. It was unsettling for him to see the cross as an altar relative to this flow. It was even more upsetting to see it as the way of the bride’s increase. Saul kept begging God to purify and cleanse his heart like David’s. No matter how hard he tried, meditating on God’s Word, it kept revealing cross-shaped pictures that pointed to seeing Jesus in the faces of these rebels promoting an incorrect practice. At the end of that second day, he had to force this mantra on to his heart and then move on, “The House of God, Bethel, flows by all the fruitfulness of Eden and the Promised Land when people keep facing God’s Tent head on. Face His glory… maintain His glory… die for His glory.”

Each of these cracking alive ones also had wings, because they belonged to heaven’s sky-realm. And they had these straight peg legs like calves that were nearly molten bronze. The sages had also spoken of this nearly molten bronze when Solomon inaugurated that first temple. So many sacrifices happened that day that there was no count. The sacrifice was valuable beyond count! And the bronze of the Great Altar was so hot that day of inauguration that is seemed to be nearing a molten state of new purity!

The four wings moved by the heavenly breath of the sky only in four directions. They matched the shape of Jacob’s seed flow at Bethel. They matched the encamped shape around The Tent in the wilderness. Beneath those wings, Saul pondered human hands. Just as the faithful Jew maintained four tassels at the corner of his robe, our lives are to keep the four-cornered shape walking in God’s ways. The four-corned shape are the four corners of The Tent, The Bronze Altar, and where ever we go into the four-corners of the land. What we do with our hands must be an outflow of that four-directional justice flowing out from God’s Dwelling Place. “Therein,” Saul reminded himself, “the wise disciple meditates.” As Saul went north, God’s honor shall be upheld by him in Damascus! He would make the rebels see this truth. When all people move in unison with the Written Torah from God’s hand to human hands; everything runs smoothly, no wings touch… “rebels beware!”

Each face of the crackling alive ones appealed to the tribal encampment around the Tent. Saul had gone round and round many times with his competition about whether the faces related to creation or Jacob’s prophetic blessing of each son, or even the tribal flags of the encampment. So many polarized to one or the other, but Paul kept maintaining all – that even a serpent biting the heel, as in Dan’s case, speaks to that Promised Seed of a woman, “I wait for Your Yeshua…” Disassociating himself from the fact that God’s salvation is spoken as the name of Jesus in Greek and Yeshua or Yehoshuah, or even Hoshea in Hebrew, Saul pressed on with his musings.  He would say, “For the seed of the woman to crush the serpent’s head, it must come down from heaven like an eagle!”

The crackling alive ones moved only by heaven’s breath. There was no deviation from the four directional flow of Jacob’s promised fruitfulness. Like four walls of crackling light there was a deep inner glow as from live coals burning within. The only light allowed inside the place where no natural light happens in the Holy of Holies comes from the Bronze Altar. The only type of light allowed into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur comes from under the place of the Going Up Offering. Coals under the Going Up Offering were the hottest of the hottest, because this was needed to fully translate the flesh of the sacrifice into the smoke that reaches up into the heavens. The flesh offered on the Bronze Altar made a full translation into a form that rose to God’s true Home in the heavens. Thus, only its light qualified for passage beyond The Veil. As Saul ruminated in this light, the more aglow these coals appeared, the more active was the crackling display of life coming from these creatures.

Then Saul started meditating on the wheel in the land. That is what wheels do, they rut the ground. Yet, the sages have long noted this circle in the ground as what Elijah dug around his altar on Mount Carmel. Israel had lost their faith and followed other gods like Moses prophesied. Elijah’s circular trench was specifically designed for a volume of seed. The sages recognized that the living water poured over the exposed insides of the sacrifice on the altar was God’s recipe for renewing Israel’s living faith. Every seed needs water to suddenly sprout to life from a dead state. And the solution depicted was a solution of water mixed with the blood of the sacrifice. Israel had left their four-directional shape far behind, and this was God’s way of corralling them back into shape. For just as Elijah had carefully laid the wood on the altar, it would not be a surprise to learn that he tried to emulate Israel’s encampment shape to act as run ways for the water to restore the promised seed in the empty trench.

As the wheels of Ezekiel’s vision turned in his mind, even as rings bisecting rings to reinforce the four-directional flow of the sprouting seed of Jacob, his mind kept fluttering back to the same portion of Isaiah, “I will lead the blind in a way they do not know.” For the sages have long said that God’s way is like a seed cycle. Isaiah declares that God’s thoughts and ways are so much higher than ours, because they follow this seed path. The Greeks talk about their Logos, but the sages chuckle to themselves that they borrowed it from God. For out of God’s mouth goes His word like a seed that will complete its cycle and not remain void.

Part of Saul’s meditative regiment had already included a seed cycle image: the life of Moses from Mount Sinai to Mount Sinai. Moses started at the burning bush and then brought back all Israel to the same place. This call unto Presence was the sign God told him about. For everyone knew that Moses started as one sent from Mount Sinai. He left as a lone, seed-like figure going down to the Nile Delta to his death. For any exile returning to Egypt meant certain death. Seed’s need to die.

However, instead of Moses’ death God provided a firstling of the flock as he had for Isaac. The substitute provided the first death everyone could enter into before the second death came. And everyone knew that by the blood of the Passover sacrifice, the fruitfulness of the Eden-blessing spouted up and out of Egypt with Moses at the head leading the people. They left as one Son, even one Firstborn back to Mount Sinai. Thus, the wheel of Ezekiel turned a full circle in Saul’s heart.

There were many such circles going back to the beginning verses of the Bible. The wise disciple can see them in Jacob’s declaration of how he left his father alone with just a staff to face another father: the father of lies, Laban. In that decrease of one, God gave the four-directional promise of the Eden fruitfulness to him at Bethel. “Your seed bursts out this way!” Jacob did indeed return from Laban with increase. He plundered Laban as Israel would later plunder Egypt. Moreover, the plunder of both involved lamb blood, since Rachel means ewe. Such touchpoints were parts of the meditative journey.

The further one went back to the beginning, the smaller the seed cycles were. Yet, each cycle had aspects within building up to the Mosaic seed cycle at Passover. God created seed-bearing trees. These seed-bearing trees are our food. Meditate therein like a tree planted by living water. “Each cycle grows in your heart to show God’s ways,” said Gamaliel. “But do not neglect the seed-cycle of Joseph, because you can see how God does His math of increase. Joseph tells you how YH adds – how He brings the Eden increase.”

Saul had pondered that cycle for months after hearing Gamaliel share this secret with him. He savored the moment of bringing it into this vision of Ezekiel, because of the bisecting wheels. Joseph’s cycle bisected Moses’ cycle at Passover. Joseph made Israel’s offspring, his seed, promise to take his bones with them when The Deliverer came to make exodus from Egypt. And with that promise secure, Joseph was buried in the ground like a seed – a mummy wrapped and swaddled tightly, then placed in a shell called a sarcophagus. When Israel came out, YHVH-increase came out: one’s death meant freedom from captivity for all.

“There is something there to how God’s Word does not remain void,” Gamaliel said. “The father sent Joseph to check up on his brothers’ welfare, and Joseph is permanently buried in the exact same spot where his brothers are faring well in Shechem. Following the cycles of Joseph in a pit and then up, in a dungeon and then seated at the righthand, I tell you my star pupil, that the Eden blessing in seed-like form rests within seeing Joseph in the proper light. This is why we talk about Messiah ben-Joseph. Oy, the Messiah may even come to us as a son of Joseph. Do not get carried away with the zealot’s idea of the conquering son of David, for even David gained his power in a similar fashion as Joseph did – not by taking what was rightfully his through use of force.”

Just as the wheels of Ezekiel saw all over like those of the watchers, Saul desired to behold the true way of the seed’s blessing in Israel. “Stay true to form, Israel. Keep to the ruts of correct doctrine and pure practice. Yes, that is the Pharisee’s orthodox creed, we are purists who stay away from sin!” The spiritual breath of the wheels and the cracking alive ones only make paths in the shape of Israel’s seed and wilderness encampment. This is the faithful marriage bond. And Saul was determined to remain faithful despite all the pleas of mercy he often imagined coming from the rebels.

Seeing the wheels this way pleased Saul’s religious heart. When the crackling alive ones moved, the wheels moved in tandem. For everything was interconnected at a higher order way that was not so visible from the human’s point of view on the ground. Saul had to go up to see the perspective of the wheels from heaven’s point of view. Saul desired to see the higher order of view that changed everything when looking down from the sky. This is when he moved forward into his mediations of the gem-like appearance of God’s expansive platform at heaven’s sky-dome. Whether the heavens were really a sky dome as the surround nations always maintained or not, there were subtle Bible hints that it was not, such as “the land hangs upon nothing” and the description of the land like a circle. It was true, the heavenly fixtures generally took on a circular shape. And Ezekiel’s view of the wheels seemed to corroborate this as depictive of God’s way. Yet, what could be seen from above looking back down? What view might these bisecting rings present?

The stormy roar of the wings belonging to the crackling alive ones prepared the wise disciple to hear The Voice of the Almighty amidst a might roar of a great army. (And may He be most blessed!) And in the stillness and silent calm the sages said you could hear The Voice, just like how Elijah re-learned it at mount Sinai too. When the roar of the wings ceased, that was the time for God’s Voice to be heard!

Saul was now in full hearing mode waiting for That Voice! In the silence, his heart dared contemplate the view of the bisecting wheels from above. There was that dreaded cross again! He tried to close its Voice off with visions of Israel, the True Bride keeping the same shape around the Tent, but a Voice kept emerging! “The cross gives her the seed of increase.” He blocked it out again to stay faithful to the Throne of Heaven. His heart eyes rose to look upon the Throne situated on the deep blue hard light of the sky dome. And Saul saw the shape of a man seated upon the throne. This human was most glorious.

And then those human eyes focused on him!

And Saul immediately fell to the ground as He heard The Voice speak directly to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you hunt Me down to persecute Me to carry Me off in chains back to the Jerusalem?”

Saul replied in Greek, “Who are you, Kyrie?”  Saul wanted to keep “Lord” rather ambiguous, dare He say YHVH when asking of The One seated above the heavens Who He is.

Then The One replied, “I AM Yeshua – YHVH saves!”

“It is Me, Jesus,” He added in Greek.

“When you persecuted Stephen, you persecuted Me. When you put those of My body in prison. I AM with them when you are putting your YHVH into earthly chains. These are My Bride in faithful orientation, full of My Seed, not loving their lives to death.”

In a flash, the entire Testimony of The Torah, The Prophets, and The Writings became a singular vision of Messiah in cruciform reality living in people making exodus from spiritual Egypt. Saul had been one of the oppressive taskmasters. But now, it was as if the cobra crown giving him his authority had been blown off his head and he could clearly see One New Man exiting Passover’s bloody doorway. Just as Israel, My Son, My Firstborn was a many-membered nation born on that day, so was Jesus and His body born three days after his mentors had forced the Romans to hang Him on a cross.

Now everything was making sense as the vision from Ezekiel looked down onto Israel’s cruciform encampment. The whirling wheels, as bisecting rings, formed the same shape: the cross! He had seen the Higher Order view. Jesus was the life of the encampment. He was Messiah ben-Joseph within the midst, one dead, for crackling aliveness manifesting in all bodies of the body!

He was so blind! He had indeed been fighting His Own God! He really knew nothing as he thought he might never move again!

Seeing Jesus in Numbers 5

Seeing Jesus in Numbers 5, and this section of Numbers, and the Hebrew Bible in general, begins with simply accepting what Paul said about his “one things.” Then we let the Holy Spirit show us the trajectory of Jesus heart by Jesus’s Spirit. What is often beclouded by accumulated human knowledge of the Bible, (a problem we all have), becomes clear when we learn the spirit of the Author. It does not happen by simply changing your mind, but quality time with the text in contemplative dialogue with God Who keeps going His Way through it.

If you have become a student of how www.BibleProject.com  explains scroll technology, then you are already positioned in a good place to see how the Hebrew Bible, the TaNaK, the O.T., “hyperlinks” words and ideas back to the earliest chapters of Genesis. Numbers 5’s test for adultery hyperlinks back to how God made Eve as Adam’s complement – a helper suitable for him. In my books and earlier posts, I have described how the cross depicts the making of the faithful bride. They key stuff of her composition and its directional flow EXPOSE our hearts to Who Jesus is, especially “What Kind He is being” in any situation.

Those of us who have become followers of Jesus are being formed as this bride. The complementary reality of the corporate bride is tied directly to her compositional reality. Philippians 2:5-11 highlights this seed-cycle trajectory operating in the heart of Jesus, which is supposed to be fundamentally operating in Jesus’s followers in and among each other. Paul calls it knowing and seeing the meaning of Christ and Him crucified in an ongoing way in and among people (1 Corinthians 2:2). The bride’s reality is composed of Jesus’ falling into the ground as The Dying Seed, and being buried in a place of death, out from which comes the arising potential of multiplying life fruitfulness. Every seed sprouting up is a testimony in some sense of Eden’s blessing, but only the Messiah’s roundtrip has The Reality of it.

In Numbers 5:17, we learn that the key ingredients of the wife’s faithfulness test involve special dust and special water. Or allow me to rephrase this in accord with the complementary bride: her faithfulness is a matter of being the same composition as the dust from within the Holy Place. In this post, we will only look at the dust. The word dust coupled with its source from within is a hyperlink back to how Adam was made, then how the complementary bride was made. Take a view of this verse in https://biblehub.com/interlinear/numbers/5-17.htm and click on the number, 6083, above the word for dust. You will see https://biblehub.com/hebrew/6083.htm that the first occurrence describes God’s making of Adam. The next three uses emphasize this compositional essence of Adam and his kind, humanity.

The Tabernacle / Tent is a picture of Eden’s garden enclosure. Both Tent and Eden are places with three spheres. The Tent has its outside court that has visible functions in natural light. Then it has two chambers within that operate by a different kind of light that is entirely self-giving. One chamber is active day-to-day, and the other chamber is accessed one-time every year. Likewise, Eden is a place that has a garden enclosure for Adam and Eve’s daily activity. The one-time reality is in the middle where the tree of life is.

In Genesis 2:15, God placed Adam in the garden enclosure within Eden. That is where Adam foreshadowed John 12:24 by falling into the ground as a dying seed. Since Adam is dust, he is the ground (Adamah in Genesis 2:9). So, think of the opening made in Adam’s side as the hole for the seed to arise into multiplying life. Grasp the potential of it as God extracts the bridal forming stuff from within Adam, who was made to cease.

This is why dust from the tent is needed as a key ingredient for any man’s wife undergoing a faithfulness test. It is not about male-dominated society; rather it is Ephesians 5:32 on nitro overdrive. The formation of Eve and the bride faithfulness test of Numbers 5 are referring to Messiah and His bride called out of spiritual slavery. The entire context of “through the wilderness” in Numbers is that exodus away from all that Egypt represented spiritually. God brought Israel out unto Himself at Mount Sinai where they exchanged vows under the huppah when He bowed the heavens. In Numbers 5, they are still there at Mount Sinai. They are in bridal formation mode until Numbers 10.

The chapters of Numbers prior to 5 depict the cruciform nature of the bride’s formation by using Adam and Eve terminology. Let us focus on the Hebrew word min·ne·ḡeḏ in Numbers 2:2 https://biblehub.com/interlinear/numbers/2-2.htm . Click on 5048 https://biblehub.com/hebrew/5048.htm and you will see that the first occurrence is suitable helper / helpmeet from Genesis 2:18 and 20. In the same way, Eve is complementary to Adam, so also are the tents of Israel in relationship to each façade of The Tent. They do not camp in a circle with total disregard to the four-sided Tent, for that would be blasphemy. No, the four-sided imagery is all over the Hebrew Scriptures in various forms, because integral to it is this four-directional reality of remaining faithful to God. The seed even bursts out this way in Genesis 28:14. Therefore, Israel’s tents could only encamp in the form of a cross! Any other formation is a display unfaithfulness to The Seed’s spreading (parats).

The circle encampment did happen, but it was with the priesthood in Numbers 3, they were “joined to” like a sacrifice bound to the horns of the Bronze Altar from Psalm 118. The tents of the Levites circled around as an inner ring. Eliezer watched over everything in Numbers 4:16, which we are also supposed to spiritually discern.  It is a picture of God’s Holy Spirit superintending the corporate bride’s operating reality within. Faithfulness is in accord with the footsteps and activity of the priests within the Tent unto the people. Their priestly faithfulness became a real forming reality of life within the people.

We are barely scratching the surface of the narrative coordination connecting parts of the Hebrew Bible. Once you learn the basic Bible patterns that expose the trajectory of God’s heart, then the wise heart hears The Voice of Wisdom being faithful. I am not saying this is the only way to hear God’s Voice, but it is certainly a main way, if not the main way that has been neglected: a point I discuss in the books Life Portals and Spiritual Knowledge.

In closing, I will express these patterns again wholistically. Apart, the key design patterns for knowing YHVH’s heart are the roundtrip, first and second, above and below, and the doorway – especially the trajectory of the doorway, which is “one-way into death” followed by “one-way out with life.” You discover the directional flow of “The Trajectory of Philippians 2:5-11” through roundtrip journeys. Why roundtrips, because it goes back to the seed-cycle and Genesis 1:29’s designed food for us. Once you simply accept it, the other patterns become self-explanatory: first leg transitions into second leg through a vertical division. Likewise, above transitions to below by a horizontal division. Both form a nexus or crux suspended between heaven and earth as the focal point. (Think sniper crosshairs.) All that combines into the reality of the doorway. The cross is a doorway back into God’s Presence just as the vertical and horizontal parts of Passover’s doorway foreshadow the opening to free captives.

The words I am typing are spirit and life found within the Bible stories of the Hebrew Bible / TaNaK. Everything is designed out from YHVH-saves. Everything of it is designed through YHVH-delivers. Everything regarding it expresses YHVH-rescues. Just because our academic brains do not see it now, does not mean it is not already there waiting for our heart eyes to be illuminated (Ephesians 1:17).

The Spirit of The Day

Have you ever noticed in the creation week account that the seventh day has no evening or morning associated with it? It seems to go on as an endless day. Whether it really did or not is not the point. The point is Christ in all things, especially the Hebrew Bible. Romans 11:36 says that all things are out from Christ, through Christ, and unto Christ just before Paul appeals to Christians to present themselves a living sacrifice…one body in Christ.

Jesus tells us in John 5:39-40 and Luke 24:26-27 that the Hebrew Bible is really about Him and how to come to Jesus for life. Strangely, we do not believe Him! For hundreds of years, we have pigeon-holed the seeing of Christ in the Scriptures to an elective. It is tragic if Jesus is right – that you can find Him for His life on His terms in those stories in the Hebrew Bible.

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Genesis 3:8 ESV

Let us look at this verse using Biblehub’s interlinear. I have added some translation footnotes so you can follow along at https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/3-8.htm . Here is my translation of it.

‘And they heard (and responded to)’1 the ‘sound and voice’2 ‘of YHVH Elohim ‘steadily proceeding’3 ‘in the garden’4 ‘in the Ruach’5 ‘of the Day’6 ‘and hid themselves’ – man ‘and his wife’ – ‘from the face / surface’7 ‘of YHVH Elohim ‘in the midst of’8 tree(s)9 ‘of the garden’.

1) shama = hearing and responding appropriately with heeding or obedience

2) qol = a sound or voice or both – in context of God it is akin to “hearing His Voice”

3) halak = to proceed along, like how Noah’s ark floated, or the Flood waters steadily went down, or Sarai continuing steadily on as childless.

4) gan = a garden enclosure. Fun fact: search out the traditional Chinese character for garden, yuan. https://answersingenesis.org/genesis/chinese-characters-and-genesis/ The pictograph means what Genesis 2 says.

5) ruach = spirit, breath, wind = the animating force-life of things. Think of how wind blows through trees in a garden, or how breath shows that one is alive. This is the idea behind ruach and why both Hebrew and Greek conflate wind, breath, and spirit into all the same thing.

6) yom = day in all its wide variety of English understanding. The Hebrew and English idea for day is very similar in its broad application.

7) paneh = face or surface, which can apply to one’s presence such as “before one’s face” or surface.

8) tavek = in the middle or midst of, inside, within, or among

9) aets = tree or any stalky wood things or constructed wood thing from scaffolding, a wood club or even a grape vine. If it has bark, or is wood from that, then it is aets, “wood things.” (British: “A wood”)

We live in a great era of Bible study. No generation has had the same kind of access to such a wide variety of free resources right at our finger tips. Word studies are relatively simple. There are hundreds of English translations of the Bible. I have access to quite a few through studybible.info, Biblehub.com, biblegateway.com, esword.net, biblesupport.com, and so on… There is even the Greek LXX translation, which means 70, and is commonly referred to as the Septuagint. The Septuagint translation is usually quite helpful, because Second Temple Period Jews made the translation in the 200s BC. When it came to translating the Hebrew into Greek, they specifically chose the Greek word δειλινόν, deilinon, for Genesis 3:8. It means “at dusk.” However, as you can see, the Hebrew word is ruach.

Clearly, the LXX interpreted, rather than translated in this specific verse. Yet, why no one translates Ruach as Spirit is mystifying. My guess is that the LXX set the pattern and everyone just fell into line like in the old DOS video game “Lemmings” march on and going off a cliff. Nevertheless, God breathes life into clay and makes a living soul. The Eden-garden is a mountaintop location as we learn in Ezekiel 28. It is a place of overlap between heaven and earth where we should expect God’s Spirit to dwell and overlap with the man and the woman.

The man and wife could eat of the fruit of trees in the garden. But there was one tree that they could not eat of, a certain tree that God can just breeze right through like all the others, and does breeze right through in the Spirit of His Day. This might have been part of the temptation. Adam and Eve had tried the fruit all around. When they heard God moving about in the garden, His Spirit like a rushing wind form heaven, the forbidden tree was no different to Him than any other tree. Eating from all the trees would make them like God… except for one critical missing piece of information withheld from them.

We know the story; in the day that they eat, they die. Oh, it was not physical life termination; the death was far worse! Death is a disconnect from the Creator’s Living Estate of having Everything to give to his finite creatures. You see, we are finite creatures like they all are from the most powerful spirit beings to the tiniest living thing in a microscope. All are finite. Scale is irrelevant for anything finite compared to The Infinite. True living expresses the continuity from Creator through those created.

As such, there is a certain type of knowledge that spells death for finite beings created with freewill. It is like a tarpit out from which there is no escape. It is exactly how Genesis says it: good and bad, which internalized is a self-focused reality relative to a finite being. It is quite literally the opposite of the One Who Owns all of Life’s Estate and willingly gives all He has with no holdback, no defense, and no Plan B. People are created in His Image and Likeness to flow by the same trajectory of being as their Creator. Finite beings spiral into the death cycle when they become caught up in the good vs. bad, fair vs. unfair battles for domination that source from that forbidden tree. It is currently the human default to be like a god enforcing one’s delusion of good for all. Finite beings cannot possibly know everything, everywhere, at all times. But the God of the Bible can.

The cross depicted God as a man breezing through a tree in the Spirit of His Day. God took all this venomous poison from the mouth of the serpent, its lies, and made it all immobile in Him on the cross. “In this manner God loved the world…” says John 3:16. In what manner, in John 3:14’s manner of the bronze serpent on a pole from Numbers 21:4-9. Jesus did so much more than forgive us for our sins. He bore them and petrified their poisonous actions in Himself. They tried to make Jesus react or respond like any default human, but He kept pouring out love, care, and forgiveness. As they killed him, He kept giving life. In death, He even poured out the contents of His heart.

Learn the Spirit of His Day. It never changes. He reigns this way in Revelation 5:6 and reigned that way from the foundation of the world. If we “learn” Him as a Person, “what Kind He is,” then He can carry us through the tree that is impossible for us to escape otherwise. As James 1:21 says, receive the implanted Logos-Word with meekness, Him dynamically being able to rescue your souls. Only the Holy Spirit can Way-guide you into the True Spirit of His Day.

Seeing Jesus as in a mirror

Abraham, your father, rejoiced in that he would see My Day! He even saw it and was very thankful to have that grace favored upon him. John 8:56 XLP

Jesus says that Abraham saw His Day and was thankful for the favor and grace of that, which is what the Greek literally means here. Abraham was favored by grace; hence he was very thankful with observable joy. None of the typical translations really capture what was obvious in Greek, because readable translations only need to be good enough. Too literal can make them unreadable.

When did Abraham see Jesus in His Day? Genesis 22 is the answer. God tells Abraham to take Isaac to the future site of where the temple will be in Jerusalem and sacrifice him there. Now, if you have read any of the Jesus Pictures in Spiritual Knowledge, or 24:27, and so on, you already know that this episode in the Scriptures addresses the question of how God intends to bless the nations. How does the promised seed life in Isaac go out to bless the nations? The answer is that a father must sacrifice his only son, who quietly and willingly lays down his life in obedience to his father. Isaac even carries his own wood up the hill.

Moreover, the Jesus Pictures have noted that the ram caught in the thicket is essentially wearing a crown of thorns. The ram is in his full power and glory of strength. The ram’s horns are caught in a thicket, an entanglement of brush, which alludes back to the ground producing thorns and thistles in Genesis 3. God provided the substitute. God literally “saw to it,” which is what “provided” means in Hebrew. Thus, God provides Himself a lamb, which is so stated in Genesis 22 and can mean exactly what you are thinking: God provides Himself in the person of Jesus as the Lamb of God.

Genesis 22:3 says that on the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place afar off. In the story, it is literal. According to how we read the text (pro-graphe) by Galatians 3 and 4, it means that Abraham is seeing the future reality of God’s plan. The Spirit of Christ is within the prophets as Peter reminds us. Thus, all the Hebrew Scriptures are pointing to Jesus as rule number 1. No need to guess.

Yet this obvious reality is very beclouded today among Christians. It is as if we have been the objects of a sneak attack designed to allow anything except the seeing of Jesus “as He is” in the Hebrew Scriptures. Most of us understand that Genesis 22 points to Jesus in sort of a type and shadow reality, but I do not think we see how the Hebrew Scriptures came into existence out from Jesus showing Himself in some eternally true fashion through the very people who are designed to image and bear His likeness.

Capturing a glimpse of His eternal glory is inwardly transformative. This is Paul’s point at the end of 2 Corinthians 3. Yet, he is aware that the enemy fights to derail this seeing of Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus, chapter 4 mentions how the “god of this world” blinds folks. Blinds us to what? The devil blinds people to the true nature of The Treasure within this jar of clay. It is carrying the nekrosis-death of Jesus in our body, which is His life manifested through the thorny flesh of people. Only Jesus knows how to be powerful through the thorns of the curse.

I think 2 Corinthians 3:18 came out from seeing Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures through many stories, but especially Genesis 22. Not only did Abraham see afar off in the sense of space and time, but he did see Jesus “as in a mirror.” I encourage you to read Genesis 22:10-13 in multiple translations. For a father to be in a state of mind to sacrifice the divine-given son of his old age, he must have overridden every self-preservation instinct possible. It is clear in earlier stories that we know how much he loved his sons, but obedience to God was more important.

So, in those few seconds that transpired between Genesis 22:10-13, Abraham’s hand was frozen before him, outstretched with the knife ready to execute his beloved son. Psychologically, you just do not instantly shift gears from overriding every self-preservation instinct in your mind. It takes a few moments to come out of the strange trance.

And so, we read in Genesis 22:13 that Abraham looked up and saw what?  Now this is where the unbelief of good people translating the Bible comes into play. Most popular translations ignore one of the Hebrew words in the text. The word is “behind.” To them, it clearly makes no sense how Abraham looked up and then saw the substitute ram behind him. Nor, are they thinking about Jesus as the reality of the Hebrew Bible stories. Nor are they connecting this knife suspended between heaven and earth with the sword of the angle suspended between heaven earth at the same place in 1 Chronicles 21:16, “And David looked up and saw the angel of the LORD standing between earth and heaven, and in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem.” The language is even similar, which is evidence of narrative design. Yet, so many do not see.

The Hebrew Scriptures function in this manner of making links and connections through repeated phrases and pictures. (Thank you BibleProject.com for making this better known.) For if we would simply just believe Peter or Jesus in Luke 24:26-27, we would be in a better situation. Seeing Jesus “as He is” always is the best scenario for life in dead places.

Not only would we link the stayed knife of Genesis 22 to the sword of 1 Chronicles 21:16, we would also start paying attention to any other story that elevates things between heaven and earth. Ezekiel 28 reminds us that Eden was a mountain place, which in the ancient mind are places overlapping heaven and earth. Noah’s ark was buoyantly suspended between heaven and earth covered in a ransom price (pitch). God torah-ed / showed Moses a tree at the bitter waters of Marah, a tree that changed bitter waters into sweet waters. Moses was the deliverer at a full rest in Exodus 17 with two men to either side set up on a hill; as long as he remained there at rest with hands of faith, Joshua-Jesus had the victory. Absalom was suspended between heaven and earth where he was pierced three times. Daniel was suspended between heaven and earth in that window when they finally caught him where they wanted him in order to kill him. Haman was suspended between heaven and earth on that tree, which is sadly paraphrased away as gallows. In fact, the tool of execution meant for Mordecai, actually ended up killing Haman.

That such realities of seeing Jesus in His victory – at rest on a tool of execution suspended between heaven and earth – are not widely seen or proclaimed today is to our shame. We might have 1 Corinthians 1:25 memorized, but the average Christians today does not personally know the reality of God’s weakness being the undoing of human strength. We are more interested in getting along with the world and resisting when it does not suit our patriotic pride, which was the downfall of Israel and Judah.

Abraham saw Jesus “as He is” simply by looking up and beholding as in a mirror the reflection off the knife in his outstretched hand. Yes, Abraham saw the ram caught in the thicket behind him reflected on the tool of execution suspended between heaven and earth. Abraham saw Jesus’s Day of reigning gloriously and rejoiced in such thankfulness that God had indeed given him back his son as if he were raised from the dead!

The ram was in its full glory of strength, and so was Jesus on the cross. Jesus was reigning in such magnificent glory that even the heavens dimmed in comparison. It is up to the average Christian to ferret out what was His glory. We can only do that by simply spending time with God and talking to Him about it. If our hearts truly turn to see Him, then the Spirit of God has amazing wonders to show you.