Tag: Can I trust God?

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.

The Great Commission: Make Learners of Him, because out from Him is all the Living Estate

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20 ESV

“Make disciples” is better understood as “make learners” of Jesus, His Person, not merely about the things He did and said. Too often, people can see this as making converts for a religion, but Jesus never envisioned the next global religion. Rather, He is talking about Himself Personally. Go out into the nations and make learners of Me, “What Kind of Person I am.”

All authority is His. But don’t limit authority to things; rather include Who He is as the Firstborn, Who has been given all the Estate, like all the hills and all the cattle (Psalm 50:10). But are we only talking about things as commodities, territories, or a reality of life out from death?

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. Colossians 1:18 ESV

The Great Commission is given after Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus presented Himself alive! Out from death, He lives! Jesus’ “all authority” is linked to His Firstborn status as Owner of all (Romans 8:29, Hebrews 12:23, Revelation 1:5). In fact, pondering Revelation 5:6’s image of the slaughtered, yet standing little lamb on heaven’s throne, we can see that this life out from death sits and the very core of His eternal kingdom.

Therefore, the authority of the Firstborn is out of His Being that exits death and its realm. If you study the most widely available resources on this word, exousia, it is not easy to find anyone telling you about the word ousia, which is the same word lacking the prefix ex-. Ousia only occurs twice in Luke 15:12-13. In fact, the context is about receiving an estate out from which one lives from. Or you could say it as a bank of resources out from which one can be in the world.

The prodigal took those resources for being in the world and squandered them. The prodigal received an estate for living and simply wasted it on his own pleasures. Think of the property in Luke 15 in that way, in a living way. And the person who is in charge of handing out this estate for living is the firstborn, who inherited it all as his means for living and providing life to others.

Jesus is the Firstborn out from the dead. Jesus’ living estate is of a quality that lives out from the dead. He always had this Life in Himself going to the cross (John 5:26). The cross event in history just played to His ultimate resource, whereby death was gutted.

…in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 5:20 ESV

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-26 ESV

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life… John 14:6 ESV

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. John 17:3 ESV

As Firstborn out from the dead, Jesus has a way of being out from the dead too. There is a way to learn Him at this level of Eternal Life, Himself. We just need to migrate in our minds away from Jesus giving me things, to Who Jesus is. In Luke 10:42, Jesus tells us what the one needful thing is: cease your efforts and ideas of serving Him like Martha, and simply sit like Mary and hear what comes out from His heart.

So how do you do that? How do you hear?

How does the Great Commission end? It says He is always with us. He is with us in a better way now after the Resurrection, because we can be connected as one cosmic body. In fact, it is even better than what Mary had, because she had her physical senses as barriers for mishearing. In the Resurrection, we share the same Spirit. We can actually learn His heart, which willingly took up the cross to the end of the earthly flesh’s ability to move.

It is true that if you seek Him you will find Him, assuming you seek Him with all your heart. In places where the Bible is hard to find, people can encounter Christ in dreams and promptings. However, in places where the Bible is easy to find, the devil’s number one attack point just so happens to be Jesus’ top priority engagement on Resurrection Day. I am talking about what Jesus said on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. Jesus wanted His followers to learn Him from the Hebrew Scriptures.

The Jesus Pictures, Spiritual Knowledge, Life Portals, and 24:27 are books that delve into this on the other page of this website. There is a way of seeing Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures that is alive. He did say He is Life. Knowing Him is eternal life. God has created design patterns for us to learn. The main design patterns are the simplest of shapes that show a flow, a way of being that can flip any narrative on its head. Yet, they are not just templates, but expressions of His Life in a people designed to live by Him. It is why we have Bible stories – to see Him moving through history in a way by which we can presently know Him within. As I’ve said before, the real territory that needs Joshua’s conquest is your heart.

By writing these books and making them available on the web and Amazon, I believe this is fulfilling the Great Commission of helping people be a learner of The Living Jesus, not just a convert to a religion. And when I say living, I mean living out from death. I am writing about His Crucified Life. Learn Him from within. Who He is being, is everything we need out from our current estate (James 1:21).