Genesis 2:1-3
“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” (Emphasis added.)
At the very beginning of Genesis, God begins to reveal, through Moses, His utterly Perfect, Transcendent, Omnipotent Nature. His finished work of Creation is perfect, all-sufficient and comprehensive. When He sent His Perfect Word to cover the Sinful fallen nakedness of the human race, He covered us with His Perfect Eternal Atonement and Righteousness. So Genesis reveals, that right from the very beginning, everything necessary was already done. And God enjoys His Perfect, Eternal Rest and invites us to join Him in it. This helps us to see the insanity of thinking we need other, alternate gods to serve as supplemental or alternate sources of wellbeing. And it helps us understand the sobering Truth and Reality He reveals to the world, that underlie this first commandment:
Exodus 20:1-3
“Then God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME!’” (Emphasis added.)
God had recently weakened the Serpent’s grip over land of Egypt and surrounding regions. And He made Himself, and His awesome Reality known, in unmistakable, very powerful ways, throughout the entire Middle East’s Fertile Crescent region. And He considerably weakened the domination that the Serpent had over that region through his deception of idolatry, the worship of false gods that do not really exist except in the imaginations of fallen decapitated human beings:
Judges 2:9-11
“…(Rahab the Canaanite woman) said to the (Israelite) men, ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.’” (Emphasis added.)
The truly obedient element of Jacob’s family was learning to serve God wholeheartedly; but the rest of the world still lived apart from Him. In their decapitated, man-centered radical independence, many had a vague sense of a ‘higher power,’ but they labored under such demonic delusion that their ideas of this ‘power’ were extremely vague, twisted and confused. They assumed the right to conjure up gods in their own imaginations, to try to make sense of their lives and circumstances and gain a feeling of control over the brutal uncertain courses of their lives.
Genesis 3:17b-19
“Cursed (with malicious demonic domination) is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life (in the frustration of knowing that the fallen, broken world your Sin has created, will not work as I originally intended it to work). Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you (thanks to the lethal Sin-contamination with which you have infected it); and (since the wages of your Sin is death, your fallen flesh will experience endless frustration) you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Amplification added.)
Because the fallen peoples of Moses’ time didn’t know the real God who was revealing Himself to Israel, they habitually worshipped an array of imaginary gods that were made in their own image and likeness. Egypt was a hotbed of this sort of demonic deception. But thanks to Genesis, God shows us what is truly important and what truly matters most to Him, concerning us. He made us to be His image and likeness, so it is our personal, interactive relationships that are of prime importance to Him. And, of course, the relationship that is foremost in importance is the one we are to have with Him. And He expects the relationships we have with the rest of His Creation to flow out of the relationship He requires us to have with Him. So, to be His authentic image and likeness, our relationships must flow out of God’s Perfect Nature, which is selfless Love. Selfless love freely gives of itself to the beloved. So Love-based interaction must garden, nurture, protect, lubricate and maintain all of our relationships. And since Love is the Essence and Standard of God’s Perfect Righteous Nature, His main interest is not on outward appearances nor in the physical organizational structures we set up. He cares about how well and how truly and accurately we embody and reflect Him in our heart of hearts!
In other words, God’s main concern is in the attitude and motivation of our heart of hearts in relation to Him and in relation to our fellow humans! He does not regard superficial appearance. Mere external conformity to standards, or ‘rule keeping’ and ‘self-improvement’ techniques and the attaining of excellence in personal skills and exalted levels of human performance, are not what He judges. God focuses on Love-based motivation and integrity and purity in all of our interactions. He requires our relationships to impart mutual blessings on the participants. To God, mutual respect, consideration, integrity, honesty and self-giving are what He esteems, values and requires. That is how we can fulfill the ‘image and likeness’ identity, purpose and destiny He gave us. And Israel was to demonstrate the Light of this, to the rest of the world that was trapped in the Serpent’s self-adoring Darkness:
Deuteronomy 6:4-6
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.” (Emphasis added.)
Leviticus 19:17-19
“‘You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.” (Emphasis added.)
Matthew 22:35-40
“One of them, a lawyer, asked Him (Rabbi Yeshua) a question, testing Him, ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Emphasis added.)
1 Corinthians 13
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophesy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love!” (Emphasis added.)
Love, Expressed God’s Way, Not Man’s Way
Obviously, this selfless, totally giving level of love is Divine and Heavenly. It is God’s Nature, but it is not natural to the fallen, self-adoring, Sin-corrupted flesh we inherited from the first Adam. In our natural original state, we are programmed and ‘hard-wired’ to operate out of the Serpent’s self-seeking, competitive, radical independence. The Serpent hates, despises and competes against God and all of His other creatures. He strives to dominate and so he uses fellow creatures to his advantage and to satisfy his rage and enhance his destructive purposes. So, in His malicious arrogant Sin-fullness, he always deceives, undermines and strives to ‘save face’. He always seeks to gain every advantage; he demands revenge and seeks the superior position so that he can always dominate. In his dark world, deception, controlling ploys and intimidation are the norm. The fallen world system that he dominates, is fueled and maintained by self-adoration and self-actualization leading to competitive domination and supremacy over others. These are the forces that prevail in his Darkness.
And since Sin reconfigured us into the Serpent’s image and likeness, we share his resentment of God and His ways because they directly oppose and contradict what is natural to our fallen flesh. Decapitated men and their false religions pursue competitive self-enhancement initiatives which generate an atmosphere that is ever-filled with performance-based anxiety, suspicion and terror-inflicting tactics of extortion, bullying and threatening intimidation. And since fallen flesh abides naturally in radical independence from our Creator, it’s no wonder that competitive greed and suspicion also separate us from each other… even from those with whom we choose to be intimately united such as our spouses, children, relatives, friends, allies, teammates and partners!
We too feel driven to take God’s place, so it’s no wonder that we follow the Serpent’s pattern with each other. In the Serpent’s realm of Darkness, ‘Self’ is worshipped. It reigns supreme. But in the Kingdom of God, His living Word, the Lord who gives of Himself through self-less Love, is the One who reigns supreme! And the differences between those two Kingdoms and their ways are obvious to anyone who observes the fruits that each one produces (See Galatians 5:16-26).
So, unless God intervenes and reveals Himself to us, we humans remain spiritually decapitated, dead and blind. We will grope randomly and haphazardly in vain attempts to find fulfilling substitutes for our Creator and the ways of His Kingdom. We will seek after alternate gods in search of some kind of spiritual communion with powers and forces we really know nothing about. But the only real spiritual alternative to the one true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that truly exists, is the demonic alternative. The Serpent and his fallen angelic powers of Darkness, lurk beneath the surface of every false god that men create for themselves. The demonic beings that serve the Serpent, manipulate the spiritually blinded humans from behind the facades presented by those false gods. But these demonic powers do not operate out of love; they manipulate, for their own hate-driven, hyper-controlling, manipulative and destructive, anti-God purposes.
Decapitated people are ignorant of this. They do not realize that they have been deceived and entrapped. They assume they’re free, independent, self-actualizing agents. And they further assume that it is up to them to use their intellects, opinions, feelings and ‘hunches,’ to serve as ‘the defining measure of all things.’ They ignore and bypass the Spirit of God who is here to make God’s living Word real and active and fruitful in our daily lives. So when fallen, flesh-driven humans feel an urge to ‘connect’ with some ‘higher power,’ they become ‘religious,’ like Cain, and like the pharaoh of Egypt, and the other idolaters that invent gods of their own imagining. And they have no idea of what the powers of Darkness are actually able to do to them, in them, and through them.
Luke 23:33-35
“When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. But Jesus was saying, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ And they (the Roman soldiers) cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves. And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, ‘He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One.’” (Emphasis added.)
The Serpent and his lies easily deceive the Sin-damaged hearts and minds of men. And in their delusion, men abide in and foment profound, terminal error, spiritual blindness, and false navigational coordinates that cause enormous physical destruction, death and eternal separation from the one true, living God. Demonic delusion prevents people from connecting with and taking into account the most awesome, foundational, defining Reality of all:
Genesis 17:1
“…The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; WALK BEFORE ME AND BE BLAMELESS…’” (Emphasis added.)
Utterly Transformed!
So once the true living God pierces through the Darkness that surrounds you and reveals Himself to you, you can never be the same. It’s as if a ‘control panel’ that has always been dormant and concealed in your innermost parts suddenly receives Power from Almighty God and becomes fully activated. All of the spiritual lights and formerly dormant spiritual faculties and operations contained in that ‘control panel’ are suddenly turned on and begin to function. And although everything and everyone around you may remain the same, you change radically. What begins to happen within you completely reconfigures your viewpoints and the focus and direction and motivational thrust of your mind and heart. The Wisdom and Truth God is now imparting to you, change everything about you. You no longer belong with the decapitated humans, even if they’re your family members and close friends! The fallen world and priorities they still embrace and pursue no longer appeal to you. The new Heavenly dimension you’re in touch with and the mind-boggling Reality of God’s Eternal Salvation that is now at work within you, overwhelm and reconfigure your inner workings. So it’s no longer possible for you to feel comfortable and at home in the dark world of fallen men; nor can you any longer trust or believe what they know and teach, nor can you take their priorities, viewpoints and false coordinates seriously.
People who experience this direct, personal Divine invasion receive a brand new level of knowing, and an unprecedented level of awareness that elicit an intensely passionate response to God’s overwhelming Reality that now burns within them. And when that happens, they can’t help but to try to communicate and share what their Salvation is causing them to experience and see. God’s Love moves them to try to share it with their still-decapitated brothers and sisters. They can now see the horrific spiritual danger in which the fallen world languishes. And yet, the decapitated people can’t see what they see. Those that remain part of the fallen world naturally expect them to conform to their values and priorities and remain content with what their dark, dismal world espouses. But the new Heavenly Life that throbs within the regenerated spirits of these ‘seers’, gives them entirely new viewpoints, instincts and drives that they never knew could be possible! It’s too late for them. The fallen world is spoiled and ruined for them. Now that they see the Light that comes from God’s living Word and Holy Spirit; they can no longer stand to remain trapped in the Serpent’s Darkness. They must come out of it and abide in the brilliance of God’s Eternal Light of Truth, whether anyone else comes with them or not.
This is the burden that those who know God personally, must bear for the rest of their lives. They must now continue to live in this demon-possessed world, but they can no longer be of it. They are now part of the Great Exodus upon which the living Word of God is leading His chosen disciples.
Isaiah 6:5
“…Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Emphasis added.)
1 Corinthians 9:16-17
“…If I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me!” (Emphasis added.)
Those who have this revelation in their hearts feel a fire burning inside that they must try to express and share. The Selfless Love of God abides within them. They care about all those that have not yet experienced this glorious invasion by the Love and Mercy of God. But it is hard to try to communicate spiritual realities to people who are spiritually dead! They remain deeply set in their ways because they are dominated by the death grip of the Serpent’s coils! And so a demonic static and interference is always operating within them… trying to drown out God’s voice and keep them separated and removed from Him.
Genesis 3:4b-5
“You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil!” (Emphasis added.)
In their decapitated state, people that embrace the ways of this Sin-cursed world assume that because they have developed their natural intellects and accumulate massive amounts of natural, empirical, data-based knowledge or because they’ve given themselves over to some man-made religion, that they have attained the ultimate level of wisdom…that they already know all there is to know. So they deeply resent anyone who suggests that they could be wrong and are actually laboring under a pall of Serpent-induced delusion, Sin, misunderstanding and Divine condemnation. And even when God sent His own living Word to His chosen people, among whom He had lived and grown up, they could not recognize in Him, the one about whom Moses had written. So they recoiled and hissed at Him, like a brood of startled angry snakes:
Luke 4:20-30
“And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, ‘Is this not Joseph’s son?’ And He said to them, ‘No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’
“And He said, ‘Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown. But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land; and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.’ And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, He went His way.” (Emphasis added.)
John 6:60-66
“Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, ‘This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?’ But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, ‘Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, ‘For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.’
“As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.” (Emphasis added.)
Satanic Deception Exposed
Since Adam’s fall, it has been very easy for the powers of Darkness to deceive and delude the Sin-corrupted human race. Because we’re all born ‘decapitated’ and far removed from God’s living, creative Word, satanic forces can get us to adopt their demonic viewpoints and attitudes that divide and separate us from God and from our true selves, and from each other. So the human race remains confused, at odds with itself, and predisposed to ignore and try to bypass the Word of the true living God who created them. We ignore Him even while He continues to maintain us in existence and provide everything we are and have and can do, from moment to moment! In His place, deceived humans enthrone the products of their fallen imaginations. And these things become false gods. And the false gods become facades behind which the demonic minions of the Serpent hide and can easily manipulate and dominate whoever believes and worships those idols. Thus the self-adoring hate-filled powers of Darkness force their decapitated victims to serve as unwitting slaves that fulfill their destructive Sin-loving, malevolent, anti-God and anti-Creation agendas.
As long as humans remain caught in the trap of idolatry, regardless of its kind, the Serpent has them locked in his death grip. And this is why the first commandment is so foundational. It is meant to free us from our living death! It brings the ultimate issue of God’s legitimate Authority, Truth and Reality before us. God confronts us so that He can redeem and restore us all to the original image and likeness of God identity, purpose and destiny for which He created us. He is not overcome, stopped or threatened by anything the Serpent thinks or wills or tries to do; fallen humanity is. The Serpent is merely one of His creatures, just as we are! So there’s nothing any created being or thing can be or do or will, that can threaten, intimidate or have the power or authority to offend or threaten God, in any way. Not even Satan can be, do or have anything that our Creator does not allow! So nothing thwarts or threatens or diminishes the Glory of God in Reality. He is transcendent and infinitely beyond anything that any creature He endows with existence, is capable of. The Light of God’s Truth and Reality easily can, and does, pierce and dispel any Darkness. And if we allow it, He will pierce and break the power that Darkness has over us.
Only one thing stops God from saving human beings. And that is our own free will… the choices we freely decide to make. Our salvation depends on how we respond to this first commandment. If we’re receptive to the living Word of Almighty God, then, regardless of what the Serpent and his forces try to do, God will overcome and destroy any evil thing or device the Serpent may invent to prevent our salvation. And that’s why this first commandment (and how we respond to it) is so important.
1 John 3:7-9
“Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices (habitual deliberate) sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
By the time this conflict between Light and Darkness reaches its conclusion, the issue will be settled once and for all. All Creation will be forced to see Reality and Truth as they actually are. The true nature of everything will be clearly revealed. Flesh will have to claim its harvest of death and destruction and God’s Word and Spirit will claim His Harvest of spiritual Reality and the faithful obedient humans who share in His Word’s Eternal Life. The Full, Eternal Vindication of God’s Word will inevitably take place at the end of this fight to the death, between the Light of God’s Truth and the Darkness of the Serpent’s lies.
Isaiah 55:11
“So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”
John 5:30
“I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (Emphasis added.)
The first words God uttered to the entire nation of Israel that had assembled at the foot of the mountain, came in the form of this first commandment. There is nothing more basically foundational or essential than this ‘starting point.’ Before anything else can happen, God and mankind must come to a firm, clear understanding concerning this question:
‘Which of us is the one true God?
And which of us must believe, obey and serve the other?’
Until this primary issue of God’s absolute Authority is settled, nothing is settled! If we do not honor and observe this first commandment, we won’t honor and observe any of the others! The absolute Authority of God’s living Word is Ultimate Reality! In God’s Kingdom, this is not a moot point. It is not something we creatures have the right to debate, discuss or vote upon. This is ultimate Truth and changeless Reality!
Matthew 28:18
“…Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘ALL AUTHORITY has been given to Me in Heaven and on Earth!’”
In Reality, the only proper response to this commandment on our part is total agreement and universal public worship and acknowledgement of the Truth of God’s Position, Status and Authority over all of Creation. And this admission must be accompanied by our wholehearted acceptance, submission and perpetual obedience:
Isaiah 6:3b
“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory!”
The majority of the human race has never yet fully grasped the awesome enormity, the limitless, eternal infinite Majesty and Grandeur of the one living God who revealed Himself through Moses. Even after centuries of the Word’s influence in our midst, in this so-called ‘modern’ era, it is a very common characteristic of popular culture to hear people say arrogant, utterly blind things, such as: “I pride myself on being an independent thinker.” Or, “I march to the beat of a different drummer,” or, “I do as I think best,’ or, “My god would never send anyone to Hell!”
Fallen flesh glories and revels in and boasts about striving to force and control circumstances to suit its own desires. In other words, it assumes the right to think, act, react and interact as if it were God Himself. The worldly paean of praise that such people love to heap upon themselves is, “I did it MY way!” But the day is coming when all of us WILL grasp this Truth as it really is:
Psalm 2:1-6
“Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!’
“He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, ‘But as for Me, I have installed My King (My living Word) upon Zion, My holy mountain.’” (Emphasis added.)
So we all will see the total Vindication of God’s living Word come to pass. During the Exodus, as God was beginning to create and fashion His chosen, world-instructing nation of Israel, He began, with His first commandment, to exert and establish His awesome Majesty, Power, Truth, Reality and Authority over that chosen portion of the fallen human race… a company of terrified, overwhelmed, Jewish and non-Jewish ex-slaves that He had recently liberated from centuries of bondage and misery in Egypt, so that they could join Him in the Joy and Peace that comes from sharing in and experiencing His Eternal Sabbath Rest. They were to be His ‘object lesson,’ His instrument of revelation – for the rest of the world.
The Gift Bestowed at Sinai
So as they heard His voice coming from atop Mt. Sinai, God gave His basic commandments, the statutes through which He intended to cleanse, purify, transform and restore the human race to His image and likeness. By one commandment after another, God’s living Word began to reestablish His absolute Authority and the Sovereignty of God’s Truth and Reality over the human race. The Truth unleashed through the Torah, causes one false god after another to topple to the ground before God’s Word… and crumble into dust.
At the end of this time and space dimension, every child of Adam and Eve… Jew and Gentile alike… will appear before Almighty God’s Judgment Seat. And we will see with perfect accuracy, clarity and thoroughness, whether we did, or did not allow God to reconnect us to His living Word made flesh. It will be seen with utter clarity, whether or not He is truly our Head, and whether or not we are truly attached and united with Him. If He is our Head, His Perfect Righteousness will cover our inherited spiritual nakedness. And God will accept those who are covered by His Son’s Self-less Love and atoning Blood. But those who have rejected the Perfect Atonement Covering made for them by God’s Word will, in turn, be rejected. And that rejection will condemn them to spend eternity in the clutches of the hate-filled, enraged powers of Darkness. They will remain trapped in the effects of the Sin that they deliberately chose for themselves. And Sin will forever separate them from the only One who could have saved and fulfilled them.
So then when the entire Exodus Story ends, before all of Creation, God’s Word will be eternally validated and fulfilled. And the human race will be separated into two groups… according to how each individual responded in his or her heart to His Revelation and the authority of His Word’s authoritative commandments. And a major factor in this judgment will be determined by how we reacted and responded to His chosen messengers, the Word-obeying and embodying, Covenant Faith descendants of Abraham:
Matthew 25:31-40
“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations (Gentiles) will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me!’” (Emphasis added.)
Mark 3:31-35
“Then His mother and His brothers *arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him and called Him. A crowd was sitting around Him, and they *said to Him, ‘Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.’ Answering them, He *said, ‘Who are My mother and My brothers?’ Looking about at those (disciples) who were sitting around Him, He *said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother!”
All of the things Yeshua mentions in the above passage concerning the Judgment of the Nations (Gentiles), are issues that God began to reveal and command through the Torah! God spoke through Moses… and at the end, the world will be forced to accept everything that God said. All of Creation will tremble at the sound of His Voice (His living Word made flesh)! Then we will know how vitally important and foundational the first commandment really was, not only to Israel… but also to the entire human race! So the revelations and commandments God revealed at Sinai, are the means by which God’s living Word will fulfill His Father’s promises to Abraham, the first Hebrew:
Genesis 12:1-3
Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you (that is, in Israel, God’s chosen people) all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (Emphasis added.)
Torah warns all men, regardless of race, color, gender, religion, station, nationality and background, to be aware of, and prepared for, this final judgment that is coming. God is calling all men out of their Sin-corruption… out of living death! He is summoning all of us to be reconciled with Him so that, through His living Word Yeshua, and His Holy Spirit, He may forgive, cleanse, regenerate and fully restore us to Yeshua’s Covenant Representative level of true humanity. He created all of mankind to be ECHAD, or ONE, with Him in His Eternal Blood Covenant. And He is able to include them, through their faithful obedience to His Love-empowered, Life-imparting Word and Holy Spirit. And so… through the revelation of the commandments that He entrusted to the care of His chosen people, He is revealing the terms of that reconciliation.
If we are ever to be ECHAD with God, if His living Word is ever going to be our common Head, then it follows that we will have to become living members of the same Head. We must all become true authentic redeemed parts of His living Word’s earthly Body… and therefore we must also become members of one another! So in God’s mind, and in His Eternal Love-based Perfection, there will be no strife or competitive opposition between Him and us. And, since each one will be united to the same Head, we will all be serving and loving and working in perfect synchronization with one another. No longer will the Serpent be able to deceive, divide and conquer us. At the end, there will be no more strife and opposition among us! There will be God, the Eternal King… ruling in Perfect Peace and Harmony and Integration through His Word and His Word’s Body, and we will all constitute His one Eternal, Love-based Kingdom!
Isaiah 65:24-25
“It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain,” says the Lord.”
Zechariah 8:22-23
“…So many (non-Jewish) peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord.’ Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘In those days ten men from all the (Gentile) nations will grasp the garment of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’” (Amplification added.)
Micah 4:2
“Many nations (Gentiles) will come and say, ‘Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us about His ways and that we may walk in His paths.’ For from Zion will go forth the Law (Torah), even the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Galatians 3:27-29
“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man; there is neither male nor female, for you are all one (echad) in Christ Jesus! And if you belong to Christ (Israel’s Messiah), THEN, you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
In the End, All will be One, in Yeshua
In the end, those whom God accepts into His Eternal Joy will be admitted because they agreed to embrace His living and written Word, through whom He reveals His Eternal Truth. They chose to obey and abide by the Reality contained within Messiah Yeshua. As we’ve already seen in prior meditations, obedience to God’s Word transforms us and causes us to be one with Him. Obedience makes us into the Word’s image and likeness. As we all learn to obey the commandments, we are learning to follow the same ‘steps’ and we can then begin to ‘dance’ with God…One Body… under our One Head. So let’s look one more time, at what God says about His Word, who became flesh in order to make us ‘echad’ with Almighty God. It is His image and likeness that God has always intended us to be:
Isaiah 55:8-11
“‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My Word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” (Emphasis added.)
John 5:19
Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” (Emphasis added.)
We can see that there is not a speck of ‘self-life’ or ‘radical independence’ in God’s living Word. He is the Perfect Image and Likeness of the Father. Therefore, there is no self-life to be found in the Humanity of Messiah Yeshua. All of mankind is created to be the Word’s image and likeness! So when we consider the human Body of such a perfectly obedient Head, we can see what awesome Love-Harmony and Spirit-transmitted Synchronization into which the actual Fulfillment of the first commandment is going to lead His members. And when we see the fulfillment of the first commandment, we understand what the Genesis phrase ‘in Our image and likeness’ actually means. When we become one (echad) with God’s living Word, we become the reflective mirror image, the living fulfillment of the living Word that God reveals and commands in His written Word. This is how He can transform us into His Perfect, Eternal, Human Image and Likeness!
Colossians 3:2-4
“Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our Life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in Glory!” (Emphasis added.)
This is how Yeshua makes us one with what He is and what He has already done in our name. We can’t do it by trying to imitate what He did, with slavish religious techniques! We do it by allowing Him to live and operate from within us, as our Lord and Master and Eternal Life. We identify with His abiding indwelling Life, by faith. This is the only way we can become perfectly pleasing and acceptable to our Heavenly Father. Yeshua is the Eternal Image and Likeness of Almighty God. The Father’s Word is one with Him in everything He thinks, says and does. And the Word lives within us by the Power of the Holy Spirit, so that the Perfection of His Finished Work of Redemption and Salvation can be seen living and operating from within our Spirit-empowered humanity. God sent Him to us, so that He could do to us, in us and through us… whatever Father has ordained concerning us. God’s Word does this with us and through us, for the benefit of all Creation, as long as we allow it to happen.
This is the Glory that the Word’s believing, obedient living human members… His Body of Spirit-united disciples on Earth, is equipped to receive and enjoy with Him! And this is the only way in which we can please and glorify our Heavenly Father in a way that is worthy of His Eternal Perfection. So Yeshua, in praying to His Father, says of us:
John 17:22-26
“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
“O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your Name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” (Emphasis added.)
Torah has revealed what ‘The Root’ of the Salvation of the entire human race really is. It is the living, interactive union of people who have been freed from their former, original bondage to radically independent ‘self-life.’ The Authority and Self-Giving Atonement of the living Word of Almighty God, and our union with Him, is the Root of Salvation. His Word gives all that God is, to us! Our acceptance of the Word enables Him to fuse God’s Holy Spirit into our regenerated spirits. The Word and the Spirit graft us into God’s believing, obedient Root of Salvation… the True Remnant of Israel! The Word dwells and works within us, transmitting God’s Love into us, and He reveals all that pertains to Him… through us. God has made all of this possible by including Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their true, believing, obeying descendants, the True Israel, into His Eternal Blood Covenant.
And through the Jewish and non-Jewish True Israelites who believe and obey His living and written Word, God can become one with each and every other human being that will join the Word’s disciples in the Exodus from the Serpent and his ‘self-life’ ways… back into the gracious Love-Embrace of God. All of this is one integrated living process that flows out of that one Living, Fruit-producing Root. God’s Word is the Root into which all of mankind must be grafted in order for God’s Plan of Salvation to be fulfilled. It is not two or more separate things or processes. It is not two separate Brides and two separate marriages. It is always One… one process, one Reality, one Truth, one Salvation coming to all of Creation, sharing in the Eternal Life of the One and only Living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!
Genesis 17:1-5
“Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.’
“Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, ‘As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.”
Torah-deprived peoples ALWAYS consider themselves to be righteous because of their own religious ideas, religions and self-invented devices. But as long as they remain severed from God’s Word as He is revealed in the Torah, they remain severed from God’s Truth and Reality. And they remain fear and violence-prone, destructive and Death-oriented! So to fill the huge vacuum that the true God’s absence creates, they try to fill it with myriads of false gods, false religions and false ways of living that have little or nothing to do with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and what God originally revealed to the chosen people of Israel. That is why so many nations and man-invented religions are also mentally and emotionally severed from God’s chosen people and what He revealed to them and commanded them to be and to do in this world. If they reject God, they will reject His chosen Covenant friends and messengers. But, if they choose to remain severed from Abraham’s Family in their souls, hearts and lives… they have no basis for claiming to be connected to the one and only, true, Living God of Israel!
Romans 11:17-21
“But if some of the (unbelieving, disobedient native-born) branches were broken off, and you, being a (non-Jewish) wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich Root of the Olive Tree, do not be arrogant toward the (cut off) branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports The Root, but The Root supports you! You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
The Narrow Path
Can you see the unity that Torah reveals and requires? That is exactly what the New Covenant apostolic writings are also repeating and requiring! Moses revealed that God’s Torah must be written on our hearts… and so did the prophets, wisdom writers and apostles! So can you see the fatal results that come from assuming that Torah is only for the Jews but not for the rest of mankind? That is a terribly lethal trap! It is another way of ‘decapitating’ us from God’s living and written Word! Beloved, I urge you not to fall for it. Do not stray from the ‘Narrow Path’ of God’s Torah Revelation and Life-oriented Commandments and the Love-based Covenant Family to which God must join you if you are to be saved. Remain deeply based and rooted in the God-given Foundational Way that leads to Eternal Life. To forsake any portion of our God-given Biblical Foundation or to begin to wander away from it, always leads to separation from God’s living Word, which leads to Eternal Death!
“In everything, therefore, treat (the chosen people and all other) people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law (Torah) and the Prophets (that all may become and abide together as ECHAD, under the Authority of God’s living Word).
Matthew 7:12-23
“Enter through the narrow (Torah revealed) gate; for the (Torah-less) gate is wide and the (Torah-less) way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the (Torah) gate is small and the (Torah) way is narrow that leads to Life, and there are few who find it!
“Beware of the false prophets (see Deuteronomy 13), who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good (Torah-fulfilling, New Covenant) fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good (Torah-fulfilling) tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree (that fails to fulfill God’s Covenant) produce good fruit (See Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:22-28. Amplification and emphasis added.).
“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in Heaven will enter. Many (very religious people) will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice Lawlessness (Torah-lessness).’ (Amplification and emphasis added.)
We must have the written Word of Almighty God…all of it! This holds true not only for Israel, but also for the rest of the world for whom Israel must serve as a guide and example. But it’s not enough to have the written Word and the Covenant it offers…and then to try, by our own fallen fleshly, soulish religious striving, to try to imitate and fulfill it. That for sure is a ‘bad tree,’ regardless of whether it is revered and embraced by Jewish or non-Jewish ‘flesh.’ Just as a menu is not meant to be a source of food, life, strength and sustenance in itself, so too is God’s written Word not meant to be in itself, our source of Food, Life, Strength and Sustenance. Menus lead men to real food. And the written Hebrew and New Covenant apostolic Scriptures are meant to lead men to God’s living Word, Messiah Yeshua. God’s living creative Word was made flesh in order to properly and legally represent us before God. In that capacity, He can serve as our Eternal Covenant Representative, High Priest, and living Messiah-Connection with the Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! The written Word tells us about our Salvation; but Yeshua IS our SALVATION!
John 5:39-40
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have Eternal Life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have Life!” (Emphasis added.)
All of this is contained and implied with the first commandment that God’s Word was sent to entrust to Moses… and that Moses entrusted to the people God told him to assemble in the wilderness. God did this so that His living Word (regardless of the form in which His Father chooses to send Him) could lead Israel, and all the non-Jewish people who allowed themselves to be grafted into Israel…out of this fallen world system, and into the Kingdom of Heaven. This is how God revealed His Plan to bless, restore and become one (echad) with ALL the families of Earth!
Pay close attention to the importance and preeminence of the first commandment with which God chose to begin the Betrothal relationship between His living Word, and Israel. It is essential that we understand how exclusive it really is. It is saying that each human being is to acknowledge, worship, obey and serve the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob alone… period! Our minds and hearts are to be 100% His, at all times and on every level. Nothing else, real or imagined, is to be placed alongside or above Him in our estimation and priority system. There is only one God, and we must never toy with, or treat this eternal fact lightly:
Deuteronomy 6:4-5
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with ALL (100% of) your heart and with ALL (100% of) your soul and with ALL (100 % of) your might!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
In His Eternal Perfect Nature, God must uphold His Truth and Reality perfectly. Don’t expect Him to waver or change, compromise or make peace with anything that is not true or real. He will not change to accommodate Himself to us… He is going to change and transform US to accommodate ourselves to HIM! Nothing will be allowed to contradict or violate or belie the Perfection of His true Nature. For that reason, He reveals Himself to be a ‘jealous’ God in response to people who dabble in delusion and unreality and conjure up imaginary gods of their own devising. He will never allow us to ignore, reject and bypass His living Word. Israel did that often throughout her history. And through her example, the rest of the world is now able to know, by watching how God deals with her, what it too can expect when it’s time for the human race to give an accounting to Him for the response they have made to His Word’s revelation and commands:
Deuteronomy 32:20-22
“Then He said, ‘I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be; for they are a perverse generation, sons in whom is no faithfulness. They have made Me jealous with what is not God; they have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation, for a fire is kindled in My anger, and burns to the lowest part of Sheol, and consumes the earth with its yield, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.”
Throughout the ongoing probationary period of betrothal in which we still live, Israel and the rest of the world continue to stumble and falter badly. We are far from honoring or observing this first commandment wholeheartedly (not to mention the ways by which we violate all the others). So not even those who claim to believe and obey the one true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are close to being fully prepared to enter into the actual Wedding and the eternal celebration and feasting that will follow!
But God has taken it upon Himself to see to it that the work of our reconciliation and cleansing and restoration will be, at the end of the betrothal process, absolutely Complete and Perfect! When God finally sends His beloved Son, the living Word, back to Earth to claim His Bride and take her into the actual Eternal Wedding and the Consummation of their Union, the time will come for God to judge the rest of the rebellious, decapitated, unbelieving, disobedient world. The Holy Spirit will supply whatever is still needed to bring us into a full share in God’s own Perfection. And the Bride of the Lamb will be rendered completely pure, spotless, wrinkle-free and fully prepared to be joined to the Bridegroom forever. But those who have rejected Him, will be, in turn, rejected and cast out into Eternal Darkness.
1 Corinthians 15:50-57
“Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Emphasis added.)
As the betrothed one allows God’s Holy Spirit to raise her up to the Word’s level, He will prepare her for the Wedding Feast. At the end of that process, the Bride of the Lamb will be Perfect in her own right… unspeakably beautiful, a perfectly fit consort for her Husband in every way. She will be exactly what the Perfection of Almighty God and His living Word eternally require:
Ephesians 5:23-27
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present to Himself the Church (God’s True Blood Covenant Family) in all her Glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
When we better understand the utter Perfection of God’s Nature and His Standards of Righteousness, we better understand the profound, vast extent of the Exodus upon which God’s living Word must lead us. By the time we reach the end of our personal exodus, we will be the perfect, changeless, image and likeness of the eternally Perfect Word of God, who is one with the Father in every way! We who are to be His image and likeness will reflect His Perfection. And it is obvious that since we, by nature and personal performance, are so imperfect, only God Himself can know what must be done, and only He can comprehend and do the work needed to transform us into the perfectly acceptable, finished product. Thus it becomes even more obvious that God’s Word and Holy Spirit, living, abiding and working from within us, are responsible for adding to us what we lack and removing from us whatever is unworthy and unacceptable to God. He must share the Perfection that belongs to Him alone, and that only He can comprehend and understand…with us.
Exodus 20:1-3
“Then God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before ME!’” (Emphasis added.)
John 15:4-11
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” (Emphasis added.)