"For I WILL,
pass through the land of Egypt that night, and
I WILL,
strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt
I WILL,
execute judgments: I am YaHoVeH.
The blood shall be a sign for you,
on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood,
I WILL,
pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. For
YaHoVeH WILL,
pass through to strike the Egyptians, and
when He sees the blood,
on the lintel and on the two doorposts,
YaHoVeH WILL,
pass over the door and will not allow destruction to enter your houses to strike you." Exodus 12:12-13, 23
"Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.
For on Him, YaHoVeH, the Father has set His seal." John 6:27
"In Him (YaHoVeH) we have obtained an inheritance…you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were
sealed with the promised spirit of YaHoVeH,
the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory." Ephesians 1:11-14
The Kinsman Redeemer Series
The Blood
by haRold Smith
a citizen of the Commonwealth (Ephesians 2:19)
It is imperative to understand, from a scriptural perspective, what the feast of Pesach (re-named Passover) actually was in order to comprehend just what
the inheritance (click on highlighted words to view content)
of the saints in light that was released through the Resurrection of Yeshua, the Kinsman Redeemer of Israel. That day really is apart from all the traditions of men that have been attached to it. The first article of this series expounded on
the Signet
and the significance of the chronicling of its passing from generation to generation through the Hebrew Family of YaHoVeH, until it came to rest with Yeshua - validating His status as the Kinsman Redeemer
of Israel.
That article showed the Hebrew word translated as the English "mark",
'owth,
to actually mean "sign (token) or seal". This same Hebrew word is also found in the Exodus 12 passage at the opening of this article describing the blood that is to be placed on the side posts and overhang of the houses to spare the death of the firstborn within. In
Song of Solomon 8:6
the Hebrew word k'owtham
(containing 'owth) is also translated as the "seal" which Yeshua refers to in
John 6:27
above. The Greek word translated as the English "seal" in that verse,
sphragizo,
is the same Greek word used in the Ephesians 1 passage above describing
the Fulfillment of the Covenant
that guarantees the acquisition of
Inheritance
to all who embrace Yeshua for who
He says He Is.
There is also a distinction made in
2Corinthians 1:22
between the seal and the guarantee of inheritance. That seal is the blood of the slain Lamb spread over the dwelling places of the Family of YaHoVeH. So, what is it about "the blood" that it becomes a sign, a seal to defray the spector of death? What makes the Blood so important? And what kind of death is being spoken of - are we to become immortal?
In spite of the ancient
Greek philosophy
that has become embedded in our current culture, scripturally, apart from the Spirit of YaHoVeH - man has no spirit intrinsic to himself. YaHoVeH told Adam that on the day he ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil "he would die." But, he did not die physically. In fact, in
Genesis 5:5
we are told he lived for another 930 years. Consequently, if we are to pursue what scripture reveals about Truth - we have to rearrange our thinking about death to be in alignment with what the words tell us. The death YaHoVeH was speaking of was the death of Adam's shared image with the Father - YaHoVeH's Spirit. Since we are told in
Leviticus 17:11
that "the life is in the blood", when YaHoVeH breathed Life into Adam, it became his blood. In disobedience to YaHoVeH's Words, Adam brought darkness into the pure Light of that blood and it became corrupted necessitating
a separation
from the Spirit of Life, "lest he eat of the tree of Life" and remain in that condition forever
(Genesis 3:22).
Adam became as any other man of the world, thrust out of the Garden to make his own determination. He was now his own god. However, Adam and Chavah were still YaHoVeH's children, His Family. As their Father, He still loved them in immediately
fashioning clothing,
for them to cover their nakedness they were now aware of. The Hebrew word translated as the English "coats" in that verse is
kutonet
- the same Hebrew word used in
Exodus 28:4
to describe priestly garments. HE MADE THEM TO BE
PRIESTS UNTO HIM!!
YaHoVeH did not abandon His Family. He did not leave them destitute. He cared for them as any loving Father would - in spite of their careless recklessness. What Adam and Chavah had done could not be repaired or "fixed". Because they had now become their own god, they had no Spirit of LIFE in them to restore them to that place of intimacy with YaHoVeH. Part of the character of Spirit identified in
Exodus 34:5-7
is that the sins of the fathers are passed to subsequent generations until that sin is stopped. What the Family needed was a transfusion of blood that would return them to a pure state of being.
When YaHoVeH breathed Life into Adam, it became his blood. Just as my son's blood carries the DNA of his father, Adam's blood carried the DNA of his Father, YaHoVeH. Adam and YaHoVeH were
echad
(Hebrew for "one or unity"). They were in complete union, meaning the Nature they shared caused them to be as one. The Hebrew letters aleph-chet-dalet are what make up the Hebrew word echad. In the
Paleo-Hebrew pictograph
of these letters, we see that the Hebrew letter aleph is shown as the head of an ox - representing a fullness of strength and power. The chet is shown as a wall or fence and the dalet is shown as a door (Frank Seekins, Hebrew Word Pictures - Seekins is the acknowledged founder of the modern study of Hebrew word pictures). The dalet is an interesting character because in ancient Hebrew culture, to pass through a doorway was an act of coming into covenant with the leader of the home. So not only does dalet represent "a way in," but it is also considered a way into covenant with someone. Together, the picture chet-dalet presents is "a door in the fence." So, what is the fence? YaHoVeH's fence around His people is found in the protection of the instructions found in
His Ten Words.
His Covenant with His family of Israel is based on this fence. It is the distinguishing characteristic between Hebrew and Gentile. Those who join themselves to the Family of Israel stand in special relationship to YaHoVeH because
they choose
to keep YaHoVeH's Words - they choose to stay within His protective fence. This is not a relationship of rescue or deliverance. It is a relationship of purpose. YaHoVeH chose Israel as the vehicle for bringing the world to Him, a
Light to the Nations,
and Israel was to accomplish this great purpose by living according to His Words - His Covenant. Israel is to be a
"kingdom of priests".
In John 10:7,
Yeshua said He is the DOOR to this sheepfold. The word for "door" in this passage is
thyra
and means "the vestibule; used of any opening providing passage". In the Hebrew, the word most commonly used for door is
pethach
meaning "an opening, gate of entrance" to describe the entryway to a temple, a house or a city. It is the Life Yeshua exampled that becomes the entryway, providing passage into
the sheepfold,
into the house of His Father - a door in the fence to enter into covenant with Him. So, when this word, echad, was originally used it would have been defined as "the strength of someone coming into covenant". It is in the keeping of YaHoVeH's Words that bring us into covenant with Him and what allows us to abide in His Presence. Adam carried the Essence of the Nature of his Father in his blood. That Essence is expressed in the Father's
Glory,
in His Name
and in His Word.
Adam's disobedience to his Father's Word injected the darkness of
self-determination
into that Nature - thus corrupting the Purity of the Blood and necessitating a
separation.
The Hebrew word for "sin" found in
Isaiah 1:18
is chet'.
It is the combination of the Hebrew letters chet, taw and aleph. The images in Paleo-Hebrew these letters represent when strung together mean "first to destroy the fence". Anything that stands in
opposition
to the Words of YaHoVeH is sin and destroys the protection of His Covenant fence.
"For You rescued me from death, You kept my feet from stumbling, so that I can walk in
YaHoVeH's Presence,
in the Light of Life." Psalm 56:13
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Notice in the passage from Exodus 12:12-13 above that it was not an "angel of death" that passed over those houses, but YaHoVeH Himself. The Hebrew word found in most English translations as "the destroyer" is
shachath
and actually means, "…to destroy, corrupt, go to ruin, decay". Adding an English "the" before the word converts the Hebrew verb to a noun which suggests another entity apart from YaHoVeH caused the destruction when, in fact, it was YaHoVeH Himself who was the source of the destruction. It was the intensity of the Light of Life that caused the ruin of the firstborn in Egypt - the same intensity that caused YaHoVeH to place Moses in the cleft of a rock so that, as He passed by, Moses would not be consumed by His brilliance. That the Life of Spirit is a consuming fire
(Hebrews 12:29,
quoting Deuteronomy 4:24)
totally enveloping darkness is consistent with the Nature of Light. In the same manner that Light and darkness cannot abide in the same space at the same time, neither can Life and death. You will have one or the other - there is no in between. In what sense, then, was Yeshua haMashiach's (the Messiah's) blood "poured out" - what was its purpose? In Christian terms, the blood of the slain innocent Lamb is a substitutionary sacrifice - an atoning for the sins of the sinner in place of the sinner himself being sacrificed. It is assumed that the universal "Christ" is based on the sacrificial system of the Torah, who became the Lamb for mankind, once for all, covering all their sin with His Blood and providing forgiveness for those sins because of the cross - regardless of their behavior. However, there is no foundation for this premise anywhere in scripture - it is only found in religious doctrine by subverting the definition of the words written in order to support the pre-conceived agenda of
replacement theology.
As the verse from Acts 5:30-31
suggests, Yeshua was raised up in order that the family of YaHoVeH, Israel, might come to repentance and be forgiven -
not the world.
Because it is the same spirit of religion at work, this is simply a twist on the same premise the Pharisees and Sadducees used in Yeshua's time to excuse their behavior because they felt their
connected lineage to Abraham
absolved them of all sin. Christianity has embraced this same religious spirit, only with a
different mask.
The fact is, Torah provides many ways to
forgive sin
apart from the shedding of blood because forgiveness is part of the
Nature of YaHoVeH.
So, does the sacrifice of "the Christ" rise to this occasion of scriptural sacrifice? Not really. As it was with our study of
the Beatitudes,
here is where an understanding the Hebrew perspective of these sacrifices becomes critical in our comprehension of the Hebraic meaning of the words in the Messianic Writings (NT). The
Pesach
(Passover) Lamb described in the Torah was not a sin sacrifice nor does it meet any of the requirements of a sacrifice - it was not slain in the Tabernacle or Temple on an altar attended to by Priests and specifically did not include human sacrifice.
From the time of Noah, everyone on the planet has carried the blood of Adam which meant that, like Adam after the separation in the Garden, anyone could hear the voice of YaHoVeH speaking to them externally - but it was still corrupted blood they carried internally. Yeshua's blood was made pure because even while He was in
a body of flesh
- Yeshua's blood became pure because of His faithful obedience to the Father's Word in every regard, thus re-establishing echad
with His Father.
As mentioned, there are only two places where scripture tells us that the Life was breathed into men by Spirit. The first was in the Garden with Adam and the second was in
John 20:21-22
when Yeshua, resurrected as Spirit, breathed upon the eleven gathered there;
the precursor
to the outpouring into all who would receive the Breath of Life. Yeshua's Blood
cleanses the Temple
(that has now become His Body) of impurities, making it a clean and fit habitation for the Spirit of Life. What Yeshua prayed in
John 17:20-21
IS the inheritance
of the saints in Light. That inheritance is the re-establishment of echad to the rightful inheritors, YaHoVeH's family of Israel; and the opportunity for the purity of Spirit to be manifest in any of those who choose to become members of that family by following the example of Life found in Yeshua - they become Sons of YaHoVeH
(John 1:12,
Romans 8:19).
Tav is the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In
Paleo-Hebrew,
tav is the sign or seal of a covenant. Conceptually, tav is a wounding, as the sealing of a covenant required the wounding of the sacrifice whose blood sealed the covenant. Tav resembles a doorpost, just as the blood was applied on in Egypt, thus sealing that household and sparing them from the tragedy of death of the firstborn. Wearing the mantle of the status of firstborn, the Blood of YaHoVeH's Son, Yeshua, has become the seal of that Covenant. The fulfillment of the Covenant is the
Elevation
of the Feast of Pesach.
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"He shall make
atonement for the holy place,
because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and thus he shall do
for the tent of meeting
which abides with them in the midst of their impurities." Leviticus 16:16
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While the word "atonement" is found often in the Tanakh (OT), interestingly, the coinciding Greek word,
katallage,
only occurs four times in the Messianic Writings and of those four times only in Romans 5:11 and only in the King James Bible is it actually translated "atonement" where the other three verses translate the word as "reconciliation". Christianity views its meaning as, "the restoration of the favor of God to sinners that repent and put their trust in the expiatory death of Christ" - or, simply put, the forgiveness of individual sin. You would think that a premise as foundational to the Christian faith as this one is would find more prominence in actual scripture. Comparing that definition to the original Hebraic meaning like this one in Leviticus, however, creates huge obstacles because, here, atonement is not about forgiveness - it is about cleaning up the Holy Place, the dwelling place of YaHoVeH. It is what allows the compatibility of abiding in YaHoVeH's Presence without being consumed by
His Light
- so brilliant, so pure that it becomes a "consuming fire". The Hebrew verb translated "atonement" in this Levitical verse is
kaphur
and, while Strong's places its primary definition on "to cover over", this same verb is found in
Ezekiel 43:20
and other verses where it is translated "purged" or "cleansed" (also part of the definition). But, when you cleanse something, it is wiped away - it isn't covered up. In other words, while Christianity presents atonement as though God is wiping the blood of the Lamb over their sins so that He no longer sees them (i.e., the blood of
"Jesus"
covers transgressions), the actual usage of this verb in the context of sacrifice never means "covering over" - it means "cleaning away." Out of the root of kaphur comes the Hebrew word,
kippur,
which is also translated as "atonement". Atonement was necessitated by the disobedience of the first Hebrew son, Adam, with that darkness becoming subsequently passed onto his descendants as part of
the Nature of Light.
Since Light cannot abide in the same space at the same time as darkness because Light consumes darkness, the Levitical sacrifices were intended to mitigate this defilement so the people of His Family, Israel, could temporarily be in the company of His Presence without being consumed (once a year the High Priest alone entered the "holy of holies" to make that offering) until
the Atonement
of the second son, Yeshua, could be made; thereby, permanently restoring the state of
echad
to His Family of Israel. According to the Levitical sacrifices, blood is the cleansing solvent - cleaning the house of darkness so that the Light of YaHoVeH might abide there without consuming the individual. The Greek word translated as the English "pure" in
Matthew 5:8
is katharos
and is the same Greek word translated as the English word "clean" in
John 15:3.
The way we become pure is to keep Yeshua's words and He said those words were not His, but
His Father's.
The Hebrew word translated as "purified" in
Daniel 11:35
is barar
and carries the meaning "to purge, cleanse or make bright". To be impure does not necessarily imply "evil" but to have a "mixture" - not separated. Purging is the process by which the pure (Word of Light) is separated from the impure (darkness of self-will). To
praise
YaHoVeH is the Hebrew word,
halal,
which means to "flash forth light".
By Yeshua's own confession,
the purpose
He was sent was for the restoration of the Kingdom to YaHoVeH's family, Israel. Just as the pure blood of Life breathed into the first son, Adam, had been corrupted by disobedience to YaHoVeH's Words resulting in a separation from the echad found in the Garden, the Kingdom of YaHoVeH; so the restoration of that Kingdom would be redeemed by the obedience of
the second son,
Yeshua, with His Pure Blood poured out as the exchange, the ransom required to restore His Family to echad with YaHoVeH. Scripturally, the "story of redemption" is the
good news of the gospel
- that through the Resurrection of Yeshua, the Kingdom of YaHoVeH has been restored in the earth right now, today, as it was originally in the Garden, giving all who embrace the Life exampled by Yeshua as their own the opportunity to become partakers of His Divine Nature by having the fullness of Spirit
dwell within.
We can be echad
with YaHoVeH, the Creator of the universe
just as
Yeshua is. The testimony,
the Word we keep, is His Life lived in and through us - today, in the here and now. Most are familiar with the mighty "resurrection" scripture in
1Corinthians 15:52-53;
that, "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. At the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on in corruption..." In the original Greek, the English word translated "moment" comes from the Greek word
atomos.
The translators took it to mean "an atom of time," but in our day we understand an atom to be the smallest particle of matter. It has to do with being
changed in the atoms
of our body! Yeshua's blood literally changes the very makeup of the physical bodies of those who embrace Him as the Resurrected Messiah of Israel. Yeshua's Pure Blood cleanses the separated corrupt blood of YaHoVeH's family from
within the assembly
(not "the world"), thereby redeeming the corrupt blood of the family with His Own Pure Blood. Yeshua became the healing conduit by which the family of YaHoVeH was recovered from the consequences of Adam's sin and the Kingdom of YaHoVeH is restored
(Acts 1:6-7).
As mentioned earlier, the
Pesach
(Passover) Lamb described in the Torah was not a sin sacrifice nor does it meet any of the requirements of a sacrifice, but was slain in the individual homes of the Family with the blood spread over the door of the house that the
spector of death
would pass over those embracing that blood. In the same manner, the individual embrace of Yeshua's Pure Blood today
replaces the corrupt blood
of Adam flowing within the veins of His Family preventing them from being consumed by the intensity of His Light. It is not your body that is a Temple - it is the Body of Yeshua. If we become a member of His Body, then we become part of
the Temple of YaHoVeH.
Yeshua's atonement has made the Temple clean, a fit habitat for His Father among the Body of Yeshua today. If we
remain clean
by keeping His Words then that corner of the Temple we occupy, that is our responsibility, remains clean.
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the scapegoat
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The scriptural sin sacrifice for forgiveness
that is celebrated every year on Yom haKippurim (plural - the singular Yom Kippur never occurs in scripture) is not slain, but rather, sent into the wilderness
outside the camp
tied around the neck of a goat
- not a lamb. The animals that WERE sacrificed are a bullock and another goat - not a lamb. It was their blood that was used to wash away what defilement was brought into the Temple. It is only the Temple that is cleaned in Leviticus 16:16 - not what behavioral choices were made to cause that defilement to enter the Temple initially. The behavioral sins of His Family create the need for wiping away, for removing the impurities resulting from that behavior so that the spirit of holiness might abide there - but the wiping away action doesn't remove the choices made by an individual. Blood wipes away the pollution so that, after a change of direction in our lives (the true definition of
repentance)
we may enter into the echad
of His Presence. Blood cleans the Temple. It removes the impurities so that
we can be at one
with YaHoVeH. Blood does not "save" us. It does not provide us with forgiveness. It simply cleans the abode from previous defilement that Spirit might abide there. Before the disobedience, Adam and Eve were the holy place. Yeshua reclaimed
the Holy Place within,
but it now becomes the task of those who wish to remain within the Kingdom to be
Gatekeepers
over that Kingdom.
The first of a series of articles entitled
the Temple
spoke of how the physical Temple of scripture has been translated to within or among those who comprise the Body of Yeshua. The
last article
of that series spoke of some of the challenges that lay before us. To be able to walk in Truth is to see how the words of the Torah have not been
abolished
but have been actively elevated into Spirit to still be valid today. Yeshua showed us how the Father's Words are to be
elevated
in Spirit - to lust in your heart
is to have already committed adultery because you have allowed darkness to enter the Temple through your gateway; to
hate a brother
is to have already murdered because we
open the door
to allow darkness into our being. Did you
murder
someone today by hating them, by shunning them, by separating yourself from them? Did you commit adultery today by lusting after another, by allowing an image to form in your thoughts? If you did not, then, today, you are keeping those commandments. There are only eight others to approach with the same resolution given to these two. It's not complicated and they are not hard to do
(1John 5:3
- quoting Deuteronomy 30:11).
It is only in the absence of being faithful to His Words that keeps anyone from His Power - not your power, but His.
John 1:12
tells us it is in receiving YaHoVeH by trusting His Words that He grants us power -
eksousia,
the power of choice. Yeshua said that YaHoVeH's Spirit
"…will bring to your remembrance all the Words I have spoken to you"
(John 14:26).
To have actionable faith is to choose to BE faithful to His Words - and to be baptized in the holiness of spirit as they were in Acts 2 and 10. Yeshua pointed to that event in
Acts 1:8,
"… and you shall receive power when
ruach
has come upon you" - AND WITH FIRE. It is the fire of life's tribulation that causes the impure to
separate
from the pure - not the other way around. Mixing motives for selfish gain, concerns for self-protection, preoccupation with selfish desires and moral "holidays" with the real salt only turns us into Salt Sea salt - salty, but useless in
YaHoVeH's Kingdom.
???Questions???
Please feel free to email me at harold@hethathasanear.com.
While not claiming to have all
the answers, it would be an honor to partake with you of what Spirit is uncovering.
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