This Building Is Eternal: Part Two
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| Before a package is opened... the contents are unimaginable. Considering the package's appearance, what is to be revealed on the inside... can not be fully know from outward appearance. |
We read how Deuteronomy mentioned only God saves, and there is none besides Him.
Job mentions how the flesh will somehow see God on earth...and live after certain death.
Leviticus mentioned God will establish a dwelling place among His people.
The testimony in Acts reflects upon, and clarifies, the prophecy that Yeshua proclaimed the physical Temple built by man's hands will be no more, yet a certain Temple will be restored three days after that Temple is torn down.
Let us read how this God is described, what He desires, and what He asks of the believer:
And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to Him, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the Lord set His affection on your ancestors and loved them, and He chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. Fear the Lord your God and serve Him. Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His Name. He is the One you praise; He is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. Your ancestors who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.
- Deuteronomy 10: 12-22Notice how God is described as 'the Lord your God' quite distinctively.
Notice how the foreigner is treated and considered by this God.
Who is this God that only He saves, and none other?
Who is this God that will one day be witnessed on the earth by mankind?
Who is this God that will somehow establish for Himself a dwelling place on earth?
Let us explore who the Lord your God is and explore further the term 'Lord'.
The term 'lord' in reference to gods is mentioned throughout Scripture...and also in reference to a single God.
We find these termed ideas also in many writings the world over.
The term 'lord' is one addressing someone who is the ultimate boss, ruler, leader or authority in any place.
Whether over a family, tribe (units of families), town (community of families and tribes), and beyond (organized and united towns making a single greater community), people have an understanding of who is a lord over them (think political, religious, etc.).
The term 'lord' in the spiritual sense is a term referring to the idea of a god or in reference to the highest god according to any people's perceptions of such, at any point in time in human history.
The term 'lord' / 'Lord' / 'the Lord' has become synonymous with 'god(s)' / 'God' in meaning and reference.
Let us look at how and why this came to be understood.
We see the identifying of a particular 'lord' that is made clear in Exodus 3.
“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then He said, “I Am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
- Exodus 3: 5-6Moses personally meets and speaks with someOne in a fantastic and surreal way; from a burning bush that does not burn although engulfed in fire and all ablaze.
This God proclaims to Moses that He is the God who previously revealed Himself to Moses' forefathers.
In short (you can read the contextual narrative at the source), God says He has come down and tasks Moses with a great commission.
For clarity, Moses asks God an important question.
Many people had their own ideas of god and lords and each of these gods had their own names and attributes and so on.
Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His Name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
God said to Moses, “I Am who I Am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’ ”
God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’
“This is My Name forever,
the Name you shall call Me
from generation to generation.
- Exodus 3: 13-15In this chapter we find a very unique expression when God responds to Moses asking for a 'name'.
The four letters of YHWH / YHVH (the tetragrammaton) are where I Am who I Am is derived from.
In referencing 'who' the I Am who I Am is, that phrase is translated as “the Lord”.
The Hebrew sound for “I Am” is mirrored in the Hebrew sound for “the Lord”.
Is it possible God used man's perception, and man's vocabulary, working through man's limited understanding, to bring man a step closer to His heart, His identity, His essence?
Has not God done this throughout times and, is this not evidenced in His testimony to mankind?
To this man writing to you this message, the answer is yes and yes and yes!
When reading in the Bible where one finds “I Am the Lord” or “I Am” or “the Lord”, these terms and their understanding are so close they are arguably the same in context and in expression.
Such as Today when one speaks of 'the Lord' in whichever language expressed, the hearer is apt to understand the speaker is referring to none other than God. (despite the hearer's or speaker's limited understanding of 'who' the Lord is)
Reading Exodus 3: 15, one realizes how God's declaration of this 'Name' of His would be from generation to generation.
So when reading “I Am who I Am” in that chapter, one can understand (as expressed in the translated texts from ancient Hebrew) the synonymous nature of the following expressions:
- I Am who I Am
- I Am the Lord
- The Lord I Am
- The Lord the Lord
We can read later in chapter six of Exodus evidence of God allowing this closer understanding of 'who' He is to mankind...building upon the past and ever growing...even until Today.
God also said to Moses, “I Am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by My Name the Lord I did not make Myself fully known to them.”
- Exodus 6: 2-3Notice God states He did not make Himself fully known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Yet in some way, these three patriarchs and their progeny somehow 'knew' or were able to 'acknowledge' and 'revere' this Lord, this God.
These patriarchs and their tribesmen understood this Lord your God was unique and different from the lords and gods other peoples and tribes would claim, or describe, or promote, or follow.
What God was 'building' within and through His people was something to be revealed in a magnificent (and yet sometimes difficult to understand) way.
Here, we read something quite surreal...God allowing Moses a glimpse of Himself.
It seems this Lord your God is able to be on earth in any manner He chooses:
Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed His Name, the Lord. And He passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
- Exodus 34: 5-7In Part Three we will further explore who this Lord your God is and if in fact He established a dwelling place on earth for Himself.
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