Biblical Commentary

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 11: The Wisdom of Kings

Discussing the latter portion of Wisdom chapter 5 in our last presentation on the Wisdom of Solomon here, which was titled Who are the World?, we had observed that Wisdom describes the promised vengeance of Yahweh God against His enemies in different terms, but in a manner which is completely agreeable in meaning with prophecies of that same vengeance which are found in Micah chapter 4 and Revelation chapter 18. Once we understand what Solomon had meant where he said that Yahweh would “make the creature his weapon for the revenge of his enemies”, as he himself defines the creature, or creation, as the twelve tribes of the children of Israel organized under the law in Wisdom chapter 19, then we can also understand that he was describing that same phenomenon which was prophesied in different terms in Micah chapter 4 as a call to the children of Israel to “arise and thresh”, and in Revelation chapter 18 as a call to the people of God to “come out of her My people” and then to turn and “Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.” So all three passages have virtually the same meaning, in the same prophetic context.

So in the Wisdom of Solomon we see what Micah had also prophesied, and what Christ Himself confirms in chapter 18 of His Revelation: that the children of Israel themselves shall ultimately be the instruments which are employed by Yahweh God in the execution of His vengeance against His enemies, and that is the day which all true Christians should await with anticipation. Likewise, Paul had told the Corinthians that they should be ready to revenge all disobedience, once their own obedience is fulfilled (2 Corinthians 10:6). Noticing features such as this in Wisdom is an important step to recognizing the veracity of the work. Ultimately, the proof of a prophet is found in the fulfillment of the prophecy. But in this case, the prophecy is still anticipated, so the fulfillment is not yet realized. However if the author of Wisdom prophesied things which are also found in the words of later prophets, and then in the words of Christ Himself, although the language used to describe those things is markedly different, the prophet is nonetheless verified, because the Word of God has confirmed the prophecy for him.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 10: Who are the World?

Initially I wanted to mock pop culture and pondered the title We are the World for this presentation, but sadly there are always questions and contentions, even among various assortments of Identity Christians, over the scope and comprehension of that simple two-letter word, we. Another popular product of our corrupted modern culture had more recently mused about “Forever trusting who we are and nothing else matters”. To me those words may almost ring true, if we properly interpret that same word, we, but his error is made evident a few lines later where he sang “Life is ours, we live it our way”, and believing that opens a door to a multitude of sins. While James Hetfield may have been singing about his own intimate relationship, the words have constantly been echoed through the minds of a generation of Western and marginally Christian youth, and people come to believe what they often repeat to themselves. But as Paul of Tarsus had written in chapter 6 of his first epistle to the Corinthians, “19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” Paul’s words there are true, whether or not we are cognizant of how they are true. Man has no control over his own destiny, and it is hubris to think otherwise. Therefore man must seek to please the God who does control his destiny, and live His way. That is certainly one of the significant underlying messages in the Wisdom of Solomon.

In our last presentation in this commentary on Wisdom, we had left off in Wisdom chapter 5 where Solomon had departed from his descriptions of the plight of the ungodly. They were portrayed as being compelled to acknowledge their ungodliness and to regret the way in which they had lived their earthly lives, eternally suffering the inevitable consequences of their actions. Then once again Solomon turned to describing the destiny of the righteous, whom he said shall realize the promise of a glorious kingdom. That must be the same kingdom which was later announced in the Gospel of Christ and which Christians are instructed to anticipate and prepare themselves by His apostles.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 9: Everlasting Contempt

Here, out of necessity, I am going to repeat some concepts which we have already expounded upon to one degree or another earlier in this commentary on Wisdom, and quite often elsewhere in our commentaries at Christogenea, but with the hope that Solomon himself helps to clarify them for us. However we believe that these concepts, having to do with death, resurrection, and the eternal Adamic spirit, are of crucial importance to a proper understanding of our Christian faith.

Since the beginning of Wisdom chapter 2, Solomon has been contrasting the attitudes and actions of the ungodly and their ultimate fate, with the attitudes and actions of the righteous, and their ultimate fate, alternating back and forth between the two as he proceeds. In that process, one prominent feature of his comparison is the attitude of disdain which the ungodly have towards the righteous, and as a result, how the righteous are mistreated and persecuted by them. Another feature is the parallels with the ministry and gospel of Christ, for which we have viewed the righteous man in Solomon’s example as both a type and a prophecy of the Messiah.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 8: The Reward of the Righteous

In the most recent presentation of our commentary on the Wisdom of Solomon we saw The End of the Wicked, which was really a description of the fate of the ungodly, the impious among men who would turn their backs on their people, and on Yahweh their God, in order to pursue worldly or fleshly desires. Making such a choice, they actually take the side of the devil, who had corrupted the Creation of God in the beginning, and ultimately finding unlawful beds, which is a metaphor for committing the sins of fornication and adultery, they also find death because their bastard offspring will never be accepted by Yahweh their God. Being unrepentant, it is evidently these men who find themselves in a resurrection to everlasting contempt. Solomon continues to describe them here, even as he turns once more to discuss the righteous.

Yahweh God had made the law of kind after kind from the beginning, He warned Adam not to eat from the evil tree, and men cannot compel God to accept the fruits of their own sin. It is quite arrogant for them, even hubris, to think that they may persuade Him to change from His Word on account of their sin. True humility is the sincere acceptance of His Word and His Law, voluntarily, and not reluctantly – even though in the end, as He Himself had said in Isaiah chapter 45, “unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.”

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 7: The End of the Wicked

In our last presentation, In the Hand of God, which was our commentary on the first part of Wisdom chapter 3, we had already begun to speak of the end of the wicked in comparison with the fate of the righteous, where we had cited certain of the Psalms of David that address these same subjects which we see being treated at length by Solomon here. But where we allude to the end of the wicked, we do not mean to state that men of the Adamic race who lived wicked lives will cease to exist, or be destroyed in the figurative Lake of Fire. Rather, the end of a man can refer to his destiny in other ways.

In Wisdom chapter 4, for example, Solomon wrote of the wicked as being “a reproach among the dead for evermore”, and then described them as being called to account for their sins. This evokes a passage in Daniel chapter 12 which we have also already cited, where the prophet describes a resurrection to shame and everlasting contempt, which shall apparently be suffered by certain wicked men. In any event, reproach for evermore and everlasting contempt indicate an eternal existence even if it is a miserable existence when compared to what has been promised to the righteous. As we have seen, the Adamic spirit was created in the image of the eternity of Yahweh God, and God cannot fail.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 6: In the Hand of God

In our last two presentations of this commentary On the Wisdom of Solomon, which discussed chapter 2 of the book, we saw a Portrait of the Wicked, and then a portrayal of a righteous man, which we also identified as a Portrait of the Messiah, since every aspect of Solomon’s portrait of the righteous man, who would be persecuted by the wicked on account of his righteousness, was fully manifest in the life and ministry of Yahshua Christ. But just as significantly, the Gospel of Christ is an announcement to the scattered and sinful children of Israel of the very same message which is found here in chapters 2 and 3 of the Wisdom of Solomon. Therefore it should be evident that there are multiple reasons why we consider this section of Wisdom to be a Messianic prophecy.

First we saw the wicked portrayed as being covetous and lustful men, who would dominate the righteous, the weak and the poor, and rule over them with their own sense of righteousness just so that they themselves can live wantonly in a quest to gratify their own desires. Then we saw a righteous man portrayed as being intractable to the wicked, as rebuking them for their sins, and ultimately as being killed by them, the only way by which they could remove him because he is an obstacle to their quest for gratification. But now we shall see that the righteous have a reward for their righteousness, which the wicked cannot even perceive, and therefore in the end, the wicked shall never succeed. This is revealed at the end of chapter 2, where Solomon had concluded that the Adamic man is indeed immortal, as Yahweh God had originally created him for that purpose, and then in the opening of chapter 3 where he announces the fate of the righteous...

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 5: Portrait of the Messiah

In the first part of this second chapter of the Wisdom of Solomon, we saw a Portrait of the Wicked, which is actually a timeless description of some of the natural tendencies of wicked men. Now we shall see more of those tendencies described in relation to the attitude of the wicked towards the righteous. They are portrayed as declaring their own concept of righteousness and seeking to uphold it forcibly by the might of their own strength, which is a manifestation of the pagan and humanist phenomenon of “might makes right”, and which in turn is really only the law of the jungle and justifies tyranny. With this attitude, the wicked are portrayed as justifying the oppression of the weak, the elderly, and the righteous in their pursuit to gratify their own fleshly desires.

Yet the truly righteous man is an obstacle to the wicked, because he declares to them their sin and stands firmly in opposition to them on account of their sin. So they are depicted as saying, as we would translate verse 12 of the chapter: “Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is intractable to us, and he is opposed to our works: he reproaches us for our transgressions of the law, and imprecates the transgressions of our education.” There we also see that in spite of the fact that they seek to implement their own law, the wicked nevertheless are forced to acknowledge that there is a greater law by which the righteous condemn them, and for that alone they hate the righteous and seek to destroy them.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 4: Portrait of the Wicked

The Wisdom of Solomon is timeless. Its portrayal of the wicked is probably much more relevant today than when it was written.

In our last presentation of this commentary on the Wisdom of Solomon, we already began to introduce the second chapter of the work, and discussed aspects of its opening verses, as they provide a conclusion to ideas which were introduced in chapter 1, as well as an introduction to what is described throughout this chapter. I had also presented and briefly discussed this second chapter of the Wisdom of Solomon in Part 45 of my commentary on the Gospel of John, which was titled Gods and Emperors. That is because this chapter, as a whole, may be seen as a Messianic prophecy, and this first half draws a portrait of the wicked which also very well describes the attitudes and behavior of the men who had opposed Christ during the time of His ministry, and also mentions some of the same sentiments or practices of the wicked for which Christ had rebuked them. Then the later half of this chapter draws a portrait of a just man whom the wicked would persecute for his righteousness, and that also very well describes Christ Himself. Being wrapped in passages which discuss death and resurrection at the beginning of the chapter, and professing that God created man to be immortal at the end of the chapter, it is manifest that the whole of this chapter is indeed a Messianic prophecy.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 3: The Remedy for Sin and Death

In the first two presentations of this commentary on the Wisdom of Solomon we hope to have refuted many of the criticisms of the work, which set out to prove by its language and vocabulary that it was not written until the first century before Christ, or according to some claims, even later. Those same critics usually repeat the unfounded claim that it must have been written by some Alexandrian Jew. However as we discuss the actual content of the work, we hope to make it evident that such claims are also false.

One avenue of investigation in our answering the critics of Wisdom was left open where earlier we had described a source which claimed that fragments of the Wisdom of Solomon were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. In an article found at an internet ministry this claim was made and a book was cited, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction by one Gleason Archer, which was first published in 1974. We ordered a used copy of that book, which we expected to be the same 1985 edition of the work as was quoted by the article in question, but it was not. Instead we received a “revised and expanded” 1994 printing. This newer printing does not mention the Wisdom of Solomon, and we surmise that the article was citing an appendix to the book, because the pagination is different, which is a catalog of books found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. We may further pursue this, but Wisdom is not listed in the 1994 version of the catalog.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 2, the Introduction of Wisdom

In the opening presentation of our commentary on the Wisdom of Solomon, we provided and refuted many of the popular academic opinions of the work and the frequently-repeated criticisms concerning the nature of its text, by which the provenance and veracity of the work have long been challenged. So although we have already provided commentary on the opening verse of the text, which we also hope to continue here, we realized that some of the newer material discussing the Wisdom of Solomon had further-developed criticisms which must also be addressed. So before continuing, we shall do that here.

In the introduction to its own presentation of the Wisdom of Solomon, the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS) claims under the subtitle “Character of the Greek” that “There is widespread recognition that the [Wisdom of Solomon] was composed in Greek… The book is an example of a protreptic work (προτρεπτικὸς λόγος), an exhortation to adopt a particular philosophy, and it deploys literary genres familiar from Hellenistic rhetorical texts including the diatribe… the ‘problem’ genre… and the comparison (σύγκρισις…) Correspondingly… the book is written in a good Greek style and shows none of the characteristics of translation Greek.”

Yet it is commonly exhibited that the Book of Proverbs is also “an example of a protreptic work… an exhortation to adopt a particular philosophy”, and further, that the literary diatribe is a common feature of the writings of the Hebrew prophets. Some examples of Classical Greek literature have been recognized as having the attributes of the genre more recently identified as the Problem Play, such as the 5th century work of Euripides titled Alcestis, as are other early works, as well as the Book of Job which is found in the Bible, which we can certainly esteem to date to as early as the 12th or 13th centuries BC, however it definitely predates the Classical Greek period. Lastly, the σύγκρισις, or synkrisis, is a literary form of comparison, and it has been identified as a feature of both the gospel of John and some of the epistles of Paul, especially in the epistle to the Hebrews. But forms of the so-called σύγκρισις are also found in the Hebrew Old Testament. So none of these features of grammar are exclusive to Hellenistic writings, and these charges against the Wisdom of Solomon are meaningless because these things do not prove it to be a product of the Hellenistic period.

On the Wisdom of Solomon, Part 1: Addressing the Critics

Here we are going to examine an apocryphal book of Scripture which I have often cited in my commentaries on various books of the New Testament, and especially in the recently-completed commentary On the Gospel of John. This book I have always accepted as being canonical in spite of the fact that evidence of its great antiquity is very scant, and no original Hebrew version of the work is known to have existed. But rather than judging the book according to the words and deeds of the world, I have chosen to judge it based on its contents.

This book is the Wisdom of Solomon, which I will often identify simply as Wisdom here. It was accepted as canon in the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches, but it was rejected and relegated to apocryphal status by Protestants, who certainly seem to have followed the Jews in this regard. The Wisdom of Solomon was included alongside the other books of Wisdom of the Old Testament in the 4th century Codices Sinaiticus (א) and Vaticanus (B) and in the 5th century Codex Alexandrinus (A), but it is not found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

At least one source, an online denominational ministry, has published an article on the Scrolls which claims that fragments of the Wisdom of Solomon were found among the scrolls, citing A Survey of Old Testament Introduction by one Gleason Archer, which was first published in 1974. But I have not yet been able to verify this claim, since it is not supported by the first edition of Archer’s work. In the author’s Appendix 4 there is an Inventory of Biblical Manuscripts from the Dead Sea Caves, as he titled it, which has no reference to Wisdom. But the book was revised and updated in 1996, and I have not yet been able to access that edition, as this information is new to me. [I have already ordered a copy of the book.]

On the Gospel of John, Part 51: Feed My Sheep

The resurrection of Yahshua Christ is an assurance, for those men who can accept it, that God is true, that He does indeed transcend His creation, and that He had also determined from the beginning to take a part in His Own creation in the person of Yahshua Christ. This was spoken beforetime in the words of the prophets, and it was the inevitable conclusion that had been made by the apostles themselves once they realized the fact of His resurrection. Therefore once Thomas had seen Him he immediately responded by acknowledging Him to be both “My Lord and my God.” Realizing that Yahweh God incarnate as a man can transcend, or overcome, the physical limitations of His creation, it must be realized that His promises of eternal life for the Adamic man of His creation must also be true, and therefore the resurrection of Christ is an Adamic Dawn, as we have described it, the Son rising as a manifestation of the true Light which is an assurance of life to men, to the entire Adamic race which had previously sat in darkness.

But even this is only the beginning of a Christian understanding which leads to many other inevitable conclusions, too numerable to explain here. In his first epistle, which was evidently written not long after John had written this gospel, his own conclusions made with this understanding led him to explain that we must keep the commandments of God and love our brethren, if we love our brethren and keep the commandments then by that we have confidence that we are of God, and our keeping of the commandments of God is how we also manifest our love for our brethren.

On the Gospel of John, Part 50: Adamic Dawn

In our last presentation on John chapter 20, The Open Tomb, we discussed various aspects of the events of the morning following the resurrection of Christ, and sought to properly correlate John’s account with the descriptions which are found in the other three gospels. While we will continue doing that here, to some degree, we will shift our focus to the significance of the resurrection itself, because the risen Christ also represents what we may call the Adamic Dawn, as it provides for us an assurance that Yahweh our God transcends His Creation, that He Himself takes responsibility for His Creation, and that therefore we must also understand that His promises of eternal life for the Adamic man and salvation for all of the children of Israel are assured in His resurrection.

The ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans, the earliest Adamic cultures from which we have significant literature, all believed in the immortality of the souls of men and an underworld in which they dwelt, and often even in the judgment of men for their deeds after death. The early Greeks and others also expressed a belief in the possibility of resurrection from among the dead, although not in Christian terms, and attributed many of the same beliefs to the ancient Galatae, Gauls or Germans, attributing their bravery in battle to beliefs they had in their own immortality.

On the Gospel of John, Part 49: The Open Tomb

Presenting our commentary on the account of the final events in the crucifixion and death of Christ as they are described in John chapter 19, we focused on the meaning and implications of the exclamation of Christ where He had said that “It is finished!” In doing that, we hope to have sufficiently elucidated what it was that had been finished at the cross as it had been written in the prophets and explained by the apostles. However doing that, we also neglected any discussion of other aspects of the event, not all of which were recorded by John, so it may be fitting to do that here.

In relation to earlier portions of John chapter 19, we have already discussed and correlated the various descriptions of the fate of Judas Iscariot, the dream of Pilate’s wife, and other things which Matthew had included in his account of the events of this day. Then we discussed at length the culpability for the crucifixion of Christ, and we also discussed the account of Luke which relates that Pilate had sent Christ to Herod Antipas before finally relenting to the demands which the Jews had made for his crucifixion. It is very likely that Herod was elsewhere in the Praetorium, or in the district of the city where it was located, so that entire event may have taken place in a very short time. Sending Christ to Herod, it is evident that Pilate had hoped that Herod would resolve the situation and satisfy the demands of his fellow Jews by another avenue, however Herod had instead merely sent Christ back to Pilate, thereby assuring that He would indeed be crucified as it was Pilate’s last chance to avoid having Him executed.

On the Gospel of John, Part 48: What is Finished?

In our last presentation describing The Jewish Murder of the Messiah of Israel, we left John’s account of the crucifixion of Yahshua Christ with the exclamation by Christ that “It is finished!” and the resulting explanation by John that “turning the head He surrendered the Spirit.” While many commentators speculate upon what Christ had meant where He said that “It is finished”, John himself tells us just before he described the exclamation where he wrote: “With this, Yahshua seeing that He had already finished all things, in order that the writing would be completed, He says: ‘I thirst!’ 29 A vessel full of vinegar sat there. Therefore they brought to His mouth a sponge full of vinegar wrapped in hyssop.”

So where Christ had said “it is finished”, John understood that to mean that all things which were written in the books of the prophets concerning what would happen to the Christ were fulfilled. Christ Himself had expressed that same thing the evening before, as it is recorded in Matthew chapter 26 where He spoke to His disciples at the time of His arrest, and particularly to Peter who had tried to prevent His arrest, and He said “54 But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” Then Matthew also wrote: “55 In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. 56 But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.”

On the Gospel of John, Part 47: The Jewish Murder of the Messiah of Israel

As we presented the first part of John chapter 19 and the account of the trial of Christ before Pontius Pilate, which we had titled Gods and Emperors, we also found a need to discuss at greater length the issue of culpability for the crucifixion of Christ. This is because there is much propaganda in presumably Christian literature which places the preponderance of guilt for the crucifixion of Christ on Pontius Pilate, or on the Romans in general, when Christ Himself, and His apostles after Him, had clearly placed that guilt on the Judaeans. So it is a wonder to us, that the Jewish propaganda which has forever attempted to shift the blame onto Pilate is so strong that now even so-called Christian scholars, or so-called scholars who claim to be Christians, no longer believe their Bibles or the veracity of the only surviving eye-witness accounts. Instead, they believe the lies of the Jews who with cunning and sophistry have imagined that they can escape the ultimate punishment which awaits them for their act of Deicide, as well as their continued acts of rebellion against that very same God whom they had slain, which they have perpetrated throughout history.

The phenomenon of Bolshevism was not new in 1917. It has erupted continually throughout history, and it is always instigated by the same people who today are known as Jews. The Bolshevik Revolution was not Russian, and the French Revolution was not French. The result of both was the oppression of Christianity and the attempt to introduce an atheistic utopia. While at least most of the Reformers were not Jews, the Jews of Europe certainly also had a significant role in assuring the success of the Reformation, and Martin Luther was allied with them until he recognized their treachery, after which he tried to warn the world, but by then it was too late and the world did not heed his warning.

On the Gospel of John, Part 46: Crime and Culpability

As we presented our commentary on the opening verses of John chapter 19, we saw that the apostle clearly sought to describe Pontius Pilate in a way that absolved him of any complicity, minimizing his culpability in the murder of Christ. So the first charge by the Judaeans regarding Christ that would be a serious offense to Rome was that He had claimed to be king, which is not necessarily true although the gospels do record others as having made that claim on His behalf. Pontius Pilate, interrogating Christ about that charge, sought the truth of the matter and when Christ answered him with an inquiry of His Own, Pilate asked “Am I a Judaean?” That evidently indicated that he was admitting having known nothing of matters peculiar to the people of Judaea, as he then asked “Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?” So to answer Pilate’s first question, Christ did not deny or admit being a king, and only said that His kingdom was “not of this world” while professing that He came into the world only to speak the truth.

Although Christ did not deny the charges made by the Judaeans, Pilate was nevertheless reluctant to accept them, and sought to release Him. At this point a custom is mentioned which is difficult to verify because it is only mentioned here in the Gospel accounts, and not in any other surviving records. Pilate was described as having customarily released a prisoner on the feast as a favor to the Judaeans. While Josephus does not discuss anything like this custom in his histories, he does mention other instances of pardons which may have been granted by Roman procurators. So Pilate hoped that they would agree to release Christ, but they demanded Barabbas instead. Barabbas was a robber and a murderer, the leader of a sedition, and therefore he deserved to die. But looking at the name Barabbas from a prophetic point of view, since in Hebrew it apparently means son of the Father, in that manner it very well represents the fact that Christ had died in exchange for the sins of the sons of His Own Father.

On the Gospel of John, Part 45: Gods and Emperors

In our last presentation of this 18th chapter of the Gospel of John we attempted to answer the question which was posed by Pontius Pilate, where he had asked what is truth? with the assertion that real truth is what is relative to the Will of God. So Pilate did not receive an answer to his question, since, as we have also frequently explained throughout this commentary, Yahweh God endows men with wisdom and knowledge on a need-to-know basis. So Pilate did not really need to know the truth, since it was written in the prophets that the Christ had to die, as Christ had also frequently told His Own disciples, and perhaps if Pilate had learned the truth in his conversation with Christ, the Will of God may have been hindered. Therefore it must have also been the Will of God that Pilate did not find the truth.

There are apocryphal tales which indicate that Pilate had later learned the truth concerning Christ, but I would not repeat any of those. Another lie is the description of the fate of Pilate as it is recounted in the so-called “lost” chapter of Acts, a forgery which represents itself to be the 29th chapter of Luke’s second book. There are Identity Christians who promote that work as “truth” when it is actually an absolute fraud. As we already explained here, Pilate had remained stationed in his office in Judaea until 36 AD, or perhaps as late as 37 AD, when he was relieved after complaints of how he had handled a sedition in Syria, and he returned to Rome. From that point he disappears from the historical record, and later Christians who reported his having committed suicide, such as Eusebius of Caesareia, lacked any substantiation to establish the claim as fact.

On the Gospel of John, Part 44: What is Truth?

Discussing the first portion of John chapter 18, we endeavored to illustrate the difference in the personality and deeds of Peter the apostle with the deeds and fate of Judas Iscariot. Although Judas was a devil, both his participation in the earthly ministry of Christ and the manner in which his own life came to an end had resulted in the fulfillment of certain prophecies in the Word of God concerning the passion of the Christ as it was prophesied in the Old Testament Scriptures. In contrast, Peter, an apostle of Christ and a child of God, had tried rather persistently to exert his own will upon the transpiring events, and for that he had to be rebuked by Christ on several occasions. Now here in the garden Gethsemane, as Peter attacked an officer of the temple while being greatly outnumbered by the Roman soldiers, Christ had to rebuke him once again, and we see that Peter was saved and ultimately went on to complete his own ministry in the gospel in spite of himself and his stubborn personality.

The lesson in this comparison is that Yahweh God can use even a devil to accomplish His will, as He did with Judas. But when men attempt to interfere, as Peter had attempted, they shall fail to succeed and they shall be led by God to fulfill the destiny which He has assigned to them whether they like it or not. This is the meaning which Christ Himself had explained to Peter as it is recorded at the end of John’s gospel, in chapter 21 where He told him “18 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.”

On the Gospel of John, Part 43: My Will, or His Will?

The first pronoun in the subtitle is meant not in reference to myself, but to the reader or listener of this presentation.

Presenting our commentary on the lengthy prayer of Yahshua Christ which is found in John chapter 17, I hope to have explained sufficiently what it is to be “not of the world”, as Christ had prayed for His disciples and said: “16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” But in spite of that, I understand that there are always going to be lingering questions, as it is a broad topic with great implications as to how a Christian should conduct himself as he abides within the world. It is certainly evident that Christians must remain in the world physically if the Kingdom of God is ever going to be “on earth as it is in heaven”, so Christ had also prayed saying “15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” Therefore Christians must live and survive in the world, while at the same time eschewing the evils which are also in the world.