Ooooh that smell, Can't you smell that smell...

But thanks be to YHWY - the God who always leads us in his triumphal procession in the Messiah, and through us reveals everywhere the sweet smell of knowing him. We are the Messiah's fragrance before YHWY, you see to those who are being saved and to those who are being lost. To the latter, it's the smell that comes from death and leads to death; but to the former it's the smell of life which leads to life.

Who can rise to this challenge? We aren't mere pedlars of God's word, as so many people are. We speak with sincerity; we speak from God; we speak in God's presence; we speak in the Messiah.

What would theocracy look like if, rather than a bully who was waiting to come and beat you up or blow you up if you didn't agree with him, you reshaped your idea of what God is like around the poor, suffering servant who looked after the poor, partied with the prostitutes and tax collectors and all the wrong people, cast out demons, healed the sick and restored sight to the blind and ultimately gave up his life that all might have life in His name, promising to ultimately restore all things, to make all things new and that you could participate with God in this, not as a slave, but as a Son or Daughter? What if someone told you that Gospel? What would it look like if that God had become King? What might your response be?

...if you were poor? ...if you were a prostitute? …if you were the least of these? …if you were the blind or lame? ...if you are a rich young ruler? ...if you are 'righteous' in your own eyes? ...if you are in power and already had your rights? ...if you were conservative? ...if you were liberal? ...if you were American? ...if you were African? ...if you were Asian or Mideastern? How would you respond?...does a scenario like that sound like 'good news' to you or does it smell like death?

Oh, the Christian hope of the coming judgment! Come Lord, come!

Sing to YHWY a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
YHWY has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.

Shout for joy to YHWY, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
make music to YHWY with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before YHWY, the King.

Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
let them sing before YHWY,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity.

...For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.

For you Missy!

Daniel 9:27

"Seventy weeks(years – there were 70 years from the birth of Jesus until the destruction of the Second Temple) are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place (the Third Temple – the Body of Messiah). Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. And he shall confirm a strong covenant (New Covenant is confirmed vividly to believers by the fulfillment of Jesus prophecy that the Jerusalem temple would be thrown down) with many for one week, and for half of the week. He shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. (Sacrificial system is finished– New Covenant the blood of Jesus is sufficient) And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator." (Rome/Caesar falls after God is done using them to pour out His wrath on corrupt and unrepentant Jerusalem…greater is the sin of the one who delivered me over to you said Jesus to Pilate)

Mathew 24: 1-14

Jesus left the temple and went away. As he did so, his disciples came and pointed out the Temple buildings to him. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and you see all these things? I’m telling you the truth: not one stone will be left standing upon another. All of them will be thrown down.’

As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him privately.

‘Tell us,’ they said, ‘when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that you are going to appear as king, and that the end of the age is upon us?’

‘Watch out,’ replied Jesus. ‘Don’t let anyone deceive you. You see, there will be several who come along, using my name, telling you “I’m the Messiah!” They will fool lots of people. You’re going to hear about wars, actual wars and rumored ones; make sure you don’t get alarmed. This has got to happen, but it doesn’t mean the end is coming yet. Nations will rise against one another, and kingdoms against each other. There will be famines and earthquakes here and there. All this is just the start of the birthpangs.

‘Then they will hand you over to be tortured, and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then several will find the going too hard, and they will betray each other and hate each other. Many false prophets will arise, and they will deceive plenty of people. And because lawlessness will be on the increase, many will find their love growing cold. But the one who lasts out to the end will be delivered. And this gospel of the kingdom must be announced to the whole world, as a witness to all the nations. Then the end will come.

This whole section of scripture is related to the time between Jesus’ ministry and the destruction of Jerusalem (see notes on Daniel 9 above)…in order to see just how accurate Jesus was read Josephus and study up on the first Roman Jewish War = 66ad (Beginning) – 70ad (Temple Destroyed) – 73ad (End) = 7 yrs…all within a generation (40 yrs) of Jesus death as He said without trying to explain ‘generation’ away as many do. Note also the 40 years (wilderness wandering, battling the Accuser) of the Church’s struggle until the final affirmation of the New Covenant by the destruction of the idolatrous Temple, proving Jesus was actually on the Throne in Heaven running things on Earth, that He and His Body are the true Temple where God dwells in the midst of His people. This is not to say that echoes of this time period have not impressed themselves on contemporary events through the ages…there is certainly much to be informed by, but that is not what the disciples were asking about and it’s not what Jesus was referring to.


1 Corinthians 15:50-58

This is what I’m saying, my dear family. Flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s kingdom; decay can’t inherit undecaying life. Look! I’m telling you a mystery. We won’t all sleep; we’re all going to be changed – in a flash, at the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. This is how it will be, you see: the trumpet’s going to sound, the death will be raised undecaying, and we’re going to be changed. This decaying body must put on deathlessness.

When the decaying puts on the undecaying, and the dying puts on the undying, then the saying that has been written will come true:

Death is swallowed up in victory!
Death, where’s your victory gone?
Death, where’s your sting gone?

The ‘sting’ of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thank God! He gives us the victory, through our Lord Jesus the Messiah.

So, dear family, be firmly fixed, unshakable, always full to overflowing with the Lord’s work. In the Lord, as you know, the work you’re doing will not be worthless.

This section of scripture is referring to the general resurrection not a ‘rapture’, a bodily resurrection and a swallowing up of the corruptible in the incorruptible, not that we will be less clothed (just spirits or souls floating around), but more clothed says Paul…think of the Messiah as a covering without which creation is subject to decay and corruption. Think about what happened in the Garden, when they suddenly knew their ‘nakedness’ and were consumed with guilt and shame, think about creation subjected to futility without the covering, thorns and thistles coming up in our hearts as well as in creation itself…now imagine those ‘shakable’ things being consumed and everything else changed, transformed, restored, renewed…in a flash! flooded with, covered by and indwelt by the Messiah, and Mankind walked with HaShem. Paul says if we once thought of the Messiah in human terms we do so no longer.


1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18

Now concerning those who have fallen asleep: We don’t want you to remain in ignorance about them, my dear family. We don’t want you to have the kind of grief that other people do, people who do not possess a hope. For, you see, if we believe that Jesus died and rose, that’s the way God will also bring, with Jesus, those who fell asleep through him.

Let me explain (this is the word of the Lord I’m speaking to you!). We who are alive, who remain until the Lord is present, will not find ourselves ahead of those who fell asleep. The Lord himself will come down from heaven with shouted order, with the voice of an archangel and the sound of God’s trumpet. The Messiah’s dead will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, will be snatched up with them among the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And in this way we shall always be with the Lord. So comfort each other with these words.

Here Paul must describe the ‘parousia’ or the coming of the Lord in a way that gets these people to stand fast and not fall away as they are seeing brothers and sisters dying by persecution and even natural causes and he does not want them mourning about like the pagans. See, the gospel they had heard and been taught had nothing whatsoever much to do with where you go when you die it, it had to do with dying to their old humanity/thinking/feeling/acting and they did this because for them YHWY, the one true God, had become King uniquely in and through Jesus, his anointed one. It has to do with a New Heaven and New Earth, a restored and resurrected creation fully realized in their King’s victory over death and now working its way through everything, like a mustard plant of leaven hidden in 3 measures of flour.

How do you explain something like that though? The ‘parousia’? Well, Paul had experienced the coming of the Lord on the road to Damascus, he later detailed it to the Corinthian church, how he was caught up into the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body he did not know, the experience was apparently like being caught up into the air, but we know he didn’t leave his body and the onlookers saw what they could of it happening right there in Damascus. Paul is here drawing on the idea of the people of God going out to meet Jesus and all those with Him as they return/arrive to their city as was common when Royalty or diplomats arrived into their cities and I described in the blog. Think also of the people running out of Jerusalem with palm branches to receive the Immanuel into His city. Paul uses very vivid imagery to describe the indescribable…he does the best he can, but such an event is beyond words, it must be experienced and his prophetic language allows for that. Ultimately, though it is to comfort his hearers so they do not lose hope as the battle wages on and they see their loved ones fall asleep, he assures them, they are at peace and they will all step into the New Heavens and New Earth together as all things are made completely new at the coming with the Lord.

2 Thessalonians 2: 1-4

Now concerning the royal presence of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, and our gathering together around him, this is our request my dear family. Please don’t be suddenly blown off course in your thinking, or be unsettled, either through spiritual influence, or through a word, or through a letter supposedly from us, telling you that the day of the Lord has already arrived.

First of all Paul does not mean by ‘the day of the Lord’ the end of the world and escape into some spiritual other-worldly place as Plato would teach. I think it’s important that be cleared up. If that were so they certainly wouldn’t need to be informed about it by letter, what would be the point? No, ‘the day of the Lord’ as in the Hebrew Scriptures refers to judgment being sent upon Jerusalem within time/space/history. So what is going on and why would these people think that the time had come and gone? Well, there was a big ordeal that happened just before Paul started his missionary journeys. The Roman Emperor Caligula, convinced of his own divinity, angry at the Jews for not worshipping him and other matters, ordered a huge statue of himself to be placed in the Temple in Jerusalem, riots and rebellions would have surely ensued had Caligula not been murdered in 41ad…otherwise the Roman-Jewish was of 66-73 may have come too soon, but the scriptures had to be fulfilled and so it didn’t until the appointed time. Paul must have envisaged another megalomaniac having similar ideas. There are echoes going back to Egypt and Pharaoh hardening his heart to the point of no return, bringing himself into utter error and so to certain judgment upon himself (only God knows when this will come to its ultimate head) and so revealing the truth. These are simply the bodies the Spirit anti-Christ has put on by those so tempted by wickedness that they fell beyond the point of any ability to recognize goodness or truth.


Revelation 13:6-8

It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.

This has nothing to do with a rapture or a resurrection, but is referring to a time of intense persecution by an empire that denies Jesus as the Messiah and the whole Body of Christ is the recipient of this emperor’s violent madness, who has been given authority by God (still ultimately sovereign) over all tribes and nations and demanded that people in the empire worship the Empire/Emperor…John’s revelation goes on to say, if you must be killed by this Empire, so be it such is the life of a Christian…it will require trust and endurance to get through this and but ultimately God has and will raise the dead to their inheritance….so fear not and get on with the testimony.

Another kind of...King, Kingdom, Ambassador, Message, Method

'But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.'

A lot of people, for a really long time, have used this particular verse to support a dualistic understanding of where we are now to where we will be when the End comes, that is when Jesus steps down from his throne and hands the completely restored, renewed creation over to the Father, YHWY who covers new creation as the waters cover the sea and instead of the thorns and thistles, come up the pine tree and the myrtle.

The idea is that this ‘place’ where we are now is not our home, we are just passing through, some fine day I’ll fly away, etc. Basically that creation is done for, beyond redemption, and the idea of ‘getting saved’ is that we get to be among those with a ticket out when it’s all utterly destroyed and go either somewhere else or worse into some final ‘spiritual’ unembodied whatever. This is how Latin-based Western Christianity has seen things for a long time (I say that because the Eastern Church never fell into this error). There are many reasons why things are this way in the west, not least the strong influence and compromise with Greek philosophy.

Ecclesia Semper Reformanda!

I don’t want to spend a lot of time pointing out the counter-biblical nature of Platonic philosophy and Gnosticism…the wicked escapism that is peddled for profit in the form of rapture theology and the Left Behind garbage (just to be clear, I am not coming down on sheep or even undershephards that have been misled...but rather we are to go out after our lost sheep and call them to repentance). Remember, the Son of Man came to serve, not to be served and Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. The fact that Paul, John et al staunchly opposed gnosticism and platonic philosophy and yet taught using a lot of the same imagery in order to connect with and then redirect their Hellenistic audience…should be sufficient enough evidence that we should be familiar with these ideas that are opposed to the Kingdom of God and vigilant against such destructive influences, not least in our own hearts.

So, what is Paul saying here?

If you lived in Philippi you were likely very proud of your ties to Rome. Rome after all was the ‘highest’ place in the known world. It was the place were culture and technology came from, the place where individual and religious freedoms were valued more than any other place on earth, they were the worlds largest wealth generator, a place of unsurpassed commerce and education…and let us not forget that Rome is where the throne was, the control center for the known world…the place from which the Savior of the world ruled…Caesar himself.

How did Caesar expand the glory of Rome? How did he build the his kingdom(empire)? He sent out his ambassadors with a message…the gospel of Caesar. Peace, culture, education, economic stability, civility…Caesar would save you from your backwards, ancient ways of thinking and would bring an extension of a government with justice system that was unparalleled anywhere else in the world. One thing, if you didn’t like it…they are the most efficient killers on the planet. They were dealers of death…the most brutal, humiliating, dehumanizing torturous deaths imaginable…and they were really good at it.

Once an area like Philippi was conquered the soldiers and people who were sent there, for the glory of Rome, colonized it…they had no intention of eventually going back to Rome, that wasn’t the point. They were in Philippi but not of Philippi; they were in fact Roman citizens. Roman citizens, since they held special ties to Rome, and were there on the authority of Caesar carried a higher status than those without that status. They were in fact the ones ‘in the right’ or justified. It was their hope and desire to see things done in Philippi as in Rome and as a result, they commonly inherited a place in Philippi because of that citizenship and their service to Caesar and his glory (weight/importance). They did not yet see this as their home because the present reality of Rome’s sovereignty over Philippi was not fully realized…there were still uprisings and ignorance to the ways things are done, Caesar’s will was gradually being imposed on the colony by whatever means necessary. In the meantime the citizen’s of Rome were constantly opposed by and the locals, who would terrorize them always trying to hold onto their antiquated tribal ways.

Often times in these situations things would come to a head and violent rebellion would break out, great tribulation would ensue. Then a great leader would be sent in with all the power and authority of Caesar himself and the vast Roman military, a power that would cause the ground to shake and the sky to be darkened and that colony would be flooded with blood and violence and when the dust settled those who survived would come out of their holes in the ground or wherever they were hiding, underground or in caves into the air. A new air, they would be caught up in the great moment, the ‘parousia’ and they would run out of the city to receive their savior and his conquerors and escort them back into the land, a new city appearing from Rome itself, cleansed of the troublemakers and rebellious terrorists. Rome and Phillipi had become one and the Empire’s glory was on display in the death and destruction that littered the land.

This the imagery that Jesus and Paul et al, speak from when they offer the Gospel of YHWY’s Kingdom as the truth over against the anti-Christ, Caesar and Rome which is just a sick parody; A distorted, warped and violent reflection of the true King and the true Kingdom, Caesar’s kingdom…his ‘world’ has missed the mark and the wages of that are ultimately destruction.

The Kingdom of God begins within us, but it comes…and comes… and comes…we grow up into the fullness of Messiah as we bring the life of Heaven to bear on Earth…in our hearts, in our lives, in our homes, in our communities, in all the Earth…and when things get really bad, hold on tight…stand firm…do NOT let your love grow cold… we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself...the Power that raised Him from the dead.

Our Father, above us and all around us,
May your unspeakable Name be revered.

Here to earth, may your kingdom come.
Here on earth, may your will be done as it is in heaven.

Give us today our bread for today.
And forgive us our wrongs as we forgive those who wrong us.

Lead us away from the time of trial.
But liberate us from the evil.

For the kingdom is yours and yours alone,
And the power is yours and yours alone,
And the glory is yours and yours alone.
Amen.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments?