This is the first of four questions between Yeshua and various authorities in the Temple, who unbeknownst to them were examining Yeshua as the spiritually unblemished Lamb of God for the ultimate Passover.
Category: Apostolic Writings
These studies cover the writings by the closest shelakhim (apostles) of Yeshua haMashiakh (Jesus the Christ). Commonly called the “New Testament,” this standard canon includes the four Gospels, the letters and the Apocalypse (Revelation).
It used to be common to ask, “What would Jesus do?” Well, why did Yeshua visit God’s House on an extrabiblical Jewish festival — Chanukah — to make one of the most startling statements about God’s love for humanity? Why did the “disciple whom Iesous loved” record it? Rather than focus on layers upon layers of manmade tradition about a winter celebration of the birth of Yeshua, let’s dig through a number of layered messages that actually are in the Bible about God’s dedicating of a Living Temple — the Messiah — among humanity that could never again by left desolate or destroyed.
Before delving into Yeshua’s battles with the leadership of the Temple recorded in Luke 20-21, let’s explore the quote from the Hebrew Scriptures in Luke 20:17-18, that God’s true Temple would have at its foundation a Chief Cornerstone that the leadership would reject. A cryptic “hearing but not hearing” message from God in Isaiah 28 about this Stone holds a key to these arguments between Yeshua and the leadership.
“What did you know, and when did you know it?” That could have been what Yeshua asked the experts in God’s words upon their challenging of His authority to teach as and what He did. Instead, Yeshua reached into their “toolbox” — Torah, Prophets and Writings — and revealed that not only were some of their “tools” rusty from neglect but also neglected maintenance left them in danger of a catastrophic failure of the machinations they created about God’s Anointed One.
Yeshua’s excited anger at the leaders of the Temple came with quotations from prophets Yeshayahu (Isaiah) — “My house will be house of prayer for all nations” (Isa. 56:7) — and Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) – “den of robbers” (Jer. 7:11). The full context of those prophecies directly relates to why the leaders should have understood why Yeshua was quoting from those passages and why those prophecies applied to them.
Yeshua (Jesus) kept the festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles), but the only record of that is His keeping the latter part of it (John 6:26-7:41). During the Feast of Tabernacles, the people were looking for the Prophet like Moshe (Moses), but did they recognize the Prophet? Do we recognize the Prophet when we memorialize the past, present and future of God “tabernacling” with mankind?
I was asked recently, “Is he a believer?” Who is a “believer”? What is “unbelief”? The Messiah and the apostle Paul spoke about “unbelief.” But what did it mean 2,000 years ago?
One of the lessons about the forthcoming physical presence of the Kingdom of God on Earth in the future, which is foreshadowed through the memorial of Sukkot (Festival of Tabernacles), is that “believers” have learned the judgments of God to teach them to others. When His judgments arrive in person, they will establish righteousness on Earth.