"Then Jesus said to him, 'Away with you (hypago - bring under, lead under, sink out of sight, drive back), Satan (satanas - adversary of God and Christ, one who opposes, inciter of sin and apostacy towards God, prince of evil spirits, controls idol worshippers, the accuser, the devil, Satan)! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve. Then the devil left (aphiemi - send away, forsake) Him, and behold, angels came (proserchomai - draw near to, worship, visit, assent to) and ministered (diakoneo - to serve, to wait upon, the servant of a king) to Him." (Mt. 4:10-11).
The title of this week's Sabbath reading portion is Ki Tissa, meaning, "When you take/lift up/carry out", and the title is from Exodus 30:11-12. These verses say: "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 'When you take (nasa - bear up, lift up, take up, carry, forgive, exalt, rise up, support, endure, to cause one to bear, hold up, raise up, be high) (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega)-the-census (ro's - sum, head, top, beginning, captain, highest, supreme, prince, height, chief) of the children of Israel for their number (paqad - number, visit upon, punish, appoint, judgment, reckon, lay upon as a charge), then every man shall give a ransom (koper/kapar - ransom, satisfaction, price of a life, henna plant [red-brown dye], atonement ordered by the LORD/atonement, purge, reconciliation, mercy, pardon, forgive) for himself to the LORD, when you number (paqad - see above) them, that there may be no plague (negeb/nagab - blow, striking, plague, infliction, stumbling, fatal blow/smite, slain, struck, beaten, plague, hurt) among them when you number (paqad - see above) them."
In the verses above, we see an atonement "ransom" commanded by the LORD to provide pardon and forgiveness for His people, Israel. This atonement "ransom" from the fatal blows of plague is connected to the lifting up/raising of a Prince who is the highest supreme, the Beginning. In the Hebrew word meanings above, I see a prophetic picture of the Messiah/Christ Jesus as this Prince who was lifted up on a cross, and then lifted or raised up from the dead. It is the atonement mercy and forgiveness commanded and provided by God by the blood (reddish-brown coloring - see henna above) of Jesus so that we do not have to suffer the fatal blow of plague which He suffered for us.
This provides a powerful foundation to events that we read in this week's Sabbath portion, Ki Tissa. We will see God forgive the unforgivable.
In Chapter 20 of Exodus, the LORD verbally gives The Ten Commandments to Moses to tell to the children of Israel, including the commands that they shall have no other gods before Him, and that they shall not make for themselves a carved image, nor bow down before them, nor serve them. "For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God..." (v. 3-5). Later, the LORD will repeat this to Moses to tell the people: "...Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: 'You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make anything to be with Me - gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves." (v. 22-23).
Later, Moses wrote all of the (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega) words of the LORD in the Book of the Covenant and read them to the people. The people said to Moses: "All that the LORD has said we will do, and be obedient." (Ex. 24:4-7).
Again, the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai and "He gave Moses two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God." (Ex. 31:18). Now these same *aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega words of the LORD would be written again, this time in stone, and by the hand of the LORD Himself. This brings us to Exodus 32.
While Moses was still on the Mountain with the LORD: "...when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, 'Come, make us gods the shall go before us; for as for this Moses...we do not know what has become of him." (Ex. 32:1). Aaron then collected all of the gold earrings that the people were wearing in their ears, "...and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, 'This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!' So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it...Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." (v. 2-6).
How can God forgive the unforgivable that we see taking place above? He sent an intercessor.
The LORD said to Moses: "Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted (sahat - destroy, corrupt, ruin, mar, be rotted, injured, pervert, decay, perish, act wickedly) themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them....Now, therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation. Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God...'Turn from your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel (meaning Jacob), Your servants to whom You swore...'. So the LORD relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people." Ex. 32:7-14, excerpt). The LORD had seen the people as rotting corpses because of their destroying sinful act, according to the meaning of the Hebrew noted above.
As Moses' anger broke out upon the Israelites for what they had done, he broke the tablets of stone upon which the LORD had written His word, and burned (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega)-the-calf of gold that had been made and made the (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega)-children-of-Israel drink it. Three thousand lost their lives that day to the swords of the sons of Levi, the tribe of priests. Why is the calf identified with *aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega, or the Messiah/Christ (see *note below)? Perhaps because they made the golden calf idol their substitute man-made savior, their deliverer, their Messiah in their eyes. It still happens today, even with believers in Christ, that gold, money, the work of our hands, our families, our government, our military power, science, the visible things of the world rather than the invisible things of the Spirit, become our answer, our dependence, and the receivers of our faith instead of the One who truly died for us. Paul rebuked the church for turning away from the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ that they had learned and for believing a falsehood instead. (see Gal. 1:6-7). Jesus, through His revelation to John, rebukes a worldly rich church that doesn't even realize that it is really "wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked", and urging the church to buy from Him "gold refined in the fire, that...the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed." (Rev. 3:17-18). Satan, the opponent of God and Christ (see above), is always dangling this deception in front of our eyes in order to turn faith away from God.
Viewing the people, Moses had seen them as "unrestrained/naked," ((para' - uncover, bare, naked, perish, expose). Telling the people that perhaps he could make atonement (see kapar above) for them with the LORD, Moses returned to the presence of the LORD on the Mountain and said: "Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin - but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written." (v. 31-32). Seeing that the people had been uncovered or made spiritually naked before their enemies because of their sin, Moses sought God's kapar atonement covering for the people, even offering the removal of himself from God's book. The apostle Paul also said that he would have offered his own salvation if he could on behalf of the salvation of his Jewish brethren who did not believe Messiah/Christ Jesus. (see Rom. 9:1-5).
I offer the following as food for thought only regarding nakedness and the atonement covering, and not as any kind of doctrine. This is the connection that I am seeing in my spirit. There is another instance of "nakedness" in scripture. It is from the Book of Genesis, when Adam and his wife, Eve, after their choice to rely upon themselves rather than the LORD, having believed the lies of the serpent (see Gen. 3:1-6), discovered that they were naked ('erom/'aram - nakedness, naked and helpless/to make bare, make naked, to be subtle, shrewd, crafty, cunning, smooth, impudent, spiteful as manifesting one's malevolent mind) (see Gen. 3:7). The Hebrew root meaning of "naked" above, 'aram, leads us directly to the serpent who is described as being subtle or cunning in Gen. 3:1. The Hebrew word and root word for "serpent" are 'arum and 'aram. We see the connection between the serpent and the nakedness of man through the Hebrew language here. We can see then that it is Satan's strategy for man to remove his kapar atonement covering, leaving him naked and helpless. How could Adam have had the atonement covering many generations before Jesus Messiah/Christ was slain on the cross? Scripture describes Jesus as the Lamb slain before the foundation of the earth. In Isaiah 53, the prophet saw the Servant of God already beaten and slain for the iniquity of us all because the prophet writes of this in the past tense even though Jesus wouldn't be born until 750 years after Isaiah wrote his prophecy. David saw and prophesied of the crucifixion as if it was occurring to him in his present time even though he lived 1,000 years before the birth of Christ and never suffered crucifixion himself (see Ps. 22:1-18). This is the nature of prophecy and the things of the Spirit, as well as the nature of God and His Son: He is past, present and future all at the same time. (see Jn. 1:1-2, Rev. 1:8, Rev. 4:8). It is also interesting that the name "Adam", which is usually translated as meaning "man", has a deeper meaning of "dyed red, be red, to show red, to look red". A related Hebrew word dam means "blood, bloody, wine". Perhaps we can say that Adam's name could mean "a man of the blood". Paul called Jesus the "last Adam" and the "second man" in scripture. (see 1 Cor. 15:45-49). In Rom. 5:14, Paul wrote that Adam was "a type of Him (meaning Christ) who was to come." When the LORD created "Adam" and his wife, they were naked then also, but scripture says that they were not "ashamed" (bus - ashamed, confounded, troubled, disconcerted, disappointed or delayed, to fail in hope and expectation). If they were not ashamed, then they were in hope and expectation - hope and expectation of what or Whom? Jesus Messiah/Christ is our hope and expectation, our assurance. (see Ps. 62:5-7, Prov. 23:18, Ps. 5:7, Mt. 24:30-31, Rom. 15:12-13). Adam "wore" the atonement covering of the Lord through faith, and he was not ashamed - until he rejected the faith in the atoning blood covering. They then attempted to cover themselves with 'ale/'ala raised-up branch(es).
In another reading portion of this week's Ki-Tissa Sabbath, we find that the whole nation of Israel, including their royal family, had turned from the worship of God to the worship of the false god, Ba'al.
How can God forgive this unforgivable thing? He again sent an intercessor, the prophet Elijah: "So Ahab (King of Israel) sent for all the children of Israel, and gathered (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega)-the-prophets together on Mount Carmel. And Elijah came to all the people, and said, 'How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.' But the people answered not a word." (1 Kings 18:20-21).
Elijah took twelve stones representing the twelve tribes of Israel and built an altar in the name of the LORD. (v. 30-32). Elijah faced off against the prophets of Baal who were to offer a bull on an alter to their god, while Elijah prepared an offering of a bull on the altar that he had built to the LORD. The prophets of Baal could not get their god to answer them, and Elijah began to pray to the LORD: "LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel (Jacob), let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega)-all-these-things (dabar - thing, matter, commandment) at Your word (dabar - see above). Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that You are the LORD God, and that You have turned (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega)-their-hearts back to You again." (v. 36-37).
The fire of the LORD fell and consumed Elijah's (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega)-burnt-sacrifice, including (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega)-the-stones of the altar: "Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, 'The LORD, He is God! The LORD, He is God!" (v. 38-39). The LORD had turned the *aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega hearts of the people back to Himself.
It is no surprise that God has also provided for us the perfect Intercessor - Jesus Messiah/Christ. The Book of Hebrews says of Christ: "Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them." (Heb. 7:25). Paul wrote of those who remain in the justification of God through Christ: "Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Rom. 8:34-35). John wrote to the church so that we may not sin. However: "... if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation (meaning atoning blood covering sacrifice) for our sins, and not ours only but also for the whole world." (1 Jn. 2:1-2). We also are to pray and intercede continually for all of the saints in the same manner. (Eph. 6:18).
If you would like to learn more about intercession and forgiveness of God and Jesus Christ, you can join my prayer: "Heavenly Father, when I didn't know you and had no hope in eternity, Your Word gave the promise of intercession on my behalf, and of an atonement covering for my spiritual vulnerability. You fulfilled these promises through Your beloved Son, Jesus. You forgave me of the unforgivable as I was determined to live a life without You. Your Son became not only my Intercessor, but my hope and expectation when I had none. Jesus poured out His blood in order to cover me when I didn't know I needed His covering. Father, I ask You to keep me from the temptation of the evil one and direct my steps so that I never leave the atonement covering Jesus provided for me. Fill me with Your Spirit so that I can pray and intercede for others as Your Son intercedes. I ask these things in the name of Jesus. AMEN."
*NOTE: aleph-tav written in Hebrew as אֶת, are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The meaning of the two pictographic Hebrew letters can also be interpreted "Adonai (Lord) of the Cross/Covenant". In the New Testament, these letters are translated as Alpha and Omega written as ΑΩ , the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. These letters are those by which Jesus Christ identifies Himself in the Book of Revelation: see Rev. 1:8, Rev. 21:6, Rev. 22:13.
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