godinhistory.com

Contents

1. From the Masthead
2. God’s Presence, Israel, and Salvation History
3. ‘All Men are Like Grass’

From the Masthead

Welcome to the first issue of The Mast, the journal of ‘Mast Ministries’.

In this issue we begin with what will become our regular column of comment, news and observations around some of the issues concerning ‘Mast Ministries’. This is followed by an in-depth theological article on the role of God’s presence in Salvation History and how in particular this reveals some remarkable continuity between Israel, the ministry of Jesus and the Church. This is the first of several articles that will appear over the coming year dealing with key events and some of the larger trajectories that may be discerned in scripture and history, and which collectively will contribute to a deeper understanding of God’s wider plan. A more meditative piece concludes the proceedings.

The origins and rationale behind ‘Mast Ministries’ (‘Mast’ for short) and this journal are adequately explained in the accompanying newsletter and do not need to be fully rehearsed here, except to reiterate the fundamental point that ‘Mast’ aims to be biblical, theological and prophetic in its perspective in order to (1) further and deepen understanding of God and his purposes as well as (2) draw attention to the gross deceptions in the world that are Satan’s ploy to topple them.

We are living in the midst of a cosmic conflict of enormous proportions against which the likes of the Lord of the Rings pales into the shadows. Moreover, things are about to get much worse. The enemy’s legions are on the march and are on the wing, and we need to beware and be warned and be careful. The Lord has shown me something of this horde, and it is immense, but nevertheless I trust in the certainty and the ability of the Lord Almighty and his army to deal with it. This conflict is made all the more difficult by the fact that everything around us looks pretty much normal. But normal it is not. In fact the world has never been normal in the way we sometimes wish it to be. It is a very spiritual place, and in order to understand it we need to adopt a spiritual approach that goes beyond, for example, just the currently accepted and dominant scientific worldview.

I am currently working on a thesis about National Days of Prayer in Great Britain during the First and Second World Wars. This is a historical topic and I am expected to follow the current disciplines in writing history when producing it, which is fair enough given the academic nature of the task. But nevertheless, these same disciplines forbid any serious historian from adopting a more spiritual approach to their craft. Under contemporary convention, for instance, it just cannot be done to write about the influence and role of God in history. One can write about people who believe in God and about the influence of this belief upon their actions, but not about the objective reality itself.

Now for a topic like mine this to me seems ludicrous. Most Christians understand and know from first hand experience that God answers prayer, the corollary of which is that God is intimately involved in the world and its history. Therefore the relationship between National Days of Prayer and the circumstances of Great Britain must be a tangible one and must involve God, but the contemporary discipline of history does not allow me with any credibility to actually say so or to present historical evidence supporting this understanding and view – it is argued that this is not proper history, it cannot be based on evidence, and in any case, with the virtual extinction of the biblical worldview the language and thought forms necessary to enable the reception of such an approach are no longer common currency with the reading public. Consequently, such history would be rejected and never read.

Thus the most profound influence upon history is denied and we are left with either mere physical causality or more secular worldviews (but in actual fact no less spiritual for that) to dictate our view of it. The irony is that if academia of old, and even the Church, had not so willingly and prematurely discarded the biblical worldview in the first place, then perhaps we would not be in such a mess in the present. But as it stands Christians have a job to do to restore this imbalance, and ‘Mast’, amongst the other things, aims to be at the forefront of this task, just as it aims to explore and expose the spiritual realities behind the physical of the historical process and what is happening today.

This however cannot be done in an afternoon. To construct a worldview and change a mindset requires a multi-faceted and long-term approach. Consequently, the idea with The Mast is that through the various articles of different types and over an extended time, the reader will gradually be equipped to see for himself a different way of understanding things, a prophetic way, a way that gives due acknowledgment to God.

For this task, however, I confess my sense of inadequacy as a writer and my feeling that I have only just begun my own journey of discovery. Nevertheless, I have good reasons to believe that the Lord has led me into some understanding and insight into these things and that he wants me to begin to share these insights with others and with the Church. And if through ‘Mast’ the sharing of my observations and thinking can help open up to a greater degree the spiritual dimensions of this world and its history to a few, or perhaps to many, and if this encourages deeper acceptance of and intimacy with the biblical truths concerning God and the salvation wrought through his Son, Jesus Christ, then I will consider this ministry to be worthwhile and to be doing its job.

If you like what you begin to see in this issue and would like to receive The Mast regularly, please do not forget to fill in the form in the accompanying newsletter so you can be sure of receiving future copies.

‘Mast’ is very much work in progress both in the evolution of its identity and in the ideas and views it wishes to promote. As in all disciplines I am learning as I write, and recognize that learning is best stimulated by dialogue and discussion. I also understand that what I write may elicit some debate. In view of this, my fervent desire is that you, the reader, would wish to enter into what I hope will become a forum for the exchange of views and ideas on some of these concepts and issues. If you feel you would like to comment on any of the topics raised by ‘Mast’, or have any questions, then please feel free to submit these to me, either in the form of a memo, article, e-mail or letter to one of the addresses that can be found on the back page of the newsletter. Suitable material will be considered for publication, and I hope that a ‘Letters to the Editor’ column will in future become a regular and important feature.

The Grand Blessing Ceremony

Those of you who know me understand that I have a bee in my bonnet about idolatry. Idolatry is the antithesis of the Kingdom of God and part of my mission is to raise awareness against it and where possible, put a stop to it.

Perhaps this is the reason why I am in Hong Kong right now, for I could make a good case for arguing that Hong Kong is one of the idolatry capitals of the world. Its campaign and proud boast to be known as ‘Asia’s World City’ should in my view read instead as ‘Asia’s worldly City’, and the irony of the dragon as the symbol of this campaign should not be lost on any Christian.

Now I am just a gweillo (westerner) so what do I know, but it seems to me that Hong Kong’s idolatry has been getting worse of late, as reflected, incidentally, by a question posed recently in the ‘Talkback’ column in the South China Morning Post: ‘Is Hong Kong becoming more superstitious [read idolatrous]?’

The answer must be a resounding yes! What else can explain the Grand Blessing Ceremony that took place at Wong Tai Sin Temple on 8 January 2006? Wong Tai Sin is one of the main Taoist temples in Hong Kong and the Grand Blessing Ceremony was held to mark its eighty-fifth anniversary. For the first time in its history the temple was closed to the public while about 4,000 devotees prayed for luck, harmony and stability for Hong Kong using rituals modeled on those conducted annually by the emperor in ancient China. This was also the first time this particular ceremony had ever been held in Hong Kong.

Worse was the fact that a Government minister, Patrick Ho, in his official capacity as Secretary for Home Affairs took part and offered his own prayer for the blessing of Hong Kong. Dr Ho says he is a Christian. If all this wasn’t bad enough, the day was a Sunday and the idol of Wong Tai Sin (so aptly named) deifies a mere human being, a one-time shepherd, so the legend goes, who miraculously found some sheep that he had originally lost.

From a Christian point of view everything about this is wrong, absolutely wrong.

Now scripture is unequivocal in its warnings concerning the worship of idols and created things over and against the worship of the creator, the Lord Almighty. The first two of the Ten Commandments, for example, on which, incidentally, all the others hang, make this perfectly clear in their prohibition against ‘other gods’ and the worship of images of any kind. Otherwise, as the prophet Isaiah preached to Israel, ‘you will be turned back in utter shame’ (Isaiah 42:17) and ‘thrust into utter darkness’ (Isaiah 8:22)

‘Utter shame and utter darkness’ – You would have thought these words would have put the fear of God into anyone, especially those that call themselves Christians. But Patrick Ho seems not to have considered them at all. Indeed, by doing what he did he mocked what is, in fact, the dominant thrust of the word of God. If God was prepared to punish Israel, his chosen people, for their idolatry, does he think God will stand by and ignore when those called by his name today do the same? No Mr. Ho he will not. And by your actions as the representative of Hong Kong’s government you have brought trouble to Hong Kong as well as to yourself!

But this is not the first time. On 2 February 2003, on another Sunday and before another image deifying a human being at the Che Kung temple, Patrick Ho in seeking prosperity for Hong Kong drew instead a fortune stick that signified ‘everything will be bad’. God made sure of it, and with SARS and the downturn in the economy it was one of the worse years in recent times. This was divine retribution that only began to abate when thousands of Christians prayed for God’s mercy on Easter Sunday in Victoria Park and on the following Sunday at Charter Garden.

But did Dr. Ho read the signs? No! And as a consequence of his latest folly Hong Kong faces further judgment. Unless Dr. Ho repents and Hong Kong with him, then this city can only be standing on the threshold of a time of trouble. Whatever the soothsayers have predicted for this year of the dog and whatever the appearance of circumstances, the testimony of scripture is certain – there is coming a time of darkness and deep gloom when the flood of God’s wrath will be unleashed and this nation will once again sink into the consequences of its idolatry.

God’s Presence, Israel, and Salvation History

Many who seek to understand God’s plan for the world are often puzzled by the role of Israel in relation to the ministry of Jesus and the Church. This is a large subject, but part of the solution is to see continuity between them in terms of the establishment of God’s presence on the earth. For certainly, the establishment of Israel was all about the reestablishment of God’s presence within a sinful and rebellious world and was thus the inauguration of his plan to save it. We may observe the following.

In initiating his great plan of redemption, God was beginning a historical process by which the whole of humanity and creation would eventually be reconciled to him. Such an undertaking, however, was not without its difficulties, for reconciliation requires a relationship and a relationship requires presence, and until a means was established to enable his presence to occur within humanity then his plan could never come to any fruition. The problem was how could an absolutely righteous and holy God presence himself amongst the degeneracy of how humanity had become without an immediate and catastrophic outbreak of his explosive wrath against it? God’s righteousness and humanity’s sinfulness are utterly incompatible.

God’s solution required, initially, an act of faith in Abraham’s obedience. From the midst of a rebellious world, and from within the nation that has come to symbolize this rebellion and which was its epicenter, God called out one man and, through his faith and obedience, separated him from it so as to begin the process by which a reconciliation and mutual dwelling with first a part and then the whole of humanity could occur. From this one separated man God would create his one holy and separated nation of Israel, and from this would come the redemption of the whole of creation.

This process was fraught with an immense danger given the essential incompatibility, and required at all points the institution of extraordinarily precise and elaborate arrangements so as to both protect the people and make a workable relationship possible. Israel may have been separated out from the world, and would become subject to the purifying effect of the law, but she still, nonetheless, was composed of sinful humanity and was not therefore immune from God’s wrath, unless these very careful arrangements were diligently followed.

The very real danger from this explosive incompatibility is strongly conveyed in some of the more seemingly irrational and excessive episodes of God’s anger, for example, with Moses on the road back to Egypt (Ex 4:24-26), and with Israel after incident with the golden calf when God threatened to destroy the whole nation (Ex 32:9-10), and in those incidents when God’s anger was only assuaged by extreme acts of violence, for example, again in the incident of the golden calf, when the Levites rampaged through the Israelite camp killing three thousand of their brothers and friends with the sword, and when Phinehas killed Zimri and his Moabite girlfriend by driving his spear through both of them (Ex 25:6-13). To the uninformed these incidents can appear as if God was subject to barely controlled mood swings or was merely blood thirsty, but examined in the light of the immensity of the gulf between the holy and the profane, and taking the human norm as profane, what is revealed are nothing but manifestations of the inevitable consequence when those safeguards, that were absolutely essential for the coming together of the impossibly repellant, were ignored or violated. This same incompatibility was why, after the incident with the golden calf and after God, through the intercession of Moses, had rescinded his threat to destroy them, he also warned Israel that though he would still give them the Promised Land, this time ‘I will send an angel before you … But I will not go with you, because you are a stiffed necked people … If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you.’ (Ex 33:2-5). Only the further intercession of Moses, the repentance of the people and the reinstitution of the covenant restored the possibility of God’s presence among the people once again.

This incompatibility is also the reason why theophany appearances were often characterized by the accompaniment of thick darkness or dark clouds shielding the divine and the profane from each other. This was for man’s protection as much for anything, for no man could see God and live. This, however, went far beyond just visual separation and was a graphic symbolization of the more profound separation caused by humanity’s depraved state. Here the visual effect perfectly captured the reality, and the unsubtle suggestion of latent wrath in the very substance of his presence in this form was both real and deliberate. In this sense the dark cloud does represent God’s anger barely contained but for the preparations made for his reception. It is interesting to relate that this ‘storm cloud’ phenomenon of the various theophanies in the bible is one that is predominantly associated only with the period leading up to and including Sinai. God’s presence during the flood, his appearance before Abraham and his presence at Sinai were all marked in this way. Subsequent theophanies, with the possible exception of God’s presence at the death of Jesus, were not characterized by storm clouds but were altogether ‘lighter’ in their visual tone; God’s visible glory on these occasions is invariably described in terms of brightness (see, for example, Eze 10:4; Lk 2:9; Rev 21:11,23). The possible reason for this is likely to be found in the fact that before the institution of the Sinai covenant and the setting in place of the tabernacle and sacrificial system, with all of their safeguards, the drawing near by God to sinful humanity dangerously exposed the explosive latency of his unassuaged and raw full holy wrath, and the potential for wrongful and disastrous contact was consequently the much greater.

The Sinai covenant was the means by which it was possible for God to dwell in relationship with and among his people, and was comprised of various components towards this particular end. What was needed first of all was faith and obedience in making the decision to enter into the covenantal agreement (just as God’s covenant with Abraham also needed obedience and faith). Such faith is diametrically opposed to the dynamic of the fall and was necessary in order to orientate Israel away from earth-bound rebellion and towards God. Crucially, only in the context of such an agreement could the following necessary requirements for God’s presence be undertaken. Second, the holiness laws subsequently protected against the holy and the profane coming into wrongful contact. Third, the very precise arrangements for the tabernacle, and later for the temple, further proscribed concentric degrees of holiness, and only within the holy of holies at the very heart of this meticulously prepared system could God dwell in the midst of his people. Fourth, the sacrificial system enabled due worship to be given and was a continual visual aid and reminder of sin and its cost. It was meant to keep Israel humble and contrite. Most importantly, however, the sacrifices enabled the purification of the entire system, the forgiveness of transgressions, and the turning away of God’s wrath. Fifth, the law codes pointed towards the purity and righteousness of God that was always his intention for his creation, and in the attempt to live in conformity to them the community of Israel would be influenced towards the goal of these ideals. The presence of a holy and righteous God demanded a holy and righteous community.

God’s presence within the community also demanded that the land of Israel be first cleansed of the corruption that had polluted it. It was this requirement, as well as the future protection of the Israelites against the leaven of Canaanite idolatry, that lay behind the command and urgent need to exterminate the indigenous peoples. Any alternative would have been a retrograde accommodation and compromise, a dynamic that by extension could only mean the end of God’s plan of world redemption given the inherent incompatibility present in such an option between the holy and the profane. The plain fact was that God would not be able to dwell in the land, or allow his ‘called out’ nation to possess it, unless it was first cleansed and made holy. Against this vital necessity it is not without significance that the bible describes the sin of these peoples as having reached full measure, meaning that their spiritual orientation had degenerated to become the antithesis of that required by God, and that there was now nothing left for them but God’s irrevocable judgment at the hands of the Israelites. The pollution of the land itself through sin, especially unrighteous bloodshed, and the need for its cleansing is emphasized in the commandment given to Israel in the book of Numbers concerning the temptation not to put those guilty of murder to death:

Moreover you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death; but he shall be put to death […] You shall not thus pollute the land in which you live; for blood pollutes the land, and no expiation can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of him who shed it. You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell; for I the LORD dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.

Numbers 35:31, 33-34 (RSV)

Israel was intended to be both an example and witness to the other nations of the world of God’s plan of salvation. The holy of holies was the nation’s sacred center and the actual presence of God’s glory within it was, in conjunction with the covenant relationship, the very essence and reason for Israel’s being. God’s organic presence within the life of the nation, as well as the refining action and leading of his law, was to have increasingly moulded Israel to conform to the Deity at its heart, and in so doing Israel would be a testimony to the world. But the intention went further than just this. God’s presence within Israel was also God’s presence within the world, and because of this, regardless of the eventual quality of Israel’s witness, the whole world would have been positively affected. Despite any appearance to the contrary, the power and influence of evil in the world would have been diminished to some degree. It is likely, for example, that the perceptible trend in the Ancient Near East away from base idolatry and paganism and more towards monotheism during the millennium before Christ can be attributable not only to the influence of Israel’s religion but also to the salt of God’s presence on Earth. It is possible too that the removal of God’s presence during the exile may have had something to do with the religious developments worldwide during the so-called Axial Age, when several non-Christian religions were founded. Certainly God’s presence on Earth and his influence through Israel was a preparation for the world to receive the messiah.

Could there not be in all of this a partial answer to another question often-asked as to why it was that Jesus entered into history at the time and place that he did? The answer to this must embrace many aspects, but the following should be considered among them.

Firstly, with regards to timing, it is surely significant that the ministry and death of Jesus came exactly forty years prior to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 A.D. and what then amounted to a second exile with the expulsion of Israel back to the nations of the world out of which they had been originally chosen. Either God chose the timing of the incarnation to coincide with what he knew must surely occur, or else this judgment was itself timed to take place forty years after the messiah’s ministry as a message in its own right and marking the end of a time of grace. Either way, the timing of Jesus was in direct connection to the wider timing of the historical process.

Secondly, with regards to place, and aside from the very clear and obvious necessity of Jesus having to be Jewish so as to fulfill all that was expressed through Israel and the law, a crucial factor was still the original problem posed by the intractable incompatibility between the holy and the profane. Indeed it was to deal with this problem once for all that Jesus was sent, in order that it would be possible for God to intimately commune with those that would be his people. The obstacle of incarnating into sinful and fallen flesh was overcome through the righteous faith and obedience of Mary (as with Abraham) and the dynamic of the virgin birth that broke the hereditary lineage of the fallen nature in that Jesus had a divine father. But that still left the danger posed by the incarnation of God into a fallen and sinful world. Because of this Jesus could only be sent to Israel, for thus far Israel was the only purified and sanctified territory on Earth where the incarnation could occur without disaster and judgment befalling the world. It is significant that Jesus, by his own admission, was ‘sent only to the lost sheep of Israel’, (Matt 15:24), and rarely traveled outside of Israel’s historic boundaries.

Despite all of the distortions and faults in the Jewish practice of their religion during the time of Jesus, Israel was still the nation of the covenant, and the temple with its sacrificial system still lay at its heart. Furthermore, God’s glory was still present in the Holy of Holies. If this were not so then Jesus would not have engaged in temple services or had so much zeal for his Father’s house, a zeal that consumed him and that went far beyond just concern for what the temple symbolized. Certainly Jesus was not impressed with the building itself as can be seen in Matthew 24 when he prophesied its destruction. In other words, as imperfectly operated as they were, the institutions and practices of the old covenant were still valid right up until Jesus’ death on the cross, and through the ritual cleansing, the various sacrifices and prescriptions for the delineation of holy space, they still enabled God’s glory to dwell in the land. Moreover, in accordance with God’s original commandments, the sacrifices were still efficacious in atoning for the sins of individuals and the nation. As such the nation was still a purified one, even if its days were numbered and the system that defined it was about to be overturned and rendered obsolete.

It was only because of this purification that the incarnation was in any sense possible. This would appear to be confirmed in two phenomena that manifested during the crucifixion – the time of darkness when Jesus was dying and the tearing of the temple veil at the exact moment of Jesus’ death (Lk 23:45). Although the darkness is only thinly described in Luke, this nevertheless resonates with other images of theophany and judgment in scripture, such as during the flood and over Sinai, and suggests that God’s raw, full and holy wrath was once again being exposed. For Jesus on the Cross, there were no careful arrangements to ensure restraint, no elaborate measures to give protection, and there the utterly incompatible, the holy and the profane, were brought together with the inevitable consequence. God’s righteous wrath was unleashed upon his one and only Son because of the sins of the world he had chosen to take upon himself.

By this act, however, the original problem of incompatibility was finally solved. The sacrifice of Jesus was one that would be efficacious for all time in satisfying the righteous requirement of God’s holy wrath for sin, that of perfectly innocent and righteous blood, and thereafter, within the time space of the historical process, there would no longer be any more need for those who accepted this sacrifice and entered through faith into Christ’s death to be shielded from God’s holiness and presence. For with such God would no longer see their sin but only the purity of no sin at all. In these circumstances the old arrangements of Sinai are superfluous and have been superseded by those of a new covenant, sealed with the blood of Jesus, in which God can commune freely and openly with all believers in the person of the Holy Spirit.

Out of these living stones a new temple is being built in which the most holy place is formed collectively of human hearts. It is here within this human sanctuary made in God’s image that the Deity is now pleased to dwell and where free and open union between God and humanity has been made possible. There is no longer any need for barriers of exclusion between them and through Jesus the way to the Father’ presence is now clear. Moreover, through this same process God’s presence is now able to be established throughout the entirety of the old creation by means of the new creation of the Church arising in its midst in every nation, tribe and tongue. The tearing of the temple veil as Jesus died and his resurrection on the third day were God’s declaration to this effect.

‘All Men are Like Grass’

‘All men are like grass’, cries the Prophet, for ‘like green plants they will soon die away’ (Isaiah 40:6; Psalm 37:2). How true these words are. It is a sober judgment on our earthly permanence, and one full of irony, but even the simplest object will outlast us by centuries. I have in my possession a brick, remarkably new and modern looking, from the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre in Lefkas in Greece. Nigh on 2,000 years old, I picked this up from the bushes near the site where thousands were just laying around in the dust. How much agony and history has that brick witnessed and how many lives have been lived around it in anxious rush and urgent ambition before the area returned to the ruin and wilderness it now is? And for what? All that remains are the debris and the dust of no value whatsoever, except for historical curiosity and the evidence of the judgment of folly for those with eyes to see.

A similar sense of hopelessness is conveyed by the poignant cast of the impression left in the ash of Pompei by the body of a man killed in the final pyroclastic surge that swept over the city during the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. The body decomposed soon afterwards, but the resultant cavity has preserved his death agony into posterity. What makes this all the more tragic is the bag of gold coins that he was found to be clutching. These have been almost perfectly preserved and still appear very usable, but what good were they to him in the end?

Small wonder then that Jesus placed due emphasis on life in the hereafter rather than on earthly life. This does not mean he was uncaring about this life and man’s physical needs. Indeed, Jesus himself showed great compassion and interest and makes it abundantly clear that God is very generous and mindful of these things. But on this side of heaven the values of heaven have been overturned. Man seeks security in material certainties not realizing that it was this very orientation that was responsible for his mortality in the first place. Trust in creation as opposed to the creator; trust in oneself and in mere things rather that in the God who made them all – this is the way of death and transience. Yet the world seems transfixed by the material. Jesus on the other hand was not. He owned no home, had no possessions, was almost contemptuous of money, and cared not for the shortness of his life save that of yielding it on behalf of those who believed differently. His message was simple:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven …

Do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body what you will wear … the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Matthew 6:19-20, 25, 32-33; John 12:25

It just cannot be right that we last but three score and ten while a brick can last millennia. But until our focus radically shifts towards God and his Son, that is our reality. But in this reorientation comes life, eternal life, and the security and permanence that we crave. For the truth is that everything else for which man strives is but an illusion. It will either turn to dust or be cast aside as worthless when the sky recedes like a scroll and every mountain and island is removed from its place at the end of this age. Then the only thing that will matter will be our treasure in heaven and our standing before the Throne of Judgment and Mercy.

© David John Eason 2006