Post by LDM on Sept 6, 2009 11:07:01 GMT -5
A People For Yahveh
by Charles E. Newbold, Jr.
www.christineboudreau.ca/newbold/or/transseed/transseedtoc.html
This book may be ordered or read in its entirety at the link above.
The following is taken from the site:
Introduction
The Transcendent Seed Of Abraham - A People For Yahveh
If only...
If only we knew whose we are and who we are as sons of God, it would totally, radically change our lives. We have not known entirely whose we are and who we are, as we ought, primarily because religion1 has veiled much of it from us. Religion has written our history according to the doctrines and traditions of men and not according to the counsel of the whole word of God.
We have religious groups today who build their faith on Old Covenant laws while others reject the Old and build their faith exclusively on the New Covenant. While many people of different Christian groups believe in the Old and the New Covenants as the Word of God, they fail to see how it is one continuous story. They have difficulty reconciling the God of the Old Covenant with the God of the New even though He is one and the same. The Bible of the Old and New Covenants tell one continuous story of how God -- whose name is Yahveh2 -- revealed Himself through a people He chose for Himself. We want to view this story from God's perspective. From the beginning to the end, it is His story about what He intends in all creation. Likewise, it is the story of every true believer in Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. This is your story from beginning to end.
The story of mankind began in a garden called Eden with a man and woman. However, for the purpose of this writing, let us begin a little later in time as told in Genesis chapter 12 with a man named Abram -- later named Abraham.
Abram
It was an ordinary day in the life of Abram, around the year 2060 B.C. He and his wife Sarai lived with his father Terah in Haran. The humdrum of his day was suddenly interrupted by a voice from an unseen presence. He could not ignore the voice. Though he likely had never heard it before, he knew intuitively that it was the voice of the Creator of the heavens and the earth.
Abram's life was changed forever by that encounter with the Creator. Moreover, the course of history was set for all time to come. Nothing could alter it though many have tried. We begin our story with him.
The Abrahamic Covenant
Yahveh, the Creator, commanded Abram saying, "Get out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, unto a land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and curse him who curses you: and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed." (Gen. 12:1-3) Thereby, with these words, Yahveh entered into covenant with him.
Our story is illustrated with a timeless-line, diagrammed below, beginning with Abram and extending to eternity. This covenant with Abram is everlasting, eternal; therefore, this timeless line is necessarily everlasting, eternal. It illustrates Yahveh's eternal purposes. Significant names and events will be added above the line to show movement in our story throughout history.
The Timeless Line
Seven Promises To The Covenant
This covenant with Abram has seven unconditional promises. The responsibility to carry out the terms of this covenant are upon Yahveh Himself and not upon Abram. Yahveh initiated the covenant. This is what He wants for Himself and He will have what He wants. What He commands will come about. He is faithful.
First, Yahveh told Abram that He would show him a land, a land that He later gave to him. The land is an essential part of the covenant. The people to whom it belongs, belongs to it. They are associated one with the other. It has prophetic implications even today.
Then, Yahveh promised Abram that He would make of him a great nation. This is linked to a later promise to give Abram an heir. Yahveh promised Abram that his seed3 would be as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall His seed also be numbered. (Gen. 13:16) He later told Abram that his seed would be as numerous as the stars of heaven. (Gen. 15:5)
Yahveh promised Abram that He would bless him. The scriptures later claim that Abram was so blessed with earthly possessions that the land would not sustain both him and his nephew Lot, so they separated themselves.
Yahveh promised Abram that He would make his name great. Even to this day, is there anyone who has not heard of the name Abraham? He is the father of millions of Jews who are descendants of Isaac and millions more of Arabs who are descendants of Ishmael. The case can be made that three religions claim Abraham as their father: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Yahveh promised Abram that He would make him a blessing to others. In fact, He declared that in Abram all the families of the earth would be blessed. The word for family used here also means clans, tribes, and peoples. It is plural.
Yahveh promised Abram that whoever blessed him He would bless.
Yahveh promised the reverse as well -- that whoever cursed Abram, He would curse. We cannot curse Abraham or the seed of promise and expect to be blessed of Yahveh.
Various aspects of this covenant were repeated and confirmed at subsequent times in Abram's life.
Covenant Of Promise Based On Faith
Yahveh told Abram to get out and go to a land that He would show him. According to Hebrews 11:8, Abram had no idea where he would be going; nevertheless, he obeyed. He acted on pure and simple faith.
Abram believed Yahveh, and his faith was accounted to him for righteousness. (Gen. 15:6) Abram was not accounted righteous because of any works or religious deeds he performed because righteousness cannot be earned. It cannot be worked up. Yahveh alone is righteous. Therefore, righteousness had to be accredited (ascribed, imputed) to him. Yahveh ascribed righteousness to Abram because Abram believed. His obedience was the proof of his faith.
"Abram was seventy-five years old when he went out from Haran. He took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, all their substance that they had gathered, and the persons that they had gained in Haran; and went forth to go to the land of Canaan." (Gen. 12:4,5)
Yahveh made a promise to Abram and he believed; thus, making this a covenant of promise based on faith (faithfulness), diagrammed on the timeless line below.
The Timeless Line
Formed A People For Yahveh
In making this covenant with Abram, Yahveh began to form a people for Himself. They were to be a people of His own making to fulfill His own purposes. Yahveh spoke through Moses in the wilderness saying, "If you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation." (Exod. 19:5,6). This promise of destiny is repeated in Deuteronomy 7:1-11 and 26:16-19.
The Land
Abram and his seed were promised a particular piece of real estate. First, He told Abram "to go to the land that I show you." Then He said in Genesis 12:7, "Unto your seed will I give this land." Genesis 13:15 declares that it was given forever. Nowhere in scripture has Yahveh deeded that piece of real estate to another. It does not matter who else claims ownership or tries to occupy it; they do not own it. It belongs perpetually and forever to Abram and his seed and his seed belong to it.
The tombs of Israel's patriarchs have been enshrined in the land of Israel and memorialized for millenniums as permanent markers certifying that the land has always been theirs. Add to that the multitude of sacred Jewish and Christian shrines throughout the land that documents the historicity of Israel's possession.
Yahveh told Abram to walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, for He would give it to him. (Gen. 13:17). If you have any doubt who owns the land once called Palestine, now called Israel, then read the deed--the first five books of the Old Covenant.
The land was Yahveh's to give. The prophet Joel, speaking the heart of Yahveh, said, "I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted My land." (Joel 3:2)
Sealed In Blood Sacrifice
The covenant Yahveh made with Abram was sealed in a blood sacrifice. Yahveh assured him, "Fear not, Abram: I am your shield, and exceeding great reward." Abram pled with Yahveh, "What will you give me, seeing I go childless?" Yahveh told him that one would come forth out of his own bowels that would be his heir and his heirs would be as numerous as the stars in the heaven. (Gen. 15:1-5).
Yahveh then reassured faithful Abram that He was the one who had brought him out of ur of the Chaldees to give this land as an inheritance. Abram asked, "Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?" (Gen. 15:7-8).
Yahveh answered Abram. "Take Me a heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon." Abram took these to himself and divided them in his midst and laid each piece one against another, but he did not divide the birds. When the fowls (vultures) came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. (Gen. 15:9-11).
What then is the connection between these animal sacrifices and Yahveh's promise of an heir to Abram? In cutting this blood sacrifice with Abram, Yahveh pictured how He planned to deliver upon His promise of an heir.
An heir is one who inherits something. For there to be an inheritance, the one who has something to leave to an heir must die. This means someone would have to die in order for Abram and his seed after him to gain Yahveh's promised inheritance. This was not the appointed time for that to happen. So Yahveh initiated animal sacrifices to picture for us the promise of a Messiah who would in time die for us, making us heirs and joint-heirs of the promised inheritance. We will come to this later on in our timeless line.
The vultures of the air that came down to devour the carcasses are a type of demonic powers working under the authority of Satan. His scheme throughout history is to try to steal the covenant with its promises from Yahveh's elect. Anything that produces disbelief and disobedience is obviously not of faith, but is intended to steal the inheritance that was promised to the heirs of Abram. If Satan cannot steal the inheritance, he will try to kill the heirs--anything to destroy the seed.
An Everlasting Covenant
The enemy's attempt to destroy the seed will be to no avail, because the covenant is everlasting. Yahveh confirmed His promise to Abraham saying, "I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto you, and to your seed after you. I will give unto you, and to your seed after you, the land wherein you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." (Gen. 17:7-8).
The word for everlasting in Hebrew has been translated ever, old, perpetual, evermore. This covenant is not time-bound or earth-bound. It exists in the eternal, spiritual realm of the kingdom of Yahveh. That realm is non-dimensional and is not subject to time, space, and distance. it does not have length, depth, and height as we understand those dimensions. Whatever was, is. Whatever is, will be. Whatever will be has always been. All things in Yahveh are present tense. He is the great I AM which is the meaning of His name, Yahveh--the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.
The promise of the covenant with Abram has no end. What Yahveh said would happen will happen because it is already a reality in the realm of His kingdom. This is a mystery to us and hard to understand, but nonetheless real.
by Charles E. Newbold, Jr.
www.christineboudreau.ca/newbold/or/transseed/transseedtoc.html
This book may be ordered or read in its entirety at the link above.
The following is taken from the site:
Introduction
The Transcendent Seed Of Abraham - A People For Yahveh
If only...
If only we knew whose we are and who we are as sons of God, it would totally, radically change our lives. We have not known entirely whose we are and who we are, as we ought, primarily because religion1 has veiled much of it from us. Religion has written our history according to the doctrines and traditions of men and not according to the counsel of the whole word of God.
We have religious groups today who build their faith on Old Covenant laws while others reject the Old and build their faith exclusively on the New Covenant. While many people of different Christian groups believe in the Old and the New Covenants as the Word of God, they fail to see how it is one continuous story. They have difficulty reconciling the God of the Old Covenant with the God of the New even though He is one and the same. The Bible of the Old and New Covenants tell one continuous story of how God -- whose name is Yahveh2 -- revealed Himself through a people He chose for Himself. We want to view this story from God's perspective. From the beginning to the end, it is His story about what He intends in all creation. Likewise, it is the story of every true believer in Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. This is your story from beginning to end.
The story of mankind began in a garden called Eden with a man and woman. However, for the purpose of this writing, let us begin a little later in time as told in Genesis chapter 12 with a man named Abram -- later named Abraham.
Abram
It was an ordinary day in the life of Abram, around the year 2060 B.C. He and his wife Sarai lived with his father Terah in Haran. The humdrum of his day was suddenly interrupted by a voice from an unseen presence. He could not ignore the voice. Though he likely had never heard it before, he knew intuitively that it was the voice of the Creator of the heavens and the earth.
Abram's life was changed forever by that encounter with the Creator. Moreover, the course of history was set for all time to come. Nothing could alter it though many have tried. We begin our story with him.
The Abrahamic Covenant
Yahveh, the Creator, commanded Abram saying, "Get out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, unto a land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and curse him who curses you: and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed." (Gen. 12:1-3) Thereby, with these words, Yahveh entered into covenant with him.
Our story is illustrated with a timeless-line, diagrammed below, beginning with Abram and extending to eternity. This covenant with Abram is everlasting, eternal; therefore, this timeless line is necessarily everlasting, eternal. It illustrates Yahveh's eternal purposes. Significant names and events will be added above the line to show movement in our story throughout history.
The Timeless Line
Seven Promises To The Covenant
This covenant with Abram has seven unconditional promises. The responsibility to carry out the terms of this covenant are upon Yahveh Himself and not upon Abram. Yahveh initiated the covenant. This is what He wants for Himself and He will have what He wants. What He commands will come about. He is faithful.
First, Yahveh told Abram that He would show him a land, a land that He later gave to him. The land is an essential part of the covenant. The people to whom it belongs, belongs to it. They are associated one with the other. It has prophetic implications even today.
Then, Yahveh promised Abram that He would make of him a great nation. This is linked to a later promise to give Abram an heir. Yahveh promised Abram that his seed3 would be as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall His seed also be numbered. (Gen. 13:16) He later told Abram that his seed would be as numerous as the stars of heaven. (Gen. 15:5)
Yahveh promised Abram that He would bless him. The scriptures later claim that Abram was so blessed with earthly possessions that the land would not sustain both him and his nephew Lot, so they separated themselves.
Yahveh promised Abram that He would make his name great. Even to this day, is there anyone who has not heard of the name Abraham? He is the father of millions of Jews who are descendants of Isaac and millions more of Arabs who are descendants of Ishmael. The case can be made that three religions claim Abraham as their father: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Yahveh promised Abram that He would make him a blessing to others. In fact, He declared that in Abram all the families of the earth would be blessed. The word for family used here also means clans, tribes, and peoples. It is plural.
Yahveh promised Abram that whoever blessed him He would bless.
Yahveh promised the reverse as well -- that whoever cursed Abram, He would curse. We cannot curse Abraham or the seed of promise and expect to be blessed of Yahveh.
Various aspects of this covenant were repeated and confirmed at subsequent times in Abram's life.
Covenant Of Promise Based On Faith
Yahveh told Abram to get out and go to a land that He would show him. According to Hebrews 11:8, Abram had no idea where he would be going; nevertheless, he obeyed. He acted on pure and simple faith.
Abram believed Yahveh, and his faith was accounted to him for righteousness. (Gen. 15:6) Abram was not accounted righteous because of any works or religious deeds he performed because righteousness cannot be earned. It cannot be worked up. Yahveh alone is righteous. Therefore, righteousness had to be accredited (ascribed, imputed) to him. Yahveh ascribed righteousness to Abram because Abram believed. His obedience was the proof of his faith.
"Abram was seventy-five years old when he went out from Haran. He took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, all their substance that they had gathered, and the persons that they had gained in Haran; and went forth to go to the land of Canaan." (Gen. 12:4,5)
Yahveh made a promise to Abram and he believed; thus, making this a covenant of promise based on faith (faithfulness), diagrammed on the timeless line below.
The Timeless Line
Formed A People For Yahveh
In making this covenant with Abram, Yahveh began to form a people for Himself. They were to be a people of His own making to fulfill His own purposes. Yahveh spoke through Moses in the wilderness saying, "If you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation." (Exod. 19:5,6). This promise of destiny is repeated in Deuteronomy 7:1-11 and 26:16-19.
The Land
Abram and his seed were promised a particular piece of real estate. First, He told Abram "to go to the land that I show you." Then He said in Genesis 12:7, "Unto your seed will I give this land." Genesis 13:15 declares that it was given forever. Nowhere in scripture has Yahveh deeded that piece of real estate to another. It does not matter who else claims ownership or tries to occupy it; they do not own it. It belongs perpetually and forever to Abram and his seed and his seed belong to it.
The tombs of Israel's patriarchs have been enshrined in the land of Israel and memorialized for millenniums as permanent markers certifying that the land has always been theirs. Add to that the multitude of sacred Jewish and Christian shrines throughout the land that documents the historicity of Israel's possession.
Yahveh told Abram to walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, for He would give it to him. (Gen. 13:17). If you have any doubt who owns the land once called Palestine, now called Israel, then read the deed--the first five books of the Old Covenant.
The land was Yahveh's to give. The prophet Joel, speaking the heart of Yahveh, said, "I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted My land." (Joel 3:2)
Sealed In Blood Sacrifice
The covenant Yahveh made with Abram was sealed in a blood sacrifice. Yahveh assured him, "Fear not, Abram: I am your shield, and exceeding great reward." Abram pled with Yahveh, "What will you give me, seeing I go childless?" Yahveh told him that one would come forth out of his own bowels that would be his heir and his heirs would be as numerous as the stars in the heaven. (Gen. 15:1-5).
Yahveh then reassured faithful Abram that He was the one who had brought him out of ur of the Chaldees to give this land as an inheritance. Abram asked, "Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?" (Gen. 15:7-8).
Yahveh answered Abram. "Take Me a heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon." Abram took these to himself and divided them in his midst and laid each piece one against another, but he did not divide the birds. When the fowls (vultures) came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. (Gen. 15:9-11).
What then is the connection between these animal sacrifices and Yahveh's promise of an heir to Abram? In cutting this blood sacrifice with Abram, Yahveh pictured how He planned to deliver upon His promise of an heir.
An heir is one who inherits something. For there to be an inheritance, the one who has something to leave to an heir must die. This means someone would have to die in order for Abram and his seed after him to gain Yahveh's promised inheritance. This was not the appointed time for that to happen. So Yahveh initiated animal sacrifices to picture for us the promise of a Messiah who would in time die for us, making us heirs and joint-heirs of the promised inheritance. We will come to this later on in our timeless line.
The vultures of the air that came down to devour the carcasses are a type of demonic powers working under the authority of Satan. His scheme throughout history is to try to steal the covenant with its promises from Yahveh's elect. Anything that produces disbelief and disobedience is obviously not of faith, but is intended to steal the inheritance that was promised to the heirs of Abram. If Satan cannot steal the inheritance, he will try to kill the heirs--anything to destroy the seed.
An Everlasting Covenant
The enemy's attempt to destroy the seed will be to no avail, because the covenant is everlasting. Yahveh confirmed His promise to Abraham saying, "I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto you, and to your seed after you. I will give unto you, and to your seed after you, the land wherein you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." (Gen. 17:7-8).
The word for everlasting in Hebrew has been translated ever, old, perpetual, evermore. This covenant is not time-bound or earth-bound. It exists in the eternal, spiritual realm of the kingdom of Yahveh. That realm is non-dimensional and is not subject to time, space, and distance. it does not have length, depth, and height as we understand those dimensions. Whatever was, is. Whatever is, will be. Whatever will be has always been. All things in Yahveh are present tense. He is the great I AM which is the meaning of His name, Yahveh--the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.
The promise of the covenant with Abram has no end. What Yahveh said would happen will happen because it is already a reality in the realm of His kingdom. This is a mystery to us and hard to understand, but nonetheless real.