Kingdom Come

While Jesus Christ is a unique Messiah, he is not the only Messiah. God didn’t wait 4,000 years to provide a champion.

There are many Messiahs in the Bible.  Since every King and High Priest was anointed with oil, each may be referred to as “an anointed one” (a Mashiach or a Messiah).  For example: “G-d forbid that I [David] should stretch out my hand against the L-rd’s Messiah [Saul]…” I Samuel 26:11. Cf. II Samuel 23:1, Isaiah 45:1, Psalms 20:6…

Usage: chosen out, elect, choice, select, sometimes as subset: of those chosen out by God for the rendering of special service to Him…

When Adam gave up his own immortal life, comfort and prosperity to redeem Eve from the dreadful isolation of death, and in so doing procreated offspring, he became God’s chosen servant. The definitions of a messiah are all through the Bible.

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death” (Philippians 2:5-8)

“Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him…he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law…I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people.” (Isaiah 42:1-10)

As are the definitions of a son of God.

“In the beginning was the Word / power of creation & life, and the Word / power was with / able to be separate from God, and the Word / Power was God…as many as received him / YHVH, to them gave he power to become the sons of God / replicas, even to them that believe on his name YHVH / Creator / Life-Giver:” (John 1:1-12)

This both narrows the giver of immortal life from YHVH’s Chosen Savior / Jesus Christ to, simply, YHVH / Singularity Creator and expands the opportunity to be saved to the entire world.

“Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him…I will…open before him the two leaved gates [of Babylon]…that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel…That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else!” (Isaiah 45)

There is a chasm between Christianity and Judaism created by Christianity’s narrow focus on Jesus Christ as the only Christ / Messiah / anointed / chosen / Redeemer versus scriptural Judaism’s faithfulness to record many messiahs.

The Finished Works of Christ: What They Mean For Us

APR. 18, 2018 | BY CREFLO DOLLAR

our healing, deliverance, prosperity, victory, joy, peace, and everything else we need in life is already finished and ready for us to claim.

I put it to you that Christianity’s hyper focus on Jesus as the only Christ / Messiah is a cheap escape from personal responsibility. Severing Christianity from Judaism allows – not just Dispensationalists, not just Catholics, but also Protestants with Martin Luther’s doctrine of grace – to toss out the clear scriptural demands to prove one has identified with haMashiach by becoming hamashiach – a holy, righteous, chosen servant of God.

Paul’s letter to the 1st century AD Gentile believers at Ephesus parallels Moses speaking at Mount Sinai in the 2nd millennium BC.

• he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy 
• predestinated us unto the adoption of children
• made known unto us the mystery of his will that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in The Promise Seed / Christ
• ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise are made nigh by the blood of The Promised Seed / Christ
• For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us
• Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God
• To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the congregation of believers including those following Moses at mount Sinai / church the manifold wisdom of God
• According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord
• Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, (Ephesians 3)

“Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you [Israel]: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.” (Acts 13:46-48)

“walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called…Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;” (Ephesians 4:1-16)

Can’t get around it.

Peter and John bear witness to Paul’s claim that the Gentile Christians from the 1st century onward parallel the Messianic role of Cyrus the Persian and of Moses and the nation of Israel.

“To the strangers [aliens, non-Jews] scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia…

• ye are a chosen generation
• a royal priesthood
• an holy nation
• a peculiar people

that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God…among the Gentiles: that…they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.” (I Peter 1:2, 2:9-12)

The day of God’s visitation on the earth is the last chance to be saved from eternal destruction.

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will [eventually] come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness…Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.” (II Peter 3

“denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world…our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” (Titus 2:12-14)

When we follow the biblical trail instead of the most appealing preacher we realize that redemption of the helpless victims of powerful forces is a fundamental aspect of biblical godliness and all sons of God are known by their participation in God’s work of redeeming mankind.

The origins of slavery are lost to human memory...

Slavery is known to have existed as early as the Shang dynasty (1h–12th century BCE) in China…down to the 20th century…slaves were generated in the same ways they were elsewhere, including capture in war, slave raiding, and the sale of insolvent debtors… self-sale into slavery, the sale of women and children (to satisfy debts or because the seller could not feed them), and the sale of the relatives of executed criminals….kidnapping…

Among the Aztecs of Mexico…People got into the institution through self-sale and capture and could buy their way out relatively easily…[but] chattels purchased from the Mayans and others were sacrificed in massive numbers…

In England about 10 percent of the population entered in the Domesday Book in 1086 were slaves, with the proportion reaching as much as 20 percent in some places. Slaves were also prominent in Scandinavia during the Viking era, 800–1050 CE, when slaves for use at home and for sale in the international slave markets were a major object of raids…

Continental Europe—France, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, and Russia—all knew slavery. Russia was essentially founded as a by-product of slave raiding by the Vikings passing from Scandinavia to Byzantium in the 9th century, and slavery remained a major institution there until the early 1720s, when the state converted the household slaves into house serfs in order to put them on the tax rolls. House serfs were freed from their lords by an edict of Tsar Alexander II in 1861. Many scholars argue that the Soviets reinstituted a form of state slavery in the Gulag camps that flourished until 1956.

Slavery was much in evidence in the Middle East from the beginning of recorded history…Slaves were present in ancient Egypt and are known to have been murdered to accompany their deceased owners into the afterlife…

Slaves were owned in all Islamic societies…ranging from Arabia…to North Africa in the west and to what is now…Indonesia in the east. Some Islamic states, such as the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Khanate, and the Sokoto caliphate, must be termed slave societies because slaves there were very important numerically as well as a focus of the polities’ energies.

Slaves have been owned in Black Africa throughout recorded history. In many areas there were large-scale slave societies…Approximately 18 million Africans were delivered into the Islamic trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean slave trades between 650 and 1905. In the second half of the 15th century Europeans began to trade along the west coast of Africa, and by 1867 between 7 million and 10 million Africans had been shipped as slaves to the New World…African slave owners demanded primarily women and children for labour and lineage incorporation and tended to kill males because they were troublesome and likely to flee. The transatlantic trade, on the other hand, demanded primarily adult males…

The first known major slave society was that of Athens…Slaves were responsible for the prosperity of Athens and the leisure of the aristocrats, who had time to create the high culture now considered the beginning of Western civilization. The existence of large-scale slavery was also responsible, it seems logical to believe, for the Athenians’ thoughts on freedom that are considered a central part of the Western heritage…

The next major slave society was Roman Italy btween about the 2nd century BCE and the 4th century CE. Initially, Rome was a polity consisting primarily of small farmers. But the process of creating the empire took them away from their farms for extended periods, and the prolonged wars of conquest in Spain and the eastern Mediterranean during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE created a great flood of captives…Roughly 30 percent of the population was enslaved…

Six hundred years later Islam outlawed slavery. It took another 1,200 years for Christian nations to outlaw overt slavery.

But still, slavery exists world-wide..

On September 15, 2016, Urmila Bhoola, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, presented a report on slavery in the modern world, in particular debt bondage…

it takes place…across many sectors of the economy, and is a form of enslavement with deep historical roots…remains one of the most prevalent forms of modern slavery in all regions of the world despite being banned in international law and most domestic jurisdictions.”…

there is a close relationship between debt bondage and various forms of exploitation, “including forced labour, the abuse of migrant workers, trafficking, and the worst forms of child labour.”…

ILO provided a figure in 2012 of 20.9 million people being victims of forced labor of all forms…

Sex trafficking is a massive, worldwide problem…

1. There are more than 4 million victims of sex trafficking globally.

2. 99% are women and girls.

3. There is no official estimate of sex trafficking victims in the U.S…However, in its 2019 report, the State Department found the top three nations of origin for human trafficking victims were the United States, Mexico and the Philippines.

7. Profits from forced sexual labor are estimated at $99 billion worldwide.

12. Prosecutions of sex trafficking are down in the U.S.

A man I was talking with argued against the righteousness of the God of the Bible because “he allows slavery”. His refusal to even discuss alternate perspectives on references to slavery in the Bible proved that, in reality, he was just seizing on an opportune excuse for rejecting an authority figure.

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Romans 6;15-17)

This is notoriously true when getting a loan from a loan shark, buying drugs on credit from the local dealer, or becoming an indentured servant to pay for passage to the New World.

“See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil…

1. love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply…
2. But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods [powerful beings], and serve them…ye shall surely perish,” Deuteronomy 30:15-18)

This is not a threat of punishment by an angry God. This is a warning against the natural outcome of being overcome by powerful evil beings. This is demonstrably true just in the four dimensional arena, what else could we expect in the hyper dimensional?

In fact, the nation of Israel was the only nation in pre-mdern history known to forbid enslavement of its national people. And any nation can only control the conduct of its national people.

The Bible provides the only possible solution.

Someone has to pay the price for freeing others.

“if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant / paying off a debt: But as an hired servant / guaranteed wages, and as a sojourner / temporarily, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee [occurred every 7 years]. And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return.”

“if…thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself / receives lump sum payment up front he has to work off unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger’s family: After that he is sold he may be redeemed again…any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your God….”

“in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof…and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family…”

“And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.  If thy brother…hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold.” (Leviticus 25:8-25)