Kingdom Come

“And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him…thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.” (Genesis 17:1-5)

The easiest way to explain Abraham’s designation as “Father / Spiritual Authority” is to compare his role to a contemporary counterpart.

“Pope”  (Latin: papa, from Greek: πάππας, romanized: páppas, lit. ‘father’), AKA “Holy” Father, is

1. head priest of the worldwide Catholic Church,
2. and also head of state or sovereign of the Holy See.

In Hebrew, that is Melchizedek / King and Priest all in one person.

The word “see” comes from the Latin word sedes, meaning ‘seat’, which refers to the throne (cathedra) used in the Catholic Church to refer specifically to The Apostolic See, the throne of the Bishop of Rome, whom that Church sees as the successor of Saint Peter at the cathedral of the Holy See, the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in the city of Rome.

The Holy See / Throne. like the State of Israel proclaimed in 1948, is a politically sovereign entity recognized by international law. Housed within Vatican City, a geographical enclave separate from the city of Rome. As a political state, it brings its power to bear within international organizations and by means of its diplomatic relations and political accords with other much larger countries.

The Holy See is administered by the Roman Curia / Court, which is the central government of the Catholic Church.^[8][9] The Roman Curia includes various dicasteries, comparable to ministries and executive departments, with the Cardinal Secretary of State as its chief administrator. Papal elections are carried out by part of the College of Cardinals.

Although the Holy See is sometimes metonymically referred to as the “Vatican“, the Vatican City State was distinctively established with the Lateran Treaty of 1929, between the Holy See and Italy, to ensure the temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence of the papacy.^[10] As such, papal nuncios, who are papal diplomats to states and international organizations, are recognized as representing the Holy See and not the Vatican City State, as prescribed in the Canon law of the Catholic Church. The Holy See is thus viewed as the central government of the Catholic Church.^[9] The Catholic Church, in turn, is the largest non-government provider of education and health care in the world.^[11]

the Catholic Church is truly one of the most diverse institutions on the face of the Earth…there are twenty-four particular Churches. These twenty-four sui iuris (autonomous or self-governing) Churches are all in communion with one another, are all within the Catholic Church and all recognize the primacy of the pope…are all referred to as Eastern Churches and have their own traditions and forms of liturgy, yet retain the same basic liturgical structures and theology.

I had some personal experience of this in three different churches I attended.

• Arabic by the predominantly Palestinian Eastern Rite Melkite (as in Melchi-zedek) Church the first assembly called Christian, founded in Antioch, Syria in the first wave of Paul’s ministry of including Gentiles in what had been a Jewish faith. At the time I was getting married in a bombed-out church on the Green Line in Beirut during its fundamentally religious civil war.
• This is the same liturgy spoken in Aramaic by the Lebanese-based Western Rite Maronite Church serving the extensive Lebanese diaspora in Virginia where I attended services with my husband and children. 
• This is the same basic liturgy spoken in Hebrew I memorized while a member of a Messianic Jewish Synagogue after my divorce due to deep religious conflicts.

The formal liturgy certainly developed from the recitation of the essentials of Eber’s Monotheism safeguarding beliefs and assurance of eternal life during the splintering and scattering of one people into a multitude of nations during the uptick from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.

The father of “many” nations does not fit with typical Christianity that, at most, acknowledges “Jewish roots” of Christianity while equating Jews with Hebrews despite the biblical distinction between the two groups. The broader interfaith view of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as the Abrahamic faiths. still leave out much of the world, as well as the “melchi” / king / political role essential to the biblical Melchizedek to which Abram was promoted, and which the Catholic Pope/Father frankly holds in addition to his spiritual authority.

This political aspect is best compared to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the leader and organizationally the most powerful single person within the United Nations. In reality, the leader of the United States, as the strongest country in the world and the largest UN donor, has a major input into how the UN operates, or fails to act. This is transparent in the UN’s failure to act during current Middle East crises despite the current Secretary General’s background for that appointment, António Guterres, is serving as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 2005 to 2015 as the number of people displaced by conflict and persecution rose precipitously from 38 million to over 60 million.

Likewise, even after the flood wiped out all but eight humans, resuming YHVH’s version of humanity faced multiple existential crises.

“And Noah…knew what his younger son had done [to resume hybridization]…And he said,

1. Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
2. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
3. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents / shelters of Shem;” (Genesis 9:24-27)

What this clearly future-oriented covenant prepares for is the natural progression of events. The social sciences concur with the biblical record of a population explosion at this time in history. 

1. As refugees flee oppressive Canaanite culture and warfare and migrate in search of living space,
2. finding salvation in Eber’s world-wide evangelistic meetings,
3. they develop into new nations characterized by ecological differences while some maintain the essentials of Shem’s monotheism. 

One of the first examples of this process is a hybrid giant nations.  Who knew they could be saved?

“…Abram the Hebrew…dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite [a giant nation], brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram.” (Genesis 14:13-24)

These men had to have had enough faith in Abram’s God and Abram’s leadership to follow him into what was otherwise a suicide mission in the War of Four Kings Against Five and the God of Abraham inscribes their names on a war memorial: Mamre is forever identified as the gracious seller of the first plot of promised land, Eshcol is forever identified with the luscious first fruits of the promised land.

The city-state of Gerar is another one of the first examples of “the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (II Peter 3:9)

“And Abraham journeyed from [Chaldea through Padan-Aram [into the land of Canaan and]…sojourned…in Gerar [where]…Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah [into his harem.] But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife. But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, LORD / YHVH, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? …in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this…Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him…what have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin?…What sawest thou, that thou hast done this thing? And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife’s sake…

Abimelech…spake unto Abraham, saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest: Now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son: but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear…and both of them made a covenant.”

Abi-melech spake unto Abraham, saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest: Now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son: but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear.” (Genesis 20:21:22-27)

1. “Abi Melech” means “My authority is Melech [zadok]”, i.e. Shem, the human priest-king of the monotheistic Creator God YHVH.
2. He refers to YHVH as “God”, i.e. the one and only, monotheistic God, not as “my” or “your” God but the same God shared with Abraham.
3. He followed the baseline Melchizedekian law of righteous, “Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 25:17)

Hundreds of years later Abraham’s vow to treat Abimelech’s people as allies was honored by the Israelites. The land of Gerar is not among Israelite conquests listed in Joshua 15. Located in what came to be Philistine territory, but not named as one of the Philistine cities, Gerar would be rescued from the Philistines by first Samson, then Saul, and finally King David. 

“do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety.” (Leviticus 25:18)

Other examples of the nations within the Hebrew Commonwealth include Abraham’s children the Ishmaelites / Arabs, the Midianites, the nation of Sheba.

These nations are not ethnicities, and being born into a nationality like Jewish doesn’t guarantee being a member of the Most High God’s  Commonwealth. The key qualification for becoming a member of a spiritual nation with the Commonwealth of Hebrew Monotheistic Nations is an individual spiritual

• acknowledgement of an all-powerful Creator who is therefore, unequivocally, “the Boss”,
• identification with his standards of right behavior which are “production” NOT “destruction”
• and trusting whatever revelation has been received in your time and culture that This Eternal One has a vested interest in you as his Creation and will empower you to overcome destructive forces in this life and after.

“For there is no respect of persons with God. 

• For as many as have sinned without law [AKA the Torah, the Bible] shall also perish without law:
• and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;

(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified)…Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.” (Romans 1-2)

Do you remember the deliberate cruelties done to you and your children? God does. Your church membership won’t save you in the day he presents the evidence that overwhelms the protestations of guiltlessness – and surprise at having one’s record expunged. who’s been “naughty or nice.”

1. “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek…
2. And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt.” (I Samuel 16:1-6)

There are also the Egyptians who took in Abram’s and Jacob’s households during famines, the Philistines who took in Isaac’s household, 

Surprised? Some individuals in Israel’s worst enemy nations are members of the Hebrew Commonwealth.

“In that day shall there be

• an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt,
•  a highway [indicating commerce] out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.
• shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: 

Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance…every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD / YHVH / Creator.” (Zechariah 14:16)