Tag Archives: Life in the Spirit

Safe From Harm

10 Monday Jul 2023

Posted by in Studies, Whole Armor of God

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am continuing my study on the Whole Armor of God.

The passage I am studying is Chapter Six verses 10-18a of Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians.  The New King James Version of the Bible renders these verses as: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.  Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.  Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.  Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod  your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.  And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…”

There is a vast amount of subject matter in this passage.  I needed a starting place and while I was meditating on this passage and listening for what would resonate with me, I listened to Malcolm Smith’s teaching Spiritual Warfare.  The study series focuses on the Armor of God and, in the first hour, Mr. Smith said two things.  The first was that Paul was looking at a Roman Soldier when he wrote this epistle but it was not a soldier readying himself to go onto the battlefield but one prepared to defend.  The second thing Mr. Smith said was the Whole Armor of God is God Himself.  Mr. Smith quoted Isaiah 59:17: “For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head; He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak” and made the point that, as God is Spirit and doesn’t need to wear a breastplate, helmet, garments, or a cloak, this passage is describing His attributes in images the human mind can understand.

I agree with Mr. Smith’s points.  One reason is because of this verse in Be Thou My Vision (one of my favorite hymns!): “Be Thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight, be Thou my whole armor, be Thou my true might, be Thou my soul’s shelter, be Thou my strong tower, Oh raise Thou me heavenward, great power of my power.”  I realized what Mr. Smith was saying was not a new concept: that God Himself was our armor and protection was a truth I was singing on an almost daily basis without giving any real thought to the words. 

A second reason is how seamlessly the whole armor of God being God Himself flows into the idea of defense*.  I was curious about the Hebrew and Greek words for “defense” and “defend” so I looked them up in the Strong’s concordance.  I was not at all surprised to find multiple words-more in the Hebrew than the Greek-translated as “defense” and “defend”.  I did think it significant that “defense” is used exclusively for one Hebrew word throughout the Psalms.  It is also translated once as “defense” in Isaiah.  This word is misgab (H4869) and means “a cliff or other lofty or inaccessible place, altitude, a refuge, defense, high fort or tower”.   

For example, misgab appears three times in Psalm 59: “I will wait for You, O You his Strength; for God is my defense…But I will sing of Your power; Yes, I will sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning; for You have been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble.  To You, O my Strength, I will sing praises; for God is my defense, My God of mercy” (verses 9, 16, 17).  The passage in Isaiah says, “He will dwell on High; His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks; Bread will be given him, His water will be sure” (Isa. 33:16). 

God as our defense is something I want to look at in more detail so, for the sake of this post, I will move on to my third reason for agreeing with Mr. Smith.  This is the presence of the little Greek word του (pronounced too) which appears in this passage.  It is often translated as “of” but the word means “of this person, his”.  I suppose the fact the Whole Armor of God is spiritual is an obvious one.  Still, how we think of the Whole Armor of God meaning something belonging to Him or His as an attribute, is important.  There is a story in 1 Samuel where David is going to face Goliath and King Saul gives the young man his armor to wear.  David could not walk in the armor and had to remove it before facing the enemy (See 1 Samuel 17:32-40).

The Whole Armor of God is not like that of King Saul.  It is not a spiritual armor that belongs to God that He loans to believers in order to help us face an enemy and we make the best use of it as we can.  Looking at the armor as God Himself protecting, defending, and strengthening us for the fight is important because then we can see the armor is exactly suited to us and our situation.  Jesus has partaken of our flesh and blood.  He is not unable to sympathize with us but has been tested in every respect the same as us (Hebrews 4:15).  In Him we live and move and have our being which means He is not only our armor protecting and defending us but His life in us imparts the power and might we need to be able to stand.

I see what I can only describe as a disconnect in my fellow believers.  I see my precious brothers and sisters exhausting themselves fighting battles; ones which, tragically, they seem to have no hope of winning.  They appear to have forgotten that every aspect of our Christian lives flows out of God Himself.  I found a passage in Steve McVey’s book Grace Walk which describes the state of a great many Christians today: “In the natural world, trying harder is commendable and often effective.  But God’s ways aren’t our ways.  Sometimes they seem to be opposite from ours.  In the spiritual world, trying harder is detrimental.  That’s right.  Trying harder will defeat you every time. 

“No Christian has a problem with the previous paragraph as it relates to salvation.  If an unsaved person were to suggest to you that he was trying hard to become a Christian, what would you tell him?  You would probably make it clear that he could not be saved by trying, but by trusting.  You would tell him that there is absolutely nothing he could do to gain salvation.  It has all already been done.  Salvation is a gift to be received, not a reward to be earned.  A person who tries even a little bit to gain salvation by works cannot become a Christian.  As Paul said about salvation, “If by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.  But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work” (Romans 11:6).  In other words, it has to be either grace or works.  We are saved by grace and, and trying hard has absolutely nothing to do with it.

But many Christians who understand that trying is detrimental to becoming a Christian somehow think that it is essential to living in victory after salvation.  The truth is that victory is not a reward but a gift.  A person does not experience victory in the Christian life by trying hard to live for God.  It just won’t work!” (McVey, page 18).

When he was explaining why he thought Paul’s description of a defending rather than attacking soldier important, Malcolm Smith said our spiritual warfare is an odd one because we are not fighting to defeat an enemy or claim ground.  We stand in Christ’s victory and conduct our warfare from the security and steadfastness we have in Jesus Christ Himself.  So real is His victory that, borrowing again from the Apostle Paul, we do not fight like those who beat the air (1 Corinthians 9:26).

I hope to take a more extensive look at this in the upcoming weeks.  Until next week, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might…that we may be able to withstand in the evil day.” 

Amen.

*The Strong’s has “defence” rather than “defense”.  I will continue to use the spelling “defense”.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Be Thou My Vision | Hymnary.org

Unconditional Love Fellowship – Ministry of Malcolm Smith

Green, Jay P., The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Volume 4, Revised Second Edition, Authors For Christ, Inc., Lafayette, Indiana, 2007

McVey, Steve, Grace Walk, Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, 1995

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville Tennessee, 1990

His Attributes Are Clearly Seen

10 Monday Oct 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Photo by Walter Strong

Hello and welcome to another post on Renaissance Woman where, this week, I continue to look at the Hebrew letters comprising the word bara which is most often translated “create” in the Old Testament.

I admit I didn’t get far in the study process.  As Aleph is the first Hebrew letter and Bet is the second, it was easier to turn the pages of Mr. Haralick’s back and look at Aleph then to flip through to Resh which is the twentieth letter.  Thus I am not looking at the letters of bara in the order in which they appear.  As I was reading through Mr. Haralick’s entry on Aleph, I was struck by something he said regarding Elohim, the first name of God revealed in scripture.  Elohim is spelled Aleph Lamed Hey Yod Mem אלהים and, looking at the letters in reverse order gives us another name of God Yah יה and the root word male מלא (pronounced mall-ay) which means “to fill” or “to be full.  Male also means multitude, fullness or filling matter so Elohim can be understood as that aspect of Yah, God, that fills matter. (Haralick, 23)

I have already shared how energy fascinates me and I follow the studies on energy being conducted in Physics and Quantum Physics.  Studies are showing that it is energy that was converted to the smallest particles which are the building blocks of atoms and thus of all that exists.  I found this quote in Mr. Haralick’s introduction: “…’In the beginning, God created heaven and earth,’ should be rendered; ‘When God began to create heaven and earth’.  For the world is continually being created-every day, every hour, even this very instant the world is being sustained by the same primordial creative force with which it came into existence, the force of berishit (בְּרֵאשִׁית), ‘In the beginning.’  If this creative force would depart for even a split second, the world would return to nothingness.” (Haralick, xiii)  This quote made me think of Hebrews 1:3 which states Jesus Christ “upholds all things by the word of His power”. 

During this study of bara, I have been meditating not only on the Word creating in Genesis 1 but how that Word was energized by the Holy Spirit to bring into being all that exists.  I was curious how energy was associated with the Holy Spirit in scripture and so looked it up in my Strong’s Concordance. I didn’t find it.  I was so flabbergasted I thought for a moment I’d forgotten how to spell energy and was looking in the wrong place.  I had not and was not and had to accept neither Greek nor Hebrew had been translated as “energy”.  This both did and did not make sense.  I’m sure that energy wasn’t a widely studied concept in 1611 (Publication of the King James Bible) and yet I am surprised more modern translations haven’t used the word energy as it’s there in the Greek.

The Greek word is energia (G1753) and means “energy”.  Consider Ephesians 1:19: “and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working (energia) of His mighty power” or Ephesians 3:7 “of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working (energia) of His power”.  Energia also appears in Ephesians 4:16, Philippians 3:21, Colossians 1:29, Colossians 2:12, 2 Thessalonians 2:9, 2 Thessalonians 2:11. 

Why not translate energia by the closest related English word, energy?  It might be because energy is a touchy subject among Christians.  I conducted an internet search and found articles addressing whether or not God is energy.  The consensus among the ones I looked at was a resounding “no!” and I wholeheartedly agree but that doesn’t mean we can’t understand something of how God works by exploring how scripture speaks of energy.  However, I see a de-personalization of God going on to the point where He is spoken of as a “presence” or “energy” or, the one that really makes me cringe: “the universe”.  I can see why the word “energy” would be avoided as this de-personalization becomes more widespread.  I picked up a book called Coffee Shop Conversations by Dale and Jonalyn Fincher and was astonished when Jonalyn shared she’d overhead another woman express her astonishment than anyone still believed in a personal God. It is a tragedy that God is rendered to a mere force or worse yet an aspect of His creation.

I find a similar tragedy in the consideration of creation.  I consider scriptures like Hebrews 1:19 and Colossians 1:17 and am not surprised that science is saying it is energy that is converted to matter.  It’s a strange thing:  I don’t disagree with anyone who says God called all that exists out of nothing because He is before all things.  Neither do I quibble with those who say God created all things out of Himself because of the manner in which I create.  When I write a poem I first have the thought to do so.  I decide on what form I want to use then choose rhyme and meter.  Then I sit down and write it and a new thing is brought into the world.  This analogy does break down of course because I create out of forms and words that already exist.  I am not the source of all poetry whereas God Himself is before all things and is the source of all things.  I create a poem because God Himself is a poet and I am made in His image.

I do quibble with those who say the creation is God.  He certainly thought it, called it into being, and upholds it by the dunamis of His word but He is no more His creation than I am a poem I write.  I am certainly connected to a poem I write and anyone who reads a poem can certainly learn something about me but reading one of my poems doesn’t mean the reader knows me.  It’s the same with God.  Romans 1:20 says it perfectly: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”  God is certainly connected to His creation because it’s His.  Creation can show us what He is like but we cannot know Him via creation.

Arthur Conan Doyle wrote something I think pertains to what I am attempting to say.  It comes from his story “The Adventure of the Naval Treaty” and is spoken by Sherlock Holmes: “There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,” said he, leaning with his back against the shutters.  “It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner.  Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers.  All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance.  But this rose is an extra.  Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it.  It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.” (Doyle, 300)

I agree with Sir Conan Doyle that the goodness of God can be seen in His creation.  However, as Andrew Murray says; “Nature speaks of God and His work; but of Himself, His heart, and His thoughts of love toward us as sinners, nature cannot tell.  In his deepest misery, man seeks for God-but how often, to all appearance, in vain.  But, God be praised, this seeking in vain is not for always.  The silence has been broken.  God calls man back to fellowship with Himself.  God has spoken!” (Murray, 42)

We are not left in ignorance as to how God has spoken.  He has spoken to us in His Son (Hebrews 1:1).  He has spoken to us in a person and, since seeing Jesus means we have seen the Father (John 14:9) we know that God is Person.  We can know Him.  We can fellowship with Him.  We can have relationship with Him.  We can look at what He has made and even attempt to understand how He has made it but all of this is useless unless we look beyond created things and energy and power to the One before it all.  That One is love.  He loves us so much He gave us this beautiful world to live in and take care of.  In the midst of our failure and darkness, He sent His son Jesus Christ to rescue and restore us.  Now, He freely pours His Spirit onto and in us so that we live in union with Him. 

The Holy Spirit is difficult to understand.  Whenever I see Him in scripture He is moving, hovering, vibrating, covering, energizing, and so many other action verbs.  He is difficult to describe without using words like “energy” or “power” and, as He is the reticent Person of the Godhead, it can be easy to think of Him in impersonal terms.  And yet, in John’s gospel, the Holy Spirit is described in the most personal of terms.  He is Helper, Comforter, Teacher, and Guide.  Only a Person can be these things. 

I believe in a Personal God.  I can call Him by name: Jesus.  I can know Him as my Father.  His Spirit living in me is my very best friend.  I live in Union, Fellowship, and Relationship with Him and this is only possible because He is Infinite Person.  What He is to me, He is to everyone else.  Do not allow this precious life that is yours in Christ Jesus be stolen from you by one who has not seen.  This life is the free gift of God.  It is difficult to believe that we don’t have to earn it or clean ourselves up first so we are acceptable.  The Holy Spirit opens our eyes to this truth, strengthens us, and energizes us so we can receive it. 

Who is like our God?  Who gives gifts like our God?  Our God is an awesome God!

Hallelujah!

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Doyle, Arthur Conan, The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury, Crown Publishers Inc., 1976

Fincher, Dale & Jonalyn, Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2010

Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995

Murray, Andrew, Holiest of All: A Commentary on the Book of Hebrews, Whitaker House, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, 1996, 2004

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Walker, Allen G. The New Koine Greek Textbook, Volumes 1-4, 2014-2017

In the Midst

23 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Personal Essays, Studies, Walking in the Way, Writing

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My Dad called them “God’s Calling Cards.”  He meant those instances in our lives that are attributed to coincidence but, when seen through the lens of us living and moving and having our being in Jesus Christ; are recognized as God’s Calling Cards.

I have had these little coincidences on my mind over the last few weeks and was discussing them with a co-worker when I remembered my Dad’s term for them.  I’ve continued to meditate on them and have been looking at them in terms of my study on darkness.

But first, some context for these Calling Cards.  I am now recovering from surgery-less than four years after my last one-to remove yet another tumor.  The particular path I’m on started in 2017 when my Primary Care Physician found a lump in my breast.  No doubt a cyst fueled by hormones but it still needed to be looked at.  I started praying immediately.  I know Jesus bore all my sicknesses and iniquities so of course I was healed.  Except I wasn’t.  I was referred to a specialist who ran tests and said the lump didn’t look right which led to another referral and a biopsy.  I then had to wait for the results of that biopsy and I spent days wondering “what if?”  Would it be benign or did I have the C-word?  I wrote about this in my post Just a Butterfly and I will include a link at the bottom of this post in case anyone is interested in reading it.

I didn’t have to have this lump surgically removed but it did seem to be a catalyst for a cascade of tests and procedures culminating in the major surgery in December of 2018.  I had fought for years to avoid it.  I’d tried diet, exercise, prayer…nothing worked.  Once more my concerned PCP referred me to a specialist who was also a surgeon and who ended up removing thirteen fibroids from my abdomen.  It was both a devastating surgery and yet a blessing because I was freed from quite a bit of pain.  I began walking the road to recovery whilst also striving to understand, where was God in all of this?  Where was my healing?  If I’m to expect results when I pray, what results should I be expecting? 

I was sure that surgery in 2018 would be my last.  Then only a year later another growth appeared in a different part of my body.  It also ended up being benign and the procedure to remove it was relatively minor.  Just a snip and a couple days recovery but it did concern me.  This growth could not be attributed to hormone imbalance or endometriosis.  Was my body randomly growing tumors?  What if one grew in my brain?  Was there anything I could do to stop them?

And then, I began experiencing weird pain in my abdomen.  Once more, my concerned PCP sent me for a test then referred me to a specialist who took another test and then went “hmm…that doesn’t look right” and referred me to an Oncologist.  Once more, I’ve had surgery to remove a rather large tumor-or endometrial lesion-and once more I am grateful the growth is benign.  I am again walking the road to recovery but I will say this time it is different.  I do not wonder where God is in all of this: I have seen Him in a series of coincidences.

I intended to discuss my weird pain with my Doctor at an appointment in January of this year but then I contracted the ‘rona and had to postpone.  The earliest I could get was June.  No big deal.  I was sure it was nothing serious.  Then my Doctor’s office called and confirmed my appointment in March.  I didn’t have an appointment in March.  There had to be a cancellation and I had to be penciled in but no one called me to ask if I was available: they called to confirm. The appointment was scheduled for the next day and I had no conflict so I went.  I ended up having a CT scan that afternoon which put me on the referral and tests path I’ve already mentioned.  I met with the Oncologist on a Friday and was scheduled for surgery the following Monday.  I write this two weeks into my recovery and I can’t help but think of all the things that just happened to fall into place so that I am on the road to recovery a full month before that June appointment. 

There has not been a moment when I have not known God with me.  I don’t do well with surgery.  Anesthesia is not my friend and recovery is difficult for me.  Recovery from this last surgery was especially difficult and I ended up having to spend an extra day in the hospital.  This was hard news to take and I had a moment where I thought I might tear out my IV and run screaming.  Or shuffle screaming, as the incision made running impossible.  I clung to God in that moment and knew He was with me.  I was not only aware of His presence but felt His touch in the hands of my care-givers.  I don’t know anything personal about anyone who nursed me: I do know that each person who cared for me showed me kindness, gentleness, and the true meaning of ministry which is to serve. 

What do I expect from God?  He has not come crashing into any of these situations, snapped His fingers, and made any of these growths disappear.  He has not delivered me unless you count sixteen separate growths-not counting moles removed-and not one of them being cancerous as deliverance.  He has not spared me trials on top of the pain and issues I deal with from the car accident.  What He has done is knit Himself to me in the midst of these situations and made me so aware of His presence that I’ve gone through them without fear.  I have not been a paragon of faith:  I may have begged a bit when it became clear I wasn’t going to get to go home but even then, He was with me.  He was faithful every moment.

Faithful every moment.  That is what I see in this study of darkness.  The Hebrew letters spelling darkness-Chet, Shin, and Caph-reveal to me a picture of the God who is Love with me every moment.  Even when it feels the circumstances of my life are chewing me up and spitting me out (Shin), there is nothing I go through alone.  He is not hidden from me nor I from Him but He holds me in the palm of His hand (Caph).  I am not only held but His Spirit is poured out on me and in me and His life is knit to mine (Chet).  I’ve started looking deeper into the word bara which is translated “create” and one of my Teachers told me bara meant “to fill”.  I am looking deeper into that but find that definition beautiful.  He fills my darkness with Himself.

My study of darkness brought me to Psalm 18 and verse 11 in particular. My NKJV begins this verse as, “He made darkness His secret place.”  The New Living says “He shrouded Himself in darkness” and the English Standard Version has, “He made darkness His covering”.  I wondered about this verse because, at first glance, it did seem to be saying that God hides Himself in darkness which didn’t make much sense.  Once I’d looked a little further into the meaning of darkness, looked into the context of the Psalm, and discussed it with two of my Teachers, this passage became so wonderfully clear.  My Bible places this Psalm within the time period of King David’s fleeing from King Saul.  Reading through the Psalm, I can see David was not having a pleasant time: the pangs of death and sorrows of Sheol surround him.  His enemies are too strong for him, he is hated, and he refers to “his day of calamity”.  He is in darkness.

But!  The Lord God comes with darkness under His feet!  He made the darkness His secret place, He fills it, and His brilliance destroys it from within.  The Lord lights the lamp and enlightens the darkness.  I am reminded of what I shared two weeks ago that the eye is referred to as a lamp in the NT.  It is as the eyes of our understanding are enlightened and made single by the Holy Spirit-and the Greek carries the idea of being braided with-that He enlightens our darkness.  This Psalm in particular stayed with me because, throughout this entire process, I could see the truth written in this beautiful Psalm: God armed me with strength, He set me in a broad path, and He upheld me.  Even when I didn’t fully understand why things were happening the way they were, He filled every moment with Himself.

I have “what if” thoughts: I can’t help that.  All I can do is answer every “what if” with the truth “God is with me.”  I mentioned having to stay an extra night in the hospital.  I’d been told my stay would be one night only so, when I couldn’t stop being ill and had to stay that extra night, I panicked a little.  I am a disabled person with no disability benefits (which is a long story in itself) and I only work part time.  On top of dealing with the physical difficulties, I worried about the cost of that extra night, what my insurance would do, and what bills might be coming my way, etc.  A couple of days after being released, I received a letter from my insurance.  The surgeon had submitted me for two days stay and my insurance had approved it.  It’s such a small thing but it’s another one of those little coincidences.  Here I was panicking and feeling like a failure.  If willpower was any sort of power at all, I’d have been able to get better and would never have stayed that extra night.  All I could do was trust that He was bigger than even this and then the letter arrived showing me it had all been taken care of before the surgery began. 

Truly, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself goes before me and is with me.  He never leaves me nor forsakes me.  There is never a circumstance that discourages me or fills me with fear (See Deuteronomy 31: 8, Isaiah 45:2).  He fills not only the darkness but all things (Ephesians 4:10).  In Him I live and move and have my being and, because He lives and lives in me; I can face tomorrow and whatever else might come. 

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  Amen.

Just a Butterfly

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Bentorah, Chaim, Hebrew Word Study: Beyond the Lexicon, Trafford Publishing, 2014, Pages 92, 108, 148

Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995, Pages 113, 161, 293

choshek, “darkness,” strong’s H2822 (alittleperspective.com)

(2) “Darkness” in ancient Hebrew! (Part I) – YouTube

God’s Appointed Times: Aleph Tav Meaning (godsappointedtimes.com)

Formed a Vessel-Resh

31 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by in Hebrew Words, Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Photo by Aleksey149 from Pixabay

This week I am taking a look at the third Hebrew letter of which yatsar is comprised; yatsar being the word translated “form” in my study passage Isaiah 45:7.  This third letter is Resh and it was this letter that captivated me the moment I looked it up in the Table of Contents of The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters by Robert M. Haralick.  I have already shared how I began to see a picture of Jesus-One with the Father, Creator, Logos-being squeezed into the form of a man when I began to study “I form the light”.  With this picture already in my mind, of course I was struck when I saw that Resh means “The Cosmic Container”.  I was so overwhelmed with excitement I had to stop my study for that night and come back to it later.  When I did return I was struck anew with wonder at our God.

ר Resh = The Cosmic Container

I can only think about God becoming flesh and wonder at it.  Some 2,000 years ago now, the man Jesus walked the earth.  He was a man and yet at the same time He was the one who made the very earth He walked upon.  This same Jesus, a man yet God, He who was dead but now lives forever more, He who ascended above all the heavens, He who sits at the right hand of The Father; “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.  All things were created through Him and for Him.  And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:15-17).  Such a God is beyond my comprehension.  How is it possible to know Him?  Because He wills it so and because He is humble.

The book by Mr. Haralick says that Resh means both poverty and head or principal.  Here, I see a picture of Jesus: both as the humble servant of The Father and as the One on the throne.  When I read a little further in Colossians 1 I find, “And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence” (verse 18).  Holding this in mind, I think of Philippians 2: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.  Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name…” (verses 5-9).  To these two scriptures, I add: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

1 John 4:17 says, “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world”.  I will be spending the rest of my life and no doubt eternity as well, coming to understand the love that God is.  In the sense of Resh being The Cosmic Container and considering the words of the Apostle John-“as He is, so are we in this world”-who am I?  What exactly is my identity in Jesus Christ?  Well, I have been created through Him and for Him and I consist in Him.  In His great love, He emptied Himself, humbled Himself, and obeyed the voice of His Father and through His poverty I am become rich.  Beyond all comprehension, really.  He pours His Spirit in me.  Everything He has he gives to me.  He is conforming me into His very image so that, every day, I become more and more like Him.  If all of this isn’t enough to give me a swelled head, I don’t know what is.  And yet, this is where I am humble because I know all of this is mine because of who Jesus is and not because of anything I do or don’t do.

I return to Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians and read: “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:6-7).  Everything I am I am because Jesus Christ lives in me.  I have no life nor light of my own.  It’s all Him and He shines in me and through me.

What is beautiful though is that I’m not just a container for Jesus to manifest through.  There is a mountain in Rome called Monte Testaccio.  It is an entirely artificial mountain composed of smashed and discarded Ancient Roman pottery.  Clay pots called amphorae were the shipping containers of that day.  They were also the single use containers of the day and, once the wine or oil or whatever the Empire imported had been cleared out of the container, the container was smashed and cast aside.  While Paul does compare us to earthen vessels, we are not single use containers.  The Spirit of the Living God comes to live in these earthen vessels that we are and then transforms us.

There is a parable of Jesus found in Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22 and Luke 5:33-39 where Jesus says a new piece of cloth cannot be sewn to an old item of clothing and new wine cannot be put into old wineskins.  The new will destroy the old and both will be ruined.  So it would be with this new creation we are in Jesus Christ, if we were left as we were when He first opened our eyes to see Him and brought us to Himself.  But, He does not.  His Spirit moves in and begins to remake us.  We are renewed by the transformation of our minds as we are taught by the Holy Spirit to exchange our thoughts for His thoughts.  2 Corinthians 3:18 says “we are changed into the same image from glory to glory” but I like how the Phillips translation puts it: “We are transfigured in ever-increasing splendor into his own image, and the transformation comes from the Lord who is the Spirit”. 

In John’s great vision of Jesus Christ, the One who sits on the throne says, “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5).  I recently read or heard something by one of my Bible teachers who pointed out it doesn’t say “I make all new things” but “I make all things new”.  I like that.  He forms the light.  He forms the light that is the life of Jesus in us.  It is a process and one that can be terribly painful.  As the Spirit opens our eyes to a place where the flesh has ruled and where He is now working, we can feel we are worth nothing more but to be smashed and tossed onto the refuse heap.  That is not how God sees us.  We are His beloved children and He is gentle with us.  Firm and determined in His purpose, but gentle.

“Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him” (Isaiah 43:7).  He forms us as vessels and, more than this; in His incredible love for us calls us His children.  “And that is not just what we are called, but what we are.  Our heredity on the Godward side is no mere figure of speech…Here and now we are God’s children!  We don’t know what we shall become in the future.  We only know that, if reality were to break through, we should reflect his likeness, for we should see him as he really is!” (1 John 3:1-3, Phillips).

Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Haralik, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson, Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995

https://www.archaeology.org/exclusives/articles/2892-rome-monte-testaccio-amphoras