Macina on the Messianic Reign

Over the past few year I have started to revisit various theories regarding the end times, especially from the perspective of some leading Messianic Jews. Last week I discovered a profound paper on belief in the Messianic era (the reign of Messiah on this earth) in both Jewish and Christian (especially Catholic) teaching: is it a "common legacy" or a "millenial heresy"? The author, Menahem Macina, has published scores of papers, mostly in French, and mostly relating in some way to the Jewish people.

The paper that caught my attention was "The Belief in a Messianic Reign on earth: common legacy for Jews and Christians alike, or millenarian heresy?" I won't summarise it here, except to say that it presents a tactful challenge to Christians who reject the notion of a literal future reign of Christ from the throne of David in Jerusalem for a very long period ("a thousand years" in biblical language). In particular, Macina calls for the Roman Catholic Church, in this post-Vatican II period, to reconsider millennial doctrine, arguing that both Jewish tradition and very early (second century) Church Fathers supported it. The oldest case in which this is clearly portrayed in Christian literature is found in the writings of Irenaeus, Against Heresies, who insisted that the teaching of a millennial reign was faithfully passed down by the presbyters from the apostles and even Christ himself.

I no longer see the study of the age to come as an optional component of Christian or Messianic faith; the heart of the gospel is the coming of God's Kingdom, and the fullness of that kingdom is something that lies in the future, something that I long to see - God's righteousness established and maintained throughout the earth. For me, Macina's paper makes that vision clearer and more certain. It's definitely worth a read.

Richard Harvey: "But I'm Jewish"

I recently met a leading Messianic Jewish scholar in England, Richard Harvey. Richard is a senior researcher at Jews for Jesus and an associate lecturer at All Nations Christian College. He also recently started a blog promoting awareness of Messianic Jewish history. He was very kind to help me with my travels, encourage me with my research, and to give me a couple of booklets which he authored, one of which is titled: But I'm Jewish! A Jew for Jesus tells his story.

This is an autobiographical work - Richard's story about his life until the time of publication in 1996. Richard and his wife, Monica, are Jews who each came to the understanding that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. For Richard, this mystery was gradually revealed in the early 1970's, and he has lived to testify to it since then, continuing in the face of much rejection and even abuse. The book is a wonderful, short read, sketching Richard's Jewish upbringing and educational background as well as the first two decades of his life as a follower of Jesus. It's available for free in electronic format here.  

My thesis online

My thesis is available on the Academia.edu website (see https://sats-za.academia.edu/DavidWoods), but I understand some folk don't want to create an Academia profile, so I've made a copy here that is free and easy to access.

Title: Jews and Gentiles in the Ecclesia: Evaluating the theory of intra-ecclesial Jew-Gentile distinction

Download options:

1. Whole thesis
2. Abstract only
3. Conclusion only

Counting the omer

In Leviticus 23:15-16, HaShem commanded the Israelites to count fifty days from Pesach (Passover) to reach the feast of Shavuot (“Weeks”). That’s seven full weeks—49 days—between the two feasts, with the fiftieth day being Shavuot. This is how the feast has also become known as Pentecost (Acts 2:1), the Greek word for “fiftieth.” And in Exodus 23:16, it is referred to as the Feast of the Harvest, indicating the time of the late spring grain harvest. Thus it is the last of the spring feasts.

In the days of the tabernacle or (at other times) the temple, the Israelite priests would wave a sheaf (omer)—a tied bundle of harvested cereal including both stalks and heads of grain—each day before the LORD in the Holy Place. This is called s’firat ha-omer (counting the sheaves). So, instead of referring to the practice as “counting the days”, we talk about “counting the omer.” Since the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, Jewish tradition developed so that the days are counted as follows:

1. Proclaim the blessing: “Blessed are you, LORD our God, king of the universe, who has sanctified us by his commandments and commanded us concerning the counting of the omer.”
2. Declare the count: “Today is forty one days, which is five weeks and one day, of the omer.”
3. Pray for the temple, the “Holy House,” to be rebuilt: “May the Merciful One restore unto us the service of the Bet Hamikdash to its place, speedily in our days; Amen, Selah.”
4. Read Psalm 67.
5. Pray for purification and sanctification in preparation for Shavuot.

Why didn’t HaShem simply specify the date on the Hebrew calendar, 6 Sivan, on which to celebrate Shavuot? Counting the omer links Shavuot explicitly to Pesach. Counting each day is like adding a link to a chain, so that Shavuot is, in a sense, the ultimate fulfilment of Pesach. When we think of the fulfilment(s) of these feasts, we can see that they originally took place in the same year, when the Passover Exodus brought the Israelites out of Egypt to the foot of Mount Sinai where the Torah was given 50 days later. We also see a fulfilment take place in the same year, as described in the New Testament: Jesus became the Passover Lamb 50 days before the Spirit was given (putting the G-d's Torah on the hearts of the house of Israel, c.f. Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 10:16). This gives reason to suspect that, just as the spring feasts were fulfilled in the same year, so the fall (autumn) feasts will also find fulfilment in the same year, starting with Yeshua’s return at the sound of the great trumpet (or shofar) on Rosh Hashanah (the Feast of Trumpets) followed shortly after by Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and culminating in Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles).

With this in mind, the reading of Psalm 67 every day whilst counting the omer seems to have a special significance since it speaks of HaShem’s salvation reaching every nation. In fact, it uses three different words for “people” or “nation”: l'om, am, and goy. It is not sufficient for HaShem to be the G-d of Israel alone; he is indeed the G-d of every nation!

Rachel's redemption

Rachel (רָחֵל) is the Hebrew word for ewe. Biblical Rachel appears for the first time in Genesis 29 with a flock of sheep. She was a gorgeous shepherdess who captured the heart of Jacob in an instant and remained his love for life, even long after she died, and she became a matriarch of Israel.

Though Rachel was barren for much of her life, she ultimately bore two sons from whom three of Israel’s twelve tribes descended. Hers is story of trauma and tragedy, but redemption follows. She was made to keep silent whilst her elder sister was married off in her place. She did not receive any inheritance from her father, who spent her share on himself. Perhaps in reaction, she stole from him and consequently fell victim of her husband’s curse which cost her her life.

So where is her redemption? Rachel died upon giving birth to her second son, whom she named “son of my sorrow,” and she was buried on the roadside. What’s worse is that hundreds of years later, the prophet Jeremiah portrayed her weeping in her tomb for her descendants who were slaughtered by ruthless invaders – God’s agents to punish their wickedness. (Matthew quoted Jeremiah in the second chapter his gospel.)

Rachel’s redemption is found in the story of Israel. Her first son, Joseph, became a saviour to his family through his promotion to “prime minister” of Egypt. From his high position, he was able (and gracious enough) to rescue his family from famine. Rachel’s second son, Benjamin, was the ancestor of Mordecai, and thus probably also Esther. It was this pair, Mordecai and Esther, who saved the Jewish people from annihilation in the Persian Empire in the fifth century BCE.

As for Jeremiah’s prophecy, it doesn’t end with Rachel weeping, but with [the LORD] promising reward, return from exile, hope for the future of her offspring. And this redemption is not too late to help Rachel so long after her death because though she died, she lives yet – for her God is God of the living, not the dead (Matthew 22:32).

Surprises in Esther

Jews around the world celebrate Purim every year at this time, a festival founded on the story told in the book of Esther. It’s an awesome record of God’s deliverance of his people, yet his name is not mentioned in the book nor is there any explicit reference to him. In the Hebrew Bible, only Song of Songs and Esther don’t mention God's name directly. Esther doesn't directly mention God at all. This is a bit of a mystery for us. Was the omission of references to God a rhetorical device intended to elicit a particular response from the readers? Was it to demonstrate that God is always at work behind the scenes? Was the author at risk of persecution or having his work destroyed if he mentioned the God of Israel? We don’t know the answer for certain, but we can see that he wrote very deliberately. For instance, the narrative has a symmetric structure, with a sleepless night for the king (Achashverosh/Ahaseurus/Xerxes) in the middle leading to a turnaround for the Judeans; danger mounts progressively through the first half of the book, but deliverance unfolds in the second.
Similarly, the author of Esther uses ironies and even ‘coincidences’ (implicitly God-ordained). He also seems to love presenting the historical elements in pairs, e.g. two queens, two fasts, two occasions where Zeresh speaks to Haman, two royal edicts, and so on.

Incidentally, Ruth and Esther are the only two books of the Bible named after women.

Symmetry

From danger (first half) to deliverance (second half), the text can be summarised symmetrically, as follows:

Prologue

Ahasuerus’ first decree, spelling death for the Jews

Haman's anger toward Mordecai

Ahasuerus gets no sleep

Modecai is exalted over Haman

Ahasuerus second decree, spelling deliverance for the Jews

Epilogue

Two-by-two

Many of these points have been borrowed from the NIV Study Bible:

• The 3 pairs of key banquets in a symmetric structure
• Two lists of the king's servants (1:10,14)
• Two reports of Esther concealing her Jewish identity (2:10,20)
• Two gatherings of the women (2:8,19)
• Two houses for the women (2:12-14)
• Two fasts (4:3,16)
• Two times when Haman speaks to his wife and friends (5:14, 6:13)
• Haman's wife, Zeresh, speaks twice:
  • the first time her advice is bad but Haman takes it: hang Mordecai (5:14)
  • the second time gives a good warning (don't try to destroy the Jews, 6:13), but Haman ignores it
• Two unannounced appearances of Esther before the king at the risk of her life (5:2, 8:3)
• Two investitures for Mordecai with royal garments and a crown (6:7-11, 8:15)
• Two coverings of Haman's face (6:12, 7:8)
• Two passages referring to Haman's 10 sons (5:11, 9:6-14)
• Possibly two appearances of Harbona (1:10, 7:9) – if these refer to the same person (Hebrew spelling differs)
• Two royal edicts (3:12-14, 8:1-13)
• Two references to the king's subsiding anger (2:1, 7:10)
• Two references to the irrevocability of Persian laws (1:19, 8:8)
• Two days for the Jews to take vengeance (9:5-15)
• Two letters to institute the commemoration of Purim (9:22-28, 9:29-31)
• Twice the king gives over his ring to an official (firstly to Haman, then to Mordecai; 3:10, 8:2)
• Twice Esther spoke to Hathach and sent him to Mordecai (4:5, 4:10)

Ironies and ‘coincidences’

• Vashti refused to appear before Ahasuerus, so he forbad her from seeing him ever again
• Haman hated the Jews, but was working under Esther and alongside Mordecai
• The king agreed to Haman's plot not knowing that it would kill his own wife and his prime minister, Mordecai
• Haman's suggestion to the king on how to commend and reward himself led to his own humiliation: having to do it for his enemy Mordecai
• Haman was accused of trying to attack or molest Esther, when he was actually pleading with her for his life
• Haman's body was hanged out on the gallows he made for Mordecai
• Like Saul, Esther was a Benjamite; Haman was an Agagite and thus an Amalekite. Samuel sent Saul to finish off Agag because of God's promise to destroy the Amalekites, but Saul didn't and Samuel had to do it himself. Now Esther and the Jews finally wiped out the Amalekites - Haman and his tribe
• Right before Haman was to charge Mordecai before Ahasuerus, Ahasuerus had a sleepless night and got his attendants to read to him; they read the story of how Mordecai had saved his life
• The irony of Haman taking his wife's bad advice but ignoring her wise warning

Contrasts and turn-arounds

• Vashti refused to appear before the king; Esther appeared unannounced before the king
• Exiled orphan becomes queen of a vast empire
• The victims become the victors; the oppressors are wiped out
• In Haman’s anger toward one Jew, Mordecai, he decided to kill all the Jews. In the end, Haman and all his kin, the descendants of the Amalek, were killed
• Instead of Haman getting everything of Mordecai, Mordecai ends up with Haman's whole estate

The Name of the LORD

Now for an even bigger surprise. The name of the LORD is encoded four times in the text of Esther. Twice in the text it is encoded forwards when a Jew is speaking, and twice backwards when a Gentile is speaking. It is twice the first letter of each of four successive words, and twice the last letter of each of four successive words, once by the Queen, once about the Queen, once by Haman, once about Haman.

Verse	Speaker	Topic: honour/dishonour	Reading	Letter position
Est 1:20	Gentile	About the Queen (Vashti), dishonours her (Est 1:19-20)	Backwards	First
Est 5:4	Jew	Esther speaking, supposedly honours Haman	Forwards	First
Est 5:13	Gentile	Haman speaking, dishonouring Mordecai after boasting in Est 5:12	Backwards	Last
Est 7:7	Jew	About Haman humbling himself	Forwards	Last

A random outcome? I don’t think so. Acrostics are not uncommon in the Hebrew Bible; authors used them deliberately for various purposes, including memorisation. Remember that there were no punctuation marks or even spaces between words (!) in the original Hebrew, so the readers were keenly aware of the first and last letters of each word. Also, the pairing revealed in the table above is in keeping with the writer’s use of pairs.

Look for God’s Name in the text below, according to the reading direction and letter of each word indicated in the table above.

Text	Esther
ונשׁמע פתגם המלך אשׁר־יעשׂה בכל־מלכותו כי רבה היא וכל־הנשׁים יתנו יקר לבעליהן למגדול ועד־קטן	1:20
ותאמר אסתר אם־על־המלך טוב יבוא המלך והמן היום אל־המשׁתה אשׁר־עשׂיתי לו	5:4
וכל־זה איננו שׁוה לי בכל־עת אשׁר אני ראה את־מרדכי היהודי יושׁב בשׁער המלך	5:13
והמלך קם בחמתו ממשׁתה היין אל־גנת הביתן והמן עמד לבקשׁ על־נפשׁו מאסתר המלכה כי ראה כי־כלתה אליו הרעה מאת המלך	7:7

Esther’s inclusion in the canon may have been controversial, but it was no mistake!

A type of Messiah

Finally, parallels may be drawn between Esther and Messiah. Esther left her home with her godly father and dwelt among a common people. She was used and profaned by the position she was called to. Esther did not want to ‘drink the cup’ before her but when the crucial moment came, she chose to lay down her life if need be (4:16, even as Isaac accepted that he was to be the sacrifice). In so doing, Esther proved herself, gained the favour of the king, and interceded with him for her people, pleading for their deliverance. In the end, the Jews and all who joined them (9:27), will forever rejoice in God’s salvation through Esther, the ‘shadow’ of the coming Messiah.

Here we have a female image of Messiah, a true saviour, and we are reminded that male and female together were created in God’s image. Indeed, only after Eve’s creation did the LORD call creation ‘very good’. Esther had a beautiful figure and was good looking (2:7)—she was the most beautiful woman from north Africa to Pakistan. Now that’s something to think about!

Another paper on Jew-Gentile distinction: One New Man

In another paper published in Conspectus 18, I presented two views regarding the composition of the "one new man" in Ephesians 2:15. After some analysis, I determined that the new entity, the ekklēsia, is comprised of Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus, and whose Jewish and non-Jewish identities respectively are not compromised by their membership in it. The unity and peace emphasized in Ephesians is specifically between Israel and the nations, not Christians in general.

Abstract

Two contradictory views of the ‘one new man’ metaphor in Ephesians 2:15 are presented, one arguing that it denies any distinction between Jewish and Gentile Jesus-believers, and the other insisting that it confirms the theory of intra-ecclesial Jew-Gentile distinction. This paper explores the meaning of the ‘one new man’ with special attention to the question of making distinction between Jews and Gentiles within the ekklēsia. The study focuses in turn on each of the three keywords in the metaphor, reviewing their meaning and use in the canon and providing some theological commentary alongside. Supply of the phrase, ‘in place of,’ in some translations is evaluated. Internal evidence in the form of personal pronouns is examined to determine whether it sustains or contradicts distinction theory.
The study concludes unequivocally that the ‘one new man’ in Ephesians 2:15 is a composite unity of Jews and Gentiles who retain their ethnic identities even after spiritual regeneration in Christ. The classification of individuals as believers or unbelievers in Jesus does not erase the biblical distinction between Israel and the nations, even within the ekklēsia. The usage of personal pronouns in Ephesians confirms this finding. To assert that the ‘one new man’ is created ‘in place of’ Jews and Gentiles is therefore misleading. Major theological implications include the validation of Jewish tradition and practice among Jewish Jesus-believers, and their recognition as the living connection between the nations and Israel. The peace Christ made by creating Jew and Gentile in himself into ‘one new man’ is currently most evident in Messianic Jewish synagogues where members of each party worship together and have table fellowship in unity, whilst retaining their own distinctive faith traditions.

The full text of the article is freely available here: https://www.academia.edu/9108922/Jew-Gentile_Distinction_in_the_One_New_Man_of_Ephesians_2_15.