The Father has forgiven all your trespasses and sins through Jesus Christ
After Jesus has sent a paralytic home with his bed in hand, the people were amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We never saw anything like this!’
‘We never saw anything like this’.
This is success is it not.
For an entertainer to get an ovation, for a politician or a business man to get such acclaim would be considered to have achieved the objective, recognition among men & this was an acknowledgment of a unique quality. This was the X factor, that something more than any other had been able to demonstrate.
The need within man to be stimulated in seeing a good thing is not wrong. That which is within changing fashion & music and to see something new is not wholly detached from an inward design that was meant to be met by a creative and resourceful God.
The distinctiveness here is is that they already glorified God for what he had and was doing.
This brought a liberating expression to their statement ‘We never saw anything like this’, it carried light and lifted men and women into an elevated place of possibility: ‘Can & does God sustain all life’. They were beginning to realize that with this man their was not an anti climax or a great low after the main event, what he was doing carried with it a message of continuity and it directly related to glorifying God.
Man was made to glorify God. It is his chief aim. And it was beginning to happen spontaneously through hearing and seeing what Jesus did.
Oh the wonder of it.
Jesus produced within them the worship of God that had been absent when being instructed by the other religious leaders. Jesus produced within them the springs of life that they had been designed for, and it gave back thanks and praise to God.
It did not come from any other message than one that had forgiven men for their trespasses and sins. Mans greatest need is to know his sins forgiven & that a life with a spring in its steps with God can follow.
At this new place where will Jesus lead them next.
Will he play it cautious to ensure that his fame spreads. Will he keep to political correctness to ensure the applecart is not disrupted.
He is authentic and his message carries a cross. It carries a cross to the whole industry of man that opposes mans true freedom.
He goes from this place to impress the reality of his message deeper upon the souls of men. He impresses the reality deeper, that he has indeed come to liberate man from every force and fear of man and institutions of men. And of ever principality and power.
The authenticity of Jesus and his message are fully unveiled at Calvary: The cry of an obedient Son unto God his Father on behalf of distant & fallen sons of men.
Jesus continued to teach them, again beside the sea. Jesus will revisit us again and again in the place and upon the place which we need to understand his message. He is amazingly new but he is also familiar, in all the loyalties of intimacy.
Jesus went next to the combined heart of religious & empirical institutions of men.
The below references are helpful but they are not from a publication to whom I would accredit correct interpretation as they lean away from the historical and spiritual journey of the New Testament and hence ultimately loose the Christ to philosophical learning.
Ref: Abarim publications Levi:
לוה
The verb לוה (lawa) means to join or to connect things; it’s a verb of building and it’s also the verb that lies at the heart of intelligence, cognition and logical deduction.
A specialized usage of this verb speaks of the joining of two ends via a circular motion of sorts. Nouns לויה (liwya a1) and ליה (loya) describe a wreath; a circular, coiled or twisted band of leaves or twigs. A third specialized usage of our verb speaks of borrowing and lending.
Alphaeus
חלף
The Hebrew-origin name Alphaios (Alphaeus) means Traverse or Exchange, with an emphasis on a repetitive or constructive zig-zag motion. It brings to mind a network of repeated exchange, which is also what the name Abraham stands for (and also see our article on the name Arabia), as well as the act of learning by training.
The name Joseph, which this name Alphaeus appears to parallel, also describes a constructive repetition, but where Alphaeus appears to emphasize the repetition, Joseph emphasizes the growth as result of this repeating: the Practice that proverbially makes perfect.
Mere repetition without demonstrable gain is what sits at the ritualistic heart of many a religion, as well as the name Beelzebub, meaning Lord Of The Aimless Zig-Zaggers. Other words that have to do with a beneficial repetitive motion come with the שנן (shanan) group, from which also comes the word שן (shen) or tooth. What chewing does for the body is what cramming does for the mind.
When we consider that which follows in Marks gospel it makes this distinction of meaning an important reference.
Another reference on the name ‘Levi’, states it means ‘joined in harmony’. I like this especially at this juncture in the scriptures.
While there is debate concerning whether James the lesser was a brother of Levi, it is of note that Mark uses the phrase within a short space; Ch 2 v14 & Ch 3 v18, especially as scripture only hones in on Zebedee as being the Father of two apostles and brothers. Thus, we must deduct that their is something to understanding about this name and the narrative irrespective to whether Levi and James were brother or not as the scholars mainly suggest.
It is not debated that the Levi of Mark Ch 2 v14 is indeed Matthew who wrote the opening account of the birth of Jesus and of the New Covenant.
So here if indeed Jesus had been to his own home, and having more importantly revealed that the old structure could be completely dismantled as the power of the new was within the Word made flesh and he could forgive men their sins to walk with God again, we have another new beginning within the new covenant. A joining, a building of the new, the exchanged life being repeatedly taught and extended until the hearer embraces it and moves forward towards that which is perfect: as God is Holy. Bearing fruit in goodness.
Matthew was given a new name, or a Greek name, and we must conclude it was because God wanted all men to know that the babe of Bethlehem had been given & ‘gifted’ for all by YHAWEH – Born to save men from their sins – Behold the lamb of God, the exchanged provided sacrifice.
Levi was joined to his tax booth. A man with a Jewish heritage and named according to the third son of Jacob, one of the 12 tribes of Israel and the heritage of the priesthood.
But when we follow the authentic teacher he will always leads us to his Father, and into an exchanged life, a royal priesthood proclaiming the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Levi was caught as we all are in some degree or another into the apparatus of the state. No doubt that this apparatus of state had a clear secular agenda, it was not a booth that was controlled by the scribes and Pharisees, it was not the temple tax he collected.
Jesus makes it clear, not in a confrontational manner but through his love and his authentic message that he really has come to forgive men their sins. It is not a cheap grace, but one rooted to relationship: Adam where art thou. He has indeed come for sinners and that proclaimed to the paralytic was not a singular word but a plural word for all men, pulling them up from the deeps, catching them indeed.
Levi, arose and followed him. Where to? Jesus leads Levi to Levi’s very own home. Here is a fulfilling of a sequence, from going out to John in the wilderness, to the synagogue, then to Peters home. The Leper was sent to the temple. But the paralytic was sent to his own home without the Lord in person accompanying & finally Jesus leads a man back to his own home. The mandate of the gospel applies to every home and every context one finds himself, whether a ruler & King or a sick mother in law, a beggar or a man securing his own future of the back of others hard Labour – the message stays the same and transforms the same. The message is for the whole empirical institution of men.
Shortly after this Jesus, shows that he is indeed a scribe who knows the text of scripture. This is not an application of the text out of context, but it is a revealing that he is the Word of God and that which he is doing is not contrary to that which had been written.
‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’. The finished work is an extremely good work, it is actually the end of all the evil work of man, and it has the rest of God upon it.
After this miracle of the healing of the man with a withered hand, Jesus has revealed that he is utterly authentic and intent on finishing the work. It again is not controversy or conflict for its own sake, but rather because he is good and is full of compassion he can be and do no less. Jesus knew that his Father had sent him to demonstrate the same quality of love where by he had been loved. He was grieved at their hardness of heart. Can God transform your life today, to say that he cant is to contest the work he came to finish.
After this event in the synagogue, immediately the Pharisees hold counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
This is not a statement without complete intent. They absolutely meant to destroy him on every level. They had been exposed as hard hearted individuals in positions of authority established to minister to others needs. Jesus was a demonstration of the God they claimed to be serving. Their rejection of him was more than just a stubborn hypocrite in denial. They wanted to destroy him as they could not bear the conviction of the light of his life touching other men’s lives. Religion can be a veil to the hardest of hearts.
An interesting things then happens.
Whenever, the unclean spirits saw him they fell down before him and cried out, ‘You are the Son of God’
The Pharisees were allowed to take counsel and plan to destroy him. Yet the unclean spirits bowed down before him and declared his true identity.
This reveals that his purpose for becoming a man had greater implications than people had conceived. That men may be clean and freed from a captive and demeaning power.
This also revealed that the Father had a secret plan in sending his Son into the World to be his life of light.
Jesus had not come to defend himself or his identity before the hardened hearts of men, despite the powers behind their hardened hearts knowing who he was.
Jesus strictly ordered them not to make him known.
Why did Jesus ‘strictly’ order them to not make him known?
Here we also have another demonstration of the fact that Jesus was not a passive Saviour nor a man who lacked authority and convicted when he spoke. Jesus’s words were always perfectly measured and balanced for each event. As a fully pledged man is his prime he spoke with clarity and precision.
The unclean spirit in the synagogue had been silence and the leper had been sternly charged. But here after the Pharisees have taken counsel to destroy him, he does not use the occasion for his advantage in the natural sphere of men. This highlights that he is set on a much higher goal, than the acclaim of men and principalities and powers.
That Jesus commanded them to not make him known is also the reason why it was an unforgivable sin to state that he was possessed by Beelzebul.
‘You are the Son of God’, truth proclaimed but Jesus strictly charges them to not make him know. They were ultimately subject to his higher authority and they did obey his command. In the text we do not sense that they cried it in the manner that the Pharisees conceived to destroy him, it was we sense more an acknowledgement from them that they were subject unto this man who walked amongst them – that the word of God given unto men is greater in power than a rebellious spirit.
They had an understanding that the Son of God was the author of creation, and they fell down before him.
What then is this authentic mans mission? As the Son of God, how will he make his Father known?
His own family also stated at this time that he was out of his mind.
Jesus then affiliates himself with those who do the will of God. That such are his family.
Jesus then enters a boat and again starts to teach them.
And he said unto them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables.
‘So that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven’.
At a latter date Jesus asked his apostles ‘who men said he was’? And he then asked them ‘who they said he was’?
Jesus was not discouraging them for understanding who he was in the correct environment.
In fact we sense that Jesus had real Joy in declaring to Peter that indeed this revelation was why he had come: that you may know the Father.
Peter had spoken it, and he would yet deny the Christ with curses three times, yet when he had spoken it because Jesus had been the one leading with the question it lead to the Fathers divine intervention in Peters understanding.
Now the scene was really being set. This was more still than being amazed at his miracles, it is a glimpse into a shadow that passed the truth that Christ the healer resided inside his heart. That the life he had lived was the life he was to walk in, in communion with the Father.
That the very powers of hell could and would not prevail against this foundation, that he is the Son of God. No man being able to be taken out of the Fathers hand.
Jesus had commanded them strictly not to make him known. Here we see the reason why:
‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables.
‘So that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven’.
The Pharisees who took counsel against him to destroy were choosing not to hear or understand that they were included into Gods family, the power of the Lord being present to heal them. Their is only one Son of God, but he has shared all of himself with humanity and given access directly to his Fathers throne room.
Those who truly hear, hear that they are forgiven when they return unto the Father, and when we keep this word in are hearts it bears only Good fruit.
The unclean spirits were not leading men into the knowledge of their sins being forgiven nor of the Fathers embrace. They were only declaring half the truth concerning who he is, the grace of God engrafts the vilest offender who truly believes in that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
Uncleanness is no excuse for not receiving Jesus as your Lord and Saviour. The story of the Prodigal Son is told by Jesus to perfectly demonstrate through a parable Gods ability to redeem, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but the Son can save sons.
At Calvary Jesus cried out: ‘FATHER FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO’
That he was the Lord of all life they knew not. That he was total goodness given as a gift unto them.
At the Cross Jesus has revealed who he is, he reveled it in this prayer life to his Father. He was indeed the Son of God, sent into the world to save sinners, among whom I am chief, said a hardened Pharisee who had determined to destroy the Church of the sons of God.
Unto him the secret was made known that had been hidden for ages in God who created all things, to bring light for everyone this plan of inclusion in Christ.
An inclusion into the relationship with Father, an inclusion into his life as the Son.
The dynamo of every Church and Christ is found at Calvary where the Son finished the work of are redemption.
Peter preached on the day of Pentecost because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
That is a truth that transcends the secular, it is the reality of a God whose Word has made all things and asks us to hear his voice unto the saving of are family.
Where was Rahab and what was she doing when the word of God was being scattered and sown through the walls of Jericho! The walls were destroyed, hard as granite. But not just herself, but her whole household was saved, she had surely perceived the secret of the Lord, and she was grafted into; the heart with intelligence, the building fitly joined together unto a holy habitation, the exchanged life of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.
The wall came down because the finished work of Calvary is what joins us in harmony with God.
Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our Salvation.
Is not are God a Rock who faced squarely a world intent on its own destruction. A did not a heart walk out, triumphant, the garden tomb.
Rabonni,
At this new place where will Jesus lead them next.
To go and share the nature of God with others, especially those keeping hold of the parables. Did he really say that after three days he would rise again. The revelation of the Son of God always opens heavens treasure and pleasure as it is inseparable from others knowing that nothing indeed hinders them.
A gentile physician noted the word to be true, the third gospel and parable to tell, ‘I will arise and go unto my Father’, revealed by Jesus the only begotten Son of God, the teaching always revealed when Jesus we truly hear.
‘For this my Son was dead and is alive, was lost and is found’.
Note:
The liberty of Sonship unveiled at Calvary – Father forgive them for they know not what they do? The knowledge of good and evil- destroying all that is good.
In the last days how much more forgiveness is needed to show an evil generation the goodness of God that leads men to repentance.
I have to collect some folk from airport tonight so will be leaving around 12:35.
On Sunday, locally the speaker spoke from Luke Ch 4 v16 – v30
It blessed me because as he was speaking on v25 – 27 and that Naaman was dipped 7 times in the Jordan, I realized that the Lord had encouraged me with this post more than I’d been aware. Being a 7 year anniversary from a significant word in my life.
eternalrays 