When we pray “on earth as it is in heaven,” we should remember that the aesthetics of what we make for worship pales in comparison to what is in heaven.
We can experience worship in heaven in reference joining it in our earthly worship here. We worship this “on earth as it is in heaven” in the mass or divine liturgy. We draw hope beyond what we sense in the vestments, incense, or altar. A heavenly view informs the church in both realms, continuity of intercession and disposes it to constant worship.
This intercession is contingent upon to Jesus but in in fellowship with saints in heaven and earth. They are among “a cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) who partner in our prayers in a special way. “When he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Revelation 5:8).
We draw strength both from the example of Christ’s sufferings but also what the saints have added to what is lacking in them (Colossians 1:24). This is reflected in how they see the suffering of Christians on earth.
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’ I said to him, ‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’ Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
For this reason, they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them (Revelation 7:13-15).
And even the angels, which means messengers, are in the loop of our prayers.
Another angel with a golden censer came and stood at the altar; he was given a great quantity of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar that is before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel (Revelation 8:3-4).
It is for this reason that Paul wrote even in passing a reverence for God in an order of worship that acknowledge something spiritual and real, metaphysical and physical, in the Church’s worship. “For this reason, a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels” (1 Corinthians 11:10). This does not mean we should assume that literally Michael or Gabriel manifest in eat gathering time of worship. It just means that such reverence is due to the message in the word and communion. The ministers of the early church were custodians of sacred mysteries and thus “angels” was an appropriate term for them.
The continuity of heaven to earth is brought together well in the penitential rite in the mass for us on earth to continue in holiness. After the lines on repentance we pray, “Therefore I ask, the blessed Virgin Mary, all the angels and saints and you my brothers and sisters to pray for me to the Lord our God.” The continuity is unmistakable in that the Body of Christ is alive in heaven and earth.
This is a comfort and spiritual lens with the heavenly and community perspective as we “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). We can thus appreciate the beauty of the mass, the other sacraments and consecrated celibacy as extensions from Christ who ascended to heaven. Heaven and earth, in Jesus Christ, are not as distant as we might think.
In Christ, we are grounded in heaven as we grow in Christian faith, prayer and worship.
New manifestations of Jesus Christ’s majesty would come in resurrection, ascension and eternal reign in heaven and earth. We will see that next in Jesus, still, as the Son of Man.
In many tales of the hero overcoming the villain a triumph happens when the hero strikes back in violence. Jesus did not give his civil and religious enemies the comeuppance audiences root for. The scriptures show Jesus and his “kingdom come” was different.
In the “Son of Man” title in the New Testament we see Jesus conquered differently through love. On the cross and empty tomb, the Son of Man carried meekness and majesty.
Majesty of The Son of Man
This starts in the context of his burial as Pilate the governor ordered. “So, they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone” (Matthew 27:66).
The seal had official insignia of Rome and Roman soldiers guarded the tomb setting the stage for divine irony. The earthquake happened three days later, the rock moved, the seal was broken and the soldiers were asleep which was unheard of. Jesus broke their seal and in his person was the seal for the hope of the resurrection. Jesus said at the prior year’s Passover, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal” (John 6:27).
Daniel foresaw this coming extension of the seal of the kingdom of God in Christ. To get the “glory and kingdom” comes with heavenly and earthly authority. Christian teaching is that Jesus received both from the Father after the resurrection.
There has been an unfolding of delegating authority, in holiness, up to this point. Adam had it in the garden. Melchizedek the king-priest had it in Salem. Moses and Aaron shared it over the semi-unified Israel.
Unity with a divine government came especially with David then Solomon over a fully unified Israel. It was fitting that Jesus received hails of “Son of David,” honored his mother as the Queen Mother and installed Peter as his prime minister (see prior blog posts).
Daniel prophesied of the reign to spread to all the earth in a form of a rock. So it was fitting that Pilate gave the sign “King of The Jews” in Latin, Greek and Aramaic.
The trajectory was for the fulfillment to be holy, one, and universal or with catholicity. But there was one more aspect: apostolic through the generations.
But it was after the resurrection Jesus began his words of the Great Commission saying, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). Jesus bridged the gap and commissioned the Church. From the empty tomb, Christ struck their presumption of control and would continue in the generations to come with the kingdom proclamation of the gospel through the Church that would spread over the earth while based from heaven.
And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them’ (Daniel 7:27).
Part of the fulfillment is in the Great Commission. “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19-20). Christ delegated the gospel, baptism and discipleship to the Church. This is a kingdom of personal encounter one soul at a time, with authority to cast out demons and continue through generations in apostolic succession through the laying on of hands (Hebrews 6:1-2). Thus, in Jesus’s resurrection as the firstborn of the dead (Revelation 1:5) is the founding of “one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church” (Nicene Creed, 325).
This continues in the end times. Jesus addressed the elevating of the saints weeks before the cross saying, “Truly, I say to you… when the Son of Man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28).
Standing For and Before The Son of Man
But first would be the salvation of souls, some who would lay down their lives and many who would see their reward in heaven. The angels use the “Son of Man” wording on Easter morning to the women at the tomb. “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise” (Luke 24:6-7). Later that day Jesus personally showed up to two disciples and gave them a review of scriptures at least up to the cross regarding fulfillment. His appearance was majestic, meek, mystical and “Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Lk. 24:35).
Although there were 40 days with the Church teaching them of the kingdom of God, Jesus had already taught about the work, costs, rewards and final judgement under of “The Son of Man.”
For being lights to the world Jesus taught that they participate in his mediation to the world for the Father but he is the one with the intrinsic grace for that. “He answered, ‘He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man’” (Matthew 13:37).
He also made it clear that times would be hard as a marginalized people under him. “Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man (Luke 6:22)!
In a way Jesus would be coming in a lower form of reckoning to Jerusalem less than 40 years later. He wanted a foundation of the Church in Israel before Rome would sack Jerusalem in 70 AD first. “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel, before the Son of Man comes” (Matthew 10:23).
Jesus also made it clear that a Christian would not be a fair-weather friend but in open fidelity. He thus spoke accordingly about his ultimate return. “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38; cf. Luke 9:26, 12:8).
Yet he added that with great burdens could come great grace through spiritual vigilance and active faith to receive grace to stand in all tribulation. “But watch at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:36).
But Jesus as Son of Man speaks not only to a call to spiritually survive but thrive. It starts with wording clearly laying out his authority. Right after Jesus rebuked Peter for resisting the prophecy of the cross, he said, “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done” (Matthew 16:27).
Great Return of The Son of Man
Jesus as the Son of Man would make things right throughout the earth. “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers” (Matthew 13:41).
Jesus made it clear that in the full second coming he would not look like the would-be pretenders walking around saying they are him. “For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:27; Luke 17:22, 24). In the end his holiness will be obvious.
Jesus will return and engage with all of the earth.
“….then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory (Matthew 24:30).
Jesus assured there would be a day where his full exercise of authority over heaven and earth will trump the presumptions of power of any people group.
“As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man…. they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:37, 39; cf. Luke 17:26).
Watching For The Son of Man
For Christians who keep close to the deposit of faith there should be no presumption, much vigilance to his coming and always charity.
Regarding vigilance. “Therefore, you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44; cf. Luke 12:40).
During Passion Week Jesus told the tale of the sheep and the goats with specific context to charity. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne (Matthew 25:31). The sheep have faith working through love (Galatians 5:6) and received their reward. The goats did not and it went badly for them.
Son of Man Coming One Death At A Time
For those who stay true to hope in Jesus Christ and die in his friendship there is the Beatific Vision. St. Stephen the protomartyr had the vision of Christ while his heart was still beating and stones were raining down on him “and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). The enemies of Christ then made the rain of stones into a monsoon to finish the execution.
Decades later Jesus appeared to St. John the apostle in all his glory. John describes him in passing “like a son of man” which was not a coincidence in wording.
Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden girdle round his breast; his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters; in his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth issued a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades (Revelation 1:12-18, emphasis added).
This passage has context of the holiest and mysterious liturgy, majesty in divinity, mercy and bringing reality to reconciliation with heaven.
In the lampstands is a divine liturgy as we first know in holiness of the time of Moses. What Moses was in the Levitical priestly order we see fulfilled in Christ in the Melchizedek priestly one. In light of how “Son of Man” was in use through most of the scriptures John could not help but make the point that the completion of right worship would be in Jesus the Son of God.
Yet while Jesus appears clear in majesty there is never a lack of mercy and comfort beyond Easter to every day. For the 365th time in the Bible (maybe not a coincidence) we see the encouragement to not fear.
In this age there are dark events and for those who hold true to the calling of Christ and yet we should not fear. Christians have a calling to stand in clarity and charity in both times of refreshing and suffering. We should stay encouraged always in the resurrection of Christ as we add with our suffering to that which is lacking in his sufferings (Colossians 1:24).
CS Lewis wrote a book called The Screwtape Letters about hypothetical correspondence between a demon uncle mentoring his nephew on how to corrupt a soul.
Satan may have wondered about Jesus after the baptism and especially about Christ’s kingship while knowing Sacred Scripture. He likely suspected Jesus was like Melchizedek the king-priest for holiness, unifying on King David’s throne and the rock of Daniel to reign over the earth.
But the worst nightmare to Satan was the “Son of Man” kingdom theme also from Daniel.
I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed (Daniel 7:13-14).
Jesus divinized the other kingship themes in divinity and humanity whiles Satan tempted Jesus to misappropriate his calling in those areas. Though the Father said at Christ’s baptism he was his son, one might say “son” in a ceremonial way like many people called kings in ancient times. So temptation would clear the way.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,
‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:1-4).
The growing consensus in the preceding generations was that the Messiah would reduce sacrifices to the bread for thanksgiving as todah. Since Melchizedek offered up only bread and wine for sacrifice then it would make sense to tempt him this way. Rightfully Jesus responded from the era of Moses the quasi- priest and king with high priest Aaron rejecting this reductive and seductive approach. Satan challenged his kingship in the mystery and holiness.
Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
‘He will give his angels charge of you,’
and
‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone’” (Mt. 4:5-6).
The first verse in refuting this temptation is from David’s era and the second from Moses. Satan tempts him on reverence to God and ordered majesty. To give into that temptation would be the sin of pride like David giving in to Satan’s temptation on the census. “Satan stood up against Israel, and incited David to number Israel” (1 Chronicles 21:1). Or other Davidic kings who sinned in presumption of God like Uzziah and paid a price (2 Chronicles 26:16-21).
Before the desert, Nathaniel called Jesus the king of Israel” (John 1:49) which was partly true. Jesus had true majesty and could create a united governance. Satan likely suspected Jesus could rule the earth per Daniel’s vision of the rock conquering the fourth conquer of Israel: Rome.
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Begone, Satan! for it is written,
‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve’” (Matthew 4:7-10).
Satan tempted Jesus along the kingdom theme about ruling the earth. Jesus responded by revering God the Father in submission and the devil left.
One could say that the devil left not knowing how Jesus was also the Son of Man. No flash like God’s glory over the temple of Solomon. He may have seen him as a thin ex-carpenter and would-be insurgent in Palestine.
Satan’s nightmare would resume as Jesus then spoke of himself as the Son of Man.
Purpose of The Son of Man Term
A practical reason for Jesus saying “Son of Man” was because explicitly using a divine term could be too much. Christ as Son of Man fulfilled Melchizedek, David and Daniel’s stone as types.
Here would be an example of what would be over the top if said in the time of Christ’s ministry rather than post-ministry in St. John’s gospel. “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God” (John 1:1, emphasis added).
But the Son of Man term bridges a further theological point. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt [tabernacled in Greek] among us” (John 1:14). Christ in his divinity and humanity would be present in priestly sacramentality. The tabernacle of Moses is a reference point foreshadowing Christ on earth and in the Church. So in the ministry “Son of Man” would do.
The “Son of Man” term was even broader as paradoxical and an antitype for Old Testament typology. Through that term we have context of Christ as sacrifice and priest, foretold and fulfilling, humble and victorious.
The narratives present him as the Son of Man as meek, mysterious, mystical, merciful, liturgical, royal, martyr, and majestic.
Meekness of The Son of Man
Jesus put other’s needs above himself. Unlike conventional kings he lacked their entitlement living without real estate and developing equity. “And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’” (Matthew 8:20; cf. Luke 9:58). Even saying, “even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
Jesus even avoided basking in the “wow” factor after appearing in glory in The Transfiguration. “And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, ‘Tell no one the vision, until the Son of man is raised from the dead’” (Matthew 17:9).
Mystery of The Mystical Son of Man
Jesus pointed to his heavenly origins. He did this to hint at who he was and what he could do while stirring spiritual hunger. Early in ministry, he described how he would be the meeting point of heaven and earth. “And he said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man’” (John 1:51).
Talking with Nicodemus, a Jewish leader, he urged being “born again” (John 3:3) saying, “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man” (John 3:13).
He spoke in mystery again when he defended the The Bread of Life Discourse when he said, “Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?” (John 6:62).
Merciful Son of Man
Jesus always imparted divine love in his supernaturally expressed humanity as the Son of Man.
One example is how he operated as a priest, not Levitical like Aaron, but far above. He told a paralytic his sins were forgiven before he healed him. He knew this triggered the religious experts who put God in a box. Then his wording was precise to the point.
Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your pallet and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home” (Mark 2:9-11).
Jesus spoke further about how he could not and would not please everyone. Especially those who presumed they had God figured out. On the challenge of why he and his disciples did not deny themselves food and drink like John the Baptist, he exalted mercy as a fruit of true wisdom.
“The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds” (Matthew 11:19).
Jesus further illuminated the merciful love of God when the Pharisees challenged about him and the disciples picking grain on the sabbath ending with, “For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath” (Matthew 12:8). He even referred to a David anecdote for his point.
Jesus spoke later as the Son of Man being merciful to those who have written a sinner off. He befriended Zacchaeus, a tax collector who had been corrupt, and repented. When his repentance and restitution was not good enough for the crowd Jesus said, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).
Jesus’ merciful advocacy for the marginalized included the collateral damage of the Pharisees who persecuted a blind man he healed.
Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who speaks to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe”; and he worshiped him. Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains (John 9:35-41).
Mic drop of mercy!
Meal in The Son of Man
For these many things Jesus did in mercy, one would fall too short to call him a good worker or holy priest of another order. Jesus was the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). As such, his sacrifice was to be both superior and one that others were to partake of in a metaphysical and real way.
Thus, he tied the Incarnation and Atonement as supernatural and tangible. “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you’” (John 6:53).
Messiahship of The Son of Man
Next, we see Jesus as the Son of Man as the ice-breaker title for Simon Peter making his great confession. “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do men say that the Son of Man is’” (Matthew 16:13)? He asked this question by a cave called “The Gates of Hades” and by a Roman military fort. Thus, the overlap with Daniel’s vision of the stone, implying Rome, to break the fourth kingdom while threatening Satan’s.
Simon correctly identified Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:15), Jesus affirmed this as revelation, assigning him a new name and office in the Church.
Jesus then upped the ante. Jesus informed his disciples then that he would be delivered up in Jerusalem, die on the cross and rise again (Matthew 16:21).
“Uh-oh,” Satan may have said. Satan then attacked through Simon Peter telling him he could not. Jesus perceived and rebuked Satan who was behind that opposition (Mt. 16:23).
Weeks later, in Satan’s view, it would get worse in the threat of the cross. “Getting out ahead of it would work,” he may have thought as he rode into Jerusalem. Maybe Judas would work?
There is a fine line between proposition and imposition. If one proposes marriage and the answer is yes then something valid happens. But the foundation should ideally be there in the one to say yes or it may be an imposition. For the proposition of Christianity, there should be no exception. An ideal preaching of the gospel finds soil ripe for harvest if one knows where to look.
Roman Seeds Of The Gospel
After the resurrection salvation was to come to all nations, first Israel, and Jesus was only getting started. He gave the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), sent the Holy Spirit with tongues for many nations on Pentecost (Acts 2) and commissioned Paul to preach to the Gentiles. The seeds of a universal kingdom to sprout in Rome were not only in the Jewish revelation but in pagan references that New Testament narratives would respond to.
Years into Paul’s ministry the Bible Luke gives us a brief line that implies God’s preparation to overcome Rome apostolically with appropriating compatible roots in the culture. Luke writes as part of the company of Paul in his missionary journey. “Setting sail therefore from Tro′as, we made a direct voyage to Sam′othrace, and the following day to Ne-ap′olis” (Acts 16:11).
This is more significant than one might think. In the founding of a church with an established apostolic presence there would be redemption of even pagan references with Christ as the truest apostle. Dr. Timothy Grey addresses this.
The Roman poet Virgil’s masterpiece the Aeneid tells the epic legend of Aeneas, who fled the ruined city of Troy and traveled west to establish his family in Italy, becoming the ancestor of Romulus and Remus—the founders of the city of Rome. Written early in the reign of Caesar Augustus, the Aeneid provided a masterful narrative supporting the legitimacy of Augustus’s rule and his vision of renewing the greatness of Rome.
Acts 16:11 states that Paul and his companions sailed from Troas, a seaport only miles from ancient Troy, to travel west bearing the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Eventually both Peter and Paul travel to, and are martyred in, Rome and, as a result, come to be seen as the twin founders of a new Christian Rome. When writing The Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke, an educated Greek physician familiar with Greco-Roman history and literature, includes the seemingly trivial detail about Paul’s point of departure for his journey to the Roman colony of Philippi and in doing so begins the reworking of the defining narrative about Roman identity so as to point to the universal sovereignty of the Gospel (http://wiki.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/images/4/4c/Lectio-Philippians-S1-StudyGuide-Sample.pdf, emphasis added).
Dr. Grey has made a further point in his teachings that the early Church made icons to commemorate Peter and Paul facing each other like re-founders over Romulus and Remus, twin brothers, who founded Rome first (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nse7WhmkBHM). The early Church saw Peter and Paul like a baptized version of them to now bring foundation to the epicenter of the Church. They both died for the faith there.
Greek Seeds of The Gospel
A prevailing influence of Greek thought was in the Roman Empire with Greece in subjugation to Rome for only a few generations by the time of the gospels. But the early church did not hate all Greeks and saw seeds of the word of God and virtue where reasonable. Justin Martyr wrote about this in the 2nd Century AD.
“We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them”(Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 46).
Later Paul shares the faith to philosophers at Mars Hill in Athens.
Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,
‘For we too are his offspring’ (Acts 17:22-28).
Paul affirms their spiritual seeking as a good thing and goes from there. He took notice on their history of calling on an unknown God to stop a virus hurting their sheep a few hundred years before. He points then to God who is above all realms yet personal and life giving. He ends by pointing to a quote from Heraclitus meant for Zeus and reappropriates it to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Paul was just warming up. A short time later Paul wrote his famous letter to the church in Rome starting with the words below.
Paul, a servantof Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of Godwhich he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ;
To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 1:1-7).
Paul writes as a co- apostolic voice to Rome about the gospel rooted in Christ and all of the roots in the Old Testament including Christ’s majesty as a descendent of David. Though born personally a Roman citizen himself, he wrote as an emissary of the kingdom of God. God’s kingdom was about “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:23) and saving each person for resurrection. It was not about vengeance. This is why universal opportunity for “grace and apostleship” are at the start of Paul’s magnum opus. This is important:
Towards the end of Acts Paul is in custody and on route for judgment. “After three months we set sail in a ship which had wintered in the island, a ship of Alexandria, with the Twin Brothers as figurehead” (Acts 28:11). Another hint of the spiritual re-founding of Rome since Romulus and Remus were the pre-eminent twins. Both Peter and Paul died there.
With the scope of the gospel unleashed to the world through Peter’s declaration in Jerusalem, and in a wink to the Troas (Troy) legend, we see something fleshing out. We will see the world against the Church if we read the narrative with a superficial interpretation of the natural and spiritual powers of darkness on the attack.
With the eyes of faith, we see a godly team running offense. In Acts, Peter was like a quarterback at the Council of Jerusalem infallibly defining the gospel as universal (Acts 15:7-11). Per commentary by many early church fathers, Paul likely mentioned Peter as laying an apostolic foundation in Rome though not mentioning him by name for security purposes (Romans 15:20). Yet, by the end of Acts, Paul is the running back with the ball in Rome as the end zone although in chains. He had the broader skills set for the most people linguistically.
There are further textual allusions to Christ conquering Rome. It is no coincidence that it was at a Roman outpost of Ceasarea Phillipi Jesus commissioned Peter.
Another example is how Paul wrote to the church in Philippi which was also a Roman garrison. He included a canticle pointing to the gospel with Jesus as Lord. He wrote it in Greek but in the canticle his grammar was distinctly wrong.
Yet the grammar was perfect for Aramaic since it came from the Jerusalem centered era preceding the ecumenical council there. The imperial saying then was Caesar is Lord. Paul, writing from a pre-Jerusalem Council source, was subversive to the powers of the world saying instead that Jesus is Lord. Thus, early in the Church there was a subversive ethos with Christ as Lord and true king.
The Position of Rome
The primacy of Rome grew central in the apostle’s generation and the later church fathers. Ignatius thus wrote to the church in Rome.
Ignatius . . . to the Church that has obtained mercy, through the majesty of the most high Father, and Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son; the Church that is beloved and enlightened by the will of him that wills all things according to the love of Jesus Christ our God, that presides in the place of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of the highest happiness, worthy of praise, worthy of obtaining her every desire, worthy of being deemed holy, and that presides over love, and is named from Christ, and from the Father [Letter to the Romans, Greeting (St. Ignatius of Antioch, c. A.D. 110)].
It was clear in Church history that Rome was the resting place of central ecclesial authority by which there would be universal impact. The words in figurative translation to universal was from kata holos. Literal translation is “according to the whole.” Rome has the prime minister to the Son of David there. The bishop of Rome leads the Church Militant on earth over hierarchical college of bishops in what we know as the Catholic Church.
Thus, we read the following by Ignatius of Antioch who was a disciple of John the apostle. What he describes in passing speaks volumes of the ecclesial norm of partaking of Christ’s divine nature, staying in unity, yet universal in its diversity. Herein is a reference to the Catholic Church. The community of the kata holos.
See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude of the people also be; even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic [kata holos] Church. (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Ch 8, 110 AD).
The Nicene Creed the Church declared “I believe in one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church” (Nicene Creed, 325). The rock of Daniel’s vision took root there and has been growing ever since. Only once that the bishop of Rome ratified the Council of Nicea was it official.
There could be a seeming conflict on the nature of the rock language: the Lamb description. John the Baptist pointed out Jesus saying,” “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). A lamb is sacrificial which is opposite of offense. Is Jesus the “Lamb of God” for the world or the rock conquering the fourth kingdom? The answer is yes and we know this through the cross of Christ.
As for more definition about the power of God in that apostolic commissioning of the Church, we will see more in the “kingdom come” with Jesus as the Son of Man.
There were many contexts to the words, “your kingdom come” by Jesus. Among contexts were the words and life of Moses. To speak of the Jewish roots of kingdom with in “the gospel of the kingdom” without Moses and Aaron would be incomplete. By looking at the missions of Moses and Aaron we can see the end of the foundation of biblical holiness and the beginning of biblical unity by which we then see fulfilment in Christ and the Body of Christ.
Moses was a transitional figure among the Old Testament king themes. In Adam and Melchizedek, we see the role of the king-priest in each man. In earthly things in Adam had “dominion” and Melchizedek ruled Salem. Yet they had priestly roles in sanctifying, blessing and worship symbolizing God’s holiness. Moses’s role straddled the foundations of holiness and unity in the Law from God, the Levitical priesthood and establishing clear authorities. It was after Moses and Aaron laid ruling and sanctifying foundations within the holiness of God that David contributed a fully unifying foundation. Moses was like a proto- king and Aaron was the first Levitical high priest serving missions of holiness and unity for Israel.
Another view of kingship in Moses’ life is with God as king and Moses as a prime minister and chief teacher of the holy faith. Moses had humility functioning as king without the title and glory. Examples in various kingdoms in the world are prime ministers of kings or regents for young heirs. However, Israel was a holy nation by the covenant of their fathers while others did not.
God introduced himself to Moses with unmistakable holiness for the context of covenant love, reverence and obedience. It was in appearing to Moses through a burning bush.
Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God (Exodus 3:5-6).
The totality of the mission to free Israel was too much for Moses. God gave a partner to Moses who governed and Aaron to speak for him. “The Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet” (Exodus 7:1).
Eventually Aaron has a further calling than prophet and becomes the high priest heading up a clan of worship and sanctification. “Then bring near to you your brother Aaron, and his sons with him, from among the Israelites, to serve me as priests—Aaron and Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar (Exodus 28:1).
Aaron prefigured Christ as high priest though of the order of Levi. He also contributed to the foundations of holiness explicitly and unity implicitly.
How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes.
It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore (Psalms 133:1-3).
The role of Moses still had limits in that he could not be a sign directly of sonship. The true king who rules in a conventional way on earth was a “son” of a deity in the ancient Middle East and even Julius Caesar or Tiberius. The author of Hebrews makes that distinction in another aspect that Jesus was superior to Moses. There is no Biblical reference to Moses being a son and thus making Jesus as the New Moses distinct as the Son of God.
Yet Jesusis worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’shouse as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken later. Christ, however, was faithful over God’shouse as a son, and we are his house if we hold firmthe confidence and the pride that belong to hope (Hebrews 3:3-6).
Moses led Israel through the Red Sea putting bondage behind them in the tyrannical government of Egypt. Yet only partial success in sanctification. The crossing foreshadowed the victory Christ gives us in baptism.
I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,and all ate the same spiritual food [manna], and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:1-4).
The implication of authority was so clear in the overlap that in Jesus’ day there was a brief impulse of the 5,000 he miraculously fed with bread to make him king. In this they misunderstood him as effective only in the temporal order of things. “When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (John 6:15).
Jesus had to withdraw from them because they had no idea of how he, as king and priest, governs and sanctifies beyond what Moses and Aaron did. However, though they jumped to conclusions, their premises had foundations for what believers in Messiah could fully realize.
For example, in their longing for rescue from Rome, God’s king would elevate them as well or better than the promise in Moses’ time.
Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine,but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites (Exodus 19:5-6).
Peter wrote about the royal and the priestly experiences of all believers. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
Only the elders had a brief sample of being a holy nation in fellowship with God in Christ.
Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; also, they beheld God, and they ate and drank (Exodus 24:9-11).
Moses did not preside over a kingdom but he did rule over a confederation of tribes as leader, lawgiver and interpreter of the law. He had his time and sadly the rebellious generation died in the desert falling short of the Promised Land with stomachs full of manna. Their bodies and homes were set apart but their hearts were nominal at best. As tribes they were an “are” in need of grace with governance to unite them as an “is.” It is in such needs Jesus would come but with an authority that had a context of family and founding a spiritual nation instead of the flesh.
It is in Christ that such mystery manifests in history with the fulfillment of what Moses prefigured as greater; the antitype is greater than the type. In Christ grace supersedes law and mercy triumphs over judgment.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known (John 1:14,16-17).
A superior liturgy to Moses is in the “lived among” us which carries on from the foundation of holiness of the king-priest motif in Christ. The Greek for “lived” (some Bible versions say dwell) here is skoono’o. The use of this in the Bible is, “to fix one’s tabernacle, have one’s tabernacle, abide (or live) in a tabernacle (or tent), tabernacle” (Bible Study Tools https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/skenoo.html). What Moses and Aaron foreshadowed Christ fulfills.
Many Jews in the time of Christ had some standards from the life of Moses but were short sighted on what the Messiah could be like as the New Moses.
So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven (John 6:30-32).
Here we see some incorrect premises and emphasis. They asked for a sign as a condition of their faith. They assumed the Messiah would be a conventional performer and see the miracle worker as the end in himself. Jesus reminds them that the heavenly provision was from the Father which denotes the kinship integrated in liturgical worship. In other words Jesus founded a liturgical kingdom for right belief, prayer and living.
Moses was the end of the foundation of holy authority in salvation history with an implicit start to oneness of a holy nation. 200 years later God would raise up a shepherd from Bethlehem with the explicit mark of authority and structured government for oneness: King David.
When one hears kingdom, many images come to mind. One may think of the crown on the monarch, a lording over of authority, declaring war and messy successions. And this may include in history where one sees self-identified Christian kingdoms making a Europe called Christendom for better or for worse. Too often for the worse. There have been too many times where the Church has run like earthly kingdoms with agendas of power, greed or other vices. This happens when the Church loses its way losing the love for its true king Jesus Christ and thus its identity.
However, “your kingdom come….on earth as it is in heaven” in the Our Father prayer, in light of the Old Testament, refers to something bigger. Prominent traits I will note are holiness, unity, universal impact to the world and authoritative through the generations.
Revelation shows us our calling in Christ as subjects in a liturgical kingdom by his merits. The Church on earth has a calling to function as below now but more fully in heaven.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, everyone who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen ((Revelation 1:5b-7).
This is a loaded passage. In this kingdom passage we see first the redemption in the Atonement from sin and toward our calling in the priesthood of all believers. This common priesthood serves divine, familial and eternal contexts. Regarding the Day of Judgement, the text includes Christ’s work on the cross and universality of the gospel. Christians should work to see the passage fulfillment “on earth.”
There is more to see through salvation history. A proper view of history helps us know what Christ wanted to manifest through the Church. What emerges is a spiritual framework of this kingdom to come consistent with Adam’s roles, the order of Melchizedek, the dynasty of David, Daniel’s prophecy of a rock that becomes a kingdom and Daniel’s vision of the Son of Man.
King-Priest of Eden
In small and large communities all over the world entrenched in ancient tradition there are spiritually standard roles and duties in a person who set a standard for heaven and earth connecting. If it is for the favor of the Higher Power, then there are high hopes. This includes one who is the head of household, the tribe or the nation. They govern, bless and sanctify.
In the Judeo- Christian tradition one could start with Adam.
Then God said, “Let us make humankindin our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26).
Adam was king of Eden or even the world depending on the lens one reads with but also a priest.
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). The key terms here in Hebrew, abad and samar, were commonly used as priestly terms in the rest of the foundational books of the Old Testament. Some theologians propose that Genesis was a prequel to Exodus so a priestly context of gardening as worship was put in the wording.
Therefore, we have the beginning of a standard of a king-priest. It continues with a sacrificial and receiving of blessing with Cain, Abel and Noah but only in the context of the domain of themselves and their family lives. There was no New Adam in that era.
The New Adam as the complete fulfillment to Adam as king-priest is Jesus Christ. Adam had the curse of thorns (Genesis 3:18) and Jesus had the crown of thorns (Matthew 27:29). Adam had the curse of sweat on his brow and Jesus sweat blood (Luke 22:44). Adam experienced spiritual death in a garden. Jesus rose from the dead from a tomb in the garden. Adam had a prolific effect as father, king, and priest in sin. Jesus as a king-priest had prolific effect in grace. “Therefore, just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all” (Romans 5:18).
Adamic and priestly language emerges again in the passion and resurrection. Eve came from the side of Adam (Genesis 2:21) while in death a soldier pierced the side of Christ and blood and water flowed out (John 19:34).
It is in the resurrection we see a further implication of priesthood, sacrifice and ritual purity. “Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” ‘(John 19:17).
One of the greatest meanings of Christ as the apostle and high priest is accomplishing the means of adoption for all who enter into the new covenant by faith. This adoption has benefits which God expressed in important landmarks with Adam only the first. The next step of covenant language with the king-priest was to come later in the life of Abraham in a brief encounter with the king of Salem named Melchizedek.
The king-priest motif broadens in detail with Melchizedek in the life of Abraham.
After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. He blessed him and said,
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand” (Genesis 14:17-20)!
Here the king-priest expression is not in a garden or mountain (Noah’s Ararat) but a valley. Melchizedek means king of righteousness. Salem means peace. So, his ministry was over righteousness and peace. He is a priest of “God Most High” who was beyond compare of other gods yet involved in the things of earth.
His ministry important in the time of David. “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’ ” (Psalms 110:4).
We have seen kingship and priesthood blessing on earth, offering thanksgiving to God, representing righteousness and peace and commemorating events with bread and wine. We see this in Jesus and the Eucharist.
The author of Hebrews tied the Melchizedek priesthood to fulfillment in Christ.
one who has become a priest, not through a legal requirement concerning physical descent, but through the power of an indestructible life.For it is attested of him,
“You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 7:16-17).
This priestly order is different and similar to the Levitical priesthood we see in the gospels with Caiphas and his subordinates. It differs in that the Levitical priesthood expired while the Melchizedek one is forever. It is similar in that they both of high priests with subordinates including in the New Testament context.
There is further foundation of Christ being specifically the high priest in Hebrews. The term “high priest” is there 18 times with most of the references being directly about Jesus. For the sake of space there will not be detailed exploration here but below consider that Jesus in Hebrews is clearly of the Melchizedek order and “high.” Consider this logic: if Paul can refer to a “third heaven” then there is a first and second one. If there is a “high priest” then there is at least one lower priest who has a specific role of service distinct from the priesthood of all believers. All of this comes together as a context of Christ thus being the ultimate king-priest.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, holy partners in a heavenly calling, consider that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also “was faithful in allGod’shouse.” Yet Jesusis worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself (Hebrews 3:1-3).
There is an implication of a dual role of king and priest in this verse. Priests as the audience would think were internal and not in a very extroverted role. But apostle means sent one and especially by those high in government. What Christ institutes in the Body of Christ is a role that is both government and liturgical in confession.
In John we see Christ as king and priest with an extension of his priesthood starting early on. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The word for dwelt is skooneh which means to tabernacle. Then towards the end he imparts some of his “indestructible life” and a delegation of his kingly authority to his apostles.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:21-23).
Sin makes the person unholy. Forgiveness makes the person holy. So the king-priest role is fulfilled in Christ and continued through the apostles and in turn their laying on of hands in apostolic succession. Modern day bishops and priests among Catholic, Coptic and Orthodox are recipients of that line.
Therefore, we can see a foundation of the kingdom of God in Christ in holiness and that holiness sanctifies and governs. It is in his grace and holiness that he sanctifies the subjects of the kingdom.
However, holiness among many people is hard to be articulated and organized. So unity for this kingdom manifestation in the Old Testament was also something God would institute in David as we will see later. But next came someone who ruled like a king and had a brother who ministered as the first high priest of the order of the Levites. Both roles were to foreshadow the king-priest role of Christ and be the last foundation for holiness in God’s salvation history.
Imagine being a non-believer of Christ or lapsed Christian walking by a church hearing the sound of rote prayer coming through. First you hear the prayer leader saying “Our Father.” Maybe the person had issues with their father and thinks about patriarchy and wounding. “Who is in heaven.” You roll your eyes thinking about Christianity as “pie in the sky” and thus irrelevant to the daily grind with this God as unapproachable. Then, even worse, “hallowed be they name.” The wording could seem deterministic and setting the stage for servile fear especially for a member of a marginalized stage in society.
A Christian with good formation instead says they are truly loved children of Father with family access in heaven presently so reverence would be fine.
It is in that context that a Christian is a worshiper in “spirit and truth” (John 4:23) as Jesus said on a hot day speaking with a marginalized woman in a marginalized place.
But before looking into this encounter between Jesus the Jew and the Samaritan woman about access to the Father, we should look at the full context that would make God seem distant.
When God first revealed himself to Moses, there was a call to put off the common things. “Then he said, ‘Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground’ “ (Exodus 3:5). Shortly after, God adds that his name is “I AM.” In the shared heritage of Jews and Samaritans they knew of many anecdotes like this in the Old Testament of God as the ultimate unapproachable person. In fact, to them, God was so unapproachable that dirty sandals should not be near him. So how much more one’s sins? That was where rules and rituals came in.
Later in the Old Testament there were prophetic hints of a more universal trajectory of change.
“For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 1:11).
The progression of God being holy and receiving worship in a holy way was to one day be from one place to “every place.”
In reading the gospels we can see the bridge point for that progression of access. The prophesy found fulfilment in finding the person of Christ the second person of the Trinity.
He was a Jew. She was a Samaritan so many Jews saw her as a half-breed. He was pure. She had been married 5 times and the man she was with then was not her husband so even her people would call her dirty. She had such a low society role that she drew water from the well at the heat of the day to avoid their looks or worse. Jesus showed more of his cards by supernaturally knowing her relationship history which on the surface could be shaming.
The woman responds to the obvious miracle but centering on her premise of marginalization. Jesus would dismantle her assumptions about worship and by implication God.
The Samaritan assumes worship is circumstantial and subjective. “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship” (John 4:20).
Jesus points to a central event that would change everything about access to the Father. “Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father’” (John 4:21). Jesus was pointing to the access of humanity to God the Father through the work of the cross and the “every place.”
The majority of the time Jesus used the term “hour” he saw the cross as the fulfillment. As he came into Passion Week he spoke in prayer to the Father. “And Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified’ (John 12:23).
Jesus spoke of this with more urgency in his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane right before his arrest. “And Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified’ (John 17:1).
The urgency increased that in the same scene. “And he came the third time, and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come; the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners’ “(Mark 14:41).
For Christ, the hour would be of suffering, for Christians it is a sacrifice of hope. The name of God would be hallowed not despite the cross but because it it.
Jesus points to full worship being rooted in covenant related story and continued context. While history maters, God’s hand in salvation history matters even more. “ ‘You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews’ ” (John 4:22).
Jesus goes on to lay down more substance of what it means to keep God’s name holy.
“ ‘But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him’ “ (John 4:23). In the reference to “spirit” it is in how from one’s deepest part that they understand and initiate. “Truth” is literally in the objective sense but the etymology suggests not forgetting because of the profundity of experience (in Greek the river of not forgetting). So, it is worshipping God with the highest sense of the inner man in concert with the objective truth we can yet know God in experience.
Next Jesus draws the woman, and us today, to God who transcends our assumptions built in shame. This is why we have unique reverence to God while yet familiar to him as Father. “ ‘God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth’ ” (John 4:24). God is the sheer act of being itself. There is no category we can assign him but we can draw near through Christ to worship him anyway.
“The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.’ “ (John 4:25-26).
Last, this dynamic works because Jesus intended us to pray this prayer with the prior lines before it as a foundation. We keep the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit as children of God. We have full confidence to keep his name holy with our words, intent, and actions. Instead of God being just on holy ground he resides in holy temples who are both his children and bride. We keep his name holy by offering all of ourselves joyfully as living sacrifices because of his mercy. “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).
This actually draws us back to how the children of God keep his name holy. We do this because Jesus, the Messiah, shows us the Father and his heart through the Incarnation, the Atonement and the Resurrection.
We are fully children of the Father, confident in approaching him with heavenly inheritance. And we keep his name holy by worshipping him in spirit and truth.
It is a wonderous and hard to say God transcends my experience of reality as I know it. But Christianity draws believers that way. This was summed up in part by Jesus who referred to “Our Father who is in heaven.”
We can grasp the concept better if we first know God the Father as holy, reliable and infinitely accessible. Jesus, God the Son, taught this and New Testament writers expanded on it.
God the Father being in heaven gives us perspective of how much heaven matters. The earth has a journey to that end. Christian life on earth has fellowship with God but this continues. 400 hundred years after the patriarchs died, God said to Moses “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). Jesus expressed that in the present tense to convey hope in the resurrection.
“And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God,‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:31-32).
But for children of the Father in Christ, they have a way in heaven to be seated there.
Paul laid a foundation about God and our heavenly inheritance. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3).
Paul continues with the eternal identity of the Christian.
But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-7).
This is a metaphysical reality but a reality just the same even while living our fleshly life.
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,and to the assemblyof the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:22-24).
Accessing this Father in heaven may incorrectly seem odd due or apparently contradicting verses. Paul wrote God, “raised us up with him, and made us sit with him.” The inspired writer of Hebrews wrote “you have come.” Which is it on the initiative?
We look to Jesus, “the apostle and high priest of our good confession” (Hebrews 12:1). Jesus is all about the both/and with his mediation being the means of the Father’s initiative (John 3:16) and the response of the redeemed through him. This heavenly connection in through his incarnation, atonement and resurrection. “Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh” (Hebrews 10:19-20).
So with feet on the ground and with our hearts in heaven, the Christian lives in the love of God the Father in light of the next line, “hallowed be your name”? Standing on the context of knowing God the Father, we can find how that happens.
I read once about the cosmopolitan playboy turned priest that the day he entered the monastery was entering the “four walls of my new freedom” (Thomas Merton, The Seven Story Mountain). When we think of religious structure one may see great freedom or one may see nominal freedom and detrimental walls.
There are very different views on formal prayer. For religiously faithful, it is rhythmic educating towards the good, true and beautiful. Secular humanists may see it as stifling and predictable.
I come from an experience of the whole spectrum on what is called the Our Father or The Lord’s Prayer. I know the views as an outsider and insider on that prayer. As a clinical social worker, one would assume I “evolved” from insider to outsider.
But that assumption would be incorrect.
I was born and raised by parents who were nominal at best on any intentional Christianity. In the rare occasions I went to church I had intolerable boredom. Due to my older siblings, a cousin and some friends I began an active Christian life when I was 14. In evangelical, charismatic Christianity the preferred term is The Lord’s Prayer and rare in groups. “Let the spirit flow” was the sentiment. Decades passed with exposure to various Christian denominations but little that were of the high church liturgical variety who pray this regularly.
Then my relationship with this prayer, taught by Jesus himself, changed in context for me at 42. It was a few months after my family and I moved out of state that I began to ponder the Our Father backwards, forwards and sideways. “What does it mean?” I thought. My ponderings trickled in my conscience to the point my prayer bubbled up adding “Lord, what does it mean about the kingdom coming? I felt should have seen it more fully by now but something is missing.”
After a few months of that I stumbled on persuasive Catholic material which gave me more context of the Our Father. This context opened up prayerful, historical, scriptural and sacramental lenses. I entered the Church early the next year. From then and for the rest of my life I will be going to mass where the Our Father comes shortly before the Eucharist. In the Our Father we in the mass pray this earnestly desiring to receive all of God’s grace.
But that is not the end of it. Recently I have been praying the second highest liturgy only to the mass called Liturgy of the Hours. Catholics can pray this solo or in groups. This has become a staple in my life especially because I may make a promise in four years in a deacon ordination in the Catholic Church to pray it twice a day.
In my formation toward the diaconate I pray it twice a day including the Our Father. The graces that flow from that have been grounding me more in the love of the Blessed Trinity.
Case in point the other day. When I was in the confessional a deeper sorrow for my sins welled up in my heart yet in the absolution I sensed a grace on me more than any other time I had gone into confession. What I used to find stifling I now see as liberating. The Our Father has been like a constant and key companion in this journey.
But the closest and central lens for this prayer is in Christ himself. Without Christ, the Our Father is only a spiritual poem. Christ gives context by being God Incarnate as God the Son in how “the Word became flesh and dwelt [tabernacled] among us” (John 1:14). The Incarnation is a founding context for the Our Father and complete with the Atonement and Resurrection.
It is in that sense Christ gives us the gospel by which we pray the Our Father. “But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’ “(John 20:17b). Before the Cross, Christ taught the Our Father with knowing God as Father being a lofty concept. After the Cross, it is a living reality. It is because of Jesus “who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25).
The closeness of God the Father in the words and work of Christ can be a context of healing to those who have father-wounds. “Father” may be a scary term to those with wounds by earthly fathers. They reflexively may say they like Jesus but not Father (nor the Holy Spirit also).
Ponder the words of Christ who countered this assumption. He said at the Last Supper, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’ (John 14:9)?” Praying to God the Father with the Our Father is ideally Christ praying to the Father in us and through us by the Spirit.
We can pray to God boldly even through dryness. We can pray with expectation drawing from the deposit of the faith knowing more fully who the Father is. Then we contemplate who we are as his children more fully.
So what is stopping us? If you read this as a Christian you are a breath of faith away from praying the Our Father. If you are not a Christian, you are a breath of faith away from stepping into the transcendent adoption in Christ. So be humble. Be trusting.
“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me” (John 14:6).
It is quite the burden for one having an inconvenient message for change. The more polarizing it is, the more intensity. Some inconvenient messages that are often refused are also in some places accepted. Truth is truth. For those open to it, changes to conform to truth will happen but in some cases through the sacrifice of the messenger. The hard of heart may shoot the messenger.
In the case of Maximilian Kolbe he had a message of hope that he expressed in word and deed even to sacrifice his life. In Auschwitz a married father of six was about to be the last to fill a starvation bunker and pleaded for his life. Kolbe stepped up and took his place. The saved man spoke of the priest and his cause for the next several decades. Kolbe’s message was the gospel.
For Paul in the early 60’s AD, his mission was in the message and he would not be taking the easy way out either. He would be misunderstood for something that preceded him and was bigger than him. Here he continues his case in the court of King Agrippa of the Herod family and in the presence of Festus a Roman official. He makes the case of Jesus of Nazareth who is divine and human and most definitely did not take the easy way out.
“After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, ….. To this day I have had help from God, and so I stand here, testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place:that the Messiah must suffer, and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”
While he was making this defense, Festus exclaimed, “You are out of your mind, Paul! Too much learning is driving you insane!” But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking the sober truth. Indeed the king knows about these things, and to him I speak freely; for I am certain that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.” Agrippa said to Paul, “Are you so quickly persuading me to become a Christian?” Paul replied, “Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you but also all who are listening to me today might become such as I am—except for these chains.”
….Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to the emperor.” (Acts 26:19,22-29,32).
“After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, ….. To this day I have had help from God– – Paul has launched several statements coming from a background of humility but here he affirms that dependence on God is continual. God is contextualized as the key and ongoing factor worthy of obedience.
I stand here, testifying to both small and great– – – He again comes at universality but instead of the issue of nations he addresses universality of the gospel to the haves’s and have not’s. A compliment I have heard of honorable people is that they speak to one person at a time with the same dignity and respect to the rich or the poor. An example would be saying Sir or Ma’am to any class. Paul knew the gospel does not discriminate and it was fitting that he spoke in front of a mixed audience with some in the room probably servants.
saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place– – In his first statement to connect to the centrality of Jesus Christ, he refers to Jesus being pre-announced before entering history. Of any religious figure in world history this is unique. “Eternity stepped into time” (Michael Card, The Final Word).
that the Messiah must suffer– – This was not only a religious figure but one anointed in the Holy Spirit and power (Acts 10:38) who not only was effective in works of miracles but to love in his profound suffering. He was the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29).
and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”– – It could be described that Jesus dying on the cross was the seed but the resurrection was the first fruits of a harvest of souls to the whole world.
“You are out of your mind, Paul! Too much learning is driving you insane!”– – – Festus is a non-Jew and for these latest statements he could be compared to someone walking in halfway through a film with a complex plot. Some developments could seem too much out place or without purpose. This is why it is ideal for someone to know salvation history before Jesus or things in natural law that point to God being personal.
Indeed the king knows about these things, and to him I speak freely; …King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.”– – – Paul is respectfully addressing what I call a tourist. When I was working at a substance abuse treatment center with 90% clients coming from elsewhere in the country, I dealt with clients that were there “on business” in the sense of doing whatever it took for change and what I called “tourists”. Tourists on the other hand were often fluent in language of radical change for sobriety with some belief in the process of recovery but lacking in faith with works coming together to work “an honest program.”
King Agrippa came from an Idumean family who ruled Palestine for a handful of generations for Rome but after converting to Judaism. One Herod committed mass infanticide. Another was complicit in the crucifixion of Christ. Another beheaded the apostle James, allowed worship to himself and was struck dead immediately. This one, Herod Agrippa, knew that the God of Israel was real. He did believe but not with saving belief since he only believed in convenience. He was a lifelong tourist. Paul was calling him to be engaged “on business” fully.
“Are you so quickly persuading me to become a Christian?”– – Agrippa is deflecting to tomorrow the salvation that is meant for now.
“Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you but also all who are listening to me today might become such as I am– – – Paul paradoxically now points to his spiritual position as it is now in that they would join him in salvation in Christ and also his own role as an intercessor. On the latter role Paul is under no illusions that he was a savior to them but yet wanted to intercede.
Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to the emperor.”– – The Church is in its best shape when the world wonders about the counter-cultural nature of shining sacrificially. The kingdom of God and its rewards are not on the map of the world which emphasizes self-preservation. Paul is seeking to lose his life for the sake of the cross. Jesus said he who seeks to lose his life will save it and he who seeks to save his life will lose it (Luke 17:33).
In likewise way, the longer a Christian lives in the virtues Christ calls us to, we are ideally going to be a witness by weirdness or even sacrifice. I do not mean weirdness for weirdness’ sake but by consequence of one who seizes the truth of, “seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). Herod Agrippa coming from the “tourist” point of view is in such a sad state because at some level in his conscience he knows the truth and believes. Salvation history has to come together in the Messiah but he chooses deafness in the face of a compelling witness.
If he would only step out of slight contemplation the tourist could come into a personal interaction with God which is worth the price of worldly business. As for Paul, you or I to be a witness in the weird is worth the cost. What we can pray for in the Christian faith is that if the time comes for us to lay it all on the line for the gospel of Jesus Christ we will make that stand.
jembenjamin 