PerryDox – BeJustAChristian

Have you ever been told, “You just don’t get it?”  Whether said in frustration or spitefulness, what they mean is that “You’re not very bright.”  Sometimes our “brightness” can shine through if we simply change the direction of our thinking.  After all, even a flashlight isn’t very bright when turned to the wall. 

 Well, there is a chance when studying Hebrews that we “just won’t get it!”  We need to change our perspective.  We can’t look at this book through 21^st century Gentile eyes.  We have to become Jewish in our mindset.  This is evident just to see the power of the phrase that Jesus “the radiance of His (i.e., God’s) glory” (Heb.1:3). 

To the Jewish mind, that meant much more than Jesus is “The Light” (Jn.1:4).  I am not trying to “dim” the importance of John’s concept.  No, instead there is a history that “illuminates” the Hebrew expression far brighter than simply “light.”    I would not doubt that even John’s phrase is filled with a brightness of its own, just as bright, but different than in Jewish thought.  To not see the history of the radiance of God’s glory might be comparable to the brightness between a light bulb and the sun.

 Its not easy to see as others do, but not only will it help us interpret the Bible better, it will help our relationships also.

 But let’s get back to thinking like a Israelite.  “The radiance of His glory”  is best rendered Jewishly as the Sh’khinah, which the Encyclopedia Judaica article on it (Volume 14, pp.1349-1351) defines as:

“The Divine Presence, the numinous immanence of God in the world. . . a revelation of the holy in the midst of the profane. . . .”

 The article continues:

“One of the more prominent images associated with the Shekhinah is that of light.  Thus on the verse, “. . .the earth did shine with His glory” (Ezekiel 43:2), the rabbis remark, `This is the face of the Shekhinah’ (Avot diRabbi Natan [18b-19a]; see also Chullin 59b-60a).  Both the angels in heaven and the righteous in olam ha-ba (“the world to come”) are sustained by the radiance of the Shekhinah (Exodus Rabbah 32:4, B’rakhot 17a; cf. Exodus 34:29-35). . . .

 “According to Saadiah Gaon [882-942 C.E.], the Shekhinah is identical with kevod ha-Shem (“the glory of God”), which served as an intermediary between God and man during the prophetic experience.  He suggests that the “glory of God” is the biblical term, and Shekhinah the talmudic term for the created splendor of light which acts as an intermediary between God and man, and which sometimes takes on human form.  Thus when Moses asked to see the glory of God, he was shown the Shekhinah, and when the prophets in their visions saw God in human likeness, what they actually saw was not God Himself but the Shekhinah (see Saadiah’s interpretation of Ezekiel 1:26, 1 Kings 22:19, and Daniel 7:9 in Book of Beliefs and  Opinions 2:10).”

 “The point of these citations is not to suggest that Yeshua is a ‘created splendor of light,’ but to convey some of the associations of the expression, “the brightness of the glory” or the radiance of the Sh’khinah .” (Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, p.662-663)

 So Jesus being the Shekinah, Jesus was the presence of God among men.  Hmmm.  Sound more than just Jewish?  Sound Christian-like also?

 Another point worth noting is that since Jesus is the Radiance of God, or the Shekinah of God, then following Jesus was and is very Jewish – even their fathers unknowingly were following Jesus.  Jesus preexisted before His incarnation as the cloud or light of God’s glory on earth.

 When thinking of Jesus, think of Mt. Sinai were Yahweh gave spoke to the nation of Israel: Ex.24:17 NASB –  And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the mountain top.

When thinking of Jesus, think of God’s presence filling the tabernacle and temples: Ex. 40:34 NASB) – Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

When thinking of Jesus, think of God!

When the Jews could do this, that’s when they “Got it!”  Do we?

Questions:

• How easy is it to try and put yourself into someone’s else’s situation?
• If we can learn to think like others, can that help us better understand them?  If so, how?

 Prayer:

• Ask God to make you more sympathetic to the way others think and feel so that you can appreciate them more and understand them better.
• Ask God to help you better understand what He is communicating to us through His Son.

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This entry was posted by PHall on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 5:52 pm and is filed under John, Hebrews, Exodus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.