Rabbi’s Reflections – Saturday, February 26, 2022
Shabbat Shalom,
Growing in Love for God 5
by David Harwood
Yeshua loved God. A reason He loved Father was because He rightly saw God’s holiness.
Imagine unveiled glory. Imagine Yeshua, completely human, seeing God in a revelation like Isaiah’s. Here’s Isaiah’s account:
In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw Adonai sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the Temple. Seraphim were standing above Him. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. One called out to another, and said:
“Holy, holy, holy, is Adonai-Tzva’ot! The whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isaiah 6:1-3 TLV)
Isaiah cried out, “Woe to me for I am ruined. I’ve seen God and I’m unclean… Everyone around me is unclean! Woe to me… OY!” This is the lament of a prophet, beloved of God, seeing the stark contrast between his meditations, words, and manner of life and the ways and wisdom of the Author of Life.
If Yeshua had a similar epiphany I think He would have cried out, “I’m in love! I’m in awe! I’m in love with You, Most High God!” He never experienced any alienation from His Father in character, meditation and purpose. Yeshua loved God’s holiness.
I love the record of the Messiah’s expression of praise in Luke 10.
In that very hour, He was overjoyed in the Ruach ha-Kodesh and said, “I praise You, Father, Master of the universe (Luke 10:21a)
What a pure, spontaneous expression of intimate reverence. The Greek, translated overjoyed, usually translates one of two Hebrew words. Both convey expressing triumphant joy. Loud joy.
Yeshua rejoiced in the awesome God. This awesome One was His dear Father, but in His relationship to God we find no soulish, inappropriate familiarity. To Yeshua, God was amazing. He loved His Father’s holiness.
Our Messiah knew the attributes of the God He loved. How? He knew His Father, and what Father was like, through intuitive, Ruach given, awareness and encounters. He also studied the Scriptures. Through the Ruach ha-Kodesh’s anointing He watched His Father work, listened to His voice, and beheld His Father’s face.
In addition, angels came and ministered strength and comfort to the Messiah. Yeshua prophetically perceived the moral mixture of merely human motivations and discerned the malevolence of malignant spiritual forces. And He loved His Father’s holiness. He loved His Father’s kingdom.
One true thing about God’s characteristics is this: each attribute is holy because it is His, and He is holy. For instance: goodness. Goodness is a moral attribute. God’s goodness is holy. Why? Because there is no goodness that is comparable to His goodness
Yeshua said that only Father was good. God’s goodness is in a class of its own. Essentially, the Hebrew word translated holy (kadosh) means separate. Just the fact that His goodness is empowered by omnipotence, guided by wisdom, filled with omniscience, and is in every place at every time, puts His goodness on a different level than anything we’ve ever known.
God’s goodness is holy and His holy goodness is good.
Everything we see that is good is a hint of, or a window into, His goodness. His goodness is just one way of describing everything wonderful about God, and our Messiah’s eyes were wide open to His Father’s holy goodness.
Let’s consider how God relates within Himself to His own holiness.
There is nothing about God that God, Himself doesn’t love. How might we know that? Through Yeshua.
The Incarnation is the clearest revelation of God. In the Incarnation, we find that God Incarnate loved His Father. Yeshua loved Father with every aspect of His being. That encapsulates, and communicates, an eternal reality: the triune God loves Himself. Our wise, omniscient, God sees Himself as worth loving.
The Messiah had discernment. No sin distorted His vision. Motivated by love, He was faithful to God. In Him there were no spiritually adulterous affections or illicit relationships. He saw Father clearly and loved Who He saw.
Father delighted in His Son’s love and, like Yeshua, we are commanded to love the One who loves our love.
Love Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deuteronomy 6:5 TLV)
Our love is meaningful to the God we love.
Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
Sat 26-Feb-2022 25th of Adar I, 5782
Parashat Vayakhel Shabbat Shekalim
Ex 38:1-20 2 Ki 12:1-17 Mt 17:24-27