Human Imperfection, Teboho Kibe [read a book .txt] 📗

on to say: “Indeed, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one particle of a letter of the Law to go unfulfilled. Everyone [Anyone, Mo] that divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he that marries a woman divorced from a husband commits adultery.” (Luke 16:17, 18, NW) As a son of a Jewess, Jesus came to be under the law of Moses. But he as a perfect Jew did not come to destroy that Law from God; he came to fulfill it. He had to prove himself to be the Seed of Abraham which was first foretold in Moses’ writings. As such Seed he must be sacrificed on God’s altar, in the same way that Abraham’s beloved son Isaac was offered on the altar at God’s command, this resulting in God’s oath-bound promise, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”—Gen. 22:1-18.

As prescribed in Moses’ law, Jesus must fulfill it by being offered up as the real passover lamb, “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” Yes, he must be offered in sacrifice like those animals slain at Mount Sinai, whose blood Moses as mediator sprinkled on the book of the Law and the people in order to validate the Law covenant between God and Israel. But Jesus’ blood validates a new covenant between God and spiritual Israel, by which God really forgives sins beyond remembrance. To fulfill the many prophetic pictures in the Law, Jesus also had to be offered like the bullock and Jehovah’s goat on the day of atonement, the blood of which sacrifices was taken by the high priest into the Most Holy and sprinkled before the divine mercy seat. Only Jesus had to rise from the dead and ascend as High Priest into heaven itself and appear in God’s most holy presence to offer there the blood or value of his sacrificed human life for believers on earth. By these means his followers on earth could gain true righteousness from God. In fulfilling these and other features of the Mosaic law Jesus fulfilled the purpose of it. So it was taken out of the way and was nailed to the torture stake on which he died.—Ex. 12:1-13; John 1:29; Ex. 24:3-8; Lev. 16:1-19; Heb. 9:11-28; 13:10-13; Rom. 10:4; Col. 2:14.

Because the Law of Moses was then being fulfilled and removed from his believers, Jesus declared that the divorce provision in the Law whereby a man could have more than one living wife did not apply after this to his followers. (Deut. 24:1-4) The Law covenant through Moses was passing out and the new covenant through the Greater Mediator, Jesus Christ, was superseding it. Under it if a Christian got a divorce from a marriage mate on any grounds other than sexual unfaithfulness, then if either of these remarried that one would be guilty of adultery. The Christian standard of marriage under the new covenant would be that established by God in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. The man had but one living wife given him for the purpose of raising children to fill the earth and subdue it to a paradise state. (Matt. 19:3-9; Gen. 1:28; 2:21-24) God provided no divorce for the perfect pair. Likewise a married Christian must be the mate of only one living partner and should be faithful to that one. This statement of Jesus on the marriage situation must have irritated the Pharisees who followed Talmudic teachings on marriage and who were listening in.

Showing how the Jewish members of the Lazarus class had died to their former beggarly condition under the Law covenant, the apostle Paul addresses some of them: “Can it be that you do not know, brothers, (for I am speaking to those who know law,) that the Law is master over a man as long as he lives? For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is alive; but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law of her husband. So, then, while her husband is living, she would be styled an adulteress if she became another man’s. But if her husband dies, she is free from his law, so that she is not an adulteress if she becomes another man’s. So, my brothers, you also were made dead to the Law through the body of the Christ, that you might become another’s, the one’s who was raised up from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in accord with the flesh, the sinful passions that were excited by the Law were at work in our members that we should bring forth fruit to death. But now we have been discharged from the Law, because we have died to that by which we were being held fast, that we might be slaves in a new sense by the spirit, and not in the old sense by the written code.”—Rom. 7:1-6, NW.

Thus the Lazarus class had died to the Mosaic law and was no longer subject to the “rich man” class or dependent upon that Jewish clergy class for anything. They had “died together with Christ toward the elementary things of the world” which the “rich man” class taught. Their life was now “hidden with the Christ in union with God”. They no longer begged from the “rich man”. No, they followed Jesus’ command, “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” and avoided them.—Col. 2:20; 3:3 and Luke 12:1, NW.

But did you notice one interesting point? What? That, though Lazarus died, the parable does not say the beggar was buried and put in Hades, as was the case with the rich man. In place of being buried and going to Hades, the beggar was “carried off by the angels to the bosom position of Abraham”. Thus the Lazarus class is not pictured as a dead class, “dead in your trespasses and sins,” but as very much alive, “alive toward God.” (Eph. 2:1; Gal. 2:19, NW) All these features about Jesus’ story here prove that it does not tell of a literal Jewish “rich man” and of a literal beggar in Israel named Lazarus. Why should a literal Jew named Lazarus be carried at his death to Abraham’s bosom just because he was a beggar covered with ulcers and licked by dogs? Furthermore, the literal Abraham had been buried eighteen centuries before this and his bosom had moldered in the grave, in the cave of Machpelah, near Hebron. He was not reclining at a feast and able to entertain Lazarus. (Gen. 25:8-10) Abraham’s son Isaac was buried with him at his death. (Gen. 35:27-29) Abraham’s grandson, surnamed Israel, was also buried with him at death. (Gen. 49:29 to 50:13) When speaking of his death, Jacob said: “I will go down to Sheol [into hell, Dy] to my son mourning.” (Gen. 37:35; 42:38, AS) Since Jacob was gathered to his people at death and was buried with his fathers, and thus went to Sheol or hell, Abraham must also be in Sheol or hell, that is, in the common grave of mankind, or Hades.

The religious clergy of Christendom teach that Abraham is in the hell taught in their creeds. That hell is in two parts, in the center of the earth: one part is called paradise or limbo, where the souls of those faithful ones went who died before Christ’s sacrifice; the other part is called Gehenna, with literal flames of torment, where the rich man is. Hence to be in Abraham’s bosom means to be in an underground paradise. If that is true and if that is where a literal beggar named Lazarus went at death, how is it that angels carried him there? Do angels carry dead beggars to the center of the earth to Abraham’s bosom? Who, then, carried the rich man to the flames of torment—demons? The Scriptures say Jesus went to hell, but got out again by God’s resurrection power. (Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:27, 31, 32) The Revelation or Apocalypse tells us: “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” (Rev. 20:14) So Jesus got out of hell in time, so as not to land with it into the lake of fire. If, now, hell is at the center of the earth, as religionists claim, then what becomes of the earth when hell is cast into the lake of fire?

Now look here, says someone, paradise or Abraham’s bosom has been transferred from hell to heaven since Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension to heaven! But how can that be? On the day of Pentecost, ten days AFTER Jesus’ ascension, the inspired apostle Peter said: “David did not ascend to the heavens.” So neither did Abraham nor anybody in his bosom. (Acts 2:1, 29, 34, NW) Moreover, Jesus told his parable of the rich man and Lazarus some weeks at least before dying on the torture stake at Calvary. So Jesus had not yet ascended to heaven and paradise could not yet have been transferred from hell to heaven at the time he spoke. And yet Jesus said angels carried the dead Lazarus to Abraham’s bosom.

So from all the absurdities into which the religionist falls by arguing that Jesus’ story is literal, it is apparent that he spoke a parable. And this will show up more and more as we look at further absurdities and contradictions in a literal interpretation. It follows, therefore, that the Abraham to whose bosom angels carried Lazarus is symbolic, just as Lazarus and the rich man are. This symbolic Abraham is not in hell. Why not? Because Abraham in the parable represents Jehovah God himself. When faithful Abraham, “the friend of God,” offered up his only son Isaac on Mount Moriah, he was a prophetic picture of Jehovah God offering up his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul wrote his fellow Christians to say: “Those who adhere to faith are the ones who are sons of Abraham. . . . You are all, in fact, sons of God through your faith in Christ Jesus. Moreover, if you belong to Christ, you are really Abraham’s seed, heirs with reference to a promise.” This proves that Abraham pictured Jehovah God, who is the real One in whom all the families of the earth will be blessed. In further proof, the apostle tells the Lazarus class: “Now we, brothers, are children belonging to the promise the same as Isaac was”; and Isaac was the son of Abraham.—Gal. 3:7, 8, 26, 29; 4:28, NW.

IN THE FAVOR OF THE THEOCRACY

To lie in the bosom of someone at a banquet meant to occupy a place of loving favor with that one. For example, concerning Jesus we read: “No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten god who is in the bosom position with the Father is the one that has explained him.” (John 1:18, NW) The apostle John occupied such a favored place at the last passover, for we read: “There was reclining in front of Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, and Jesus loved him. So the latter leaned back upon the breast of Jesus and said to him: ‘Master, who is it?’” (John 13:23, 25, NW) To be carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom means, therefore, to be transferred from the despised beggarly condition of Lazarus at the rich man’s gate into the loving favor of the Greater Abraham, Jehovah God. It means to be adopted by him as a son of God to be associated with the promised Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. It means to have close fellowship with Jehovah and his Son and to feast with them at the “table of Jehovah”. As it is written: “This partnership of ours is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. . . . if we are walking in the light as he himself is in the light, we