By Rav Yeshua Ed |December 10, 2013 | updated July 14, 2020
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns." Hark, your watchmen lift up their voice, together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the LORD to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem; for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (Isaiah 52:7-10, RSV).
Who is the God of the Old Testament?
Did God really promise the people of Israel a King like David his servant?
If Yeshua HaMashiach is merely a man, why did the God of the Old Testament promise to redeem the people of Israel directly?
Many believers have been led into thinking that the God of the Old Testament is not the same God that incarnated into flesh the New Testament. Some even go further with their erroneous belief or misconception that the God of the Old Testament is a wrathful and scary God. They think His teachings or commandments in the Torah of Moses are already useless and irrelevant in this modern world.
Thus, today we have a kind and merciful God in the personality of Jesus the Promised Messiah of Israel.
Is that really the truth?
Is Rabbi Yeshua really indistinguishable from the God of the Old Testament as if He is merely a man and the spokesman of God back then?
We have to know the truth lest we end up believing in hearsay or commit heresy against God. We must examine and prove what really the Holy Bible is telling us. The Old Testament writings seem to present one particular God as the Father (Avinu Malkenu) and the Creator of us all. Then, there was the spokesman of God, which is like another God, a separate being from God the Father. There are sufficient numbers of biblical passages that lend credence to the existence of another God besides the Father or Abba.
Many people today find it hard to separate the Word (Memra) of God from God the Father for they believe they are one and the same. There is no real distinction between the two of them that can set them apart from each other. They have the same existence. They have the same goal, mind and purpose in almost anything. It even seems that if there are two Gods, the Father and His Son, they must be one and of one family.
But what if there is really one God in the Old Testament times that communicated with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, including the people of Israel on Mt. Sinai during Exodus times.
When we take into consideration what the New Testament writings are saying, we could come to the simple conclusion that the so-called Word of God has a much larger and distinctive role than the God that He referred to as Abba (Daddy in English). The book of Daniel makes us aware of the existence of two divine beings co-existing together as God or Elohim.
“I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him” (Daniel 7:13, KJV).
In the first chapter of the fourth gospel, John tells us how God has a spokesman and that spokesman is similarly a God. Then the spokesman of God incarnated into flesh. He became Yeshua the son of Joseph and Mary. Many people on earth have known him as Jesus the Promised Messiah of Israel.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-14, NKJV).
In the beginning the Word of God (Spokesman) that incarnated into flesh and became Jesus Christ was already in existence. He was with God. Everything that had been made by God was created by the Word (Spokesman) in the name of God the Father and through the latent power of the Holy Spirit.
John the Beloved related to us a story that is older than the book of Genesis. Genesis started its narrative at a time when God was re-creating the heaven and the earth from the state of chaos and disorder. But John gave us an account of the existence of Jesus in the beginning with God. Rabbi Yeshua or Jesus Christ is also a Creator like God the Father.
The Bible expressly identifies two divine beings that existed as God in the beginning. It seems when God wanted something done on earth or anywhere in this vast universe, it is His Spokesman that makes it happened. There is nothing that had been created on earth and in heaven that the Spokesman of God had not made through the supervision of God the Father. It is easy to take this thing for granted and forget the fact that God the Father has created all things through Rabbi Yeshua. In the same way, we can relegate quickly to the back of our head the reality of Rabbi Yeshua as our Creator God as well (Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1: 1-2, 8-10).
Is this really the case between the two divine beings that composed the family of Elohim?
Elohim is a family. And all the members of the divine family of Elohim are Eloah.
Even if it looks like the Holy Bible is clearly pointing to us the existence of two Gods or dualism, which may or may not be the case at all, two beings can exist as one in many ways, may they be humans or gods. “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Genesis 3:22, KJV). John also relates the same thing, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2, NKJV).
When it comes to the family of God (Elohim), an optimal growth in numbers through mankind is their prime objective in the very beginning. They are re-generating future members of their divine family through the saints among the people of Israel. When a person pursues a life of purity and holiness in the eyes of God, he or she has the potential to become the son or a child of the Most High God.
Inherently, all of the people on earth have the same potential but there is an order in our ascension as sons of God. The people of Israel are destined to become the firstborn sons of God. The rest of the other people on earth known as goyim (gentiles) would be quickened and transformed later on.
