Why was the kingdom of David and a kingdom of Solomon essential in the plan of redemption?
................................................................
This rule of the kingdom of David and the kingdom of Solomon is the rule, the sceptre, of the tribe of Judah, which was prophesied by Jacob to bring Mashiach. It was seen by Jacob that Judah would rule by virtue of his repentance in laying down his life, as it were, in putting it on the line for Benjamin, for the sake of Jacob's soul. ................................................................................................................................
Why was the northern kingdom allowed?
Why was it cut off?
What did it mean for Israel historically, in terms of Torah Israel, "hornets and honey"*, and how did it prefigure the kingdom of Mashiach?
What is the ultimate role of the divided kingdom and its healing in the coming of Messianic Torah Israel?
How did first the division and then the exiles affect the Davidic kingdom, present and future?
All of this is the necessary background to the question of the significance of the tribe of Benjamin adhering to the tribe of Judah. Once this setting is clearly given then one must go into the deeper background story of Judah and Joseph in Egypt, which this story of the tribe of Benjamin cleaving to the tribe of Judah brings to the front.
Complete Redemption is configured in terms of the reunification of the two kingdoms.
The redemption of all Israel was begun in the redemption of Israel out of Egypt — and the end of the redemption in the last days was prefigured in that beginning. The Prophets reveal redemption as the mystery of G-d.
Redemption is revealed prophetically as a mystery in order that the ear can be prepared to hear and to help the ear to become prepared. The measure of what is prepared is the measure of what is redeemed.
The Torah is itself the Master that prepares the ear. In the Good News records and in the Book of the Acts of the Good News emissaries there appear two things as being concealed. The suffering nature of the Mashiach is revealed as concealed and the gift of the Spirit of God to gentile converts to Yehoshua is revealed as concealed. Both of these are referenced at once in Acts 15 in the decision of the Jerusalem council.
This decision given in that place is explained as being given in reference to the prophecy of Amos 9. That makes the whole Good News / Acts narrative about the reunification of the two kingdoms.
The Heir
In Genesis 15 we read the following:
3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.”It is not the convert that is to be the heir but the flesh and blood offspring of promise who believes G-d's promise who will be the heir.
This being so, the flesh and blood offspring's faith must be perfect — and how will it be perfect and without need of correction, when even Abraham's faith was not perfect until it was tested and corrected, and the whole of the covenant is for the completion of this process of the perfecting of faith?
That is to say, the inheritance comes about when faith is perfect, so that the promise corresponds to the process of the covenant, which is the process of the perfecting of faith.
[Now it begins to become clear that the convert only inherits as the servant of the heir and when the heir inherits. And to this end both must come together in the perfection of faith. And the narrative in the end must unfold in line with the narrative at the beginning. The convert must appear to be the only candidate to be the heir when the natural heir appears not to be able to be born. But at last the convert will come to give this testimony, so that the grace of G-d is magnified. When we see Joseph appearing to be a gentile in order to give this testimony we see the lines coming together.]
The initial imperfection in Abraham's faith makes him at that point the same as a gentile. Eliezer's service toward Abraham makes him the same as though he were, in fact the heir, but he is not — so Abraham's suggesting he could be, which suggestion had to be corrected, or G-d could not speak and reveal Himself, as it were condemned Eliezer as though he were an enemy of G-d, and measure for measure put Abraham in the same position.
The covenant is the assurance and insurance that Abraham's faith will be perfected. This division within the heir between unbelief and belief as it works out in sin or in righteousness will be measured and remedied. First it will be measured in terms of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph will appear to be a gentile, the unbeliever, but it will actually be his brothers whose unbelief is being measured and whose belief is being tested. When this correction is over it will not be the end of the covenant of correction but the beginning of the process.
As you do unto Benjamin, Joseph was saying unto his brothers, you do unto me.
Thus, in acting in a manner to sacrifice his own life for the life of Benjamin, Judah was representing repentance for the whole of Israel.
Only Joseph and Benjamin did not have the guilt that the other brothers had in the selling of Joseph. This guilt was pointed to but a deeper guilt was pointed to, the guilt of having the potential for this murderous selling, of making Joseph into the gentile. It was not just any murderous selling... This was Abraham's highlighting his own need of grace by making the suggestion that the convert could be the promised heir.
The heir of promise who was from Sarah was thus in need of being redeemed from this word of the prophet —
“Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”— for Abraham's word was really a prayer for this, that his offspring should be redeemed from the possibility of this thought, which he was then putting into words. When Joseph again became the Jew and not the gentile this was accomplished in a point of beginning. When Ephraim will again be the Jew and not the gentile a point of completion of this redemption will be reached.
And Benjamin is now, as Benjamin was then, the key to this repentance. We see through Mashiach that if one died for all then all were dead. This is the message of the Torah made to take effect in Judah when he put himself in the position of being dead for Benjamin. He then knew repentance for putting Joseph in the position of being dead in Jacob's heart, the position of being the gentile. The making of Joseph a gentile is the thought also that is equally hidden in the heart of Rehoboam in Judah and in the heart of Jeroboam in Joseph himself. For this is the thought hidden in the heart of all the tribes when they said, "Give us a king like unto the nations."
That is, if Joseph would doubt his brothers it is the same thought as if his brothers would doubt him. It is unnecessary to act on the doubt because the covenant is the covenant of the grace of God. The House of Rachel... We have asked, what if, God forbid, the house of Rachel were entirely lost? We can look at what this would have meant to Jacob. — but this is the very thing that came to pass in Jacob's heart when he allowed Benjamin to be taken down into Egypt! Now finally we know that it is for Jacob's heart that Rachel weeps! Who dares to rest until this is remedied?
Since Rachel and her house (as Jacob's Sarah) corresponds to Isaac, the promised seed, (in prophetic representation of the original marital design of the Adam as being marked for eternal redemption), that which is a rejection of Rachel is a rejection of Isaac and a new replacement of Isaac with Ishmael in this prophetic significance. Had Benjamin been lost, Rachel would have been completely made empty. It would have been the equivalent of Isaac not being born. The revelation of Joseph in Egypt thus has a correspondence to the birth of Isaac. If the house of Judah remains alone without the house of Joseph this is as if the marriage of Jacob were a purely spiritual marriage, as if Jacob's love were divorced from Rachel, his Eve, his Sarah, and therefore there was no redemption of the natural, only a replacement of the natural with the spiritual. In today's world it would lead to saying that there is no racial element in Judaism, that Judaism is only a matter of the faith and religion of the Jewish people, which can be equally as well carried forward by converts (Ishmael) as by natural born Jews.
Today, when Judah begins to reveal the tribe of Benjamin as a tribe, distinct from Judah, it will be as though Isaac were raised from the dead.
______________
* Hornets and Honey is the name of a study I am working on that presents the theme of Biblical Restorative Justice in light of the Good News of Israel and Her Messiah. The term refers to the promises concerning the land that, on the one hand it was a land flowing with milk and honey and on the other hand G-d would send hornets to drive out the occupants of the land. These promises depended on Israel entering the land with the faith they evidenced crossing the Red Sea.
No comments:
Post a Comment