WHO IS JESUS?

By Dr. Roy B. Blizzard

This article is part of a six-part lecture series that I presented live at

New Covenant Teaching Ministry with Betty Steward and her
congregation in Oregon. The series was requested by Betty and met
with such positive response that it was suggested that the information
should have a much wider distribution; hence, this segment offered to
you, our readers, to fulfill the request and to introduce it to you.
Generally speaking, it is presented as delivered with only minor
changes in grammar and is, therefore, not written in the usual
scholarly form of the Yavo Digest, but in a popular form, basically
transcribed from the tapes. It is hoped that, although offered in this
form, it will be enjoyable reading and serve to answer many questions
you have raised in the past. If it does whet your appetite, you may wish
to order the entire six-tape series (see Web address below).

Who is Jesus? Who is He? What did He have to say about Himself?
Who does He claim to be? What does the term "Son of Man"
compute in your mind?

One fact needs to be established from the beginning. Jesus didn't

hide who He was. In everything He says and everything He does, He
establishes who He is. Nowhere does He refer to Himself as "Son of
God," as the term is commonly used in Christianity. "Son of God" is
not Hebraic. Yet, it says "Son of God" in many places in the
Scriptures. One must keep in mind that the term is a result of the
English translation from the Greek. Although much of the New
Testament was Hebrew, we have no original Hebrew text of a New
Testament book. It is only as the Church moves to the West and
attempts to translate these ideas, or concepts, which in many
instances are impossible to translate, that they begin to pick up on
this terminology, or phraseology. It is when He calls Himself "ben
Elohim" that it looks like it means "Son of God." But, remember
that it was not the term "Son of God" that was Hebraic. The term
"Son" was. The rabbis always believed when Messiah, Redeemer,
came, He was going to come as a son. There would be a son-father
relationship. "Son" is Hebraic. However, the term "Son of God" is
not. Nowhere do you find it in the Old Testament. Many of these
concepts in Hebrew are impossible to translate into any other
language because they are very abstract, very complex. They carry
with them a whole spectrum of meaning.

Someone is always inquiring as to when we are going to write a

commentary. At its very best, a commentary would still fall short of
conveying what the original text is attempting to convey. Rather
than using all that time and energy trying to accomplish such a task,
it would be easier to teach you Hebrew. The key to our
understanding of these concepts is in trying to understand them
from the Hebrew perspective; to attempt to understand the Hebrew
language patterns, synonyms, parallelism, allegory, etc., even though
they are difficult and foreign to our Western minds.

For example, if Jesus was God, who was He praying to all the time?
He was always praying to the "Father." What about the Holy
Spirit? However do we understand all of this? Our Western mind
has been struggling with this since the fourth century; actually even
before the fourth century. It was already a problem as the Church
moved to the West in the latter part of the second and on into the
third century, because the Western mind had to have everything
rational, reasonable, explainable; had to have everything make
sense, had to be able to explain God.

This is one of the basic differences between Hebrew thought patterns

and those of the Western mind. To the Hebrew mind, the Hebrew
language, everything, is very realistic. God was a real God who was
working in a real way in history. When they speak of God, they
speak of Him in realistic terms. They talk about "the hands of God,"
"the face of God," and "the feet of God." At the same time, they
know that God is a spirit, and "those who worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth," that He is non-corporeal,
meaning He does not have flesh and blood. "Flesh and blood will not
inherit the kingdom of heaven." But they use all these
anthropomorphisms to try to explain Him. To the Hebrew mind, this
is no problem, but it is completely frustrating to the Greek mind.
Everything has to be explained. Everything has to be logically
understood. Whereas the Hebrew mind is realistic--God is a real
God who enters into a real relationship with his people--the Greek
mind is idealistic. Man has to be ideal. They take a representation of
the ideal man and transfer that to God so that the god is simply
nothing more than a reflection of the man. Hence, the magnificent
Greek deities, the beautifully formed bodies of both males and
females. The Greeks exalted the body. They exalted physical
strength, and the beautiful form of the body was reflected in the
architecture and the art, as well as the literature and the language.
Everything was all perfectly formed and fashioned and fit together
in a marvelous, intelligent, rational, reasonable, understandable
pattern.

In Hebrew, you have none of that. How is it that God can have
hands and face and feet and at the same time be a spirit? How is it
that Jacob can wrestle with God? That Moses can see God? How is
it then that the Bible says that no one has seen God at any time?

Remember the three who came to see Abraham? Who were these
three? You may be thinking "angels." But the whole idea of angels,
angelology, as we understand it today in Christendom, did not
develop until about the fourth century, about the same time we have
the development of all of the demons and demonology that come into
Christianity from Zoroastrianism. Do not misunderstand. That does
not mean that the Hebrews did not believe there is a force of evil,
that they did not believe there was a devil. They did believe that and
do today, but they believe that he was a created being--created by
God and subject to God. In no way was he considered to be co-equal
with God.

There is only one God. The devil is not a god. As a matter of fact, he
is not even the god of this world. That may be surprising to those
who have taken as literal II Corinthians 4:4, which says in our
translations that "the god of this world has blinded the unbelievers'
minds, preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the
glory of the gospel...," assuming that this can only mean the devil.
Except that, in the Greek, it is ho theos ton kosmon, which, in
Hebrew, is el elohay ha-olam, which means "the God of this
universe." The only God that there is has blinded unbelievers. Why
would the devil have to blind unbelievers when he already has them?
The devil is not the god of anything. He is subject to God, subject to
do His bidding. Not only that, but he is also subject to the man and
woman of God. You remember that Jesus said, "I give you power
and authority over all the power and authority that the enemy
possesses and nothing shall in any way harm you."

The three personages who came to Abraham are called in Hebrew

malachim. A Malach in Hebrew is a messenger. Abraham saw them
coming from afar and sent his servants out to kill the fatted lamb
and prepared a meal, and they came and sat down with him under a
tree. When they drew near to him, he called all three of them
YHWH, or Yahweh. Unfortunately, that presents a problem to the
Western mind. When we begin to study this we think, "Oh, that's
not a problem; that's just God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Spirit." Except--that's not correct.

THE TRINITY

This idea that we call Trinity, and the Trinitarian concept that is
espoused by so many in Christendom, is a late historic development
in the Western church. Let's look at the historical record, at how
and with whom it developed. Even before the time of Constantine,
the Greeks could not understand how God could assume the form of
human flesh. It was not a problem just for the Greeks. It remains a
problem still for some of us today. How could God assume the form
of human flesh and still be God? So, they said that, actually He
really didn't, as there was no substance, just form. He just looked
like a human being, but He really was not, and that is why He could
go through walls, be anywhere, but He didn't really have flesh and
blood. They had already started thinking along those lines by the
end of the first century. If you do not know that, then you do not
understand what John, the Apostle, is getting at when he writes in
one of his epistles, "If any man says that Jesus Christ did not come
in the flesh, he is a liar and the truth is not in him."

The Western church began to deal with this problem of the nature of
Christ. It is very interesting and can be studied in any church
history book; for example, Schaff's History of the Christian Church.
In it, you can trace the whole development of the concept of Trinity
as it originates in the latter part of the second, and on into the third
and fourth centuries, as the Western church has wrestled over this
question of the nature of Christ. They began to use the principal
Greek words, homo ousia, which means sameness. There were those
who said that Christ was the same as God, and therefore used this
term homo ousia, sameness or same essence. Others said no, that He
was not the same but just like God, so they used the term homoi
ousia, a like essence. Then there were those who said no, that they
were actually different, three distinct individuals in the godhead, and
they used the term heteroousia. It is interesting, in studying the
various church fathers, to know which one of these various positions
they espoused.

Remember Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea in the fourth century?

It was Eusebius whom Helena, the queen mother of Constantine,
joined with to travel throughout the land of Israel, searching out the
sites that had been made sacred by Jesus and His disciples. When
Helena, the queen mother, went back home, Eusebius wrote a book,
The Onomastikon, a dictionary of place names in which he identified
over one thousand sites that they had personally sought out and
identified, one of which is today the site of the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher; the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem is another, along
with many other sacred sites. Eusebius also wrote another book, a
classic in its field called Ecclesiastical History, in which he refers
back to writings that have been lost to us of some of the early church
fathers, such as Papias. It so happens that Eusebius believed in
heteroousia. He believed that Jesus was different than the Father,
that they were two separate and distinct entities.

The church fathers argued back and forth over this issue, and it is
not until the fourth century, with a man by the name of Athanasius,
that the church finally voted on homoousia, or same essence.
Paraphrased, the proposal is basically this, that there is just one
God. There is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit
-- then, they made a mistake. They said, "...and these three
personae," or these three persons, "are one." So, what you had was
three distinct and different persons in what was called the
"godhead." That was accepted for a while following the council of
Nicea, until Constantine died, and his son took the throne, changed
the whole concept, and banished Athanasius.

The argument waxed heavy, and in the next forty years, Athanasius
was banned five times! All over the issue of the nature of Christ. The
church would accept it, then throw it out, accept it, then throw it
out, again and again, keeping Athanasius traveling back and forth.
When it was finally accepted and they made their decree, it was
basically that there is just one God, God the Father, God the Son,
and God the holy Spirit, and these three are one, and this is a great
mystery and no one is able to explain it. The simple fact of the
matter is that not only has no one been able to explain it, but no one
has been able to understand it. Nor have we been able to understand
or explain it from that day to this. Why? Because it is not Hebraic; it
is not biblical. It is a product of the Western mind, in its attempt at
trying to explain or understand God.

There are those movements within Christianity that have rejected

Trinitarianism, e.g., the "Oneness" folk. They have for years
espoused just one God, only one God. That was correct, but many
said Jesus was all God and that when He was on earth and was
praying to the Father, the throne room was vacant and He was
talking to Himself. As soon as we start trying to use our Western
mind to try to explain God, we are going to have problems because,
basically and fundamentally, God cannot be understood according
to our Western method of reasoning and conceptualizing. Try to
forget Oneness, try to forget Trinitarianism. Try to forget all the
usual Christian theological terms and just ask, "How can I
understand God? How can I begin trying to understand God?
Where do I begin?"

What is the basic, fundamental, foundational principle of biblical

faith? That there is just one God. That is the whole foundation upon
which biblical faith is built. Shema, Yisrael, adonai Eloheinu, adonai
echad, "Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one." So, if there is one,
there cannot be two, which automatically eliminates, as we have
already seen, the devil. He is not the god of anything.

THE NAMES OF GOD

However, the question is still there. How do I understand God? I can

understand Him best if I look at the names by which He is called and
known. When I look in the biblical text at the names of God, I find
that there are well over fifty principle, proper names for God that
are used in the biblical text, not counting all the biblical
euphemisms. Adding the euphemisms, there are probably another
fifty, or well over a hundred different names for God that are used.

What do we mean by euphemism? Descriptive phrases such as "the

holy One, blessed be He" are euphemisms. The Hebrews have an
aversion to calling God by His name, so they use a term that refers
to God, or that in some way means God, or is descriptive of God.
They simply use a phrase like hashemayim, the heaven. In using that
term, they are referring to God. For example, in the passage, "I have
sinned against heaven." What does it mean to have "sinned against
heaven?" the next passage, which is a parallel passage, explains
what it means with "I have sinned against thee, O God." In this
context, the heaven is a euphemism for God. Hashemayim,
hamacom, "the place," hakadosh, baruch hu," the Holy One, blessed
be He," are euphemisms.

In researching the proper names that are used for God, we are
introduced to one right at the beginning in the biblical text, Bereishit
barah Elohim et hashemayim ve et haaretz, "In the beginning Elohim
created the heavens and the earth." Then in chapter two, we are
introduced to YHWH Elohim. It is interesting, as you look at these in
Hebrew, that Elohim refers to a creative deity, a god who is
performing mighty acts, such as calling the world into existence out
of nothing. You can take a Hebrew concordance and look up the
word, Elohim, and see that it is used all the way through the Old
Testament. Everywhere it is used, you will see that Elohim always
refers to a God who is far removed from His people.

However, when you look at YHWH, or Yahweh, it is always a God

who is covenanting with His people, or entering into a covenant
relationship with His people, in an intimacy of fellowship and
contact. It is therefore safe to say that Elohim refers to the creative
aspect of deity, and YHWH to the covenant aspect of deity. When the
two are coupled together, as "the Lord God," Yaweh Elohim, it
refers to the totality of all that God is.

There are many other names: El Shaddai, meaning "the God who
nourishes, or sustains, me, by suckling me from His breast." In that
particular name for God, we see the feminine aspect of deity. Few
are aware that, in Hebrew, God has no gender. So, is God male or
female? Most would answer that everybody knows he is male. Don't
we pray, "Our Father?" Except that, in Hebrew His name is Yud
hey vav hey (YHWH) , and Yud hey is masculine while vav hey is
feminine. The Jews have always believed that God is neither
masculine nor feminine but both. That is important to keep in mind.
If God created Adam Betzelmeynu kidmuteynu, "in our image and
our likeness," and God was neither male nor female but both, then
what was Adam? Something very interesting to think about. Yud
hey vav hey (YHWH) yerape means "the God that heals." El Elyon
means "the highest God that there is," the high God, the God that is
God above all and, in the sense again of being the only God that
there is. YHWH yireh means "the God who sees," the all-seeing God.
In this particular name of God, we see the omniscience of God, the
all-knowingness of God.

Adonai actually is not really a name in the sense of the others, but
more also of a euphemism because it simply means "master," or
Lord, Adon. We even use it today in common terms, as Adon so-and-
so, or Mr. So-and-so. It means master, but we use it as a euphemism
because we do not speak the name here. We do not use Yud hey vav
hey. We do not say Yaweh, nor do we say Jehovah, but whenever we
see this, the tetragrammaton, the Yud hey vav hey (YHWH) , we say
"Adonai." So, when you hear someone say "Adonai," and they are
reading in the biblical text and say Adonai Elohim, then you know it
is YHWH Elohim, but it carries with it the connotation of Master, or
Lord. Another is Ruach Elohim, the Holy Spirit, which has to do
with the empowering aspect of deity, "the God who empowers."

I will mention a few more here, because by looking at the names, we

are able to understand something about the nature of God. The
reason we can do this is that what God is doing is reflected in the
various names by which He is called. You see here that God is
covenanting with His people. God is sustaining His people. God is
entering into a covenant with His people as El Brit.

God is faithful to His people as El hane'eman. God is a holy God as

El HaKadosh. He is the God of all, God of heaven as well as God of
earth as El hashemayim. He is my rock, my fortress, El sali, El
simchat Gili, the God who is "the joy of my exaltation." He is the
God who is due honor and glory and respect as El kavod, as the God
of knowledge as El da'ot, as the God of truth as El emet, as the God
of my salvation as El Yeshuati. He is the God of compassion as El
rachum, and the righteous God as El tzadik. He is Elohim chayim, the
living God, and El Tsva'ot, the God of hosts; El mishpat, the God of
judgment; El marom, the God of heights; El mikarov, the One who is
near unto His people. He is Elohey mauzi, the God who is the God of
my strength, the One who gives me strength. He is El Elohey kol
basar, the God who is the God of all flesh; YHWH mekadesh, the One
who causes me to be holy; YHWH nisi, not just the God who is my
banner, the One who goes before me, but a nes in Hebrew is also a
miracle, the God who performs miracles, the God who is my
miracle, or the God who sustains my by miracle, YHWH shalom, the
One who is peace or, as we saw before, brings wholeness, or
completeness.
In Luke 3:6, we see, "And all flesh will see the salvation of God."
What does this mean? In English, it is difficult to extract the whole
of its meaning. However, in Hebrew it says "Ve ra'u kol basar et
Yeshuat Elohim." Yeshuat Elohim is just like Ruach Elohim, like
YHWH Elohim in that it is a construct, a name for God. Yeshuat
Elohim means the God who has redeemed me, or the God who has
saved me, or the God who has Yeshua'd me. Now, something
interesting. Is this just some obscure term which is picked up by the
New Testament? Remember that much of the New Testament text
carries allusions back to things in the Old Testament. Example:
Exodus 14:3. What it says is Ra'uh et Yeshuat YHWH, "See the
Yeshuat of YHWH, see the salvation of God, see God saving, see God
redeeming." You will find the same thing in II Chronicles 20:17, the
same thing I Isaiah 52:10. Here you have the exact quote, the
passage to which Luke is referring in the exact same Hebrew
structure, Ve ra'u kol basar et Yeshuat Eloheynu, "And all flesh is
going to see our God redeeming," God saving. Jesus said, "The Son
of Man (Daniel 7:13, 14) is come to seek and to save those that are
lost." But what did Ezekiel 34:11 say? God said, I, I myself will seek
and save those that are lost." When John the Baptist sends his
disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the one who should come?" He
wants to know if Jesus is the king who is to come having yeshua,
salvation, in his hand. Isaiah 52:10 says, Ve ra'uh et kol aph'se-aretz
et yeshuat Eloheynu, "And all flesh is going to see God redeeming."
Zechariah 9:9ff says, "Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout,
Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and
having salvation."

There is only one, but this one God is known to us by as many as

fifty or more different names. In each one of these names that is used
for God, we can see some aspect of deity, some one thing that God is
doing that helps us understand something of the nature of this God
that we worship and serve. The more I understand about what it is
that He does, the more I not only understand Him, the more that I
am in relationship with Him but the more benefit that ensues for my
own practical daily use. Elohim, the creative aspect of deity, is not
all that God is and not all that God does. YHWH, the covenant
aspect of deity, is not all that God does, nor all that He is. El
Shaddai, the sustaining aspect of deity is not all that He is or that He
does. Yeshuat Elohim, the redemptive aspect of deity, is not all that
God does. It is correct to say that Yeshuat Elohim is all God, but is
not all the God there is. Ruach Elohim is all God, but not all that
there is.

God is the sum and total of all of His parts. He is the sum and total
of all that He is doing, and the very nature of God is such that He
can be doing this, this, this, and so on, all at different times,
independent of one another, for the benefit of His people--yet He is
still one. Consider H2O. A cup of it is H20, but it is not all the H2O
that there is. All of the H2O would be the sum and total of all of it
flowing together that there is in the world. God is the sum and total
of all His parts. For the Hebrew mind, that is no problem--only for
the Western mind.

How is it that Jesus could have been God and yet prayed to the
Father? Look at Isaiah 9:6. "For unto us a child is born, unto us a
son is given, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
The mighty God, the everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." How is it
that son can also be father? How is it that father can also be son?
How is it that son can also be God? It is no problem for the Hebrew
mind, only the Western mind. This is the reason the rabbis always
believed that when Redeemer came, when God came to redeem, He
was going to come as a son.

It is only when I begin to put away all of the Greek gnosticism and
Greek philosophy, the theology of the Western church, and try to
begin understanding God from the Hebraic perspective that all of
this suddenly makes sense. There is just one God. Jesus was God--
but He was not all the God there was. God is the sum and total of all
of His parts, the sum and total of everything He is doing. Therefore,
we can best understand who He is and what He is doing by looking
at the names by which He is called.

Yet that raises another question. Why was it necessary for God to
assume human form and flesh in order to effect reconciliation or
redemption? This is a real problem. We could understand, and
understand it a lot better--that Jesus was God--if He just was not
flesh and blood. That's the same problem the Greeks had. Why
would and how did God assume the form of human flesh? It is
important to remember that this was not the only time God did that.
Remember the time the three malachim came to Abraham? And
what were they? Ghosts or spirits do not eat; yet these three ate with
Abraham. Why, now, is this all so extraordinary? Why is it suddenly
that Jesus becomes some kind of exception? Do we so soon forget,
first of all, that God is God? And that one of the principal
characteristics of deity is that He is omnipotent--all powerful,
meaning He can do anything He wants to do, whether I understand
it or not?

However, there had to be some reason for God doing what He was
doing. God is not capricious. God just does not do something to
confuse us or cause us problems. What was His purpose? To
understand, we have to go all the way back to Genesis 1:26, and look
at a very interesting passage of Scripture where God says, Naaseh
Adam, "Let us make Adam..." betzelmaynu kidmutaynu. Right here
is where we made our mistake. We missed the whole point, which
caused us to miss it all the way through the biblical text. We missed
it with Jesus. Instead of translating, we just transliterated. God
created Adam and, of course, his counterpart, Eve. What do we
picture in our minds when we say, "Adam and Eve?" Someone who
looks like us, and most of us have a mental image of the garden of
Eden, perhaps a beautiful meadow right in the middle of which is a
large, spreading tree covered with little red apples. Look at Genesis
5:1-2. "In the day that God created Adam, in the likeness of God
made He him; male and female created He them, and blessed them
and called their name Adam." Now we have a problem. Already that
means there was more than one. What was it God had created? Here
is a story that graphically illustrates how far off our interpretations
can be. In a primary Sunday School class of approximately five- and
six-year-olds, they had been learning about major Old Testament
figures--Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the great heroes of faith. At
the end of the series, the teacher asked them to draw a picture
depicting each one's favorite story. She went around the room and
saw many that were clearly recognizable: David and Goliath, Daniel
and the lion's den, etc. Then she came to little Roy, and his picture
was a total puzzle. It was an old man at the wheel of a red Cadillac
convertible with a younger man and woman in the back seat. When
asked which Bible story this was, he looked up and replied, as
though the teacher should have known, "That's God driving Adam
and Eve out of the garden!"

Our problem is created by our transliteration. A translation is when

you take a word from one language and you give it a meaning in
another language. A transliteration is when you take a word in one
language and put it into another language so that it just sounds the
same, but you have not assigned it a meaning. We have done that
with a lot of words in the biblical text which has created all kinds of
problems. For example: baptize. What is baptize? Our
understanding and answer probably will depend upon our
denominational background, anything from sprinkling to total
immersion. In Hebrew, however, it means one thing and one thing
only--the mikvah, the ritual immersion bath. We know exactly how it
was built, how much water it had to contain to be kosher, and how
baptism was done. But because we only transliterated, there has
been misunderstanding for centuries.

*************************

Now back to our question, why was it necessary for God to assume
human form and flesh in order to effect redemption?

THE WORLD TO COME

It is important to keep in mind that the Bible is primarily a Hebrew

document and that Jesus, Yeshuat Elohim, in the flesh, was born into
and a product of Hebrew thought and teachings. Now we want to
note the difference in Hebrew thought between one's having his part
in the Olam Haba, the world to come, i.e., going to heaven, and in
being saved. According to Jewish thought and teachings, the
righteous of all nations would have their part in the Olam Haba, i.e.,
heaven, according to the covenant God made with Noah. This
covenant consists of seven basic laws.

To the Gentiles who were not prepared to enter the fold of

Judaism, a moral code, known as the seven commandments of
the sons of Noah, was offered. It consisted of the precepts:
"The practice of equity, prohibitions against blaspheming the
Name, idolatry, immorality, bloodshed, robbery, and
devouring a limb torn from a live animal" (Sanhedrin 56a). By
righteous conduct, based upon these fundamental laws, they
would earn the divine approval. (Everyman's Talmud, page 65)
Having one's part in the world to come--"getting to go to heaven"--
and being saved are not one and the same thing.
Back to our question: Why did Jesus come? What did God
accomplish as Yeshuat Elohim, "the second Adam?" What does it
mean to be "saved?"

TWO BECOME ONE

What about Adam? Adam, damut, and adamah all are from the same
Hebrew root, DMH or DMY. In Hebrew, every word has a root from
which it derives its meaning. Every word that shares the same root
in common shares something of the meaning of the common root.
"The Lord God formed Adam from the aphar of the Adama and He
breathed into his nostrils that portion of Himself, and man became a
thing alive." Adam, damut, and Adama share the root dam. In
Hebrew, dam is blood. Dictionaries usually show the definition of
Adam as "red earth," sometimes as "red man." How do we derive
"red?" Note the word Edom. The Edomites were descendants of
Esau and were called Edomites because Esau not only had red skin
but sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage, or lentil soup, which is
red. In Hebrew, lipstick is Aduma because it is red. All are from the
same Hebrew root, meaning red as in blood. As for Adam, the first
letter, the A stands for the Hebrew letter aleph, and is frequently
used as an abbreviation for Elohim, as it is the first Hebrew letter in
the word Elohim. We can see than that Adam could be translated as
the blood of God. Damut means likeness, or in this instance, an exact
duplication in kind. When God created Adam in His damut, He
made Adam exactly what He was. As such, Adam was neither male
nor female, but both. That is why, later, God caused a deep sleep to
come upon Adam and took one of Adam's tzela'ot, here meaning
side, but in other parts of the biblical text translated as cell, or cage.
Never is it translated as rib. Interestingly, this was all written long
before we ever knew that each cell in the human body contains all
the necessary ingredients to make an exact duplication of us in kind.
We call all such clones. All God would have needed was one single
cell; He could have emphasized on the one hand the masculine and
on the other the feminine. The two would have been equal to one
another, as well as equal to God. That is established further in
Genesis when God said, "for this cause shall a man leave his mother
and father and the two be glued, (Hebrew = DBK) back together so
that the two, the male aspect and the female aspect, can again
become one so as to be on this earth the reflection of the totality of
all that God is. In Jewish literature, i.e., the Talmud, as well as many
other writings, the unmarried man, or person, is not considered as
whole. Only in the bonds of matrimony can the two, the male and
the female aspects of deity, be joined together in oneness to be the
reflection of the totality of all that God is here on this heart.

"And the Lord God, YHWH Elohim, formed Adam from aphar,"
dust, or minute particle. Aphar can mean a minute particle of
something. Again, this was written before we knew that all matter
was formed out of minute particles that we call atoms. "And the
Lord God formed Adam from the minute particles of Adamah."
Adamah, often translated "dust," can be seen as composed of the
root dam, the aleph, for Elohim, at the beginning and the He, for
YHWH, at the end. Perhaps a better reading for Genesis 2:7 would
be "and YHWH Elohim formed Adam from the minute particles of
the totality of all that God is, and breathed into his nostrils that
portion of Himself and Adam became a thing just like God."
However, something happened. That Godness was corrupted by
Adam's sin. When Adam sinned something must have happened to
the blood, that which had come to man from God, for now it
becomes an immutable law that "the soul that sinneth, it shall surely
die." When does death come? Only when the life-giving blood ceases
to flow through the veins to nourish the tissues and carry off waste
products. "Life is in the blood." With sin also comes God's means of
atonement, "Without the shedding of blood there can be no
forgiveness of sin."

Note that Jesus is called "the second Adam," the second blood of
God. In that, there is supreme importance. God is the sum and total
of all of His parts, and we best understand God by looking at His
names that reflect things that God is doing, which, in turn, helps us
understand the nature of God. God is what He is doing. One of the
names for God is Yeshuat Elohim. "And all flesh shall see God
redeeming." Again, however, the question arises of the necessity of
God becoming flesh. One of the principal characteristics of the
Hebrew language is known as parallelisms, which only means saying
the same thing over again several different ways, but all of which are
co-equal. The Greek mind has great difficulty understanding the
synonyms, the parallelisms of Hebrew, as does the Western mind.
However, these characteristics must be kept in mind before this can
be understood.
In the creation of Adam, God breathed into Adam that portion of
Himself, namely dam, and man became a thing alive. It was not
literally that blood was breathed into Adam's nostrils, but blood is
the vehicle through which that spark of life is carried to all of the
cells and tissues. This is why God repeats over and over that "life is
in the blood." Again without the shedding of blood, there can be no
remission of sin. Notice also that the blood of bulls and goats, or of
animals or of beasts of the field, could not take away sin because it
was not incorruptible blood. It was not the blood of God. God said,
"I, I myself am going to seek and save." (Eze. 34) How could He do
this if "without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of
sin?" Remember that Jesus never tried to hide His deity.

In John 5:18-21, Jesus says, "I assure you, I most solemnly tell you
that the person whose ears are open to my words, who listens to my
message, and believes and trusts in and clings to and relies upon
Him who sent me has eternal life and does not come unto judgment
but has already passed out of death unto life. Believe me when I tell
you the time is coming and is now here when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God and those who hear it shall live. For even as
the father has life in himself and is self-existent so He is given to the
Son to have life in himself and be self-existent and has given
authority and granted Him power to execute judgment because He is
a Son of Man." This refers to Daniel 7:13-14, in which the Son of
Man is the one who is given authority to judge the nations, to judge
the kingdom, and Jesus is claiming that for Himself.

Colossians 1:13, "The Father has delivered and drawn us to Himself

out of the control and the dominion of darkness and has transferred
us into the kingdom of the son of His redemption through His
blood," which means the forgiveness of our sins. He is the exact
likeness of the unseen God, the visible representation of the invisible,
the firstborn of all creation. The Father has already delivered us
unto Himself and transferred us out of the control of darkness, or
the forces of this world. Paul said, "Do not be conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." If we
could only get this, if we really understood what God has done for
us, we would not even be bound by the natural laws that govern the
operation of this world. That is what Yeshua meant. When Peter and
John went into the temple and saw the man there crippled and
begging alms, they said, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I
have, I give unto you; take up your bed and walk," and the man
took up his bed and walked. God provided this, accomplished this
for us in the person of Yeshua menatzeret, (Yeshua of Nazareth) and
He said all of that happened because, verse 14, "...we have our
redemption through His blood." "Know ye not that you were not
redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold...but with the
precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot?" (I Peter 1:18-19).

How, then, is it possible that Jesus could have been born of human
flesh and made to be a partaker of human flesh and yet not a
partaker of man's corruptible blood? The answer, of course, is in
His divine birth, not virgin, but divine birth. A virgin birth, in
science, is called "parthenogenesis." It means a resultant offspring
from the female mother without the introduction of male sperm. We
are able in the laboratory, in lower forms of life, to induce the
mitotic, or the cellular division of the female egg with the
introduction of an electrical shock so that the resultant offspring is
what we call a parthenogenic birth. Nowhere in the Bible do we have
an indication of that insofar as the birth of Jesus is concerned.
Instead of stating that it was a virgin birth, the Bible says simply
that Mary was a virgin, and "that which was conceived in her womb
was conceived after the Holy Spirit had come upon her." The Bible
simply says that Mary was a virgin and that the conception did not
take place until the Holy Spirit had come upon her.

This is of the utmost importance because, in the human of the

species, the blood that develops within the fetus begins to develop
after the introduction of the male sperm, or the male element, and
from the moment of conception, the fetus begins to form its own
independent blood supply. Throughout the whole course of
pregnancy, there is never any direct interchange of blood between
the mother and the fetus. All of the nourishment and the carrying
off of waste products is done through the process of osmosis. By the
ninth week, the fetus has formed its own independent blood supply.
The heart is about the size of a pea and has four little valves with
tiny, veil-like pumps that are pumping the blood through a myriad
of little thread-like veins and arteries. From the moment of
conception throughout the entire course of pregnancy, there is no
direct interchange of blood between the mother and the fetus. That is
the reason why it necessitated a divine birth and God taking on the
form of human flesh because only divine blood, incorruptible blood,
could atone for sin.

SALVATION

Now the big question. Does that mean that everybody has to accept
Jesus as the Messiah in order to be "saved?" Since "saved" does not
have anything necessarily to do with getting to go to heaven, the
question would be better stated, does that mean that everyone has to
accept Jesus in order to go to heaven? If the righteous Gentile is able
to have his part in the world to come, according to the seven laws of
Noah, he does not even have to be fully knowledgeable about God.
"Saved" is for this world. However, the Bible says that we are saved
by the shedding of blood, by the blood of Jesus, His incorruptible
blood, and Jesus said, "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life,
and no man comes to the Father but by Me."

Many other passages indicate the same, but one factor we fail to take
into consideration is that Jesus is God. He was the pre-existent
Messiah, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world,
and that was an accomplished fact in the mind of God from the
beginning, so that no man ever came to God except by virtue of what
God did in His redemptive act as Yeshuat Elohim. Not Abel, not
Enoch, not Elijah, not anybody. Jesus was "the Lamb of God that
was slain from the foundations of the world." Yet, there comes that
moment in which that which is there as an established fact in the
mind of God from the beginning becomes a historical reality in the
space-time continuum. "I am the way, I am the Truth, I am the
life..." No man ever "came to the Father" except by virtue of what
God did in His redemptive act as Yeshuat Elohim. That is the reason
He had to take on the form of human flesh, be a partaker of human
flesh, yet not a partaker of man's corruptible blood because only
incorruptible blood could atone ultimately for sin. In this we see, not
just theologically but scientifically, how it could be accomplished.

Seeing it from this perspective, I am suddenly overwhelmed with the

grandeur of God, with the glory of God, that could have conceived
and designed such a grand and magnificent plan for my ultimate
reconciliation, from the very beginning. Overwhelmed by how, from
the very beginning, He marvelously formed the female of the species
that she could ultimately be the vehicle through whom redemption
could become an established fact in the space-time continuum.
II Corinthians 3:18, "And all of us, as with unveiled face, because we
continued to behold in the word of God as in a mirror the glory of
the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image
in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to the other
for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." First, we are told
that all of us are in the process of being transfigured or transformed
into His image and His likeness. Again, II Corinthians 4:4, "the god
of this world is God, who has blinded the unbeliever's eyes,
preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the gospel of
the glory of Christ, the Messiah, who is the "image and the likeness
of God." This is a reference back to Genesis 1:27, "Let us make
Adam in our image and our likeness."

In I Corinthians 15:45, "the first Adam became a thing alive," but

forfeited his heritage; however, "the last Adam became a life-giving
spirit restoring the dead to life." Who was this second Adam? In the
book, Jewish Sources in Early Christianity, by Professor David
Flusser of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, on page 59, the
identification of the last Adam is made clear. "To sum up, the
celestial biography found in the New Testament consists entirely of
Jewish motifs: Jesus the Messiah had existed before the creation of
the world; he entered the world, or even created it; He became
flesh--and then brought about redemption; He is the Messiah bar
Enash, the Last Adam; and He atones for sin just like those who
atoned for the sins of Israel and then comes back to life." These are
all Jewish ideas and concepts.

I am much concerned that the Jews have allowed the Christians to

rob them of Jesus. All of this is totally Jewish, but when the Western
church came in with their misunderstandings and
misinterpretations, not only were they confused but, in turn,
confused those from whom these ideas and concepts had originally
flowed.

The second point here is that, "..for this comes from the Lord who is
the Spirit." Note that Lord and Spirit are used interchangeably.
Kurios is also known as pneuma. Again, this is that Jewish influence
of synonymous parallelisms, the one being equal to the other.
Colossians 3:10, "And have clothed yourself with a new spiritual self
which is ever in the process of being renewed and remolded into
fuller and more perfect knowledge upon knowledge after the image
of Him who created it." The cross-reference is again back to Genesis
1:26-27, a reference to the pre-existent Messiah. II Corinthians 5:21,
"For our sake, He made Christ to be sin who knew no sin so that in
Him we might be viewed as the righteousness of God." We are
righteous not because of what we are but because of what God is.
That is what one of the names of God is, mekadesh, YHWH
mekadesh, the One who sanctifies me, or causes me to be righteous.
Romans 3:21 further amplifies this, "But now the righteousness of
God has been revealed independently and altogether apart from law,
although actually is attested by law and the prophets, namely the
righteousness of God which comes by the faith of Jesus unto all." It
is the righteousness of God which comes as a result of the
redemptive act that God performed in the person of Yeshuat Elohim.
We are declared to be righteous, not because of what we are but
because of what He is.

What is the significance of this? Galatians 2:16, "Knowing that a

man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus
Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be
justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law, for
by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Just so we do not
misunderstand Paul, we must remember that Paul was by his own
words, "a Pharisee of the Pharisees and a Hebrew of the Hebrews"
and that everything he is talking about is Jewish and has to do with
Jewish things. Paul is not putting down the law. Paul was very
observant of the law, so observant that he even took Timothy and
circumcised him so that he could take Timothy with him to places
where a non-circumcised person was not allowed. However, in
Paul's day, there were many different sects of the Jews that we have
been able to identify, and each had some different concept. One
particular sect was called Judaizers, who believed that no one could
be saved or have their part in the world to come except by keeping
their law, and that was contrary to the main stream of Jewish
thought. Paul said a person would not be saved by observing the law,
but that salvation is something God gave to man out of the
abundance of his grace. Salvation is by grace. It is all grace. God did
it by grace from the very beginning and there is not anything that
any man anywhere on the face of God's earth can do to earn it. We
are not declared to be righteous by observing or keeping the law, but
we are declared to be righteous by virtue of what God did for us
when we did not deserve it. We are made righteous by the
faithfulness of Yeshuat Elohim who accomplished for us what we
could not do for ourselves. I become what I am not because of what I
am but because of what He is, and I am declared to be righteous by
faith, or faithfulness. In Hebrew, faith means faithfulness. Faith is
action. I am declared to be righteous by the virtue of what happened
in the redemptive act of God as of Yeshuat Elohim.

What is very important in all of this can be found in Ephesians

3:16ff:

May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be

strengthened and re-enforced with mighty power in the inner
man, by the Holy Spirit himself indwelling your innermost
being and personality. May Christ through faith actually
dwell, settle down, abide, and make his permanent home in
your hearts. May you be rooted deep in love and founded
securely on love, that you may have the power and be strong
to apprehend and grasp with all the saints, God's devoted
people, what is the breadth and the length and the depth, that
you may really come to know practically through experience
for yourself the love of Christ which far surpasses mere
knowledge without experience, that you may be filled through
all your being unto all the fullness of God, that is that you may
have the richest measure of the divine presence and become a
body wholly filled and flooded with God himself.

That is the capacity that man has as a child of God.

Again, notice as different designations, Spirit, Christ, God. We keep

trying to see these as different entities. Some have questions about
the Scriptures that enumerate "God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Holy Spirit," or as in Oneness, who believe that baptism is
only in the name of Jesus. What the Bible does say is, "Go baptize in
the name of Yeshua haMashiach," Jesus the Christ, or the Messiah,
the anointed one. But if there is only one God, who is the Father?
God. Who is the Holy Spirit? God. Who is the Son? God. This is just
Hebrew synonymous parallelisms. Go out and do this in the name of
the totality of all that God is. The emphasis is not even upon Jesus,
Jesus Christ, or Father, Son, Holy Spirit, but upon the word
"name." Why? Because "name" signifies authority. Go out in the
name of the One who is the King of Kings, who lives within, whom I
serve, and who empowers me as His messenger to go out and
literally be kingdom in this world.
The principal message that Jesus proclaimed was kingdom. When
His disciples came and asked Him to teach them to pray, Jesus
taught them, "Our Father which inhabits the heavenlies, holy be
your name. Let your kingdom go, be spread, over all the earth in
such a way that God will begin to rule and reign in more and more
lives, so that men and women will begin to do here on earth the will
of the Father, just as it is being done in heaven." That is what God
wants to do--reign in our lives, empower our lives. God wants to fill
us in order that we might be whole, but that our wholeness will draw
others to wholeness.

What is the purpose of our existence? Why are we here? That we

might be the reflection of the one who lives and dwells within us. We
have missed the point and gone so far afield that Christianity is
reduced to Sunday and Wednesday church. Much of what we do
must certainly seem to be odd to God when He said to go, and take
the authority over the devil and see him flee, and to lay our hands on
the sick and see them recover and say to them, "The kingdom of
God has come upon you," that is, you have seen God burst through
this space-time continuum and he has met you at the very point of
your human needs. Go and minister to those that are sick, those that
are hungry, those that are naked, those that are homeless, those that
are in prison. The action for the man and woman of God is out there.
God is more concerned with what we do with our fellowman, and
the relationship we have with our fellowman, than he is about our
relationship vertically with Him. It may start in your head, but it
ends in your heart.

What was the purpose in Jesus' coming? That we might be made

whole. And the purpose in our existence, our being, our going out to
minister? That man might be made whole. Can man have his part in
the world to come with a knowledge of Jesus? Man can have a part
in the world to come even without very much of an understanding of
God, but we have to understand that biblical faith is not a religion of
tomorrow, not an "other-worldly" religion, but a religion of today. I
need, for today, all of God that there is, everything that I can know
about God, everything I can understand about God, in order that
not just I can be made whole, but that I can be an instrument or a
vehicle through whom God works to bring others into wholeness.

There is so much, so many questions, so many answers; yet, our

prayer must be that the Spirit of God quickens our minds and
understanding and helps us to receive those answers that have not
yet become evident, that the Spirit of God will lead us into truth.
Above all should be our heart's desire that we might come before
God with a renewed resolve to be everything that we have the
capacity to be with God in us, and that we focus our attention out
there to a world that is hurting, a world that is lost, to a world that
needs God. Rather than arguing and discussing, fussing, rather than
contending and factionalizing the family of God, that we might focus
not on our differences, but on that which we have in common,
namely, that there is a God in heaven who loves and who cares and
who wants to see His people whole. And that we might become an
instrument through which God works to effect wholeness in this
world, today, in the now. That the anointing of the Spirit of God will
rest upon us all, dwell within us all, and flow through us all, to effect
wholeness, by the power of the King of kings and Lord of lords who
lives within us and whom we serve.

__________________
This article is presented basically as it was delivered, in lecture form, without
supportive materials, references, footnotes, etc. However, documentation for
statements made in this article can be found in The Encyclopedia Judaica,
Keter Publishing, Bereishis, Artscroll Series, Volume I, Mesorah Publishing,
Everyman's Talmud, Schocken Books, Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius
Hebrew-English Lexicon, Hendrickson Publishing, Jastrow's Dictionary
Judaica.

Dr. Roy B. Blizzard, Jr. Is President of Yavo, Inc., a non-profit corporation

dedicated to biblical research and education. Dr. Blizzard attended Oklahoma
Military Academy and has a B.A. degree from Phillips University in Enid,
Oklahoma. He has an M.A. degree from Eastern New Mexico University in
Portales, New Mexico, an M.A. degree from the University of Texas at Austin,
and a Ph.D. in Hebrew Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. From
1968 to June 1974, he was an instructor in Hebrew, Biblical History, and
Biblical Archaeology a the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Blizzard has hosted over 500 television programs about Israel and Judaism
for various televisions networks, and is a frequent television and radio guest.
He is the author of Let Judah Go Up First, co-author of Understanding the
Difficult Words of Jesus, and has additionally authored over twenty-five
lecture series on subjects as diverse as "Science and the Bible" and "Marriage,
the Family, and Human Sexuality."

From Yavo Digest, vol. 4, no. 6, 1990, and vol. 5, no. 1, 1991