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FFOZ TV Review: The Kingdom is Now

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tv_ffoz10_1Episode 10: The gospel message says “Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” but after two thousand years, where is the kingdom? Episode ten will examine this conundrum by looking at these words of Jesus from a Jewish perspective. Viewers will learn that the kingdom did not arrive in Jesus’ day because Israel did not repent. However, all followers of Messiah can receive a foretaste of the kingdom now by repenting and attaching to the king now as they eagerly await his second coming.

-from the Introduction to FFOZ TV: The Promise of What is to Come
Episode 10: The Kingdom is Now

The Lesson: The Mystery of the Kingdom at Hand

This episode continues to build on the previous ones having to do with exile and redemption, the ingathering of Israel, the Gospel message, and Jewish repentance. First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) teachers Toby Janicki and Aaron Eby answer a question that has been of special importance to me. How can the Kingdom of Heaven, that is, the Messianic Era, be on the brink of arrival or at hand, and yet not have arrived in the past 2,000 years?

This is the “mystery” that Toby presents to his audience and solving the mystery hinges on understanding the meaning of the phrase often translated in our Bibles as “at hand.”

These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

–Matthew 10:5-7 (NASB)

The pacing of this episode runs a bit differently than previous ones. Even before Toby introduces his first clue in solving the mystery, the scene shifts to Aaron Eby in Israel and the Greek word used to impart the meaning that the Kingdom of Heaven is “at hand.” This word, Aaron tells us, more literally says “it has drawn near” or “it has drawn close,” which seems to indicate something came and has already passed by.

19th century translator Franz Delitzsch “retro-translated” the Greek back into the most likely form in Hebrew, which would be the idiom we would understand in English as “drawn near to come.” It gives the sense of something that is poised to enter, like a man standing outside your front door, close enough to ring the doorbell. However, that man hasn’t yet arrived until he is invited inside and goes through the doorway. If he hadn’t yet rung the doorbell or knocked on the door, even though he is literally close enough to touch, you wouldn’t even know he was there at all.

Aaron says something important. The Kingdom of Heaven being “near” isn’t about time or proximity, but rather, accessibility and potential. The Kingdom wasn’t only sort of near 2,000 years ago and slowly coming closer with the passage of time. In a very real way, it’s always like the man standing just on the other side of your front door. He could knock at any second. But what’s stopping him?

One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” The scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that He is One, and there is no one else besides Him; and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (emph. mine)

–Mark 12:28-34 (NASB)

ffoz_tv10_aaronWait a minute. How can Jesus say that the scribe wasn’t far from the Kingdom of God if “far” and “near” are a matter of the timing of Christ’s return in glory and power? It has to do with the heart of the scribe and his true understanding of the Torah. That, in and of itself, should be a bit startling to a Christian audience, since being close to the Kingdom is linked to both a repentant heart and correct understanding of the Torah of Moses.

Aaron also refers to several different parts of Isaiah to re-enforce his interpretation including Isaiah 56:1:

Thus says the Lord, “Preserve justice and do righteousness, for My salvation is about to come.”

According to Aaron, deliverance is on the threshold of being revealed. It is here and accessible at any moment. The person or people involved just have to become aware of it and then touch it.

Back in the studio, Toby compares this to what we read in Revelation 3:20

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

As I said above, the Kingdom is at the door poised to knock and is already knocking. All we have to do is open the door and it will arrive. All we need is to have the right heart and the right understanding of what God is telling us in the Bible. And here’s our first clue.

Clue 1: “At hand” means God’s Kingdom, the Messianic Era, was on the brink of being revealed.

I’m trying not to give too much away in advance of the other two clues, but the revelation of the Kingdom is something that Jewish people have been waiting for longer than there has been anything called “Christianity.” Even in Jesus’s day, once he was resurrected, his disciples expected the Kingdom to arrive immediately. They even asked him about it.

So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”

–Acts 1:6 (NASB)

up_to_jerusalemIt was puzzling when Jesus didn’t summon the Kingdom right away. Yet not only did Messiah’s disciples expect the Kingdom to arrive right then, so did Jesus. Toby says that it was Messiah’s intent to bring the Kingdom to the generation in which he lived. What stopped the Kingdom’s arrival?

Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

–Matthew 23:36-39 (NASB)

It is said in some branches of Judaism that if all of Israel were to repent at a single moment, it would summon the arrival of Messiah. Toby says something very similar. He teaches that the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven is contingent upon the repentance of the generation, and although he didn’t make this explicit, the generation of Jewish people. In other words, if all of Israel, the Jewish people, were to repent as a single body, the Messiah would come.

But remember, as we saw in last week’s episode, Jewish repentance does not mean simply coming to faith in Jesus Christ, and it definitely doesn’t mean forsaking the Torah of Moses and becoming goyishe Christians. It means repenting of sins, returning to the Torah, and having a profound faith in God. With Yom Kippur just days away, this message is extremely well timed. Perhaps Messiah will come one year during the Days of Awe, when all of Israel makes teshuvah and returns to God.

Why didn’t the Messianic Age arrive with the first coming of Messiah? Some Jewish people repented, but Toby says most didn’t. They weren’t ready. As Toby was talking, I started to think of that first generation of Israelites Moses liberated from Egypt. They had been redeemed but they too were not ready to enter into the Land. Only the generation after them was ready, and they were the ones who received the promises.

Which generation of Jews will be the ones to usher in the Kingdom of God and Messiah’s reign?

Thus we have arrived at the second clue:

Clue 2: The Messianic Era requires repentance.

tv_ffoz12_tobyAgain, I believe this is specifically Jewish repentance, and I believe the unique role of the Gentile Christians, the people of the nations who are called by God’s Name, is to encourage and support Jewish return to God and the Torah within a Messianic framework. Only then will the Messianic Era arrive.

But will that ever happen? The necessary repentance hasn’t occurred in the last twenty centuries. Can the Kingdom of God be near to people now as it was to the scribe to correctly interpreted Torah with Jesus?

Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

–Luke 17:20-21 (NASB)

Christians are used to “beating up” the Pharisees, and believe they are nothing but hypocrites and liars, but here, Toby tells us they were asking a sincere question about the coming Messianic Age. Jesus gave them a sincere answer. Like the scribe, if they turned to God and Torah with a repentant heart, they would benefit from the blessings of the Messianic Era right now. They, and all believers, become a foretaste of the Kingdom in the present age. In that sense, anytime that believers in Jesus exist, some part of the Messianic Age of Jesus is always present.

Here’s the final clue:

Clue 3: Followers of Jesus who heed the message of the good news and repent are the Kingdom in the current age.

Toby describes the Kingdom as the Land and the People under the rule of the King. While we have a foretaste of the Kingdom in our lives as believers and we thus can share the Kingdom with others, it won’t arrive as a physical reality until Messiah arrives and rules as King in our world.

Think of the first coming of Jesus as his planting a seed. The seed is underground. It’s present. It’s real. It’s close enough to touch, but it’s still out of sight. If you didn’t know it had been planted, you wouldn’t know it existed at all. We believers are here as gardeners to nurture the seed and to help it grow.

But like a tiny mustard seed becomes a great tree, the reality of the Kingdom won’t burst forth from the seed, escape the bonds of the earth, and reach for the sky in magnificence until the Messiah’s second coming.

What Did I Learn?

Yom Kippur prayersI believe I’ve written about this before, but what Toby and Aaron taught confirmed something that never occurs to most Christians. The arrival of the physical Kingdom of God, the Messianic Age, is contingent upon human beings, and specifically the Jewish people. It matters not at all if or how well Gentile Christians, including devotees in the Hebrew Roots movement, observe and perform the Torah mitzvot, even with great and utter faith in Messiah. It matters absolutely if Jewish people return to God and Torah and practice a life of faith and obedience. Only when corporate repentance occurs in Israel will Messiah return, and then ” they will look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” (Zechariah 12:10 ESV)

As I’ve said previously, this is a little hard to take, because if the timing of the arrival of the physical Messianic Kingdom is totally in the control of the Jewish people and their repentance, then, depending on when they repent (or repented if it happened in the past), the understanding of these realities may or may not have been or be available to the people of the world’s nations.

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.

–Matthew 24:36 (NASB)

Jesus could be saying that the Father knows the exact time of the return, even though it is in the hands of the free will of the Jewish people.

Certainly, if I accept the FFOZ understanding of the coming of the Kingdom, then it sets a specific course for we who are believers in Jesus now. We can wait and wait and wait for Jesus to return and experience the foretaste of the Kingdom in our present lives, but Jesus will never return in the sky in power and glory until Israel repents. All this means that we Christians have a duty to support and nurture the Jewish people in their faith in God and in the study and performance of Torah so that they can arrive at repentance.

But as my Pastor often asks me, what exactly is the Torah, relative to the many traditions and customs of the different streams of Judaism in our day? What exactly must we do to encourage Jewish repentance so that the King will return and take up his throne?

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FFOZ TV Review: The Gospel Message

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tv_ffoz8_1Episode 08: The gospel message of Jesus is often simplified down to believe in Christ and your sins will be forgiven and you will go to heaven when you die. In episode eight this common misconception will be challenged. Viewers will discover that the main message of the gospel is one of repentance and entering into the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is not the place we go to when we die but rather God’s kingdom coming down here on earth. The gospel message is about preparation for the Messianic Age.

-from the Introduction to FFOZ TV: The Promise of What is to Come
Episode 8: The Gospel Message

The Lesson: The Mystery of the Gospel

This episode seemed to cover a lot of previous material, not in the details, but in the theme. It is most closely related with Episode 1: The Good News since gospel means good news. There’s also a close link to Episode 7: Exile and Redemption and Episode 8: Ingathering of Israel. The television series now seems to be stringing individual episodes together to paint a much larger panoramic picture of the prophecies about and the coming of the Messianic Era.

Of course, probably all Christians think they know what the good news or the gospel message is: Jesus died for our sins and if we believe in him, we go to Heaven when we die. And while that’s good news, as previous episodes have told us, that’s not the extent of the gospel message. In fact, most Christians have been given a truncated gospel or an incomplete idea of that the good news really means. To get the whole picture, you have to look at what the gospel message means through a Jewish lens.

The definition of the gospel message of Jesus is actually really easy to find:

After Yochanan was arrested, Yeshua came to the Galil and proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God. He said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent and believe the good news.”

–Mark 1:14-15 (DHE Gospels)

FFOZ Author and Teacher Toby Janicki tells us that Jesus was just beginning his ministry at this point and that these verses provide us with the first clue in solving the Mystery of the Gospel:

Clue 1: The Gospel Message means we should repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

But what does that mean exactly? What is the “Kingdom of Heaven” and what is “at hand?” The phrase “at hand” is sometimes also translated as “near”. Jesus was saying to his listeners that they should repent because the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven was really close and about to happen or occur.

Jewish people in the late Second Temple period, particularly because their nation was occupied by the Roman Empire, were especially waiting for the Kingdom of Heaven to arrive and to their ears, it certainly was good news or the gospel message that Jesus was preaching. It was a message that we find repeatedly in the Gospels.

Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

–Matthew 3:1-2 (NASB)

We also find examples of this message in Matthew 4:17 and Matthew 10:7. But we also find that the good news is sometimes referred to as the “Kingdom of God” while other times, it’s the “Kingdom of Heaven.” Toby tells us that the term “Kingdom of Heaven” is closer to the correct phrase in Hebrew. The word translated as “Heaven” is the Hebrew word “Shamayim.” Does that mean that Jesus was talking about Heaven, where God is and where we’re going to go when we die?

Not according to the Jewish understanding. That’s not how Jesus’s disciples and listeners would have interpreted his message.

The scene shifts to FFOZ Teacher and Translator Aaron Eby in Israel for a better understanding of “Kingdom of Heaven” or in Hebrew, “Malkut Shamayim.”

“Shamayim” can mean just “sky” in Hebrew, but that’s not how it’s understood in the phrase “Malkut Shamayim.” Aaron explains the concept of circumlocution, or avoiding using the Tetragrammaton, the most Holy and personal name for God, the name God revealed to Moses at the burning bush. Jewish people use many other names for God to avoid the offense of taking His most holy name lightly. Names such as “Hashem,” “Holy One,” “Creator,” or “Our Father.”

Another circumlocution for God’s most holy name is “Shamayim” or “Heaven.” You see it often in Talmudic writings, but it’s even in the Bible.

And in that it was commanded to leave the stump with the roots of the tree, your kingdom will be assured to you after you recognize that it is Heaven that rules (emph. mine).

–Daniel 4:26 (NASB)

Daniel, using the Aramaic equivalent of “Shamayim,” is not saying that literally Heaven, a place, rules, but that God rules. He was merely using a circumlocution for God’s most holy name.

tv_ffoz8_aaronAaron tells us that the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven” isn’t God’s Kingdom that is located in a place called Heaven, but it actually means the rule and dominion of God on Earth.

Why do we then sometimes see this phrase rendered “Kingdom of God?” In the thoughts of the gospel writers in Hebrew, they would have used “Malkut Shamayim,” but then translating that phrase into Greek, what words should they have used? Matthew, who was writing primarily to a Hebrew speaking Jewish audience, chose to translate the Hebrew phrase literally as “Kingdom of Heaven.” However, Mark and Luke, who were writing primarily for Greek speaking Jews and non-Jews, translated the phrase idiomatically as “Kingdom of God.” Either way, they were saying the same thing.

Back to Toby and the studio, we have our second clue.

Clue 2: Kingdom of Heaven is not Heaven in the sky but God’s rule and reign on Earth.

Look up the Lord’s prayer and you’ll even find it in how Jesus taught his disciples to pray.

What is God’s rule on Earth? The Messianic Era. The time when Jesus will return and establish his rule as King in Jerusalem, establishing an age of peace, not just in Israel but in the entire world.

Toby solved most of the mystery, but one more clue is needed to answer a final question. Why is the Messianic Era good news?

Isaiah 11:1-4 tells of the prophesy that King Messiah will indeed rule Israel and the world from his throne in Jerusalem. Isaiah 11:6-8, 10 further tells us that Messiah’s reign will be one of complete and total peace. The portrait of such peaceful animals is poetic language describing such a peace. Complete tranquility and bliss, such as was experienced in Eden, long before there was any such thing as war and strife among human beings.

And when such peace comes upon all the earth from Israel, the Gentiles in the nations of the world will see and they will repent and turn to God, inaugurating an age of total, worldwide revival.

But it won’t be totally peaceful:

Then it will happen on that day that the Lord will again recover the second time with His hand the remnant of His people, who will remain, from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And He will lift up a standard for the nations and assemble the banished ones of Israel, and will gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines on the west; together they will plunder the sons of the east; they will possess Edom and Moab, and the sons of Ammon will be subject to them.

–Isaiah 11:11-12, 14 (NASB)

We see that Messiah ingathers the exiles of the Jewish people from all the nations of the world and returns them to live in complete peace in their Land, in Israel. God Himself delivers justice to all the nations who have been enemies of Israel, vanquishing them, thus insuring Israel’s continual peace.

Now we have the final clue:

Clue 3: Kingdom of Heaven is about Messiah’s reign on Earth.

Toby recaps the lesson, summing up the three clues and solving the mystery. He describes a time when the Jewish people will live under their King in peace and return to the Torah, the law of God. I can only hope that future episodes will flesh out how this actually works relative to both Jewish and non-Jewish people, but that wasn’t the point of the episode.

What Did I Learn?

As I mentioned before, a lot of this material was addressed from other perspectives in previous episodes and I’ve learned about it from other sources as well. What Toby didn’t mention was that, by Jesus teaching that he was the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy and calling the Jewish people to repentance as preparation for the soon to arrive Kingdom of Heaven, it explains why the apostles and his disciples were so incredibly devastated when he was crucified. All of them were expecting that he was going to overthrow the Romans at any minute and assume the Throne of Israel as the promised Messianic King.

tv_ffoz8_tobyWhen he died, it must have seemed as if they were completely mistaken about him, that he couldn’t have been the Messiah, that he must have been just another of a long line of pretenders to the throne who came before him. It’s how most Jews see Jesus today, another would-be Messiah among the many who have since come and gone in Jewish history.

But then, when he was resurrected, so was hope, only there’s a problem of sorts:

So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

–Acts 1:6-8 (NASB)

Given that Jesus had said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” or “near,” once he was resurrected, it made perfect sense to his disciples that he was now ready to ascend the throne. Except he didn’t. He left instead and the disciples waited.

“Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

–Matthew 16:28 (NASB)

Many believed, based on these words of the Master, that although Jesus wasn’t going to immediately establish his kingdom, it would be within a human lifetime, just a matter of decades. But when the last apostle, John, died of extreme old age, sometime in the last years of the first century CE, the disciples must have felt a keen disappointment again. Messiah had not come to restore his kingdom. Where is he? How long, O’ Lord, how long?

I generally don’t mention this in my reviews, but at the very end of each episode FFOZ President and Founder, Boaz Michael appears on camera to give the audience a brief peek at the next episode. At the end of this episode, Boaz explained that the next episode would pick up the same theme and describe more in detail the process of repenting to prepare for the kingdom and to believe. But Jesus didn’t say “believe in me” he said “believe in the gospel.” What does that mean?

It’s the mystery for next week.