Description
COMMENTARIES FROM 16TH – 21ST CENTURIES
1ST RESURRECTION AND 1000 YEARS IN REV. 20:1-10
FOUNDATIONAL REVELATIONS: PSALM 2 & 110
JESUS, THE INFALLIBLE INTERPRETER
BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS
The above headings summarize the content of Revelation: The Book of Blessing, Volume 10 Fascicle C. This back-cover-summary is designed to intrigue you to read the Volume. In the Introduction, I set before you the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, during the nightmare of the captivity of the Remnant of the Jews in Babylon.
King Nebuchadnezzar and the City of Babylon were the greatest expressions of the kings and kingdoms of the world in the 6th Century before Christ. Nebuchadnezzar’s troublesome dream about the future revealed to this King a monolithic stature symbolic of these kingdoms, the first and greatest of which was, of course, Babylon.
The head of Nebuchadnezzar’s visionary statue was made of gold and represented the greatest kingdom of the world at that time. This time was also the lowest ebb of the Kingdom of God, which was not symbolized in the statue. The Temple of David/Solomon was burned to ashes. The city of David, Jerusalem, was burned to ashes. The worship of the Living God upon Mount Zion ended. The descendants of David’s royal family were captives, as were God’s Prophets: Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel.
It was, however, the Lord God, the Almighty, who gave Nebuchadnezzar the dream concerning what the future would hold for both these Kingdoms. It was also the Lord God, the Almighty, who placed in the service of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, who revealed to the King of Babylon the temporary nature of all earthly kingdoms, including Babylon. In asking to know about the future, Nebuchadnezzar no doubt had an inflated understanding of his own glory and its duration. What could come after Babylon!
“Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30).
Nebuchadnezzar could not have imagined that his Great City would eventually fall into the hands of the Medes and the Persians within one careless night of drunkenness by Belshazzar, eldest son of Nabonidus. God gave to Nebuchadnezzar the answer to his question about the future, and that future involved the supremacy of the Kingdom of God which would crush the kingdoms of this world as “the stone cut out without hands… will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever” (Daniel 2:34, 44).
Two themes emerge from Nebuchadnezzar’s dream involving the great statue of the nations, and not long afterward, his great statue of idolatry: oppressive civil authority and false religion, symbolized by Nebuchadnezzar’s command to worship his idol. Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego would not worship the idol, even under the threat of death by the civil magistrate.
In Daniel, Chapter 7, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Daniel 2) about the future is recapitulated in Daniel’s vision of the Son of Man coming to the Ancient of days. In Daniel, Chapter 9, this future will involve the work of Messiah, the Prince. Messiah’s coming will be in harmony with God’s plans for His Kingdom revealed in Moses, and the Prophets and the Psalms, and especially in Psalms 2 and 110. Psalm 2 reveals Messiah, the Lord’s Christ, as His Eternal Son whom He will resurrect from the dead. Psalm 110 reveals that Messiah, His Son, is both David’s Son and David’s Lord, and is also a High Priest after the Order of Melchizedek. Psalm 2 and Psalm 110 together comprehend the whole of Redemptive History: Before Time; the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Session, the Reign, and the Second Coming of Jesus at The Consummation.
The profound revelations in the Psalms 2 and 110, Moses and the Prophets, would have to wait until the fulness of time before men can understand what God Almighty has planned for His Son and His Kingdom. We, however, can jump ahead and look at what for Daniel and all of the Old Testament Prophets until John the Baptist was still future.
With the coming of John the Baptist, the message of the completion of the Old Covenant under Moses began. The Prophecy of Nathan concerning the “house which David would build” began its fulfillment as it is recorded in the narrative of Jesus’ Incarnation in Matthew 1:18-25. Jesus is both the Son of David and the “temple not made with hands” (John 2:19).
Jesus’ crucifixion and the rending of the veil of the Holy of Holies marked the conclusion of the work Jesus came to do, and the end of the worship in the Temple made with hands. After the destruction of the 2nd Temple, the LORD God would never again occupy an earthly dwelling (2 Samuel 7:14; Psalm 2:2, 7; and Psalm 110:1, 4).
Matthew 16 and 17, and Matthew 26:63-64, Acts 2:14-36 and Acts 13:33-34, draw together Psalm 2 and Psalm 110 and reveal the details of the Sonship of Messiah, the Priesthood of Messiah, the Kingship of Messiah. These truths have to await the fulness of time for men to understand them.
The Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 1:1-4; 1:5-14; and Hebrews 5, are built upon the foundation of the Scriptures, mostly from the Psalms, and from Psalms 2, 8 and 110. We are taught from these Scriptures about the Sonship, Priesthood, Kingship and the Prophetic Offices of Jesus, Messiah. Jesus now serves as the Great High Priest after the Order of Melchizedek, at the Right Hand of the Throne of Majesty, forever, Psalm 110:4. If His Priesthood is forever, so too must His Kingship (Psalm 110:1).
Finally, Psalm 2:2, 7 and Psalm 110:1, 4, together with the 2-kai-configurations are parts of the foundation of the Revelation: The Book of Blessing. The above materials are developed in Volume 10 Fascicle C. This synopsis is to whet your appetite for searching the Scriptures to see if these things just summarized here are true.
