Pulling Back the Covers
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.” Romans 1:17 NASB
Revealed – The Greek verb translated “is revealed” is apokaluptetai. This is present tense – an on-going process. Notice that “is revealed” implies something new. This is not simply a repetition of the Tanakh. There is something new here – a new way of understanding how God is making the world right. This is not something that Man finds out by his own investigation. God has to “uncover” it (the meaning of apokaluptetai).
Paul cites a prophet in the Tanakh to talk about the righteousness of God. The quotation shows that Paul argues for a continuous and identical righteousness. It is the process of uncovering that has changed, not the message. The message is: “the man who by faith is just will live.” The “new” revelation is that Yeshua is the summation of all that God has been uncovering.
So often we have heard that the Old Testament God is a God of anger and vengeance while the New Testament God is a God of love and light. Nothing could be further from the truth. God is God. He has not changed. He declares Himself to be abundant in mercy and showing lovingkindness (Exodus 34:6). And He declares Himself to be a God of holy wrath (Romans 1:18). In our modern world, we tend to downplay the judgment of God. We want a God who is just a good guy, who forgives everything and is a giant Santa Claus. We have deliberately overlooked the fact that mercy is the flip-side of judgment. We don’t like to face up to our unworthiness and sin. But the same God who judged rebellious and sinful nations in the past is looking over our nation today. What He sees must be very disturbing indeed.
God is patient (1 Cor. 13:4) but His patience will not last forever. He postpones His wrath against sin. He does not erase it.
Paul wants us to see that this new revelation in Yeshua is the continuation of the same plan of salvation. It includes both mercy and judgment. The plan doesn’t change at all. The only thing that changes is how clearly we can see it.
“Father, forgive us for ignoring Your desire for complete obedience. Forgive us for our tendency to excuse our actions because you are a God of love. Thank you for postponing your wrath so that we might come to repentance. Remind us of your unfailing call to holiness. Without You, Lord, we cannot survive.”
Topical Index: reveal, apokalypto, wrath, mercy, Romans 1:17, Habakkuk 2:4
Loved the “end” prayer, ditto yesterday. Very poignant, a real blessing 🙂
Amen.
We are living in a time that requires more of us than any other time; but, as we are so presciently described in the letter to Laodicea, we are lacking the most.
May the Spirit that has been promised to fall on us, upon whom the ends of the world are come, fall with such a sense of impending judgment that we will see with perfect sight our imperfections, and so will be able to repent completely, and thus escape the wrath that is to come.
The Final Word
“The “new” revelation is that Yeshua is the summation of all that YHWH has been uncovering.” – Yes.
~ God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world ~
This could be just the beginning.., “the Supremacy of the Son” – Sacrifice of the Son, the Salvation of the Son, the Sufficiency of the Son, the Succor of the Son, the Spirit (Breath) of the Son, the Sovereignty of the Son.
The entire written Word of God is the “uncovering” of the Living Word of God, – our LORD Jesus (who is the) Christ.
Avoid alliteration? (lol!) or, Abad and adore ADONAI always.- Amein!
But the Summary statement of the Son is this- “I AM come that they (“they” is us) might have life, – and have it more abundantly” (John 10.10)
Oh? – John, -Tell us more.. ~ In Him was life, and that life was the Light of all mankind ~ (John 1.4)
Jesus! I am resting, resting
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.
~ and this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent ~
Lord,
May Your kingdom come. Your will be done.
Uncover Yourself to all mankind.
While there’s still time.
Amen.
Resonance!
Abba, please fill us with the knowledge of your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
If we accept the Hebrew word emunah as the definition of faith, then the revelation, the gradual uncovering occurs in the same way that a fertilized egg grows into an embryo, a fetus and then a full-term infant. The hidden life is gradually revealed as it becomes larger and more detailed, complex and capable of independent life. If you haven’t read, “Garden of Emunah,” by Rabbi Shalom Arush, I highly suggest it.
Hello Chaya ~
For the past three days, I have been pondering, and repeating Psalm 37:3. It has captured my heart and mind, especially in light of Skip’s many teachings on faith, my desire to understand words in context, and then your reference to emunah.
Psalm 37:3 Trust in the LORD and do good. Dwell in the land and feed on faithfulness.
“Feed on faithfulness”. Fascinating wording. I have looked at various translations and see that the Hebrew word, emunah is used.
Thank you for the recommendation of Rabbi Shalom Arush’s “Garden of Emunah”. I have added it to my library book list.
As I count my blessings as one aspect of this Rosh Hashanah, I am counting Skip and this community. This site is a daily blessing in my life.
Shanah Tovah!
Marci
chaya,
I just purchased this book yesterday on your encouragement. I hope to start reading it tonight. Thanks.
Garden of Emunah is good, interesting, and requires some careful discernment in areas. Not everything he says has a biblical home, but of course, that’s the way to read ALL material, including mine. I am sure you will find a great deal of blessing – and some questions to ponder.
Thx
I’ve been reading much more critically, especially since I was introduced to your TW’s. It’s a major discipline I’ve incorporated from your teachings. Thx, again.
“the man who by faith is just will live”, means a whole lot better than the righteous living by faith as some of us tend to relate to faith that God will take care, protect, He is in control, and with such reasoning, they become impassive, not participating with what ABBA is doing, not putting right what is in error.
Faith is an action word that means it has to be lived out by being JUST, an important factor to YHWH . Hope that makes sense.
Shalom, and chag sameach.
Ester, that makes a lot of sense. When my life shattered, what got lost was trust. I had a heart for righteousness, and I had the will to love and I had an understanding, albeit a child’s understanding, of the Law. But without trust, I was left floundering; attempting to ‘do’ right with a broken heart; a heart that had forgotten how to trust.
There is no faith in sin. When you sin, none of it requires faith. Only love requires an action built on faith and trust. When I lost trust, I turned in desperation to unholy ‘ways’ of doing right. The rights acts I had done earlier in trust, I now did in fear. Where I trusted before, I now performed SO AS TO ‘EARN’ trust and love. I used fear, guilt and shame to motivate me to do ‘right’, instead of enjoying the luxury of being able to do right because I had faith and trust in God, myself and others.
What had gotten lost was trust. How it had gotten lost was that I had started to believe lies that convinced me to doubt God, myself and others. That produced fear. I felt accused, and, even though I did not want to accuse God or others, I no longer trusted anyone, myself either. I trusted no one to keep me safe. Because, no one was. This is hard. I clung hard to the heart that believed God’s Word, and that believed that only love was right, but it was a broken heart; a shattered cistern that could hold no water. I despaired, even while I knew despair was a sin, but I had forgotten HOW to repent, to turn around because the feeling of lack of safety left me without the trust I needed to repent to Him with. I had lost the way to wake up from the nightmare. I fought against it: I fought the fear. I knew rebellion was wrong, so I never broke any rules, but I no longer trusted any authority in my world. The rebellion was shoved so deep it turned septic and the fear that was a result of not trusting grew until the clouds of depression and schitzophrenia ate at my mind while the resulting fatigue and altered endocrine function dragged my body down, and the fear destroyed my spirit. I was not free to love, to do right. Fear is a chain that traps you in the dungeon of your own castle. You have to have hope, and joy. I held onto every scrap that I could still remember, but I had no new sources of it. The depression and fear kept me from any sense that I was loved, and my own love was no source of strength.
I was in Job’s pit. The thing that I had feared the most came upon me: my family was shattered, and my next family had no foundation because when you come from a crooked place, there is no platform to negotiate from, that is strong. I lost my 4 siblings in the whirlwind, and my parents to forms of mental instability.
But when I got tired of struggling, and had reached the end of everything, I became willing to reconsider my paradigm. I became willing to examine my rotten beliefs that had crusted over my heart in the struggle to survive and love from a place of no faith and trust. I became willing to face my anger at God.
And everything TURNED! I was given 5 more children to try again with, my mother regained her mind shortly before she died, and remembered who she was, my siblings are starting to sober up and work toward restoration (Hallaluah!), my health was restored, my daily bread slowly became more sufficient, my love started to work, but most importantly, I learned where the source of trust and joy was to be found. I learned that when I believe things that are not true about God, myself and others, I lose the good stuff. To get it back, I have to stop believing those accusations, and then I am free again to believe the truth and enjoy the fruits of peace that believing truth produces.
Trust is not something born in a vacuum; not something that can be white-knuckled. It is something that must be built on the rock of truth, instead of the sand of fair weather sailing, emotion, or self. When I fell for the temptation to look at MYSELF; to believe it was All Up To Me, then my eyes were taken off my Saviour, and the waves swallowed me up. I think I may be wiser now. I know now I must keep my eyes on Him if I expect to be able to walk in perfect trust on the waters of faith, and to soar on the wind of the Spirit, as Skip puts it. Looking to anything else is idolatry, because it indexes something OTHER THAN HIM as my source. There is no trust possible in that, because at bottom, we all know perfectly well that nothing else can save us. That knowledge that our heart remembers is what can tank trust that is incorrectly sourced faster than you can think. I think I will put my eyes back on my Saviour and repent for doubt and despair and idolatry and all those other joy-and-trust killers, too. Halleluah!