April 12, 2013
-
For Now, or the Future?
A few days ago, there was a… discussion?… in the comments about peace. The gist of what I was saying was that there won’t be peace on earth from the time of the Garden of Eden until Messiah returns the last time, because as long as sin exists, there can’t be peace. Someone then brought up the angels at Christ’s birth, how they sang ‘Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth, peace unto men’. So there HAS been peace on earth, right? No. Even Messiah said, “I bring not peace, but a sword”. I explained that the angels that appeared to the shepherds were prophesying about the future – the millennial kingdom yet to come that will be on the earth after Messiah’s final return.
I explained that a BIG problem the church has, is that they take everything to mean ‘right now’ in the Bible – the angels said ‘Peace on Earth’ – it means now! Actually… it doesn’t work that way. In fact, pretty much every time an angel has appeared in scripture, what they spoke was a prophecy for the future. Abe… your wife will bear you a child. Daniel… here are the coming empires. Joshua… the walls will fall down. Shepherds… the babe will be the vehicle for peace on earth. Not now… for the future.
And then I wondered WHY that discussion even happened.
It was… weird. Out of left field. But the fun part is…
it happened because of what I am supposed to write, today.When Israel came out of Egypt, the first thing that they did, upon watching the waters fold back in on the Red Sea, was to believe. I mentioned this on Wednesday. But the next thing that happened was that Moses ‘sang’ a prophecy. Oh, at first glance, it looks like it’s just a recounting of what the Lord did to Pharoah’s army on behalf of the Hebrews, but… it’s more than that.I didn’t realize it until Rav Moshe Weinberger’s post, the other day. Here’s what he wrote:
“And the Jewish people saw the great hand which Ha’Shem used against Egypt and the nation feared Ha’Shem and they believed in Ha’Shem and in Moshe His servant. Then Moshe will sing…” Exodus 14:30, 15:1
The Gemara (Sanhedrin 91b) comments on these verse, “[Because it] does not say ‘Then Moshe sang,’but rather ‘will sing,’ this is a hint to the resurrection of the dead in the Torah.” We must understand the connection between the resurrection of the dead and the song at the sea. …For tzadikim, there is no difference between a salvation which occurred in the past and an anticipated salvation. They are both equally real for the tzadik who feels his emunah tangibly, as if with his hands.
And I thought… whoa, WAIT! My Bible doesn’t say he will sing, it says he sang. And then I realized… what he’s saying is that this is another example of the ‘reality of duality’. There are more than one fulfillments to Yehovah’s acts. Egypt was the Old Testament prototype of a future salvation – Egypt was symbolic of the pagan world, and the plagues were symbolic of the judgments found in Revelations… down to the irony that both were in sets of three with a final judgment! Israel was saved out, as she will be delivered in the future, and the journey from seed to plant symbolic of the amazing faith we will be given in the future. Further, the Promised Land was symbolic of the coming kingdom Messiah will rule.
So was Moses simply singing about the deliverance over the Red Sea? He wasn’t. Often the things we read in the Bible sound like they’re meant for that moment, but they’re really aimed at a future event. Moses was a great prophet – he wasn’t just talking about what they’d just experienced… he was made aware, because of his level of emunah, his closeness to Ha’Shem, that there was something bigger – similar, but on a much, much grander scale – coming for future generations of those who follow Yehovah, who align themselves under Him and obey His commandments.
Rav Weinberger says “May we merit to attain the level of emunah in which we can rejoice in the final redemption even now because we know we hold the winning ticket of Hashem’s promise that he will send us the ultimate redeemer, may he come soon in our days.”
And I smile. Because I am praying to be able to do just that!
