Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
March 31, 2015
Now, it was the first day of the week, very early in the morning, when the women came to the tomb (see Luke 24:1). It would appear that our brave men, the apostles, were in hiding. This was a tomb hewn out of rock. In other words, the tools of man had cut and shaped it, and no one had ever lain in it before. It belonged to a Pharisee called Joseph of Arimathea who was a good and righteous man, who had not agreed to the action of the high priest and the other Pharisees in their plot to condemn Jesus to death.
He buried Jesus and then rolled a very large stone over the mouth of the tomb (see Mark 15:46 and 16:4). When the women arrived, the stone had been rolled away, and a young man in a long, white robe was seen seated inside, on the right side, and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him (Mark 16:6).” So much of Bible prophecy is tied up in these words, and it continues on throughout every aspect of the crucifixion and the resurrection.
The women were greeted at the tomb by two angels who asked them why they sought the living among the dead (see Luke 24:5). Although in the tomb among the dead, Jesus died and was placed there for having taken the sin of sinful man upon Himself. But as the Son of God, He could not die, as the very tree of life, begotten by the Spirit of life and born in the perfection and image of His Father, God.
He was in that tomb, not because Pilate had determined it. He was there by choice because He was in love with His creation of man, but could never co-exist with man’s sin or unrighteousness. By His own condemnation, man would die for his unrighteousness, but by Jesus’ righteousness and willingness to take the place of man in the judgment of God, man would now be able to live.
However, there was a stipulation attached to this. Man would have to be part of the church of stones (the apostolic church) of which Jesus was the large Cornerstone, the same Stone, which, by His own choice, was rolled over the mouth of the stone tomb of tooled stones. These were not the untooled, natural stones shaped by the creating hand of God. The tomb was like a temple of man, carved right into the face of the earth, which God had created. This tooled stone of the tomb represents the kind of stone that men use to build their temples of religion. They are the works of man created for the religious man who worships idols and depends on the works of his hands.
As a Pharisee, Joseph of Arimathea, was a man tied to the government system, with the two acting together as one, as did the empires of Satan tie themselves to religious gods. This tomb was originally commissioned for himself, as man of the religious, Judaic priesthood of Pharisees appointed by the governing powers of Rome, with the power to influence government action. They were the same Pharisees who said they had no other king but Caesar of Rome, the ruler and god of the Roman Empire to which they were submitted.
They were also part of the economic system that bartered and traded on the temple grounds for the money upon which they depended for their very existence. Could this tomb of religion hold Jesus? Never in a million years, for He was the firm foundation of truth, who never submitted to the lies or the religious systems of men, introduced to Eve by the serpent as the first belief system of religion, coming from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus clearly declared that He was the way, the truth and the life, and no one came to the Father except by Him. Where do you find any religion in that statement?
The good works of religion are used as a cover-up for disobedience to God. A tooled tomb of works might hold such religious men in death’s grip, but it could never hold Jesus, the Word of truth made flesh. He is seated on the right of God, as are sheep seated on the right of the Good Shepherd and goats are on His left. He had prepared the way for His stones of the church, His spiritual Israel, to likewise enter the tomb of death as the consequence of sin, but, as the consequence of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, there would be no condemnation due them before the throne of God. The tomb will not be able to hold them, because of what Jesus did for them to prepare a way out of it.
The Advocate of His church had pleaded its case long ago in heaven for God to set up the Way, in the Garden, back to the tree of life. Jesus took full responsibility for His creation. All that was needed was the full payment of the price of man’s sin. Jesus, who was spat on and mocked on the sacrificial cross and is still being ignored and treated the same way to this day, said, “Yes, Father, put Me on the altar. As your Son of the inheritance, I will pay the ultimate price of the pain and suffering that come with a sinful nature, if I can be rewarded by being able to share My throne with My beloved bride of mankind, who loves Me more than she loves the world.”
What a deal for you and me! Are you wise enough to recognize this, or are you more concerned about having power in the here and now, along with making a hit on the stock market to keep providing the things of this world? The temptations are always there to lure and then claim you, while the unseen riches of the next world await you at the door of an open tomb. The Way has been perfectly opened to you through the pages of the Bible, but have you searched or made any attempt to find it? Are they the books of worldly wisdom, which sit by your bedside or is it the Word of God sitting there?
If you had any understanding there would be a common ground and one language of the Spirit between you and the Lord. He would pour understanding into you, if you only had as much time for Him as you do for the secular and religious thoughts of man, which prove to be worthless in the end. The truth never alters for belief systems, most of which are as changeable as the latest breeze that blows wherever it will blow.
One needs to look no further, than to the belief that the earth is suffering under the problem of ‘global warming’, which, in the space of a few, very short years, changed in nature to become a problem of ‘climate change’. If one didn’t work, then man, with his changeable beliefs, could jump just as quickly onto the bandwagon of another belief system. One day homosexuality is a sin, as the Bible declares it to be; yet, the next day, the so-called Bible-believing, declared members of the many, religious denominations of Christianity can change their minds to declare it not to be a sin.
Never forget that, on the cross, Jesus said He thirsted, but only after He knew that all things had been accomplished for the Scripture to be fulfilled. His meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well prepares us for the understanding of these words. If one, like Jesus, has the spiritual water of life in Him, one need not thirst for life.
Within Himself, He had the ultimate answer for the desires of those lost in sin to the captivity of death. But Jesus, born of the life-giving Spirit, had completed His task on earth of taking upon Himself the spirit of death found in the deadly spiritual seawaters of this world. If anyone ever were to drink them, one can be assured they would never quench one’s thirst. This was the message, which Jesus relayed to the Samaritan woman, concerning the spiritual waters of the world.
The time had come for Jesus to take the death penalty of man and his spiritual waters upon Himself. He had become as a man before God, who was as thirsty as any man could ever be; He would bear all the sins of all men who would ever live, for the three days and three nights, with a day being as a thousand years. He died not only for all the seed of Adam, Noah and Abraham, but He died also for those born again of the seed of the Spirit of life, along with all who repent of their sin and trust in the cross and resurrection for salvation.
What a glorious day of liberty followed the first Passover for the nation of Israel and all who had the blood on the doorpost! An even greater day followed when Joshua crossed over the Jordan with his wilderness survivors and the twelve men appointed, one for each tribe, to each carry a stone from the water on their shoulders. These stones were to become a memorial to commemorate the time when the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the covenant of the Lord and piled up all the way back to Adam (see Joshua 3:16). This spoke of the salvation of all mankind from all of all the ages, who would trust in the Lord God to rule over their lives.
The water, which went down into the Sea of Arabah and the Salt Sea, was cut off. This was as the crossover point where the Spirit of the living water again was made available to man for the asking. One need never again thirst, any more than the Samaritan woman, who dropped her water jug of worldly water, upon hearing the words of Jesus. She became a symbol of the bride of the church, witnessing to the truth of who Jesus is.
How, may I ask, is it possible to attend church and tear down the cross at the same time? It is only because it is not the true, apostolic church, but rather a derivative of the twelfth apostle called Judas who was entered by the devil, to have the mark of the beast all over it, the number of which is 666, the number of man, against which the gates of hell will prevail.
Is it time, not for the old, but rather for the new wine, when Jesus changes the waters in our lives, those large vessels of washing water into wine, with the best being saved for the last? He is Jesus who will lead the band to the wedding feast of the Lamb, right here in today’s land of Cana, with its own River City, whence Jesus calls His apostles and all who will witness with Him in truth to the miracle of the changing of the water into glorious wine.