Last time we looked at Solomon’s glorious reign as an archetype. Today Pastor Victor shows five parallels between Solomon’s golden era and Christ’s coming kingdom.
- Eliminate rivals and enemies
- Appoint new leaders
- Peace and prosperity
- Nations flowing to Jerusalem
- Worship of God central
This last episode of this Son of David class ties together everything nicely, providing us with a wonderful description of the Christian hope in the age to come. As it turns out, in every category the ultimate Son of David outperforms the original Son of David.
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Hi Sean, wow, such a great series. Kind of odd how Solomon is not really address that much at all in church (at least not in most churches I know). Very informative!
I know you also asked for topic suggestions, and I have another one for you. As unitarians, we basically share our view of God with the view in Judaism. I noticed myself how, after getting more familiar with unitarianism, I got a much better understanding of Judaism also. Now, lately I have been wondering, what about the devil/satan? The Jewish view is quite different from that of mainstream Christianity, but can we really be so sure that we’re right?
You will probably be aware, but basically in Judaism angels cannot disobey God, and so this would include satan, who is also the evil inclination and the angel of death. So there isn’t really like a battle between God and Satan. Satan’s role as an angel/agent of God is to create temptation, eg like in Eden. Without this temptation, there would not really be free will in a sense, as one would only ever do the will of God. Kind of how it will be in the end when all the world will be made perfect again and there will be no sin anymore. Why? Because there will be no evil inclination any longer and people will have perfect godly knowledge and no evil inclination.
Anyway, although I was aware of it, I didn’t really delve deep into the subject so it was just kind of in the back of my mind, until last week I read these passages:
– Again the anger of the ***LORD*** was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, “Go, number Israel and Judah.” (1 Chronicles 21:1)
– Now ***Satan*** stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. (1 Chronicles 21:1)
This is describing the same event, but in one instance it’s God moving David to hold the census, and in the other Satan.
Now you and I know the idea of angels being called God because they are his representatives (like the angel who wrestled with Isaac was “God” etc). What if we apply this logic to this instance though…
In Christianity you get endless amounts of very weak apologetics when you do a search on these verses, whereas in Judaism it’s barely even covered because people don’t even see an issue, because of the aforementioned reasoning.
My main objection was that in Christianity God clearly destroys the satan and I thought that would cause an issue with this view (if you only consider the Hebrew Bible, like eg Job, it works fine though, arguably better than the Christian view). However, even in Judaism the satan/angel of death/evil inclination ultimately gets destroyed (don’t think it’s the literal angel though). Eg in Sukkah 52a you read
– In the future, at the end of days, God will bring the evil inclination and slaughter it in the presence of the righteous and in the presence of the wicked. For the righteous the evil inclination appears to them as a high mountain, and for the wicked it appears to them as a mere strand of hair. These weep and those weep. The righteous weep and say: How were we able to overcome so high a mountain? And the wicked weep and say: How were we unable to overcome this strand of hair?
https://www.sefaria.org/Sukkah.52a.4?ven=William_Davidson_Edition_-_English&vhe=William_Davidson_Edition_-_Vocalized_Aramaic&lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
Wow, pretty cool, huh? Makes me think of the satan being thrown into the lake of fire and the weeping and gnashing of teeth and all that.
So now this got me really wondering if perhaps this idea does indeed make more sense than the traditional Christian view. Would at least be interesting to consider. So, if you agree, perhaps something for you to do an episode on? Sorry for the long message… In any case, thank you so much for all the hard work you do and for educating me and many others I’m sure. I’m looking forward to the interviews that are coming up!
Regards, Mark
PS. as a bonus a very interesting Chabad podcast on this topic that was also very helpful to me:
https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/582899/jewish/The-Jewish-View-on-the-Devil.htm
Hi, Mark;
The type of ‘Judaism’ you are talking about generally concerns a post-New Testament form of ‘Judaism’ known as ‘Rabbinic Judaism’ – which only became considered as ‘normative Judaism’ in the sixth century C.E. Judaism in the time of Christ was much more multiform, and Jesus Himself shared many of the contemporary beliefs associated with ‘Apocalyptic Judaism’ – including an obviously negative view of ‘the (angelic) satan’ (= ‘the (angelic) devil’ in the Greek Jewish Scriptures of Job 1-2, and Zechariah 3). For Jesus, the angelic ‘satan’/’devil’ was a ‘liar’ (John 8:44), a ‘murderer’ (John 8:44), and an ‘enemy’ (Matt. 13:39) – and was ultimately bound for personal destruction (Matt. 25:41; Rev. 20:10). There’s little in common here between the views of Jesus and the demythologised ‘satanologies’ of post New Testament, non-Christian, Jewish rabbis like Shimon ben Lakish, et al (cf. Talmud : Bava Batra 16a; Sukkha 52a).
‘Satan’ in 1 Chron. 21:1 occurs without the use of the definite article and some Jewish text books (such as the ‘Encyclopaedia Judaica’ and the ‘Oxford Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion’) believe that the term ‘Satan’ [ better translated as ‘the Adversary’ in Job 1-2, and Zech. 3 – but with obvious biblical reference to an angelic being] is here is being used as an actual proper name for an angelic being.
Praise God for Messiah Jesus. Shalom.
Hi John, appreciate your message. I also found the supposed explanation that it just means ‘adversary’ in 1 Chronicles. But what does this really solve though? In 2 Samuel, God is mentioned in place of this Satan. God himself is an adversary then? God himself moves David to commit the sin of holding a census? I’m not sure how that fits in mainstream Christian theology, God himself tempting people and all that. In the Jewish view it’s just Satan in both instances, but he is just doing his God ordained task of tempting people as he has no free will of his own, but in this way the option of choosing to disobey God is created in the world and it is up to us to fight this evil inclination.
Also, it doesn’t seem to me that in Judaism this inclination/the Satan/etc in viewed positively which I think is kind of what you’re saying? Indeed, he still is an enemy we need to resist and which will ultimately be destroyed and all that. That’s not a very positive view. Thus I don’t really see how it would conflict with verses such as the ones you mention.
I am aware Judaism wasn’t monolithic in Jesus’s days, but certainly rabbinic Judaism comes quite close to the views of the Pharisees he interacted with and just because the Talmud was compiled later doesn’t mean the contents aren’t much older so I do value it as a resource.
Yes, there are also the more apocalyptic ideas floating around like battles between God and the Satan, and even in Judaism this can still be found in more Kabbalistic sources. However, this view is already known to us as it is the mainstream Christian view, and thus I found it interesting to also explore what other alternatives are available.
Hi, Mark;
A few quick points to your comments:
1. As demonstrated in the authoritative ‘Encyclopaedia Judaica’, the original and biblical concept of ‘the Satan’ (= the ‘Devil’ in LXX) in the Old Testament books of Job and Zechariah is of a supernatural, angelic personality – and not anyone’s ‘evil inclination’.
2. The nature of ‘the Devil’ / ‘the Satan’ is subject in the Bible to progressive revelation – culminating in Christ’s declaration of him as an ‘enemy’, a ‘liar’ and a ‘murderer’ (John 10:44). Only in the light of the solution – Christ and His redemptive death (John 12:31) – can the full nature of the Devil be more clearly revealed. The New Testament data is incompatible with any view that the Devil is merely a ‘faithful and obedient servant of God’.
3. The Bible, overall, presents a view of temporary, relative ‘dualism’. God tolerates the Devil until his eventual destruction, and the permanent establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth.
Praise God for Jesus !
Shalom.
Hi Sean,
I really enjoyed this series. I heard your comments at the end of the podcast about original sin and wondered if you would be interested in reading an article I wrote on the subject and giving me some feedback.
https://letthetruthcomeoutblog.wordpress.com/2021/07/23/the-doctrine-of-original-sin-truth-or-myth/
Despite some of the audio being a little difficult to hear, this series on Solomon and Jesus was excellent! Thanks for examining the important similarities between these two sons of David, Victor. And thanks for re-posting the messages, Sean.
Thanks Victor, it is always uplifting to hear/speak about the soon coming (after 2 days of 1000 years) Kingdom of God, so I listened with pleasure. One point however is difficult, that has to do with the remark you made several times that Messiah will reign for ever and ever and ever. If we take a look at what Paul writes in 1Cor15 we read that He(Jeshua) wil give back the kingdom to The Father, verse 22 (from NIV): “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For he “has put everything under his feet. Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” We see here that this moment ‘in time’ Paul even goes beyond ‘times’ in Revelation. Anyway I thought it was interesting to mention, greetings from The ‘small is beautiful’ Netherlands, Rolf BLS De Jong