Saved in Whose Name?

It is interesting to me that Joel and Peter speak of the sun becoming dark as a sign because that sign indeed did happen on the day Yeshua was crucified. Mathew 27:45 CJB 45 From noon until three o'clock in the afternoon, all the Land was covered with darkness. Was this darkness at Yeshua's death what Joel was speaking about? Perhaps. But whatever happened there at Yeshua's execution seemed to be only a local event. What Joel is prophesying seems to affect the entire world. Nonetheless, Peter is clear that he views all that has happened as the beginning of the end. And in fact in some of Peter's and Paul's epistles we find them tying to prepare folks for the end, which they obviously think is going to happen in their lifetimes. So that partly explains their sense of urgency in the taking the Gospel message out at great personal cost. But now Peter moves into a stage of his speech in which he wants to connect that final line of that Joel passage he spoke about with Yeshua. That is, where we hear the Prophet Joel say: "And then whoever calls on the name of Adonai will be saved", is referring to Jesus as the name to be called on. But this connection has its problems. I've often told you that the contents of the New Testament consists (half or a bit more) of Old Testament quotes. And it is best as we encounter each of the OT quotes in the NT to go back to our Old Testaments and read it there. Often there are subtle differences. Sometimes the differences are more substantial because the NT speaker is either paraphrasing, or perhaps molding the OT quote to better fit what he's trying to get across to his listeners. Here in Acts 2 as we read Joel's prophecy, it is given to us in Greek (the language of the New Testament). However what Peter was quoting was written centuries earlier in Hebrew. So when we see the phrase...Stay with me... When we see that phrase, that last phrase that Peter quoted from Joel. "whoever calls on the name of Adonai will be saved", in Greek the word kurios. That's what's being used to translate Adonai. Whoever calls on the name of KURIOS will be saved. And kurios means "lord" (and this is what we find in almost all of our bibles). In Christianity it is a given that all mentions of the word Lord (especially in the New Testament) are referring to Jesus Christ. Here's the difficulty with that: when we look at Joel in the original Hebrew Bible (which is what Peter is quoting from of course) we find this: "whoever calls on the name of YHWH (yud-heh-vavheh) will be saved". So the Greek New Testament substitutes the term Lord (kurios) instead of using God's formal name as it is in the original Hebrew of the Prophet Joel. As those who have studied with us since Genesis know, the Torah says that God's formal name is YHWH Some say Yahweh, I say Yehoveh. So Peter says (quoting Joel) whoever calls on the name of Yehoveh will be saved. Essentially Peter is making the leap that to acknowledge the name of Yeshua as Messiah is the requirement to be able to call on the name of Yehoveh to be saved. Yeshua is the sole agent of Salvation; but Yehoveh is the sole source of Salvation. And this is something that Believers, Jew and gentile, need to understand. There a terrible doctrine that has existed since the early Roman Church, which implies a replacement of Yehoveh the Father with Yeshua the Son. They can speak of the Trinity as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but the Father is often seen as outdated and irrelevant. Yeshua was given power and authority from His Father Yehoveh; but Yeshua didn't replace His father. In fact when He ascended we are told that He went to sit at the Father's right hand. Yeshua is the way to the Father. He said so! Not the replacement of the Father. And Peter, Paul and the other disciples had their work cut out for them to try and find a way to first comprehend this challenging reality, and then to explain it; first to the Jewish people, and then later to uninitiated gentiles. And make no mistake fellow Believers: without the Holy Spirit indwelling us, I see no way that a human can apprehend this mysterious understanding. Never take it for granted that you understand; because what I just explained to you is unintelligible to non-Believers. It takes faith in Messiah to arrive at this point; truly a leap of faith. And few seem to be able to make that leap. Count yourself as immensely blessed that you can and did.

Channel: Torah Class

Views: 3,369

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: tom, bradford, torah, class, seed, of, abraham, bible, learning, lesson, teaching, god, lord, adonai, elohim, yahweh, yhwh, jesus, christ, yeshua, christianity, believer, scriptures, save, redeem, resurrected, reborn, birth, rebirth, born again, redemption

Id: piA_malR7c8

Length: 7min 48sec (468 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 02 2017