Until Shiloh Comes

By Chuck Missler (From his Book "The Creator Beyond Time and Space")

In the 49th chapter of the book of Genesis there is another specific prophecy regarding the time of the Messiah's coming. In verse one we read of the last blessing that Jacob bestowed to his sons.

"And Jacob called his sons and said, 'Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days'" Genesis 49:1 (NKJ)

When he had gathered them together he began to prophesy over each of them. When he got to his son Judah, he gave a prophecy concerning the Messiah:

"The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to him shall be the obedience of the people." Genesis 49:10 (NKJ)

This strange prophecy has a few words that need to be defined in order to be fully understood. The word "scepter" has been understood by the Rabbis to mean the "tribal staff" or "tribal identity" of the twelve tribes of Israel. This "tribal identity" was linked, in the minds of the Jews, to their right to apply and enforce Mosaic law upon the people, including the right to adjudicate capital cases and administer capital punishment, or jus gladii (The jus gladii is a legal term which refers to the legal authority to adjudicate capital cases and impose capital punishment.)

Secondly, it is well documented that the word "Shiloh" has been understood for millennia to be an idiom for the Messiah.

Therefore, according to this prophecy, the tribal identity or scepter of the tribe of Judah would not cease until the Messiah came. Judah was not only the name of the son of Jacob, but it was also the name of the southern kingdom of the divided nation of Israel.

With these definitions in place we can restate the prophecy as follows:

"The [National identity of Judah, which includes the right to enforce Mosaic law, including the right to administer capital punishment upon the people, as called for in the Torah] shall not depart from [the southern kingdom (Judah)], nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh [the Messiah] comes; and to him shall be the obedience of the people."

This prophecy gives specific indicators regarding the time of the coming of the Messiah! The prophecy declares that he would come before the right to impose Jewish law (which includes capital punishment) is restricted and before the national identity of Judah is removed!

During the 70-year Babylonian captivity, from 606-537 B.C., the southern kingdom of Israel, Judah, had lost it's national sovereignty, but retained it's tribal staff or national identity. It is very significant that in the book of Ezra we read that during the 70-year Babylonian captivity the Jews still retained their own lawgivers or judges. The Jews maintained their identity and judicial authority over their own people even during 70 years of slavery. The scepter had not been lost during the Babylonian captivity.

During the next five centuries the Jews suffered under the yoke of the Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman Empires. Yet, Judah retained its tribal identity up until the first quarter of the first century A.D.

In the first quarter of the first century A.D., the Jews were under Roman domination when an unprecedented event occurred. According to Josephus (Antiquities 17:13) around the year A.D. 6-7, the son and successor to King Herod, a man named Herod Archelaus, was dethroned and banished to Vienna, a city of Gaul. He was replaced, not by a Jewish king, but by a Roman Procurator named Caponius. The legal power of the Sanhedrin was then immediately restricted.

With the ascension of Caponius, the Sanhedrin lost their ability to adjudicate capital cases. This was the normal policy toward all the nations under the yoke of the Romans. The province of Judea had, however, been spared from this policy up to this point. However, Caesar Agustus had had enough of the Jews and finally removed the judicial authority from them at the ascension of Caponius. This transfer of power was recorded by Josephus.

"And now Archelaus' part of Judea was reduced into a province, and Caponius, one of the equestrian order of the Romans, was sent as a procurator, having the power of life and death put into his hands by Caesar!"(Emphasis added)

The power of the Sanhedrin to adjudicate capital cases was immediately removed. In the minds of the Jewish leadership, this event signified the removal of the scepter or national identity of the tribe of Judah!

If you think that this is a Christian contrivance, think again. Here are several ancient rabbinical references that indicate that the rabbis believed that Genesis 49:10 was referring to the Messiah.

In the Targum Onkelos it states:

"The transmission of domain shall not cease from the house of Judah, nor the scribe from his children's children, forever, until Messiah comes."

In the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan it states:

"King and rulers shall not cease from the house of Judah...until King Messiah comes"

The Targum Yerushalmi states:

"Kings shall not cease from the house of Judah...until the time of the coming of the King Messiah...to whom all the dominions of the earth shall become subservient"

In the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b, Rabbi Johanan said:

"The world was created for the sake of the Messiah, what is this Messiah's name? The school of Rabbi Shila said 'his name is Shiloh, for it is written; until Shiloh come.'"

These amazing commentaries should eliminate any doubt that the Jews that lived prior to the Christian era believed that one of the names of the Messiah was Shiloh. Furthermore, these quotes should eliminate all doubt that the ancient rabbis believed that the Messiah would come before the removal of the scepter from Judah!

Woe Unto Us, For Messiah Has Not Appeared!

So far we have established that Shiloh is an idiom for the Messiah and that the scepter (that is, the tribal identity, associated with the right to impose capital punishment) had departed from the kingdom of Judah early in the first quarter of the first century. What was the reaction of the Jews when the right to adjudicate capital cases (the jus gladii) was removed from Judah? Did they view the removal of their authority on capital cases as the removal of the scepter from Judah? The answer can be categorically stated as YES!

When Archelaus was banished, the power of the Sanhedrin was severely curtailed. Capital cases could no longer be tried by the Sanhedrin. Such cases were now transferred to the Roman Procurator, Caponius. This transfer of power is even mentioned in the Talmud:

"A little more than forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the power of pronouncing capital sentences was taken away from the Jews."

This certainly corresponds to the same event recorded by Josephus we saw earlier. In Antiquities 20:9 Josephus again points out that the Sanhedrin had no authority over capital cases:

"After the death of the procurator Festus, when Albinus was about to succeed him, the high priest Ananias considered it a favorable opportunity to assembly the Sanhedrin. He therefore caused James the Brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, and several others, to appear before this hastily assembled council, and pronounced upon them the sentence of death by stoning. All the wise men and strict observers of the law who were at Jerusalem expressed their disapprobation of this act... Some even went to Albinus himself, who had departed to Alexandria, to bring this breach of the law under his observation, and to inform him that Ananius had acted illegally in assembling the Sanhedrin without the Roman authority."

This remarkable passage not only mentions Jesus of Nazareth and his brother James as historical figures, but it also declares that the Sanhedrin had no authority to pass the death sentence upon any man!`

The jus gladii, the right to impose the death sentence, had been removed. The remaining authority of Judah had been taken away by the Romans in the early years of the first century. The scepter had departed from Judah. Its royal and legal powers were removed; but where was Shiloh?

The reaction of the Jews to these monumental events is recorded in the Talmud. Augustin Lemann, in his book Jesue before the Sanhedrin, records a statement by Rabbi Rachmon:

"When the members of the Sanhedrin found themselves deprived of their right over life and death, a general consternation took possession of them: they covered their heads with ashes, and their bodies with sackcloth, exclaiming: 'Woe unto us for the scepter has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not come'"9,10,11 (emphasis added)

The scepter was smitten from the hands of the tribe of Judah. The kingdom of Judea, the last remnant of the greatness of Israel, was debased into being merely a part of the province of Syria.

While the Jews wept in the streets of Jerusalem, there was growing up in the city of Nazareth the young son of a Jewish carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth. The inescapable conclusion was that Shiloh had come! Only then was the Scepter removed!

PUT YOUR HAND IN MY SIDE…

Meditation on the Scars of Jesus

By: Pastor Bill Randles


“After eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in their midst, and said, ‘Peace be unto you ’. Then he said to Thomas, ‘Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing’. And Thomas answered, ‘My Lord and My God’. (John 20:26-28)


When after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his badly frightened, and dejected disciples, He showed them His scars. He ate fish with them, spoke to them and rolled up His sleeves and opened His robe to show them His actual scars in hands and side.


One of the things this story illustrates is that Jesus truly “has come and remains in the flesh”. One of the heresies of the early church was the Docetic teaching. Docetism, from the Greek word Dokeo- def. ‘to seem’, is the teaching that Jesus only seemed to be Incarnate, He really wasn’t ‘in the flesh’, He didn’t really suffer anything, (God cannot suffer) and He only seemed to be Incarnate. The Koran of Islam incorporates Docetic teaching, in their emphatic denial that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross, Judas died in his place! The Surrealist painter Salvador Dali did a version of the Last Supper, which featured a Docetic Jesus- in the painting, you can see right through Him to the wall behind him!


This story and indeed much of the resurrection narrative in John’s gospel would be an antidote to this heresy. Truly, Jesus Christ has come (and remains) in the flesh! The elements of the Gospel are so physical! The cross, the heavy stone rolled across the grave, the fact that John had to stoop to enter the tomb on that resurrection morning, the sight of the empty grave clothes, which made both John and Peter instantly believe. One can almost smell the breakfast that Jesus cooked on a coal fire for the disciples, the fish Jesus ate in their presence, and of course the scars in Jesus hands and side, ”Handle me…” The Gospel of Jesus is far from ethereal; it is set in this world of time, space, matter, dates, historical events, and persons, “He was crucified under Pontius Pilate…”


Peter and John, we are told, both believed upon seeing the empty grave clothes, but for Thomas it was the sight of the scars of Jesus, that made him into a believer. It was upon seeing those scars that this monotheistic, devout Jew made an otherwise unthinkable profession, “My Lord and my God!”


What kind of a God is the God of Thomas and the apostles? God as a human? A scarred God? A God who allows his human enemies to inflict upon Him scars? We worship a God who has entered completely into the human condition, with all of its joys as well as all of its sorrows.


What is it to be human, if not to be scarred? Who hasn’t borne the scars of disappointment, guilt, shame, frustration, futility, and betrayal time and again in this life? To be human is inevitably to be hurt, whether the wounds be self inflicted or through the sinfulness of others, as Jesus said, ”It is impossible but that offenses should come.”


But in the Gospel we see that the God we worship has entered into the suffering of humanity, the cross was an identification with us, in guilt, shame, penalty and agony. The scars of Jesus bear witness to this.


One of the qualifications of Jesus as our heavenly high priest is his ability to know first hand our limitations, temptations and the suffering that sin has caused to abound in our world. Jesus sits at the right hand of God in heaven and bears the scars of the cross!


Paul warned us that the Gospel of the scarred God would be a scandal to both Greek and Jew. The Greeks believed that ‘the true God’ would be pure spirit- pure logic- impassable (beyond and incapable of suffering) and completely transcendent, unknowable. To the Jews, God is (and can only be) the omnipotent, invincible, awesome God of power and might! Where is the wisdom in a crucified God? How could an all-powerful God be scarred? What philosophical answers could there be in a Divine “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief?”

“The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.” (I Cor. 1:22-23)


Neither Jew or Greek can discern in Jesus’ scars what Thomas did. They saw no power, nor wisdom in the crucified, scarred God. To see what Thomas and countless millions have seen down through the ages takes a revelation from God. If you can see God in the scarred, crucified Jesus, if you can see the power of God and the wisdom of God in the cross, that is the sign that you are “being saved”.

“But unto those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the Wisdom of God” (I Cor. 1:24)


To the demand of sinful man for answers to the problem of evil, death and suffering, God doesn’t offer a philosophy, or a definitive and satisfactory thesis, he presents Jesus crucified, as the answer.


To the oft-raised complaint that rises from sinners -“If God is an all powerful being…how could he allow…(fill in the blank)? Where was God at Dachau, or at Treblinka? Where was He on 9-11? When will this supposed God show us His power and Love?” The reply from heaven is nothing more or nothing less than the “despised and rejected …man of sorrows, fully acquainted with grief”, Jesus and His scars. Can you see the Wisdom and power in this?


What answer for suffering and evil would satisfy man anyway? If he eradicated all evil right now by His power (He could do this!) He would have to destroy everybody! Evil is not a substance out there somewhere; it is a plague that thrives in the hearts of all men everywhere.

The God given answer and the power is revealed in that, to save sinful man, He would become a man and enter into our suffering, He would take responsibility before God for our sins. The scars of Jesus testify to this.


Edward Shillito “got it”. He was an English Christian who endured the horrors of the First World War, and afterward wrote a poem which speaks powerfully to the meaning of Jesus’ scarred hands and side; He called it JESUS OF THE SCARS,

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now:
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn pricks on Thy brow;
We must have thee, O Jesus of the scars.

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place;
Our wounds are hurting us, where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy scars we claim Thy grace.

If when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know today what wounds are, have no fear,
Show us the scars, we know the countersign.

The other gods were strong, but thou wast weak;
They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne,
But to our wounds, only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.

One day soon, the Jews who so seek a sign will actually have a ‘Thomas experience”. They don’t believe in Jesus right now, He wasn’t powerful enough for them, He was crucified - He didn’t bring peace to the World, so they can’t see God in Him! But we are told by the Prophet Zechariah, that in the last days,

“…They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for Him as an only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one is in bitterness for his firstborn…” (Zech. 12:10)


Like Thomas, seeing the scars of Jesus will cause them to believe, and own Him as “Lord and God”. We are told that on that day a fountain shall open up for cleansing,

“In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness.” (Zech 13:1)


Thus the picture in John of the handling of Jesus’ scars is a picture of the consummation of history, the final salvation of Israel and the end of the world. What a God! What a Savior! My Lord and My God!

MINISTERING WHILE MAMMON MELTS DOWN

The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith, Grace Baptist Church, Malanda, Queensland,
http://smiletex@bigpond.net.au:

Elijah ministered while Mammon melted down.

Enigmatic Elijah.

He sprang onto the pages of Scripture without introduction, a man of great discernment and perception. He saw clearly not only the wickedness of his king, he saw also the desperate spiritual condition of his people. Israel had stagnated into a state of indecision. They, the redeemed slaves of Egypt, could not even decide which god to worship, Baal or Jehovah. He saw the idolatry of their king's covetousness and he saw the bondage of Mammon. He discerned the mind of God regarding his nation and prayed accordingly. James 5:17, 18 describes his prayer that it might not rain, “...he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.” What an example he is to the men of God in this generation! Here is a man who was so bold as to pray for the meltdown of Mammon so that his people might have a spiritual awakening. He prayed for the loss of the material wealth of his people so that they might obtain true riches.


Elijah discerned and declared the mind of God to the nation. He prayed for drought and saw the heavens stripped bare of clouds and watched as the dew burned off the grass of the field. He learned to wait on the Lord and be content with what God provided. What unusual waiters God chose to wait upon Elijah as he dwelt by the brook Cherith. Ravens, which are renowned for allowing their own hatchlings to perish in times of want, brought to Elijah bread and flesh twice a day. Elijah learned the secret of living by faith, and waiting on God for daily bread. When the brook dried up, God taught him another lesson in the school of faith. He taught him not to take the blessings of God for granted, and he taught him that he could provide for him through others, even if they themselves had very little to give. He taught him that God blesses those who meet the needs of others. He taught him to listen to the voice of God and to know the times and seasons of waiting and walking and warning. He taught him to be on guard against the Obadiahs of Ahab's court. Elijah was tempered on the anvil of God so that his steel did bend or break when he crossed swords with Ahab or with the prophets of Baal. He drew the Sword of the Lord on Mt. Carmel, prayed down fire out of a cloudless sky upon his sacrifice, and called the people to slay the false prophets before he pleaded with God to break the drought.

Elijah ministered while Mammon melted down.

At this point, early in 2009, it seems that we are in the early stages of another meltdown for Mammon. It happens again and again in history. All the gods of wordlings have feet of clay. Sooner or later all the Dagons are broken in pieces on the thresholds of their temples. For millennia men have worshipped greed and covetousness and pretended that satisfaction for the soul could be secured on the stock market. Even the churches today are drawn into the idolatry of covetousness, supposing that they are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, including the presence of God. Now we see a downturn and wonder how far it will go. Some are suggesting that we will see the collapse of the entire global economy. Some are even saying that we will see the Rapture and the one world economy of the Antichrist. We simply do not know. All we know is that Mammon melts down again and again. And we know that we are to minister the Word of God to others when it happens.

My wife and I are missionaries in Australia. We are human enough to wonder what will happen if the meltdown of Mammon results in churches being unable to continue in their support of missionaries? How will we be able to stay on the field? What will the churches around the world do for pastors if the missionaries have no income? These are good questions for missionaries to ask.

Elijah set a good example for all who are in the ministry when God causes Mammon to melt down. He stood strong for God. He prayed. He waited. He prepared for the day of reckoning with the worshippers of idols. He whetted the Sword of the Spirit and strengthened himself in the Lord. He learned how to trust God for his daily needs to be met.

As we observe the destruction of Mammon in our generation, I cannot help wondering if there is somewhere an Elijah, a dear brother in Christ whose vision is clear enough to see, whose heart is soft enough to care, and whose commitment to God is such that he is willing to lose all he has for the souls of lost men. It could be, you know, that the entire world economy is teetering on the brink of collapse and Mammon is crumbling because of one man's prayers. We may never know who he is, but we can and should add our prayers to his. Mammon ought to be melted down. All his worshippers will suffer the torments of Hell unless they forsake him and turn to Christ. We ought to pray for his destruction.

There is one word of encouragement for those who are committed to ministering to others while Mammon is melting down. God will meet your needs if you will trust him. This is no time for hirelings who flee when the wolf is at the door. Let me share a word of testimony in closing. I remember one month many years ago when our support hit rock bottom. It was a month when there was a conference on we had hoped to attend. It looked like it would be absolutely impossible for us to go. In fact, we didn't know how we were going to eat that month. We had been teaching our children to pray about the hardships of the ministry so we told them we needed to pray about the shortfall in our support. The kids took it on as a real matter of prayer in our devotions before they went off to school. Somebody in the family had the idea of writing in large letters the words, "Praise the Lord!" on one side of a sheet of paper and then listing all the blessings God sent that month on the other side of the paper. We stuck it on the fridge with a magnet with the “Praise the Lord” side visible so that nobody but our family knew what was on the other side. Well, you can guess what a blessing it was to see the Lord meet our needs day by day. We wrote down loaves of bread, dozens of eggs, and anonymous gifts and heads of cabbage, and a hundred other blessings on that piece of paper. Possibly the biggest blessing of all was our kids' excitement at what they saw the Lord doing in answer to their prayers. When they came home from school they ran up the back steps, jerked the back door open, ran to the fridge and turned the paper over to see what the Lord had done while they were at school. No hugs for dad or mum, no rush to the toilet, no snack. First things first! It was a time of spiritual growth for our family. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we did go to the conference. A strange thing happened at the end of the conference. There was a pastor there from Western Australia that we had never met before. When all the folks form our church climbed in the van to start off for home, he reached in and handed me an envelope with $100 in and told me it was for food for all of us on our long trip home. He never knew that our kids had been praying. And, come to think of it, most of the folks in the van never knew either. Fed by the prayers of children! Such are the ways of God!

For twenty centuries missionaries have been fed by God. Before ever the first missionaries went out to a lost world with the blessed gospel of Christ, the prophets of the Old Testament were waiting on the Lord for their daily bread.

God never called us to be wealthy.

He called us to minister to others while Mammon melted down

*Article downloaded from David Cloud's site Way of Life.