Burning List

Everything YHVH Elohim has done up to this point, has been in accordance with His judicial requirements for the full restoration of all things that had been spoken by the prophets of old (ref. Acts 3:19-21). Yeshua’s life and ministry, as recorded in the four gospels of the New Covenant writings, reiterate this fact. Yeshua Himself declared that He did not come to do away with the Torah but to fulfill it (ref. Matthew 5: 17-18).

As foretold by the prophet Micah, Yeshua was born in Bethlehem of Judea (ref Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:1; John 7:42). He was taken to the Temple on the 8th day to be offered up to Elohim as a firstborn, and to be circumcised (Luke 2:22-24). There He and his parents were met by two prophets, Simon and Anna, who both recognized the child as the One sent as a Savior and Redeemer (Ref. Luke 2:30-31, 38). Later, when Yeshua became of age (twelve years old), He was seen in the Temple teaching and discussing the Torah with men of learning. When His parents found Him there, He answered their enquiry in a most revealing way: “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). Yeshua already knew who He was and why He came. He also knew that He did not belong to Himself.

However, even though coming into this world as a firstborn prince (ref. Acts 3:15), Yeshua could not fulfill the role of a priest until He reached the age of 30 (ref Numbers 4:3). At that time the two offices, of prince and priest, would be unified in Him, as was foretold by Zechariah the prophet (ref. Zech. 6:12, 13).

John the Immerser, a firstborn of the priesthood of the Levitical order, whose mother, like Sarah, was old and barren when YHVH intervened and caused her to conceive (ref. Luke 1:7), was still in the womb when Yeshua “showed up” in the womb of His mother. Like the “in-utero” episode of Esau and Jacob, here too we view another one of those mysterious incidents, which occurred when John leapt inside his mother at Yeshua’s “presence” (ref. Luke 1:41).

YHVH sent an angel to Zacharias, John’s father, while he was officiating in the Temple. Among the other predictions regarding the unborn child, the said angel announced that the boy would be filled with “the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers [Abraham, Isaac and Jacob] back to the children….” (Luke 1:17; Malachi 4:6). (Incidentally, it does not say that John would “turn the hearts of the children to the fathers”).

John would have started his priestly role of immersing at the age of 30, six months before Yeshua showed up at the Jordan River. Upon Yeshua’s arrival, John immediately recognized Him and announced “Behold the Lamb of Elohim” (ref John 1:29). Why did Yeshua come to John, who was reluctant to immerse Him, in the first place? And what did Yeshua mean by the words, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15)? Please note that both of them were to fulfill “all righteousness” in this one act. What Torah ordinance requires washing, more especially when Yeshua was not defiled by sin? Which washing would fulfill a “righteous” requirement of the Torah? We get a glimpse of this in YHVH’s commandment to Moses regarding the washing and anointing of Aaron and his sons, before entering the priesthood and its assignments (ref. Lev 8:6; 12). Therefore for Yeshua to enter the priesthood, he needed to be washed/bathed like Aaron and his sons.*

Only after this act, did Yeshua qualify to receive the spiritual anointing that set Him apart to carry out His role as prince and priest in the House of Jacob. YHVH affirmed this judicial act, by declaring “this is My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Yeshua was now in effect a priest after the likeness of Melchizedek. The record of this important role was explained by Paul in his letter to the Hebrews:

“So also Messiah did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.’ As He also says in another place: ‘You are a priest forever according to the likeness of Melchizedek’ … called by Elohim as High Priest ‘according to the likeness of Melchizedek’” (Hebrews 5: 5-6; 10).

Yeshua not only was the sacrificial lamb, but He also had to be the priest who officiated in His own sacrifice. Paul, again, explains this: “But Messiah came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to Elohim, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living Elohim? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” (Hebrews 9: 11-15). (For further understanding of the change that took place in the priesthood, read Hebrews chapter 7).

*In the Second Temple period the priests immersed themselves in mikvas or in natural bodies of water, not merely washing themselves as they did in the wilderness.