Two Weights

The Weight of God's Glory and the Weight of Sin

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overpowered it.”

John 1:5, TLV

In an attempt to “make Jesus Jewish again,” a controversial start, to be sure, but a necessary context, the culmination of the annual feasts finds Jesus (Yeshua) in Jerusalem’s Temple complex. He offers living water to the world—the Kingdom of God at hand—during the Sukkot celebrations (Tabernacles/God dwells with humanity).

Our recent completion of the Fall Feasts, including Rosh HaShanah (Yom Teruah), Days of Awe, Yom Kippur, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah, adjured us to self-critique. During this season, we examined our behavior toward God and others. To illustrate the importance of self-examination, Yeshua encourages us to leave our sacrifice at the altar to make amends with others (Matt. 5:24, cf. Prov. 6:1-5). Neither is there an offering nor one accepted until an earnest attempt at reconciliation is made (Lev. 5:6-13). The “guilt offering” of Leviticus 5 may be in view here. It is a “trespass offering.”

So it will be when one becomes guilty of one of these things (toward others), he shall confess about what he has sinned. Then he is to bring his trespass offering to Adonai for his sin (clarification added, Lev. 5:5-6a, TLV).

Yeshua reiterates the process for forgiveness, beginning with confession (repenting) and culminating with an offering to Adonai as an expression of remorse and restitution of the relationship and damages. This process was the purpose of the Fall Feasts: a call to self-critique, confession, and atonement.

I say all this to preface a discussion about “the two weights” that were instrumental during Yeshua’s lifetime and the pre-exilic conditions in Israel.

There are two pressing measures: the weight of God’s glory juxtaposed with the weight of sin. The latter may drive out the former but can’t overcome it. God tells the exilic prophet, Ezekiel, that the abominations of the House of Israel are such that they drive God out of His own house!

He (God) said to me: “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel is committing here, that drives me far off from My own Sanctuary? (clarification added, Ezek. 8:6 TLV)

Furthermore, God conveys the weightiness of sin and its consequences—the land becomes a desolation and a curse. The term translated in the Tree of Life Version as “endure” is the verb (nāśā’) and means to bear, carry, or lift:

Then Adonai could no longer endure it because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations that you committed! So your land has become a wasteland, a desolation, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day (emphasis added, Jer. 44:22 TLV).

Ezekiel also envisions the weight of God’s glory over the Temple in Jerusalem for the destruction of wickedness. We generally think of God’s glory as an empowering force, and rightly so. Here, it has a two-fold purpose: to expunge the sin that corrupts the land and to empower and protect the faithful, as we will see.

In the 6th century BCE, the dominion of darkness ruled Jerusalem. The Temple practices are corrupt. Ezekiel 8 indicates there is idol worship near God’s altar. The people have turned to wickedness, following after the highest members of the Temple’s leadership. Abominations done are in darkness, behind closed doors, believing that God cannot see:

Behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the valley. He said to me: “Son of man, lift your eyes toward the north.” So I lifted up my eyes toward the north. Behold, north of the gate of the altar, was this image (idol) provoking jealousy in the entrance (emphasis and clarification added; Hebrew idiom: to look out over the horizon, Ezek. 8:4-5 TLV).

Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from above the cheruv, where it had been, to the threshold of the House. He called to the man clothed in linen, who had the scribe’s inkhorn at his side. Adonai said to him, “Go throughout the city, through the midst of Jerusalem. Make a mark on the foreheads of the people who sigh and moan over all the abominations that are committed in it. To the others He said in my hearing: ‘Go through the city after him and strike. Show no pity or compassion; kill off old men, young men and girls, little children and women. But touch no one who has the mark. Begin at My Sanctuary.’ Then they began with the elders who were before the House (Ezek. 9:3-6TLV).

God marked the faithful against destruction but cleansed the land of wickedness. Afterward, Ezekiel sees God’s glory depart from the Temple complex.

Then the glory of Adonai went forth from above the threshold of the House and stood above the cheruvim. The cheruvim lifted up their wings and arose from the earth in my sight (Ezek. 10:18-19).

I began with the quotation from John’s gospel to ultimately emphasize that darkness does not overpower light—spoiler alert! But light and dark do contend in this age. The tension between God’s glory and sin’s weighty darkness is at play, and I theorize that it is a season, much like the Fall Feasts, when humanity is evaluated. Hence, darkness is allowed certain liberties during this era. God will see who are the faithful. A telltale sign of the faithful is the overflowing Spirit.

On the last and greatest day (Shimini Atzeret) of the Feast (Sukkot), Yeshua stood up and cried out loudly, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture says, ‘out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ Now He said this about the Ruach, whom those who trusted in Him were going to receive; for the Ruach was not yet given since Yeshua was not yet glorified (clarification added, John 7:37-39, TLV).

Yeshua had secretly attended the Feast of Booths (Sukkot). Halfway through the week, he began teaching in the Temple—the ensuing debates with the crowds and attending Pharisees centered on his authority to perform miracles. There is unrest when he tells them his authority is from God (the One who sent him). Then, on the last day, Shemini Atzeret—a high holy Sabbath—as John reckons, “the great day,” he makes the above declaration.

Yeshua may be referencing Isaiah 44:3, the context of which is God reminding Israel amid their great sin that He was the One who delivered them and split the rock to nourish them with water: “I am Adonai, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King” (Isa. 43:15 TLV). God reminds Israel that He is their Sovereign Authority.

And so, the water libations upon the altar in the Temple during Sukkot and the many menorahs alighting the courtyards cast a luminous reminder of God’s wonders, protections, and provisions in the wilderness: He is Immanuel. So, their jubilation picks up the theme reflected in Isaiah 12: 2-4:

Behold, God is my salvation! I will trust and will not be afraid. For the Lord Adonai is my strength and my song. He also has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. In that day you will say: “Give thanks to Adonai. Proclaim His Name! Declare His works to the peoples, so they remember His exalted Name.

In the same way, John’s depiction of the scene in the Temple portrays the prophet’s declaration. Yet, the people have missed the illustration. Yeshua’s miracles and the power of his teachings are from the Creator of Israel. Yeshua is their salvation. He is the giver of the Living Spirit, which will soon fall upon his believers when he is the glorified Risen Savior. And like his Father before him, Yeshua’s spirit seals and enlivens the faithful. The weight of God’s glory reinvigorates the land through blessings at harvest time. At long last, the dominion of darkness has lost the powerplay for humanity as God’s presence returns to temples of flesh.

This idea of “temples of flesh” was not new to Paul: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not of your own?” (1 Cor. 6:19 NASB, see living sacrifice language in Rom. 12:1). The imagery of “temples of men” and of “living sacrifices” whose obedience is a sweet savor to God was available in the Qumranic literature:

This is the house which [He will build for them in the] last days, as it is written in the book of Moses, ‘In the sanctuary, which Thy hands have established, O Lord, the Lord shall reign forever and ever’ (Exod. 15:17-18). This is the House into which [the unclean shall] never [enter, nor the uncircumcised,] nor the Ammonite, nor the Moabite, nor the half-bread, nor the foreigner, nor the stranger, ever; for there shall My Holy Ones be. [Its glory shall endure] forever; it shall appear above it perpetually; and strangers shall lay it waste no more, as they formerly laid waste the Sanctuary of Israel because of its sin. He has commanded that a Sanctuary of men be built for Himself, that there they may send up, like the smoke of incense, the works of the Law (emphasis added, Florilegium or Midrash on the last days, 4Q174, col. 1, trans.Vermes).

When expressing the pending toils in establishing an independent nation, John Adams, after the passing of the Declaration of Independence, wrote to his wife, Abigail: “Through the gloom, I can see rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than all the means.”¹

The weight of sin, personally, corporately, or nationally, must be dealt with by the same approach as the Fall Feasts: earnest self-reflection, confession to one another, and irenic attempts to right the wrongs within the church first, then to the world beyond. As with the pre-exilic cleansing of the Temple and desolation of the land, the weight of God’s glory deals with the weightiness of sin that corrupts His creation. With the same mighty force, he can seal the faithful against destruction. Then, as John Adams posits, the light shines.

Blessings—

1. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1940), epigraphic page.