THE ESCHATOLOGICAL MATURITY OF THE ‘ONE NEW MAN’
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”[1]
The nations have a controversy with Jerusalem. Satan has a controversy with Jerusalem. The Church has a controversy with Jerusalem. God Himself has a controversy with Jerusalem.[2] The last time Jesus saw her before His arrest and execution, He wept.
She has always been complicated.
So have we.
From the books of Moses, through the historical records to the psalms, the prophets, all the way into the Gospel accounts and apostolic epistles, to the last word on the last page of the Revelation, Scripture testifies to the supremacy of the Son of Man, the centrality of Jerusalem, and the narrow road leading us out of sin, apathetic allegiance, and lazy affections into the life-giving Way[3] of wholehearted maturity.
To put it very simply, the Great King is your salvation,[4] and His city is the means of your maturity. Jerusalem is the means of your maturity. Jerusalem is the means of my maturity. Jerusalem is the means of Israel’s maturity. Jerusalem is the means of our maturity.
THE EKKLESIA & THE ETERNAL PURPOSES OF GOD
While writing to the “saints who [were] in Ephesus,”[5] who would later receive a rebuke from the Lord Himself for allowing their blue-collar dedication and grit to dilute the vibrancy of their “first love,”[6] Saul of Tarsus—a man plucked from a life of fervant devotion and “zeal without knowledge”[7]—illuminated the mystery of our maturity with these words:
To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.[8]
Reflect on this: the whole point of this whole thing is to put the “manifold wisdom of God” on display through His people to the powers and principalities of the air. We have to acknowledge a striking translation problem: the use of the word “church” here is a misnomer. It’s misleading. The word used is ekklesia, which is the same word used any time “synagogue” is mentioned, and throughout the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the ‘Old Testament,’ a phrase that is itself something we need to move on from) this is the word used to refer to sacred assemblies.[9]
So, the “fellowship of the mystery,” the communication, communion, and strategic juncture of the mystery hidden from Genesis 1, is that the prismatic, uncontested, supreme, dynamic wisdom of the living God would be displayed to every angel, every demon, every living creature around the throne, every dark soul waiting in Hades, and to the devil Himself, through what Paul just referred to a few paragraphs prior as the “one new man” of Jew and Gentile.[10] The church, sure, but also the synagogue—and in fact, first the synagogue.[11] We’ll return to this issue after examining the message meant to go from Jerusalem by the Jews to the Gentiles to forge the “one new man” to begin with.
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
In the middle of the eschatological throes of Matthew 24, Jesus promises a shining encouragement: “And this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”[12] This Gospel, this Gospel of the Kingdom. As I’ve said before, I believe if the apostles could see us today, they would rebuke us for preaching a Gospel too narrowly emphatic on the salvation of Gentile souls.[13] Why? Because the Man who commissioned them to “go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything” He had Himself taught them,[14] did so in the context of the Kingdom, not salvation. Salvation is part of the Kingdom. It is, as David put it, a “benefit.”[15]
Resurrection Sunday was Day 1 of 40 wherein the resurrected Jesus, “King of the Jews,”[16] spent with His disciples—talking to them about “the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”[17] So He rose from the tomb, met Mary Magdalene and other women, commissioned them to announce His resurrection to the remaining crew, walked alongside the two disciples heading to Emmaus and explained the suffering and glory of the Son of Man “from the books of Moses to the prophets,”[18] made breakfast for Peter in the Galilee a few days later, then spent more than a month expounding on “the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”
It makes sense, then, that “from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks”[19] and this question erupted from the lips of the apostolic leadership Jesus had forged from His motley crew of blue-collar disciples:
Lord, will You now restore the Kingdom to Israel?[20]
And He did not rebuke them:
It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.[21]
They would’ve recognized “the ends of the earth” immediately. David sang about them.[22] Isaiah spoke at length about them—often in connection to the “new song” that would erupt from Jerusalem, travel all the way to the furthest inhabited geographical location from Israel (and perfectly describing that very spot, the Ring of Fire in the South Pacific, as only a prophet could), then make its way back to Jerusalem. Consider these passages:
They lift up their voices, they sing for joy;
over the majesty of the Lord they shout from the west.
Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord;
in the coastlands of the sea, give glory to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.
From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise,
of glory to the Righteous One.[23]
Sing to the Lord a new song,
And His praise from the ends of the earth,
You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it,
You coastlands and you inhabitants of them!
Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice,
The villages that Kedar inhabits.
Let the inhabitants of Sela sing,
Let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord,
And declare His praise in the coastlands.
The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man;
He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war.
He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud;
He shall prevail against His enemies.
“I have held My peace a long time,
I have been still and restrained Myself.
Now I will cry like a woman in labor,
I will pant and gasp at once.
I will lay waste the mountains and hills,
And dry up all their vegetation;
I will make the rivers coastlands,
And I will dry up the pools.
I will bring the blind by a way they did not know;
I will lead them in paths they have not known.
I will make darkness light before them,
And crooked places straight.
These things I will do for them,
And not forsake them.[24]
So this “new song” travels from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, then back through the Arab world, before a momentous occasion occurs. Again, familiarity with the Hebrew prophets allows us to read between the lines and gasp; the LORD going forth as a “man of war,” and the “woman in labor” are both literary devices used time and time again to refer to the Day in which the Son of Man comes on the clouds in power and glory, and every promise Heaven ever made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob comes to pass—the Day the “controversy of Zion”[25] is settled finally, fully, and forever. But this peace does not come painlessly.
THE CONTROVERSIAL CUP OF STUPOR
“Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it.”[26] And “then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south.”[27]
And so the “city who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her,” who lobbied for the criminal execution of her Great King, crying for His blood “to be upon [her] and [her] children,”[28] will lay eyes on the One she pierced—and grieve.[29] A nation who “bore her Child before her labor” will in fact be “brought to the time of of birth and [sure] delivery.”[30] Israel will be born again “in a Day,”[31] the Day of the LORD. Reflecting on this, the apostle Paul—a Pharisee whose mother called him Saul—wrote the following:
I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?[32]
When Jesus returns to prove Himself—not to prove a point—Jerusalem’s eyes are filled with the sight of Him. You “become what you behold,”[33] and much like Paul’s first prayer over the Ephesians, her sight is illuminated with a “spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus.”[34] He has split the sky; He has resurrected “those in Christ.”[35] He has marched triumphantly to Jerusalem, trodden the winepress of her enemies alone; He has split the mount called Olivet; He crushed the counterfeit christ responsible for “abomination that makes desolations;” He has performed the Greater Exodus.[36] He then takes the seat of His father David to bear the crown of a government that will increase forever; the nations will strip their military arsenals for scrap metal to build farming equipment and work under His leadership to restore the earth through strategic, sovereignly-ordained regeneration.[37] Indeed, “blessed is He who comes in the Name of the LORD!”[38]
Confidence in this confession, this “Gospel of the Kingdom soon to be restored to Israel,” keeps us on the narrow road of truth and out of the muddy ditches of “different gospels” fervently condemned by the apostles.[39] It safeguards us from getting drunk on Jerusalem and spiraling out into either ignorance-wrought arrogance that “boasts against the branches,”[40] or carnal sentimentality and unsanctified affection that would profess God loves Israel so much, they don’t actually need saving. But there is “one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”[41]
There is one body, diverse in its unity, of Jew and Gentile; one new man forged from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. This narrow road woven through Jerusalem is the means of our maturity, putting the manifold wisdom of God on display to the powers and principalities of the air. This is displayed best through the life and testimony of a woman whose family lived in the land God then handed over to Abraham through the Everlasting Covenant—a deed never without controversy.
THE GLORY OF CANAANITES
In the thick of His itinerant ministry healing the sick, casting out demons, multiplying food, teaching multitudes, and more miraculous works throughout the land of Israel, Jesus was approached by a Gentile woman while He and His team were in the northern region (what would now be southern Lebanon). And not just any Gentile woman; Mark tells us she was a Canaanite woman. A woman from the land of Canaan. A woman from the land God promised a man named Abram when He called him out of Ur of the Chaldeans. People were living there at the time, remember. Generations later, one of their great-granddaughters approached the Son of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David and appealed to Him that He would also deliver her daughter from a cruel, violent demon. Her Gentile daughter. Her Canaanite daughter.
If you read the story,[42] it doesn’t look good for Jesus. Here’s a mother, perhaps a single mother, begging for help for her kid. We know already it’s the kind of work Jesus enjoys doing, and He’s good at it. Then suddenly: silence. His disciples take this silence as license for their not-latent racism, and nationalistically distorted perception (at that time) of the Gospel of the Kingdom. (He would come to purge this out of them as well.) But the mother persists; the Canaanite woman persists for her daughter’s sake. But when Jesus does respond, this is what comes out of His mouth:
I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel…It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.[43]
Incredibly, the Canaanite woman does not flinch. She does not erupt with generations-long offense at the land provision of the Everlasting Covenant.[44] She does not argue in the name of indigenous animosity against the people of the Everlasting Covenant. She submits to the bloody promise made to Abraham; she agrees with the will and word of the Lord. And she gets Jesus’ attention like no one else has:
Truth, Lord.[45]
Imagine! And she continues:
Yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.[46]
Jesus was not her “teacher,” as He was to so many others. He was her “Lord.” She confessed His Davidic crown and pledged allegiance to His Kingdom—the one that cost her family in real, generational ways. She trusted His leadership, and believed in the abundance of the Everlasting Covenant—the one secured with the blood of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.[47] That is maturity. And that, the testimony of the Canaanite woman, is what is required of the Gentiles in this hour—such that we can labor long with Jacob, in intercession and confident hope of his coming fullness, such that we will put the manifold wisdom of God on display to the powers and principalities of the air. That we would grow up in the maturity of the faith in the Everlasting Covenant by which mankind, creation, and dominion are all ransomed and restored; that we would provoke a response from Jesus that could then provoke His wayward firstborn:[48]
When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!"[49]
When we see “the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” and “how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out,”[50] we step closer to realizing we are supported by a root suffering blindness for our own benefit—knowing when the root’s eyes are opened, the window of mercy for the Gentiles closes.[51] The same Jewish apostle who was mesmerized by the wealth of wisdom God displays through us is the same Jewish apostle who yet bore grief and sorrow daily because a spirit of revelation and his own Scriptural literacy produced a deep and abiding sobriety concerning Israel, even volunteering his own soul for their salvation.[52] That is Christlikeness. That is “having this mind in you also,”[53] becoming a bondservant, and pouring yourself out for the purposes of God. That is the conformity into the Image of the Crucified God—fully mature, and one day “made ready.”[54]
The glory of the Gentiles brought into obedience to Jesus is to not only receive the mercy of salvation to call upon the name of the God of Israel, but to cultivate the mature faith of the Canaanite mother and burden of the apostolic father, that it we could find ourselves in this same reflection: “Behold, Jesus Christ still weeping over Jerusalem through the eyes of Paul.”[55]
May His tears weep through our own eyes, until Jerusalem is a praise in the earth and the light of the LORD is her glory.[56]
Maranatha.
Stephanie Quick is a writer/producer serving with FAI. She cohosts The Better Beautiful podcast with Jeff Henderson. Browse her free music, films, and books in the FAI App and at stephaniequick.org.
[1] Matthew 23:37-39, NKJV
[2] Isaiah 34:8, KJV
[3] See Matthew 7:13-14; Luke 13:24; John 14:6
[4] See Exodus 15:2; Isaiah 12:2; 53:4-6; Acts 2:21; 4:12; Romans 5:9-10; 10:9
[5] Ephesians 1:1b
[6] Revelation 2:1-7
[7] Romans 10:2
[8] Ephesians 3:8-13, NKJV
[9] See https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g1577/nkjv/tr/0-1/
[10] See Ephesians 2:11-18
[11] See Romans 1:16; 2:9-10
[12] Matthew 24:14, NKJV; emphasis added
[13] Quick, S. “The Singular Gospel.” 19 May 2023. Retrieved from https://www.faistudios.org/articles/singular-gospel
[14] See Matthew 28:18-20
[15] See Psalm 103:2-4
[16] See Matthew 27:11,37; Mark 15:2,26; Luke 23:3,38; John 19:19
[17] Acts 1:3
[18] Luke 24:25-27
[19] Matthew 12:34b
[20] Acts 1:6, NKJV; emphasis added
[21] Acts 1:7b-8, NKJV
[22] See Psalm 2:8; 48:10; 59:13; 65:5; 67:7; 72:8; 98:3; 135:7
[23] Isaiah 24:14-16a, ESV; emphasis added
[24] Isaiah 42:10-16, NKJV; emphasis added
[25] Isaiah 34:8
[26] Zechariah 12:2-3, NKJV; emphasis added
[27] Zechariah 14:3-4, NKJV; emphasis added
[28] Matthew 27:25
[29] Zechariah 12:10; see also “When Death Did Not Pass Over,” S. Quick (2019). Retrieved from https://www.faistudios.org/articles/death-passover
[30] Isaiah 66:7-11
[31] See Isaiah 66:8; Romans 11:26
[32] Romans 11:11-14, NKJV
[33] A paraphrase of the principle conveyed in 2 Corinthians 3:18
[34] Ephesians 1:15-21
[35] Daniel 7:13-14; Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:26; 14:62; Luke 17:24; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
[36] See Sinai to Zion: The Untold Story of the Triumphant Return of Jesus by Joel Richardson for an extensive treatment and examination of these prophecies. It is available on Kindle, hard copy, and free PDF at joelstrumpet.com
[37] See Isaiah 2:1-4; 9:6-7
[38] See Psalm 118:26; Matthew 23:37-39
[39] See Galatians 1:6-9; 2 Peter 3:14-16; Jude 1:3-4
[40] Romans 11:18,25
[41] Ephesians 4:4-6
[42] Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30
[43] Matthew 15:24, 26; Mark 7:27
[44] See Genesis 12:1-7; 15:1-21
[45] Matthew 15:27; Mark 7:28
[46] Ibid.
[47] See Hebrews 13:20; Revelation 13:8
[48] See Romans 10:19; 11:11-14; also the prodigal parable in Luke 15:11-32 given to religious leadership suggests the firstborn son in the parable is Jacob (per Exodus 4:22)
[49] Matthew 8:10, NKJV; emphasis added
[50] Romans 11:33
[51] See Romans 11:19-32
[52] See Romans 9:1-5; 10:1; 11:33-36
[53] See Philippians 2:5-11
[54] See Ephesians 4:13-16; Revelation 19:7
[55] Saphir, A. Christ and Israel: Lectures on the Jews. Available on Kindle and Paperback at faistudios.org/books and free PDF in the FAI App (faistudios.org/apps)
[56] See Isaiah 24:21-23; 62:1-7; Revelation 22:1-5
