Tag Archives: Good Shepherd

Son Of Man

Revelation Commentary, ,

Revelation 1:13 “One like a Son of Man.” See also Revelation 14:14.

The “Son of Man” is the Messiah

Jesus referred to Himself in the third person as the “Son of Man” as in Matthew 11:19.[1] This was understood to be speaking of the Messiah.[2] Regarding the kingdom, He referred to Himself as the King. This was in reference to the passage in Daniel 7:13:

“I saw in the night visions, and, behold, [one] like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.” (Daniel 7:13)

And in Matthew 11:19: “The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.”

Also in Luke 19:9-10:  “And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

The “Son of Man” is the Good Shepherd

Here Jesus was identifying Himself as the Good Shepherd by reference to a passage in Ezekiel 34: 11-16:

“For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, [even] I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep [that are] scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. 13 And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14 I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and [in] a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel. 15 I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord GOD. 16 I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up [that which was] broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.”

The Book of Enoch Mentions the “Son of Man”:

The “Son of Man” as envisioned by Enoch had been hidden but was to be revealed to the elect:
“And the kings and the mighty and all who possess the earth shall bless and glorify and extol him who rules over all, who was hidden. 7. For from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden, And the Most High preserved him in the presence of His might, And revealed him to the elect.” (Charles, Enoch 62.6).

The revelation of Jesus Christ, as the “Son of Man,” is therefore the fulfillment of Enoch’s prophecy, as well as those of the Old Testament.

Notes

[1] I owe much of this discussion to a lesson given by Dr. Robert Lindsay on Channel 14 TBN television on December 11, 1988 at 2:30 p.m. CST. See also Robert Lindsay, Jesus Rabbi and Lord, Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Cornerstone Publishing, 1990.

[2] The term “Son of Man” was familiar to the New Testament Jewish Church not only because of His mention in the book of Daniel, but also in the pseudepigraphical book of Enoch. (See Charles, Enoch.) The early Church was familiar with the Book of Enoch and it is one of the pieces of literature which they seemed to be revere almost equally with the canonical writings. In fact, the Book of Enoch is quoted in Jude verses 14 and 15. The book therefore serves as a literary referent for many of the expressions and symbols used in the New Testament, and therefore should be considered as a part of the cultural context for the Book of Revelation. Many of the obscure ideas of the book of Revelation will become clear after one reads the Book of Enoch.

The Book of Enoch is part of a body of literature known as the pseudepigrapha, which simply means that the author’s name, in this case Enoch, is a pseudonym for the real author. In fact, Oesterley quotes Burkitt, (Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, p. 18), regarding pseudonymous authorship: “…that the names were not chosen out of mere caprice; they indicated to a certain extent what subjects would be treated and the point of view of the writer.”
Charles, Enoch. p. 66, “48.2. And at that hour that Son of Man was named in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, And his name before the Head of Days. 3. Yea, before the sun and the signs were created, before the stars of the heaven were made, His name was named before the Lord of Spirits.”

This lesson is an edited excerpt from my book, Revelation in Context, available locally at the Living Word Bookstore in Shawnee, Oklahoma or www.Amazon.com, or www.XulonPress.com.
Free downloads are also available at www.revelationincontext.sermon.net.

Created For Stewardship – Not Tyranny

Teaching, ,

Every member of the human race is confronted with the question of their relationship to the other living creatures upon this earth that we commonly inhabit. As for this and all other questions of our ultimate purpose and responsibilities, we find the answer in the Holy Bible, the Word of the Living God.

Genesis Chapter 1 – Creation

In the creation account in Genesis chapter 1, we find the awesome account of the original creation. In verses 20 through 25 we have the account of the creation of the living creatures:
“And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21 And God create great whales and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind: and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

Creation of Mankind – His Mandate

Next we have the account of the creation of Mankind: “26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (27) So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. (28) And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,” Genesis 1:26-28.
Then we have the statement of God’s will for their food, verses 29-31:
29 “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

To Sum It Up

Revelation 4:11 sums it up: “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

And to this I say, “Amen.”

Note two things from this account:
1. We know from this creation story that the animals and all other living creatures are not in the same class as people; neither are people in the same class as animals, for Mankind was created in the image of God. Since God created Mankind in His image and for His pleasure we know that it is His pleasure for us to exercise the dominion for which we were created: we are to be stewards of the creation and shepherds of the beasts.
2. At this point God gave Mankind the herbs bearing seed, and the fruit of trees yielding seed for food. For the beasts, the fowls and the creeping things, He gave the green herbs for food.

Genesis Chapter 2: Creation of Adam – The Breath of Life

Here we have the full account of the creation of the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, and the beautiful garden of Eden. God created this Man by forming him from the dust of the earth, then breathing into his nostrils the Breath of Life, making him a living soul. This ‘Breath of Life’ is the Holy Spirit of God, [Hebrew ruah], which gave Man the image of God Who is a Spirit. This clearly places Mankind in a separate class from the animals. He is not brought forth by the earth nor by the sea as was the animals, but was uniquely created by God.

The Garden of Eden And Man’s Free Will

God planted the garden of Eden and made it to grow. Verse 16: “And the Lord God commanded the Man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden thou mayest eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’” Here we see the origin of Mankind’s prerogative to obey or not to obey God, his free will.

Chapter 2 continues with the account of the creation of Eve and the marriage of Adam and Eve.

Genesis Chapter 3: Temptation, Sin, and Death

This gives the account of the temptation by the serpent and their sin of disobedience by eating of the forbidden tree and the awful consequences of expulsion from the garden. It is this original sin that brought about death, not only of Mankind, but also of the rest of the natural world, the necessity for bringing forth more children to replenish the earth, and hard labor to bring forth food.

Chapters 4 Through 8 – The Consequences of Sin

In Chapters 4 through 8 we read of the awful consequences of Adam’s sin and the death that it brought. Sin and death prevailed even unto the time when the whole earth was filled with such violence that God, Himself, was greatly grieved. He saw that He must destroy the whole family of Mankind, as well as the creatures.

Genesis 6:8: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” And God directed him to build an ark, so that he and his family could survive the flood that was coming upon the whole earth to destroy it. They also were to take two of every creature into the ark to preserve the lives of the creatures.

Chapter 9: After the flood – Meat Is Permitted

“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. 2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. 3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. 4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.”

In this account, we find that God not only reiterated His commission that Mankind should take dominion over the creatures, but also that now He could use them for food, with the prohibition that they should not eat them with the blood thereof.

The Privileges And Responsibilities of Dominion

How, then, are we to exercise this amazing divine directive to take dominion over all of the living creatures? God is the Great Shepherd, Who sets the example for us. We can best understand our privileges and responsibilities to the creatures by observing how our Father, God, in Whose image we are created, relates to us in body, soul and spirit. It is not a relationship of a tyrant over his slaves and subjects, but the relationship of loving care and companionship.

God is the Father of our Spirits, Hebrews 12:5-11. As a loving Father, He disciplines us for our good, chastening us in order to develop us in the ways of His righteous and peaceful Kingdom. Being in His image, He wills that we should, in turn, discipline, chasten, and teach our children for their good.

He is the Saviour of our bodies, Ephesians 5.23 and I Timothy 4:10. We are to be good stewards also of our own bodies, also training our children to respect and cherish their bodies. After all, our bodies are flesh and must be ruled by our spirit.

He is the Shepherd of our souls. As the Great Shepherd, He teaches us and models the role of how we are to exercise our dominion over the living creatures. It does not allow for neglect or abuse, but rather for nutrition, shelter, and good management. Psalm 23 gives us the perfect picture of the life of the animal under the care of a Good Shepherd; they are ‘pets.’ In this relationship, the shepherd’s fold is a sanctuary.

Jesus describes His own role as the Good Shepherd in John 10:11-18. This is one of the greatest descriptions of the love relationship between a shepherd and his sheep. The Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. The Good Shepherd is contrasted with the hireling, one who cares for the animals only for what he can profit from it. The hireling can neglect or abuse the animals, but a good shepherd will risk his own life to save His sheep.

This clearly teaches what our attitude should be to the animals: “A righteous man regardeth the life of a beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel,” Proverbs 12:10.

A Symbiotic Relationship

In the Biblical record, the relationship is symbiotic; that is, it is advantageous and necessary for both the man and the animal. The animal receives good and proper sustenance, protection from predators and weather, treatment for diseases, parasites and injuries, and careful breeding. The man receives food, shelter, clothing and companionship.

The Lord is our Good Shepherd. Let us submit willingly to His tender care and joyfully to our ability to bring blessings and joy to Him.