“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him” (Isa. 53:10)
In the previous teaching we explained that man, who was driven from the garden of Eden and banned from it, eventually has to find his way back. To render this possible Jesus as frontrunner (Heb. 6:20) had to move through two prototypical gardens, and you and I, as part of the Bride of Christ, also need to move through them on our walk of faith.
To make this possible the Messiah, the Anointed, had to “ascend the Mount of Olives” (2 Sam. 15:30), Gethsemane, which means olive press in Hebrew. Here He would be trampled as the Messiah, and it is also here where you and I receive the anointing of/in the Christ.
This culmination is one of the points of configuration in an unfolding argument that has taken various turns in an effort to sketch the larger context at issue. But do not forget that we are still busy discussing the manifestation of the corporate spirit or mantle of Zerubbabel. In the teaching of Day 1377-1378 we spoke about the twenty-second characteristic of the corporate spirit of Zerubbabel, and it was concerned with Zech. 4:1-3, specifically in terms of the two anointed that had to bear witness. Within this encompassing subject we took many different detours, and perhaps it would be useful to just refresh your memory so that you don’t miss the greater through line. It is also important to note that “these two olive branches that drip into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the golden oil drains” in Zechariah’s vision (Zech. 4:12) eventually worked towards an Anointed One (Dan. 9:25), the Christ. With his baptism in water, merely “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15) – Jesus was also baptized and affirmed into Sonship by the Spirit of God: “When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’” (Matt. 3:16-17).
But it is only in Gethsemane that He became the Christ! Here He had to learn “obedience by the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:8). Here He had to be trampled like the olive, so that He could become the Christ. In the garden of Gethsemane He had to decide – with an eye on the prophecy of Isa. 53 – to lay down his will for the sake of the will of God: “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42). Therefore it “has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed” (Isa. 53:10). The seed is the sons of God that live in Christ the Anointed.
For this reason, the statement Jesus makes in Luke 24:26 (Living Oracles New Testament) is so absolutely important: “Ought not the Messiah thus to suffer, and so to enter into his glory?”
- Selah: What do you understand by the salvation of/in Christ?
- Read: 136 – 138.
- Memorise: 136 :1.
- For a more in-depth understanding: Read St John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul.
