1 Corinthians 13:6 - New Covenant Lovey-Dovey Stuff: Rejoicing in the Truth

A teaching lesson from Real Israel Talk Radio Episodes 82 and 83, Parts 18 and 19 of the 1 Corinthians 13 Defining Biblical Love series. This is part of a multipart teaching series to be made available in the very near future as an e-book and also as an audio book. Stay tuned.

This post is a continuation of thought from the first half of Paul's statement "Love does not rejoice in iniquity."

Now continuing with the second half of the statement that Paul made in 1 Corinthians 13:6 -

Here, we learn that the kind of giving love that fills and changes each of us from Yehovah’s generated source of all love is something that is available to each of us IF we so choose to empty ourselves in his presence and to become naked and exposed in front of him so that he can fill us and change us with his special generated love from above. Therefore, we must not forget this principle: Yehovah rejoices IN THE TRUTH. Let’s look at this through the lens of Proverbs 29:18, which I addressed in greater detail in podcast Episode 80 and Part 16 of this teaching series.

In English, here is Proverbs 29:18 from the NKJV:

Now, let’s take a look at this statement as it could be understood from its original Hebrew text:

This statement of running loose, wild, free, disheveled, and out of control comes from the Hebrew word Pey Resh Ayin – par'ah. From this, we get the term Pharaoh פרעה. In other words, scripture considers Pharaoh to be a despot, a tyrannical ruler who is always singularly in control over all the subjects of his kingdom. He was considered a god/man who was never accountable to anyone; always running loose, wild, free, disheveled, and out of anyone's purview of accountability and control; a man who could pride himself not in serving his people but in being served by the people. Scripture considers him a kind of free-flowing, I'm-in-charge, do-my-own-thing, and don’t-get-in-my-way kinda guy. But, here is where this gets more interesting.

When we peek into the image of the Hebrew spelling of פרעה – Pharaoh (Pey Resh Ayin Heh) and read it as a kind of mirror image from the normal right to left reading of the word in Hebrew, strangely, it gives us two additional terms. First, the term ערף – Oref (Ayin Resh Phey) which means rigid, stiff-necked, unbending, dogmatic, inflexible, unyielding, and obstinate. Second, the name ערפה Orpah (Ayin Resh Peh Heh) which is the name of a Moabite woman who was a daughter-in-law to Naomi in the Book of Ruth. In Hebrew, Orpah bears a close connection to the term Pharaoh meaning free-flowing and obstinate. So, in comparing these terms, we essentially get some reflective word pictures of the various ideas and names written about in the biblical narratives.

Biblical names and their embedded ideas can be seriously intertwined and will oftentimes give us meanings that speak volumes of absolute Truth perhaps even more straightforward than we can even imagine when compared to simply looking at English translations of the biblical terminology in Hebrew. This is where I think Paul is right on target when he writes in 1 Corinthians 13:6

In other words, to rejoice in THE TRUTH, it can mean that we must also own our words and our actions as it relates to THE TRUTH and not seek to cover up or hide behind THE TRUTH by lying and calling it "Truth."

Let us start with THE TRUTH as it is embedded into begins The Name of Yehovah יהוה (Yud Heh Vav Heh), which is a biblical abbreviation for the longer meaning of the phrase in Exodus 3:14:

The Name Yehovah יהוה (Yud Heh Vav Heh) is THE TRUTH: Take a look at this from Psalm 115 -

Simply, it is impossible for Yehovah to rejoice in iniquity; that is the bending, twisting, and corrupting of HIS TRUTH with the introduction of original sin in Genesis 3:6 and Genesis 3:22. Yehovah's nature will never permit him to rejoice in iniquity because Yehovah is all about rejoicing in THE TRUTH since this is who he is. Hence, Yeshua's statement:

Consequently, in accepting this declaration from Yeshua, we are then written down into Yehovah's Scroll of Heaven or better said, into his Book of Life, as it was decreed when Yeshua said to his disciples, who were feeling pretty good about their great successes in coming against invisible and dark demonic forces that were following them everywhere:

In another place, Yeshua’s disciples had become pretty angry about the attitude of the Northern Kingdom of Israel Samaritans and their rejection and dishonor of Yeshua and His Messianic words and actions. Consequently, the disciples said to him:

Yeshua’s response?

This principle matches with some additional words of Yeshua:

This, of course, draws us into receiving the gift of Yehovah’s Love as it is referenced for us in the establishing of Yeshua's New Covenant theology:

Yes, with our name written in Heaven, it means our name is written down into Yehovah’s Scroll or Book of Life.

And Paul clearly understood this message when he wrote the following words:

In a converse manner, rejecting Yehovah's free gift of salvation in Messiah Yeshua can mean only one thing, at least according to his written Law - the Torah:

This leads me to a follow-up question: Exactly who is this one that can be held guilty for sinning"against me,” as Yehovah said? I think the answer is, once again, exactly as Yeshua spells it out:

And then there is this confirming. statement:

On a more joyful note, there are these rejoicing New Covenant statements giving all humanity some much-needed hope through Yeshua:

So, once again, we return back to the Book of Hebrews and to this specific declaration about the New Covenant:

We learn from this that IF we approach Yehovah IN and THROUGH his Sent One Yeshua, then a legal redemption purchase is accomplished and applied to our fallen inherited state of being born into this world with THE INIQUITY; that is, the bent and twisted passed-down image from the seed of the Serpent in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good but Evil. Paul calls the fruit of this tree the Law of Sin and Death, because of what is written into the Eternal Law of Yehovah:

IN and THROUGH Yeshua, Yehovah has something to greatly rejoice in; that the sentence of judgment in The Law (His LAW) -"in dying you will die," this is legally satisfied by the Deaths and Resurrection actions of THE TRUTH. Thus, the Second Death as it is mentioned in Genesis 2:17 can no longer make any future claim on our soul when we come to stand before Yehovah because we are standing before him in the Name of Yeshua, based on such "Suffering Servant" teachings as Isaiah 53. This, of course, can be and should be to each of us a trusted confirmation that Yehovah's Second Death decree, according to His Law, is fully and legally satisfied, period. So therefore, Paul correctly writes saying:

Yehovah rejoices in the actions of THE TRUTH in that he wants us to happily and abundantly receive this Love. By faith, in receiving his actions of THE TRUTH, he then wants us to respond by DOING justness, SHOWING compassion, and WALKING humbly with him; pouring out unto others what he has already poured into us. Again, this brings Yehovah great joy and so Paul writes:

And again he says in another place:

This is precisely the basis for the following dialogue between Yeshua and Marta (Martha) concerning the physical death of her brother Elazar (Lazarus):

So then we must ask, Why did Yeshua only come so late on the fourth day to resurrect Elazar following his passing away? After all, Marta was concerned in saying, "there is a stench, for he has been dead four days!"

To understand this delay of Yeshua in coming to comfort Elazar's sisters, we must look at THE TRUTH in Malachi 4:2 (which is Malachi 3:20 in the Hebrew text). The narrative concerns the fourth day expected arrival of the Messiah. However, for the prophet Malachi, it was Yehovah's prophetic word in poetry. Malachi spoke about the coming of the"the Sun of Justness" or Righteousness:

This was a known metaphor in ancient Jewish thought, one expressing the theology of Judaism's Messianic healing and resurrection hope, linking it back to the fourth day creation story of the Great Luminary - the Sun:

The Great luminary, in Hebrew שמש - shemesh (Sheen Mem Sheen) is terminology for the Sun and its sunlight radiating outward on the fourth day of the seven-day creation story. However, down through the centuries, this fourth day image of the sun and its sunlight came to be understood much like a countdown clock for the arrival of Yehovah Messiah. Consider this from Psalm 90:4 that a day is like a 1,000 years.

The ancient prophets had a known expectation that Messiah would arrive at the end of three full days of a thousand years each meaning that as the year 4,000 began to dawn since the making of Adam in Genesis 2:7, the prophets were looking for this coming Messianic healing of the "Sun of Justness"; that is, Messiah THE TRUTH was expected to come with healing in his wings of covering - a Messianic image of the Hebrew word כפר (K'far) - a covering payment (atonement) for original sin. So, Yeshua said concerning this:

He was The Expected One who came as the one sent by his Father to bear THE WORD OF THE TRUTH to the Israel of Elohim (the Israel of God). He fulfilled the theological Hebrew expectation for the coming of the Sun of Righteousness (or Justness) - שמש shemesh. However, in working with the Hebrew vowel-pointing system, the pronunciation of the word שמש shemesh (Sun) can also be read as שמש shamash - a Servant, which is what Yeshua said:

With the arrival of this Servant, King, and Sent One from the Father, there was indeed a great joy in that THE TRUTH had arrived, anticipating a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that a Just and Complete Messianic redemption for all was going to become available to all who would call upon THE TRUTH in The Name of Yehovah. This was a great testimony widely received with gladness of joy, at least, by the common people of the Land:

With the arrival of Yeshua on the fourth day of the passing away of Elazar in his physical death, recall that there was a short dialogue recorded between Marta and Yeshua:

Indeed, this is something to truly rejoice in, recalling that in the same way, Yehovah rejoices in all those who will hear His Voice, THE VOICE OF THE WORD and THE TRUTH as it is recorded for us in Yeshua’s arbitrating prayer:

Now with this, let us look at the next couple of statements of Yeshua's prayer:

This idea matches theologically with what Paul said concerning the testimony of our actions through the congregation of the Messiah:

Here we learn that THE WORD OF THE TRUTH is the Name of the Person of Messiah who WAS, IS, and WILL BE called THE TRUTH forever; the one who is also manifested to the world through his congregation who is supposed to be growing into the image of THE WORD OF THE TRUTH. This makes awesome sense in light of another of Yeshua's declarations:

This brings us back to an important New Covenant declaration from Yochanan (John):

And also this statement from Paul:

When Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:6 that Love rejoices in THE TRUTH, there can be no mistake with the interpretation because to rejoice in THE TRUTH means to rejoice in THE WORD and to rejoice in THE WORD means to rejoice in THE TORAH and to rejoice in the TORAH means to rejoice in THE LAW:

THE WORD, THE TRUTH, and THE LAW are not just statements of some vague concepts of speech or a bunch of words that encompass a lot of general philosophical and/or theological ideas. Rather, THE WORD, THE TRUTH, and THE LAW are all specific Names for The Messiah, who IS the Person or Soul of Yehovah; the Sent One of the Father who came to the nation of Israel in the flesh in order to accomplish a complete and freely given Messianic redemption for all of us:

But as it has been taught through the Judaism's of the past twenty centuries, obeying "Scripture" supposedly delivers Messianic JUSTNESS to us. But never in scripture do we ever see this idea expressed because scripture IS NOT meant to take the place of the Messiah of our Salvation. Rather, scripture is given to us as a kind of homing signal to lead us to Shem'a or Hear the Voice of the Messiah of our Salvation; and so Yeshua said to the religious leaders of his day:

Hence, we learn more about the Messiah - THE TRUTH from these statements:

Based on this, this is NOT referring to Scripture (again, see John 5:39 ) or if you wish, the Bible. This is referring to the One that Moses wrote of saying:

This, indeed, was a Messianic prophecy for the coming of THE TRUTH as it was understood by numerous late Second Temple period teachers of Judaism such as Peter (Kefa) who was a disciple of Yeshua. He said:

Once again, this sends us back to THE WORD in Yeshua who spoke to the religious leaders of his day:

In receiving and accepting the Love of Yehovah, one will also receive THE TRUTH of Yehovah to prove that His Love has taken root in the soul. Conversely, rejecting the freely given Love of Yehovah, this most certainly means that one is thus rejecting THE TRUTH of Yehovah and therefore can expect to remain under the Curse of the Law (Galatians 3:10 ), referring to the Law of Sin and Death in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good but Evil. Of course, with this scenario, there is only one destiny for that rejection: the two deaths of Genesis 2:17:

So Moses writes:

This fulfils the following point:

So does Paul say that Yehovah יהוה DOES NOT rejoice in iniquity but he rejoices in THE TRUTH:

At this point, I hope, we can better appreciate the depths of Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 13:6 that Yehovah does not nor can he rejoice in the עון ahvon or twistedness, perversion, and bentness of what is biblically defined as Lawlessness or NO TORAH, which gives us the English term iniquity. Choosing to remaining content to pursue a truth of our own making results in a futile attempt to essentially save our life on our own terms:

But we must remember that Yehovah cannot nor will he ever turn away from his own Law implying that it is possible for him to potentially turn a blind eye towards one who chooses a life of unredeemed original sin, which is to be bent and twisted from the Law of Sin and Death in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good but Evil. Once again, however, let Yehovah's judgment remain TRUE to mean that HE MUST judge by His written Decree of Law that says in Genesis 2:17:

This confirms the whole biblical teaching that no corruption can or will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, which is the future Messianic Kingdom of Messiah THE WORD. This is why Yeshua told us to go out into all the world and to announce this Good News of Messiah's two Deaths and Third Day Resurrection Redemption in the Name of Yeshua: His WAY, His TRUTH, and His LIFE:

* Command in English is gramatically linked to the Hebrew word Mitzvah which derives from the Hebrew root Tzav which means a connection.

Avi ben Mordechai

www.cominghome.co.il

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