UNIVERSITY PRESS

Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D.



Jesus Christ
The Passion

The Covenant With God
by Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D.

"You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the LORD your God, a covenant the LORD is making with you this day and sealing with an oath." -Deuteronomy 29:12

"Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands." -Deuteronomy 7

:9 In the book of Daniel, it was prophecied that the Messiah would appear, seventy weeks of years (490 years) after "the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem."

What is known as the "Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks" was proclaimed around 500 B.C., after the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah and the sacking and burning of the first Temple of Jerusalem--God's punishment against the Jews for violating his first covenant.

Thus, the coming of the Messiah, and the second covenant with God, was to become a reality, sometime around the year 10 B.C.

According to prophecy, the appearance of the Messiah would be followed by an Era of Righteousness, in which all people and all the nations of the world would live in harmony and without war or sin. Universal justice would prevail and the ideal of the Brotherhood of Man would become a reality. The Messiah would seal God's second covenant and would rule the world. War, poverity, and injustice, would be no more.

"With righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist." -Isaiah 11.

"He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. -Isaiah 2:4, -Micah 4:3

All men and women would worship and be ruled by the One True God and in so doing, they would reach a state of perfection achieved through justice, righteousness, and total obedience to God.

The Jews believed that this World Theocracy was to be governed by "a Kingdom of priests and a holy nation" the state of Israel:

"And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth." -Deuteronomy 28, 1.

This was also the promise of the First Convenant, which God made with the children of Israel, after Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt, and onward to the Promised Land.

"And the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey..."

Yet the promise of the First Covenant could only be realized if the Jews could themselves reach a state of perfection through justice, righteousness, and blind obedience to the will of God and his commandments (Exodus 20):

1 And God spake all these words, saying,

2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which theLORD thy God giveth thee.

13 Thou shalt not kill.

14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.

15 Thou shalt not steal.

16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

"And Moses with the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, Keep all the commandments which I command you this day....This day the LORD thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments: thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart, and with all thy soul. Thou hast avouched the LORD this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, and to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and to hearken unto his voice: And the LORD hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments; And to make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honour; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the LORD thy God, as he hath spoken" -Deuteronomy 26.

"If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your forefathers. Deuteronomy 7:12

"If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the LORD gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God, they are in violation of his covenant." -Deuteronomy 17:2

"Tell them that this is what the LORD , the God of Israel, says: 'Cursed is the man who does not obey the terms of this covenant." - Jeremiah 11:3

Yet, despite these warnings, the people of Israel had failed and yet failed again, to uphold the laws of god. They had repeatedly sinned and broken the covenant. And the Jewish people were repeatedly punished by God for their transgresssions, and finally, around 500 BC, their cities were destroyed, the Temple was destroyed, and they were driven from the Promised Land, just as God had promised:

"And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone." -Deuteronomy 28, 63-64

Punishment followed punishment. The people failed God time and again. Some began to believe that it was impossible for the people to maintain the laws. Many believed only through the direct intervention of God, could the people achieve the heavenly ideal, and that could only be accomplished by a Messiah.

The Messiah would offer the people a New Covenant and new laws, and eternal salvation.

"The time is coming," declares the LORD , "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant. "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people." -Jeremiah 11, 31, Hebrews 8.

"For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath. Behold, saith the Lord, the days come that I will make a New Convenant with the house of Israel." -Deuteronomy 4:31

God, it was believed, would lead the people to perfection and offer them salvation and ever lasting life, by means of an Anointed One--a man like Moses, a Priest-king whose bloodline, whose "Branch of righteousness" would spring from King David, and "he shall execute judgment and reighteousness in the land."

It was to be this man, this "son of David," this Messiah, a God-appointed King of the Jews, who would usher in the Kingdom of God and an era of ever lasting Righteousness. But first, the Messiah would have to teach, preach, and lead the Jewish people to righteousness, and reestablish the relationship with God that had been established at the Covenant of Sinai when Moses led the people out of bondage from Egypt and onward to the Promised Land.





Jesus Christ
The Passion

And the Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

ISBN 0-9749755-4-0

350 pages, $14.05


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CONTENTS

    Part I: Jesus Christ - The Passion

  • The Passion of Jesus: Death....

  • The Covenant With God...

  • The Last Times....

  • John the Baptist - Messenger of God...

  • Who and What Is the Messiah....

  • Is Jesus the Messiah....

  • The Messiah Must Die....

  • The Family of Jesus....

  • A Messiah is Born.....

  • Jesus Is Called to Marriage....

  • Born Again Into the Family of God.....

  • John the Baptist: Annointing the Messiah ....

  • The Annointing: Born Again....

  • The Spirit of Temptation....

  • The Messiah Begins His Mission ....

  • The Secret Messiah....

  • The Old and New Convenant...

  • The Harvest Is Plenteous. The Labourers Are Few...

  • Gentiles Receive The New Convenant ....

  • They Repented Not: The Message of Jesus Rejected....

  • The Murder of John the Baptist ...

  • Onward to Judah and Jerusalem....

  • The Kingdom of Heaven: The Disciples Doubt & Do Not Understand....

  • The Death and Ressurrection of Lazarus....

  • The Triumphal Entry Into Jerusalem & the Temple of God....

  • Passover: Sacrifice of the Lamb of God...

  • Jesus Betrayed: The Last Supper...

  • The Arrest and Trial of Jesus Christ....

  • The Crucifixion...

  • The Death of Jesus...

  • The Destruction of Jerusalem...

  • The Anti-Christ....




  • Jesus Christ
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    BOOK SALES
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    Astrobiology...
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    NeuroTheology
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    Hitler's Diaries
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    Transmitter to God...
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