2 Cor. 4:18
Jesus said: “Don’t think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17). And, in order to fulfill the law, Jesus Christ had to be born under the law. Paul says: “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born to a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of children” (Gal. 4:4-5). And, in order to fulfill the law, Jesus had to be born in the flesh to be like us, lost sinners.
The apostle John says: “The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). And what was the glory of Jesus? TO BE WITHOUT SIN: “For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). The glory of Jesus was not to heal the blind, lame, leprous, and crippled men. Jesus performed these miracles by the hundreds, but he forbade the healed persons to divulge them. After the Sermon of the Mount Jesus went down and a great multitude followed him. And, behold, a leper came and worshipped him, saying: “Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean. Jesus stretched out his hand, and touched him, saying, ‘I want to. Be made clean.’ Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Jesus said to him, ‘See that you tell nobody’” (Matt. 8:1-4). Jesus was ashamed of being glorified for external physical signs, but those who were healed proclaimed them. Another time Jesus healed two blind men, and in order that they did not tell anyone, Jesus threatened them, saying: “See that no one knows about this” (Matt. 9:27-30).
Jesus was glorified with invisible miracles operated in the hearts of those who were regenerated. Jesus was glorified when Paul died to the law of Jehovah and was born to the gospel of Christ (Gal. 2:19-20; 1:11-12). Jesus was glorified when Paul died to the law of Jehovah and was born to the gospel of Christ (Gal. 2:19-20; 1:11-12). Jesus was glorified when a woman who was a sinner, being converted, came into the house of the Pharisee Simon where Jesus was eating. The woman came into the house with a vase of fine aromatic oil and, weeping, washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. She kissed his feet and anointed them with the oil (Luke 7:36-38). Jesus was not glorified in the things that were seen, but in the things that were not seen, because the things that are seen are temporal, and the things that are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). In this rested the glory of Jesus.
In the Old Testament the glory of god Jehovah was revealed in pestilences and plagues, rods transformed in serpents, water turned into blood, pillars of smoke during the day and pillars of fire during the night. Jehovah himself declares it, saying: “…all those men who have seen my glory, and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice; surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers” (Num. 14:22-23).
Holiness, to Jehovah, was found in outward things. For example, when Moses saw the bush that was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed, at the foot of Mount Horeb, he found it strange and came near it to see. Then Jehovah said: “‘Moses! Moses!’ He said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Don’t come close. Take your sandals off of your feet, for the place you are standing on is holy ground’” (Ex. 3:1-5). Earth is earth. Any unclean animal could defile that place. Or was it holy because it was Jehovah’s property, maybe? Another example: The temple of Jehovah was holy. Inside it was the sanctuary, and following the second veil was the Holy of Hollies, where the Ark of the Covenant was placed together with the tablets of the law. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple of the law, the place of his dwelling, in the year 597 before Christ. He also destroyed the holy city, that is to say, Jerusalem (2 Chr. 36:18). Jehovah is the owner of all gold and silver (Hagg. 2:8). Inside the temple was the place of the treasure of Jehovah: holy treasure: tons of gold and silver. It was all taken to Babylon and became part of the treasure of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Chr. 36:18). But who is Nebuchadnezzar? He is the great king of Babylon. And what is Babylon? It is Babel. And Babel means CONFUSION, CHAOS (Gen. 11:1-9). Jehovah was plundered by Nebuchadnezzar — his holy utensils (Ex. 40:9-11), his holy temple, the place of his dwelling (1 Kings 8:12-13), the holy city of Jerusalem, where Jehovah also lived (Ezra 2:68; Ps. 132:13-14; 135:21). All that was holy was stolen or destroyed. Jehovah, then, prophesied the restoration of the holy city and the holy temple. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah recount this great episode. Ezra and Zerubbabel were sent with a company of 1,800 men. They went to Jerusalem to restore the temple and the city. Jehovah said that the glory of the second temple would be greater than the glory of the first, edified by Solomon. But it was destroyed a second time in the year 70 after Christ, and has never been rebuilt. Two thousand and five hundred years have gone by. In the temple’s place rises the Mosque of Omar, a Muslim temple that has been there for 1,400 years. The temple of Solomon stood there less than 500 years.
Let us cover another issue. Nebuchadnezzar is the figure of Satan. Jeremiah, the prophet, reveals that the king of Babylon is a devouring dragon, and the dragon is Satan (Rev. 12:9; Jer. 51:34). There is another stronger argument in the Bible. In the book of Isaiah we have a prophecy directed to Nebuchadnezzar. I begins like this: “…that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, ‘How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased! Jerusalem has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that none restrained’” (Is. 14:4-6). And theologians, Christians in general, and all the Christian churches since the apostolic times credit to Satan the prophecy against Nebuchadnezzar (Is. 14:11-17).
If Nebuchadnezzar is really a figure of Satan, Jehovah has been overcome and plundered by Satan.
- The kingdom that Jehovah established was destroyed by the devil (2 Kings 23:27).
- The law and the priesthood of Jehovah were destroyed by the devil (Heb. 7:12-19; Mal. 2:1-3).
- The people of Jehovah were seduced by the devil (John 8:44).
- The covenant of Jehovah was destroyed by the devil (Jer. 31:31-34).
- The covenant of Jehovah is not the covenant of Christ. Paul explains it in Gal. 4:21-31).
By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira