God Was Already Gone
And Yakov Was There
Part 8 of 8
The Empty House
Here is what must be said plainly, and without evasion.
While Yakov knelt in the temple, day after day, year after year, callousing his knees on its floors, praying for the people, maintaining his position at the center of the structure he believed to be the dwelling place of YHWH, the God of Israel had already left the building.
This is not a Christian assertion laid over a Jewish story. This is what the Talmud records. Written by the rabbis who succeeded the temple establishment. Men who had every reason to preserve the glory of what had been and no reason whatever to record its failure.
They wrote it because it happened. Because it was undeniable. Because the temple itself was behaving as though something fundamental had changed.
During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the lot for the Lord did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-colored strap become white; nor did the westernmost light shine; and the doors of the Hekal would open by themselves.
Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yoma 39b
Forty Years
Beginning at the Cross
Forty years before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD places the beginning of these signs precisely at 30 AD, the year of the cross. From that year forward, without exception, four things ceased to function as they had for centuries.
The eternal flame of the western lamp, kept burning with extra oil, extra care, constant vigilance by the priests, went out. Every night. For forty years. Over twelve thousand consecutive nights it would not stay lit. No matter what the priests did.
The scarlet thread tied to the scapegoat on Yom Kippur, which had turned white every year for generations, signifying that the atonement had been received, remained crimson. The color of blood that would not be cleansed. For forty years the sacrifice was not accepted.
The lot cast by the high priest, which had historically come up in the right hand, the hand of favor and blessing, came up in the left hand. Every single year. For forty years. The mathematical odds against this are incomprehensible.
And the great doors of the temple would not stay closed. They opened by themselves every night. The priests would shut them and find them open in the morning. Massive doors. Twenty men to move them. And they stood open.
O Temple, why do you frighten us? We know that you will end up destroyed. For it has been said: Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars.
Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Yoma 6:3 — Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai
What the Open Doors Declared
The leading rabbi of that generation stood before the temple and addressed it directly. Why do you frighten us? The doors that would not stay shut were frightening the priests. The eternal flame that would not stay lit was frightening them. The scarlet thread that would not turn white was frightening them. The lot that kept coming up in the wrong hand was frightening them.
They knew. They could not say what they knew, but they knew. Something had fundamentally changed. The presence that had inhabited this structure, that had made it holy, that had required guarding and ritual and the careful separation of the clean from the unclean — was gone.
The veil was torn from top to bottom. The eternal flame went out.
The scarlet thread stayed red. The doors would not close.
God was gone from the building.
The presence of YHWH was no longer housed in a structure, approached through a priesthood, mediated by blood and incense and ritual and the annual lot of the high priest. At the cross, the barrier between the holy place and the rest of creation was removed from above. The presence moved. From a building in Jerusalem to humanity itself. All of humanity. The entire world. For all time.
Yakov Knelt in an Empty House
And Yakov was there. Kneeling. Every day. Callousing his knees. Maintaining his position. Wearing his linen. Keeping his vow. Presiding over a Jerusalem community that remained anchored to the law, to the temple, to the circumcision, to the structure from which the presence of YHWH had already departed, confirmed not by Christian theology but by the Jewish Talmud itself.
He sent teachers into Paul’s churches to tell the Gentiles they needed circumcision. He summoned Paul to perform rites in the temple. He wrote an epistle insisting that faith without works is dead. He presided over the Jerusalem council and rendered his judgment. He was the bishop of a building that God had vacated.
And his name was Yakov. The usurper. The one whose very name, in the language of the text, announces what he is doing, taking hold of something, displacing something, claiming an inheritance through means other than the gift.
The presence of God was now with men. The entire world. Not in Jerusalem. Not in the temple. Not through the priesthood. Not through circumcision or the law or the scapegoat. With men. All men. By the accomplished work of the one whose name means YHWH saves — and whose name they changed so you would not know what it meant.
Names meant everything in the Hebrew text. To change them was to change the understanding of the very text.
We are only now beginning to recover what was lost.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
Published by Audrey Williams