Class Notes: 4/19/2009

After his Resurrection TLJC made the Victorious Proclamation to the demons who were incarcerated in Tartarus

Since we are in the Easter Season that started with the vernal equinox on March 20 that was followed by the new moon on March 26, for the past several weeks we have been studying the Jewish Calendar and Holy Days that are Regulated by the Moon and Stars that are used to determine the time of our Lord's crucifixion, burial, and his resurrection that we celebrate on Resurrection Sunday that is aka Easter.

We have seen that the Spring Feasts that relate to the First Advent of TLJC are:

Passover (Pesach): Nisan 14, This year is on Wednesday (April 8, 2009) (the crucifixion of TLJC)

Unleavened Bread: Nisan 15. This year is on Thursday (April 9, 2009)

First Fruits: Nisan 18. This year is on Sunday (April 12, 2009) (the celebration of the resurrection of TLJC)

Pentecost (Shabuoth): Sivan 6, This year on Sunday (May 31, 2009) (The Holy Spirit was sent, beginning the Church age)

Picking up where we left off last time where we left off last time where we were discussing the Victorious Proclamation that TLJC made to the demons that were incarcerated in Tartarus because of their attack on mankind in the antediluvian period.

Before the Nephilim were destroyed by the flood, the justice of God court marshaled the Bene ha Elohim, and permanently removed them from further participation in the Invisible War, and detained them in the Tartarus compartment of Hades.

2Peter 2:4; For if God did not spare the angels (Bene ha Elohim) when they sinned, and He did not, but sequestered them down to Tartarus ("tartaroo") by means of chains of darkness ("zophos"), and delivered them over to be guarded for future judgment (Great White Throne);

The order in which Peter reveals this information indicates that the fallen angels were put into detention in Tartarus before the flood, for Peter continues in the next verse:

2Peter 2:5; For if God did not spare the ancient world (antediluvian civilization), and He did not, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness (communicator of the Gospel), with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly (the unregenerate Nephilim);

First the Bene ha Elohim were removed from the battlefield to Tartarus and then their unregenerate offspring were drowned in the universal flood.

Peter instructs us that the Bene ha Elohim were "guarded for future judgment." This means that Tartarus is a detention center where they will remain sequestered in total darkness until the Great White Throne convenes following the millennial reign of Christ.

This means that this group of demons has no idea about the events that have transpired since their arrest and incarceration.

They know nothing about the flood and the fact that Noah's family survived it by means of the Ark.

They are not familiar with the continuation of the Messianic line through Shem or the perpetuation of the line through Abraham and the new racial species.

They are ignorant of the development of the nation Israel and the Messianic line from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

They know nothing of the Abrahamic and Palestinian Covenants that established Israel as God's Client Nation.

They are completely unaware of the Davidic Covenant and the line continuing through the tribe of Judah, House of David.

They have missed all the details regarding the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, and the Crucifixion.

And by the time of the Resurrection they are clueless about the fact that they, along with the rest of the fallen angels, have been completely defeated in the appeal trial by the strategic victory of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The justice of God that stands behind this incarceration is found in: Jude 6 - The angels who did not maintain their own domain ("keep their first estate": KJV) but abandoned their proper abode, Jesus Christ has kept in eternal chains of darkness ("zophos") for the judgment of the great day (Great White Throne).

We have no record of the content of His proclamation to the demons in Tartarus.

However, from what is revealed in scripture we can determine that He informed these imprisoned demons that their attempt to prevent Him from entering into human history as the Messiah had failed.

He explained to them the gospel although it could not possibly have been efficacious for them since their eternal future was already determined. However, the Lord no doubt informed them of the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, His hypostatic union, the events on the cross including the ordeal of being judged and receiving punishment for them the sins of the world as substitute.

He would have highlighted the Resurrection and explained how it was the undeniable proof that the Father was propitiated or satisfied with His work on the cross.

He proclaimed His strategic victory over Satan and all the fallen angels including the Bene ha Elohim.

Some of what the Lord had to say can be reconstructed from what the writer of Hebrews wrote Hebrews 2:9-17; where we find information about our Lord and a clear picture of who and what Jesus is and how He achieved victory in the angelic conflict.

Since they have been imprisoned, this information is unknown to the Bene ha Elohim and becomes an excellent resource to reconstruct the content of our Lord's victorious proclamation.

Heb 2:9; This verse begins with an adversative explanatory conjunction "de" that is translated "But" that is followed by the first person plural of the present active indicative verb: " blepo " translated "we see"

The progressive present tense signifies action in progress or persistence. When in the indicative mood it is related to present time.

The active voice shows that the believer produces the action of the verb and the declarative indicative mood states the fact that a believer with doctrine is able to pick out what is important and emphasize it.

So an expanded translation is "we keep on seeing"

In Heb 2:8; there is a different verb that is translated "to see," the present active indicative of "horao" in the phrase "But now we do not see all things subjected to Him"

The verb "horao" in verse 8 means to "have perception as a result of seeing." You see something, you analyze it, and you understand it.

What is understood "or seen" is that in the present dispensation (the church age), we do not see all things made subject to the authority of Jesus Christ. Since this is the devil's world many people and their ideas and activities are not subject to Christ but to Satan.

On the other hand, we also understand that in the millennial reign of Christ, all things will be subject to Him.

In verse 9 we find " blepo "which emphasizes the glance of the eye causing someone to see something of importance; something that catches his attention.

The two sentences are antithetical.

Verse 8 says that we do not see that all things in the kosmos are in subjection to Christ.

However, verse 9 says that we do see Jesus in honor and glory while we live in the kosmos with it's environment of rebellion, discord and disaster.

In the midst of this chaos it is Jesus who catches our attention.

The believer in Jesus Christ has the potential to face the problems of life with a mental perspective not available to others.

No matter how difficult the circumstances, the believer can focus on the ultimate victory of our Lord at the Second Advent while the battles and warfare of the present rage around them.

The mental attitude that makes this viewpoint a reality is the problem solving device we call "Occupation with Christ".

Occupation with Christ is the ultimate problem-solving device and one of three related to virtue love. Personal love for God is the believer's motivational virtue. This is reciprocal love that responds to God's undiminished love for us from eternity past.

This is the foundation for unconditional love for all mankind, the functional virtue of the believer's execution of the royal law. These problem-solving devices place the believer in the cognitive invincibility of spiritual adulthood.

The believer's advance to occupation with Christ places them in spiritual maturity. In this status they share the happiness of God in the face of any circumstance in life. It is the mental attitude and thinking of Christ during the Incarnation.

This thinking results in occupation with Christ rather than preoccupation with people and circumstances where emphasis and focus on God and is provision and solutions takes precedence over the people and circumstances in one's environment.

When one perceives or sees Jesus as the highest value in life one is beginning to enter "occupation with Christ".

The fallen angels of Tartarus knew that man was created to resolve the angelic conflict, therefore if man is not allowed to function in this role, the rules of engagement have been violated.

Their survival outside the lake of fire depended upon their leader, Lucifer, being able to out think and outmaneuver God

Thus Heb 2:9; takes up the subject of the resolution of the Invisible War by drawing our attention to a Man, made lower than the angels in His true humanity but elevated to a position higher than the angels in hypostatic union and resurrection body.

Heb 2:9; But we keep on seeing something of value, namely Jesus, and only Jesus …

Next comes the phrase "who was made," the perfect passive participle of:
"elattoo" that is translated "having been made inferior"

The perfect tense emphasizes the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, and the Crucifixion as a completed action.

According to Dana and Mantey in their Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament.

The perfect is the tense of complete action. Its basic significance is the progress of an act or state to a point of culmination and the existence of its finished results. The point of completion is always antecedent to the time implied or stated in connection with the use of the perfect.

From this past completed action there are permanent results about which the demons are ignorant but will be informed.

The Passive voice indicates that the subject, in this case TLJC, receives the action of being made lower than the angels.

God restored the world to a state of pristine perfection for habitation by the First Adam and gave it to him to rule. When Adam failed, God decreed to give the world to Jesus Christ but only after He wins the victory of the cross and his true humanity is elevated in to a position greater than the angels'.

At the appointed time (at the beginning of the millennium) the Lord will restore the world to its previous status quo of perfection that existed in the Garden of Eden.

The participle in the perfect tense indicates that the completed action is antecedent to the action of the main verb which is our seeing Jesus crowned.

An example that illustrates the impact of the perfect tense is our Lord's proclamation of victory on the cross found in John 19:30; - "It is finished!"

This is one word in the Greek, the intensive perfect passive indicative of "Tetelestai". that is properly translated as "finished in the past with results that go on forever"

This statement points backward to an accomplished task that was completely finished prior to the time of his speaking and refers to a present state as a result of a past completed action.

Jesus, was still physically alive when he spoke of His work on the cross as an accomplished fact.

This shows us that the debt paid in judgment for our sins was not his physical death but rather his spiritual death because this was stated prior to his physical death.

Heb 2:9; "But having been made inferior to the angels for a brief period …

Those to whom Jesus was made inferior in His true humanity were the angels, including the Bene ha Elohim:

The fact that this is a past action that has been completed is emphasized by the adverb of time; the Greek word " brachus ' that means "for a brief period, "referring to his brief time (30 years) in unglorified humanity in the incarnation.

From this opening remark in Tartarus, the demons learn that for a brief period, Messiah was placed in a lower in rank than theirs. They may have even assumed the possibility that the Lord's mission to resolve humanity's sin problem could have failed.

But such a delusion is immediately shattered by the revelation of the reason why Messiah was made lower or inferior to them.

This is found in the preposition "dia"plus the accusative which indicates the reason why something happens, and is translated "because of." Next comes the accusative of the Greek word "pathema" that is translated "the suffering"

This suffering is described by the direct object of the Greek word "thanatos" that is translated as "death" referring to the spiritual death the Lord suffered on the cross when he was being judged as a substitute for the sins of all mankind.

During the period in which our Lord was inferior to the angels, in His true humanity, He became an impeccable substitute for the sins of the world.

The judgment of those sins resulted in the suffering of the cross.

Heb 2:9; But having been made inferior to angels for a brief period ( impeccable true humanity during the Incarnation ) because of the suffering of spiritual death, we keep on seeing something of value, Jesus and only Jesus.

The curse that was placed on this world following Adam's fall is an intractable disorder that was caused by Lucifer's mismanagement of his domain, a circumstance commented on by Lewis Sperry Chafer in his Systematic Theology. Vol. 2 on Page 100:

Satan's dominant purpose is not, as the popular impression supposes, one of attempting to be unlike God. Satan has explicitly asserted concerning himself, as recorded in Isa 14:14;, that his transcendent objective is to be like the Most High.

The system which Satan has constructed includes all the good which he can incorporate into it and be consistent in the thing he aims to accomplish.

A question arises regarding weather the presence of gross evil in the world is due to Satan's intention to have it so, or whether it indicates Satan's inability to execute all he has designed. The probability is great that Satan's ambition has led him to undertake more than any creature could ever administer.

Our attention is drawn away from this hostile environment of the devil's world where all is not yet subordinate to the Lord's leadership and we focus our attention on something that catches our eye and gives us confidence and comfort in the midst of the battle.

What catches our attention is knowledge of the fact that Jesus Christ has won the strategic victory on the cross and at His session in heaven He was recognized to be higher than the angels. This is brought out by the perfect passive participle of the verb "stephanoo" that is translated "crowned".

The perfect tense emphasizes the session of our Lord at the right hand of the throne of God as a completed action.

Remember the perfect tense is the tense of complete action. Its basic significance is the progress of an act or state to a point of culmination and the existence of its finished results. The point of completion is always antecedent to the time implied or stated in connection with the use of the perfect.

The passive voice indicates that the Lord receives the action of being crowned King of kings, a title that will be fulfilled at the beginning of the millennium at the second advent when he becomes the visible ruler of the kingdoms of this world.

At that time, Satan will be dethroned as the "ruler of this world" as our Lord assumes the title for His millennial reign.

The participle \with the perfect tense states that the completed action is antecedent to the action of the main verb which is our seeing Jesus crowned, translated: "having been crowned."

Heb 2:9; Those things with which He is crowned are mentioned next as "glory and honor" Both "glory" and "honor" are datives of personal interest. Glory is an attribute of deity but is given to the true humanity of Jesus at His session by God the Father.

Lucifer and the fallen angels sought to acquire glory by means of rebellion. However, glory is never given to the fallen angels and the only Man who has received glory is the resurrected Christ.

The etymology of the Greek word "doxa" that is translated "glory", goes back to Homer and Herodotus who used the word to describe what one thinks or his opinions.

When such thoughts and opinions constitute a personal evaluation of someone, then doxa means "renown, reputation, esteem, honor, or virtue."

These are the attitudes of reciprocity toward God that are expressed by those who "glorify" Him.

When mankind extends glory and honor to God or Christ it does not imply that man is able to produce this glory and honor.

However, by means of spiritual growth through the PMA of Bible Doctrine, man is able to realize the reputation of God and Christ, come to respect it and through reciprocity, honor these virtues by means of thought, worship, and the execution of the divine mandates of the PPOG. These are functions of reciprocity.

During the ascension, Jesus Christ led the Triumphal Procession into heaven and on arrival He was seated at the right hand of God. This is the position of highest honor and indicates that God the Father had imputed to the Lord's resurrected humanity the glory and honor that belongs only to deity.

1Tim 3:16; By consent of all, great is the mystery of the spiritual life (the prototype divine power system, tested, proved worthy, and bequeathed to the royal family as the operational system for executing the spiritual life of the Church Age ):

He, the unique One ( TLJC in hypostatic union ), Who became visible in human body ( true humanity ). This same One was vindicated by the agency of the Holy Spirit ( the sustaining ministry of the Holy Spirit during the Incarnation ); He was observed carefully by angels ( both elect and fallen with the exception of the Bene ha Elohim who were in incarcerated in Tartarus). He was proclaimed among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up in glory.


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