Christian Media

Communiqué

Twin Timelines

Part XII

The last chapter of Twin Timelines recounted the Biblical account of the lifetime of the individual known as Esau who, as the son of Isaac, sold his birthright for physical comfort to his younger brother Jacob. As Esau’s actions prophetically foreshadow many other Biblical themes, this particular pattern has been called the Esau Effect (as articulated by writer Sue Patterson), as it is an important component to the larger subject of Prophetic Parallels. In this phase of the cycle, as it became clear that his father’s blessing was lost along with his birthright (and Esau began to perceive the loss), he sought to regain it by entreating Isaac.

“And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept” (Genesis 27:38).

With a Temporal Recapitulation of his life manifested by his descendants the Edomites -- who sought to re-insert themselves into the family of Israel -- we see the descendants of Esau (then called the Idumaeans) had illegitimately seized the throne of Jerusalem. The Idumaean King Herod thought he could legislate his way back into the grace of God, by passing laws requiring all Idumaeans to be considered Jews.

Just as Esau saw it all slipping away when his father told him the blessing had already gone to Jacob (who is later renamed Israel), we see yet another Prophetic Parallel in Herod when he hears the Saviour of Israel was born. As the Messiah would rightly be heralded as the King of Israel, Herod saw the legitimacy of his reign threatened at the news the Messiah was born in Bethlehem. Thus, just as Esau angrily thought to murder his innocent brother because Jacob had the birthright, in an effort to kill the one child which was the Saviour, Herod ordered the slaughter of all the male children in the village where the Scriptures said Christ was to be born.

“Then Herod…was exceedingly wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under” (Matthew 2:16).

After the original Herod died, and the Christ child was returned to Judaea from his sanctuary in Egypt, the Idumaean dynasty known as the Herodians continued to rule from Jerusalem. The Herods (as Edomite/Idumaeans), were in favor in Rome, as the Gentile Empire of the Caesars found them to be politically useful in controlling the Jews, largely because the Herods were willing to mingle Graeco-Roman customs and religious practices with the Jewish way of life.

Incredibly, there is another, even larger Prophetic Parallel which echoed through Esau, and it reverberated down through history. As the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST took root in the first century AD, many Pharisees, unable to stem the explosive growth of Christianity and, seeing the Jews had lost the exclusive birthright position they had enjoyed under the Old Covenant, sought to re-assert their priesthood by joining the church, and insisting that believers must keep the laws of Moses.

“But there arose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise [the Christians], and to command them to keep the law of Moses” (Acts 15:5).

At the same time, the other Jewish sect (known as the Sadducees), were in the same position as the Pharisees. However, instead of attempting to join the Christians in the hope they could steer the messianic movement back towards a reliance on their Old Covenant priesthood (thereby regaining the influence they had lost in rejecting Jesus), the Sadducees exhibited the lethal streak seen in Esau, when he vowed to kill the one who was anointed by his father.

“And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob” (Genesis 27:41).

The murderous malevolence in Esau is seen in Christ’s parable of the vineyard managers who, upon seeing the son of the vineyard owner, calculated that if they killed the legitimate heir to the vineyard, they could keep their position.

“But those [vineyard managers] said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours” (Mark 12:7).

Thus, the Pharisees and the Sadducees took two different routes to combat the Spiritual explosion that was seen in the Life of Christ in the first century, and both tactics emulated traits seen in Esau. Just as Esau tried to steer an aberrant course for the family of Israel, by leavening the earthly seed through blending his lineage with Gentile wives, the Pharisees sought to regain their standing as sons of God through politically motivated doctrinal maneuvers, in an effort to leaven the Spiritual Seed through mingling the grace of Christ with elements found in the Old Covenant.

“And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1).

Meanwhile, the Sadducees (the other half of the Jewish faith), manifested the murder in Esau’s heart by arresting and executing the Christians.

“And as [the disciples of Jesus] spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them…and they laid hands on them, and put them in [jail] unto the next day” (Acts 4:1, 3).

When the Christians continued to teach the people, “and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead” (Acts 4:2), it was the Sadducees that decreed the verdict of death to the Christians. 

“Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees), and were filled with indignation…Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them” (Acts 5:17, 29, 33).

In each instance, as the two factions within Israel manifested the rebellion within Esau, we see indicators of how the entire nation of Israel turned away from the LORD, and despised their birthright as the chosen people. Esau, the reader will remember, was chosen by the LORD to be the grandson of Abraham, through the grace of God. This is an appropriate place to mention that an individual’s birthright is not something which can be merited, as it is strictly in the sovereign choice of God concerning which family you are born into.

“For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth” (Romans 9:11).

The point of verses such as this, which speak of the concept of election, deal with the provocative subject of predestination. Although God foreordains our lives, as human beings, we have no way of knowing what God’s will is before we meet Him through Christ, so arguing whether we truly have free will, or God predestines our lives, is pointless.

Obviously, there is nothing you can do to merit a good birth before you existed. Indeed, the story of how Esau squandered the astonishing Spiritual blessing of being born into the family the Bible calls chosen is enlightening, as it illustrates several adjacent issues. For instance, in the world of Christianity where literally millions of believers are expecting the “Rapture,” understanding one’s birthright (which became the central issue of Esau’s lifetime), illustrates that very few Christians understand even basic doctrine on crucial subjects such as our Spiritual inheritance. A good example is as follows:

In the New Testament, JESUS CHRIST says in the last days, He will return to gather His elect after the prophesied period called the tribulation.

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days…he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds” (Matthew 29, 31).

Since the verse says Christ comes after the tribulation, most new believers questioning the pre-tribulation Rapture doctrine will ask their pastors (or other Spiritual mentors) to explain this verse. The standard Rapturist response claims the “elect” who are “gathered” are the Jews who become Christians during the tribulation (with the true believers supposedly Raptured years earlier). However, the Apostle Peter, writing to Christians everywhere, instructed those elected to salvation to be absolutely certain they are saved. 

“Simon Peter…to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God through our Saviour Jesus Christ…give diligence to make your calling and election sure…” (II Peter 1:1, 10).

The obvious question is, if to be a part of the elect means to be a Jewish Christian, how does one make certain they are born a Jew?

It is hoped the previous statement will illustrate the tremendous offense inflicted on God by Esau’s sleight, to say nothing of how the cumulative history of Israel followed the same pattern of faithlessness before the LORD. The anger of the LORD toward Esau’s complete disdain for God’s blessing indicates a similar intensity at Israel’s lack of fidelity to the LORD who chose them.

In this regard, the prophet Jeremiah connects both Israel and Judah with Edom, as the Edomites did not exhibit the external sign of being chosen by God – which was circumcision in the Old Testament.

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will punish all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised….Judah, and Edom…and all that are in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart” (Jeremiah 9:25, 26).

Since the sign of salvation in the New Testament is pointedly stated to be “circumcision [which] is that of the heart, in the spirit” (Romans 2:29), the Spirit of the LORD in the prophet sees the non-Christian Israelites in the same vein as the Edomites. Further, the connecting thread of commonality is clearly seen as both parties dishonoured their birthright.

“Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also” (Isaiah 29:13; Jeremiah 3:8).

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul summarizes the case for election in Christ, with the word elect related to being chosen by God – and once again, he cites the example of Esau to make his point. Thus, the life of Esau continued to resonate, through the phenomena of the Prophetic Parallels, down through history. In this instance, Paul is writing about the fate of the Israelites, as they Prophetically Paralleled the pattern established in the life of Esau.

In the text where Paul compares Israel’s apostasy with that of Esau, the brilliant Apostle touches on the pre-birth election (the sovereign purpose of God), as he recounts the story of Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Christians studying Scripture will remember Ishmael was the son of the Egyptian servant girl Hagar, who functioned as a substitute for Sarah (who was obviously too old to bear a child). God had promised Sarah would yet have a son, but she did not believe it; so she arranged for Abraham to impregnate Hagar, so the matriarchal Sarah (the clan of Abraham and his servants then numbering in the hundreds), could have a son to raise.

Because the birth of Ishmael (as the son of the Egyptian Hagar, who grows up to father the Arab nations) was symbolically rooted in the lack of faith that God would keep His promise to give Abraham and Sarah a son, the subsequent miraculous birth of Isaac Prophetically Parallels multiple threads of narratives in the Bible. After all, Sarah was 90 years old (and Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born), so the birth was clearly a major miracle. 

After Hagar bears Ishmael to Abraham, an underlying character trait of Hagar emerges, as she despises Sarah, who was still barren.

“And [Abraham] went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress [Sarah] was despised in her eyes” (Genesis 16:4).

Ironically, in this account we see the “Esau Effect,” even before Esau is born.

-- James Lloyd

To Be Continued

___________________________________________________