The Meaning of the Cross and the Lord’s Prayer, part 2: Passing by Nehushtan

The Lord’s Prayer and the Meaning of the Cross

This thing about the “meaning of the Cross” is far from over in this article. But for now, just consider the Lord’s Prayer that we use all the time as a symbol of our faith and practice of our faith like we do the Cross.

I want you to think about the way we handle the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer as exactly the same as we handle the meaning of the Cross as I describe. This prayer is used as a symbol for something spiritual. Our question is if the meaning is “spiritual” in the sense of the feelings, intuition, ideas, doctrinal propositions, and reasons entertained which could be created in our heads, or spiritual in the sense of the mind of God.

Matthew 6:9-14: After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

• “Our Father, which art in heaven.” God exists as an objective reality
• “Hallowed be thy name.” That is, God’s “name” is good, it speaks of His honor, his sovereignty, his faithfulness, his love. His ability and willingness to fulfill what He promises. When someone has a “good name” or is a “man of his word,” we speak of his history, his ability and honest motivation to do what he says, his reputation. His name is a moral sign that is proven by the record of his works and our expectation of what he will do in the future. This is then a prophetic “name.” This is also a prophecy of a vindication of God’s name that will come on the Cross.
• “Thy kingdom come.” Here is a prophecy. Taking the prior with the next phrase, we have a comprehensive statement on what kind of content to the faith had Jesus and his disciples.
• “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” This is not his general will to do, well, whatever. It’s an explicit reference to the prophetic oracles. It is God’s will that they are fulfilled by Jesus. This is therefore also a prophecy.
• “Give us this day our daily bread.” This does not refer primarily to actual bread since physical bread is of the same quality conceptually as a general will. “Bread” refers to the Word of God (Mat 4:4, Mat 13:19, “word of the kingdom,” Luke 8:11) which is Jesus himself (John 6:35). For the meaning of the “Word of God” go here. “Word of God” has power only when it’s something like “The Prophetic Word of God” in our minds. God gives us this bread, this truth. This is also a prophecy of a near time when the meaning of “bread” will become, with fulfillment by Jesus, of such singular spiritual nourishment.
• “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” This is atoning reconciliation, but not according to the Old Testament paradigm, and not directed principally toward a present kind of forgiveness. This became crystallized with Jesus on the Cross. It is also therefore prophetic of a time when this will occur. Before the Cross, the old notion of forgiveness of another was based upon command by God, but a command which awaited a future perfection when repentance, a change of mind about God, can be a turn on a fulfilled truth, not a mere promise of one. This is a prophecy as much as Jesus said on the cross “forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He did not forgive them on the cross, it’s a promise that the Messiah will promise to and will forgive them if they repent.
• “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” This, of course, was also meant to be applied before the Cross, but it also pertains substantially to a post-Cross time and is also a prophecy. Jesus’ temptations were prophesied. Satan was prophesied. The battle between the two was prophesied (Gen 3). Accordingly, we are and will be delivered from evil as Jesus was to be undefeated by death, rising from the dead.
• “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.” A statement of God’s present power and glory, and a statement that assures the disciples that all that God has promised would come to pass. Who God is would not change. Not just his nature, what he said. What he said Jesus would do he will do, and a pardon that is given everyone that believes in his name is as sure.

It can’t be stressed too strongly that Jesus is not primarily speaking of his present, when temptation, the devil, sin, hunger for spiritual truth, the means of truly obeying God, and the rest, was not yet with a completed means of their dealing. Remember, this was still the time under of Old Covenant. But after the resurrection, after the Cross, the future of the world under his epistemic rule is inaugurated, and so done by the phenomena of the fulfillment of the corpus of the prophetic revelation about him.

We will continue on this subject until it’s exhausted for all practical purposes. But just think one last thing until the next post: to what was Jesus affixed and bound to fulfill? Reconciliation?

Yes, but it’s a half-truth. It has to be first foretold by God through the prophets, upon which Jesus was willingly bound to fulfill by immolation,  death and resurrection.

Never look at the picture of Jesus on the Cross the same way again.

The next article in this series: The Meaning of the Cross, part 3: Persecution

An Analysis of the Brazen Serpent Imagery: Passing by Nehushtan

Matthew 5 and the Adultery of the Heart: Passing by Nehushtan

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