A New Year's Sermon: Nehora, the Messiah-King, is Jesus Christ the LORD.

There are both Talmudic and Messianic rabbis who teach that the Aramaic word Nehora, (which means “light”) is one of the Names to be used by the Messiah.  In that, they agree. 

In the Aramaic portion of the book of Daniel, they will cite,   
        "He knows what dwells in darkness,

          and light dwells with him" (2:22).

For those in rabbinical or related Jewish studies, the Midrash says of Daniel 2:22 :

“ ‘And Nehora dwells with him.' This is the Messiah-King,  for it is written: 'Arise, shine, for your light has come' " (Is.60:1).

What is the significance of this?  The secret Name of Messiah in Daniel 2:22, is hooked (as if a musical note)  into Isaiah by the Midrash.   

The application of "Nehora" is also to be in melodious harmony with other Bible  passages of  "the Messiah-King", passages such as Isaiah 42:6 where clearly GOD gives the Messiah (and hence, we might be inclusive of those who proclaim Him) as the "light" to the nations.  

“I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the nations.”

 Who is the 'Light' of the nations? It is Jesus / Yeshua, because He alone in all human history who with just an inclination of His will and nothing else than that, opens the eyes of those were were literally blind, including those who were born blind. 
 

 Israel, just like those who claim to be of Christ's Universal CHURCH... must have the LIGHT of Christ to truly be a Light to the nations.  Their Light is often stemming from the pre-incarnate Christ, who as GOD spoke to Moses as GOD: and indeed, apart from Messiah Yeshua / Jesus Christ,  there is NO true light to shine, because the Messiah is to be the LIGHT of Israel and the world.   

Israel, and those who are to be of Christ's Universal CHURCH, are only truly successful in being a "Light to the Nations" when the light of Messiah shines forth.  When Christ shines through those who believe into him, be it from Sinai or the Mount of Beatitudes, only then can the claim of those even remotely themselves being his Biblical disciples and followers and ambassadors in the world, in any way, truly be a"light to the nations".  We are not  THE "Light to the nations", but through Jesus shining through us, we come into being as what true light among men and mankind more truly and closer to the goodness and purity of that Light of Christ Jesus, who is the Light of GOD the Father to man, and thus we become more closer to that pure goodness that we were originally designed, and meant as,  and called by GOD to be.


 In John 8:12, Jesus / Yeshua states:  "
 I am the light of the world, 
the one following Me in no way will walk in the darkness, 
but will have the light of life."

John 1 King James Version (KJV)

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

² The same was in the beginning with God.

³ All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

⁴ In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

⁵ And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

⁷ The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

⁸ He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

⁹ That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

¹¹ He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

¹² But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

¹³ Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴ And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

¹⁵ John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.

Who is this King Messiah? 

 Micah 5:2 describes His origins as from of old, even to the everlasting ages of the everlasting ages. 

John 1:1-18 informs us that this one is Jesus Christ. He was at the “Beginning”, at the αρχη, the “Bereshith”, or “beginning of all time”, as expressed in Genesis 1:1. This concept is seen in Greek concepts, in which Ceres (the daughter of Prometheus) became Isis, the queen of Egypt (through marriage to Osiris). Thereafter, she was called by the Attic Greeks “IO”, after the concept of “we have arrived as a civilization, beginning here.” Egyptian wealth, naval and military, education and medicine, food and liquor, was all infused into Attic society Archē is, in turn, equated in the Greek with προτος: the first in preeminence, time, position, and authority before all others. So when John uses protos in Revelation 1:5, when he quotes Messiah Yeshua as “the First”, he does not just explain Messiah as being just a “first one” born from the dead, but reaches for a deeper meaning. 

Christ is “before the birth” πρωτοτοκος of all Creation, as Paul cites in Colossians 1:15. 

Through the will of the Father (John 5:19-23), Christ Jesus the Son of GOD bears forth the Creation of the universe by His power which is both a perfect projection and substance of the Father as well as that power of the spoken word (Hebrews 11:3, Isaiah 14:24) of the Father, while yet retaining a distinct personhood and personality all to Himself.   The Father thinks it, the Son speaks it into existence (John 8:28,38; 12:49; 14:24; Psalm 119:160, 33:6,9). 

If one can think of the concept of Father and Mother and Son being one family, and using intelligent logical and cognitive reasoning grasp an example of where for comparative purposes we temporarily for the instance of this example we replace the word family with "GOD" in the instances of the Trinity, humanity and any aspect of Creation can be realized as NOT being able to call GOD as 3 families or 3 gods, but to call GOD as GOD, and still yet recognize the 3 distinct and yet unified persons of the GODhead who each have their own spirit and are joined by a unifying 4 other spirits (Revelation 3:1, 4:5, 5:6; Zechariah 3:9):  in which joining spirit of the Father and Son , the joining spirit of the Father and Spirit, the joining spirit of the Son and Spirit, and the joining spirit of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost each have their own operating Spirit and unified will (and perhaps lower plane and non-dominant thought process) while making up the necessary 7 Spirits of GOD to be in order to be both One United (Hebrew- “ehad”) and a Trinity.   Cf. the “Oneness of GOD” in John 10:30, Deuteronomy 6:4, Zechariah 14:9. Isaiah 48:16-17 lists a LORD YHVeH, YHVeH Spirit, and YHVeH the Redeemer; the Old Testament origin to Matthew 28:19’s justified use of “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”.

In John 1:3 , of this Jesus, the Son of GOD who is also identified as both King Messiah and YHVeH Messiah, we are informed twice that “all things through Him εγενετο” -- all things came into being at a point in time when the “Beginning” was in a new state, and still unfolding into existence (i.e., ginomai being twice in the aorist). “Egeneto” is followed immediately by an emphasis on ginomai’s perfect tense: “gegonen”. This tells us the continuing existence of the new state that has come into existence, as being upheld by the word of His power (as it were).
(Cf. Zodhiates, Spiros “The Complete Word Study New Testament”, and the “The Complete Word Study Dictionary”, Nashville: AMG, © 1991, © 1992.)

Again, as Midrash states, since the King Messiah is the 'light' of Isaiah 60:1, we would expect He is Messiah in verses 2 and 3 Isaiah chapter 60 also. 

Ezekiel 33: 10-11

¹⁰ Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?

¹¹ Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

   In Ezekiel 33:10-11, the context is that the inward soul/spirit man

is rotting away.  This is caused, says 33:10, by either rebellion/revolt (Hebrew - "pasha" )...or by the failure to live up to the standards of the Torah, a falling short of obedience to Torah.  

   By Torah, I mean that Instruction given to Moses by the pre-incarnate Yeshua / Jesus, who is YHVeH Messiah the breath of our nostrils (Lamentations 4:20, Isaiah 42:5, Genesis 2:7), the Messenger of GOD the Father on Mount Sinai (Exodus 3:2-6, Judges 2:1, John 1:18), who first spoke to Moses in 1552 B.C., and then came in 5 B.C. to be born of a virgin in Bethlehem of Judea.  The Torah as a document is composed of 5 books, in which the spirit of the 5 books is ignored by most Jews for 613 rigorous instructions which many Jews follow as commands, of which they can never fulfill 202 of these without a standing Temple and Temple sacrifices, and must live under a state of Grace, just like their Christian brothers, even if the rabbis refuse to acknowledge that fact out of bias, hypocrisy, and INTENTIONAL ignorance to that fact.    

In verse 11, we read:

     "I live: says the Master (who is) YHVeH...Turn (and come back), Turn (and come back) from your wide courses 

[cf. Gk. euruchoros in Matthew 7:13 - a wide open countryside, where every way a man goes is right in his own eyes, and ends in his destruction] 

 of evil; for why will you die, O House of Israel?" 

    This call to "turn (and come back)" is like part of the story of the Prodigal son, taught by Jesus / Yeshua in Luke 15:11-32.  After the elder son receives his inheritance and leaves the farm to squander it, were we to add to the history in adapting Ezekiel 33:11 to that truthful example Jesus was telling, we can perhaps envision  the father standing in or on the side of the road calling out to that Prodigal Son  while the son is still in earshot: "Turn (and come back), turn (and come back)."

 But the truth of the matter is, few really do come back and find full restoration and Salvation, and it is more often than not, their willingly bad choice that chooses blindness and damnation, for whatever reason or misguided internal motivation they have on their part.    

"But, indeed, if our Gospel is being hidden, 

  it is hidden to those [who are] being lost;

  In whom GOD -- He who possesses 

  the ages at this time -- has blinded the 

  (willing) minds of the unbelieving 

  [those without a sure faith who 

   were eagerly willing to be made blind];

  that the brightness of the Gospel of Christ's glory, 

  who is the exact Image

  (and representation) of GOD, 

  should dawn not on them." 

  (2 Corinthians 4:4 - AWPR).

John 3:21, 20, 19    (KJV)

21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

Psalm 25:14  (KJV)

¹⁴ The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.

Romans 10:9-10, 13  (KJV)

^9 …if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

¹⁰ For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

¹³ For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

May all who read this find the Light of Christ Jesus in their lives, and that whosoever will, may follow through of their own free will and desire, to believe- trust into Him for payments of all sins by His blood shed at the Cross, accept Him as their LORD and Savior, to the good pleasure of GOD the Father, and obtain eternal life. Amen.