The Glory in The Number of His Name (Part 3 of 0)

The Glory in the Number of His Name – Part 3

The six Greek letters in the name of Jesus add up to 888. We have already witnessed an uninterrupted ray of the light extending from this observation as it continues laser-like through the shadows of Scripture and creation, the written and the spoken word of God. We will have to ascend our final platform of observation into the glory of the number of the name of our Messiah in two stages.

Progressions of Three

A very powerful pattern throughout Scripture is the countless threefold progres­sions. Bordering this understanding is that there are exactly two separate direc­tions in these three stage progressions. One triple pattern direction leads to truth, righteousness and life. The other triple pattern leads to ignorance, wickedness and death. We begin with the negative triple patterns, submitting to the divine precedent of darkness before light (Gen 1:5).

  • There are three categories of sin: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life (1John 2:16).
  • There are three progressive steps to sin’s full maturity:
  1. Temptation, which is the enticement of lust;
  2. Lust conceives sin; and
  3. Sin brings forth death (James 1:14-15).
  • Although Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are, we see those unending temptations capsulized into the three wilderness temptations, matching the three categories of sin and the three stage failure in Eden.
  • David was appropriately offered three possible judgments for his census re­lated sin: 3 years of famine, 3 months of military defeats or 3 days of plague.
  • There are exactly three categories of ritual uncleanness that physically distanced a believer from God during the first Kingdom Age: leprosy, bodily issues, and physical contact with the dead.
  • Death appropriately had dominion over our Messiah for exactly three days and three nights, prophesying that creation would suffer the dominion of death for just three more divine days of 1,000 years each (Psa 90:4), when the third and final immortalization event is completed. At the end of the Restored Kingdom Age, 3,000 years from the death of Jesus, we see death and the grave being cast into the lake of fire which is defined as total elimination (the second death; Rev. 20:14). The three days and three nights of our Messiah’s death is part of a very, very large Scriptural theme. Once again, the apostasy’s delusion of a Friday afternoon death and a Sunday morning resurrection blacks out the glory being veiled by supposedly simple Scriptural expressions.

Positive Progressions of Three

Opposing the negative threefold progression pattern is the positive counterpart.

Jesus defines himself as the truth, the life and the way (John 14:6). This declaration is an extension of the three door-to-ones-home rituals of the First Kingdom Age.

  • Truth: Writing the first and greatest commandment on one’s doorpost (Deut 6:4-9);
  • Life: Painting the Passover blood on the doorpost of one’s home;
  • Way: Boring a hole in the ear of a voluntary lifelong Hebrew slave at the doorpost of their beloved master (Exod 21:6).

Paul declares the three great behavioral motivations: faith, hope and love (1Cor 13:13).

The ordination of the priesthood included a unique offering requiring blood to be dabbed on the right ear, the right thumb and the right large toe of each priest. This displays the positive progression of hearing the word of life with the right ear, choosing the truth about life with the grasping feature of the right thumb and walking in the way of life with the navigational feature of the large right toe.

This same pattern is similarly portrayed in the path of repentance and forgive­ness projected in the sin offering. When a sin offering was for the High Priest or the nation, the blood of the bullock was applied twelve times at exactly three stations. The sacrificial blood was first spattered seven times on the veil (the flesh of Christ, Heb 10:19-20) and then smeared on the four horns of the incense altar (prayer or repentance) and then the remaining bulk of the sacrificial lifeblood was poured out at the base of the bronze altar (changing the behavior pattern in our lives). These three successive blood application stations indicate the three stage progression of true repentance:

  • Recognition,
  • Sorrowful repentance expressed through prayer
  • Repentant behavior of a changed lifestyle, pouring our lives out at the feet of Jesus Christ.

Waiting for the Kingdom is repeatedly defined in the terms of three stage progres­sions: the blade, ear and mature grain stages of fruit bearing plants (Mark 4:26-29); the leaven hidden in the three measures of dough (Matt 13:33).

Similarly we see three distinct priesthood ages leading up to the Kingdom: Patri­archal Priesthood, Levitical Priesthood and Ecclesial Priesthood. There has to be a law change when there is a priesthood change (Heb 7:12), just as there was a law and priesthood change at Sinai, and then at Jerusalem, and there will be a third law change when the Millennial Kingdom priesthood is established. A great deal of Kingdom Law will be restored when both mortal and immortal priests direct mankind in the principles and ways of the Creator.

The three divisions of the peace offering (thanksgiving, votive and freewill) parallel the three great love commandments.

  • Love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength;
  • Love our neighbors, but only as much as we love ourselves and

3) Love our brothers and sisters in Christ greater than we love ourselves (John 13:34; 15:12-13; Gal. 6:2, 10; Matt 25:40).

This relationship between the three peace offerings and the three love com­mandments is significant since the peace offering (Heb. Zebach) is fulfilled in merciful love. “For I desired mercy (Heb: chesed=merciful love), and not sacrifice (Heb:zebach=exclusively the peace offering); and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hos. 6:6).

Three Progressive Stages to God

Just as the serpent philosophy was pursued in those three progressive negative stages in Eden, so the reversal back to Godly righteousness is repeatedly presented in three positive stages. This is highly significant in our pursuit of the reason why the number of Jesus’ name is expressed as triple eights. Let’s progress to the next platform in our pursuit of the glory of divine light. The approach to our Heavenly Father is presented as a three stage progression in the divinely constructed sanctu­ary at the introduction of the first Kingdom of God at Sinai. There are specifically three entranceways, three portals, offering entrance into a progressively holier environment.

1) The first entrance was into the sanctuary courtyard, through the door with three curtains to the right as well as the left (Exod 27:14-16). This parallels the entrances in the temple design for the Restored Kingdom with three chambers to the left as well as the right of each gate (Ezek 40) as well as the golden lamp stand with the three branches for light to the right and three to the left of the primary lamp stand center shaft. All ritually clean Israelites could enter the courtyard. Appropriately there were three articles within the courtyard:

  1. The bronze altar of burnt offering;
  2. The bronze laver
  3. The Tabernacle.

2) The next portal was into the Holy Place of the Sanctuary. The priests were al­lowed to enter this holier environment but had to wash their hands and feet before entering… or die (Exod 30:19-21). Appropriately, there were three articles in the Holy Place:

  1. The golden table of showbread,
  2. The golden lampstand
  3. The golden incense altar.

3) The third and final portal offered a barred entrance into the Most Holy Place. Only the High Priest could enter here and only three times each year, on the Day of Atonement. There was only one item in the Most Holy. However the golden ark of the covenant received three progressive deposits: 1st an omer of incorruptible manna; 2nd the covenant stones with the ten commandments and 3rd the rod of resurrection with its buds and blossoms and ripe almonds.

4) Each of the three progressively holier stages highlight an inner three that serves to emphasize the significance of the pattern. Hopefully, the sheer volume and consistency of the pattern has allowed us to progress beyond any potential criticism of a ‘contrived’ pattern.

Entrances of the High Priest

The next understanding platform brings us to the three exclusive entrances of the High Priest into that third and holiest environment, where the divine glory rested above the mercy seat between the cherubim. These three entrances declare the three great immortalization events in the divine plan. This is what atonement is all about: immortalization. The principle of atonement is often dramatically minimalized as nothing more than forgiveness. The darkness of that limiting presumption would blind us to the glory of the rock solid relationship between atonement and inheriting the divine nature that is so powerfully displayed in the shadows of the Day of Atonement ritual.

  • The first entrance of the High Priest into the Most Holy on the Day of Atone­ment was to generate the incense cloud that would blend with the divine glory embracing the golden ark. This was reviewed in the previous commentary. This action saved the life of the High Priest… “And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not” (Lev 16:13). This conversion of the aromatic dust of the incense into the cloud that saves the life of the High Priest is a flawless representation of the first immortalization event. Our Messiah was raised from the cursed nature of dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return to the immortal spirit nature of his Father, represented throughout Scripture by clouds. After the High Priest saved his own life through this ritual he was free to spatter the blood of the bullock eastward as well as before the mercy seat for the atonement of the entire family of the High Priest.
  • The second immortalization event will be when our ultimate High Priest takes his bride, who is also expressed as his children and his brothers and sisters throughout Scripture. This second immortalization event is for the family of the High Priest. The third Day of Atonement activity in the Most Holy was when the High Priest spattered the blood of the goat eastward and before the mercy seat, for the atonement of the rest of the nation.
  • The third immortalization event in the divine plan, at the end of the Millen­nium Kingdom, is for the rest of the world. Everyone will either perish or inherit the divine nature. The three Most Holy Place activities on the Day of Atonement flawlessly project the three immortalizations in the divine plan. This observation is impossible to anyone who believes the serpent lie of not surely dying because of sin. The God-despising delusion of immortal human souls and immortal wicked beings represent the next evolutionary philosophy stage beyond the limitation of atonement to an understanding of simply forgiveness. Separating atonement from the covering of the divine nature immediately blocks our view of the veiled glories in the shadows of divine expressions.

Creation Confirmation

The spoken word of God (creation) always confirms the written word of God (The Bible). Just as there are three progressive stages to the eternal continuation of life in the ultimate divine plan, so there are exactly three progressively significant stages in the continuation of life under the current temporary order. Temporary life requires each of the three categories of matter to continue life: gas, liquid and solids (oxygen, water, bread). If we are deprived of oxygen we will die in minutes. If we are deprived of only water we will die within two weeks. If we are deprived of only solids we may live for a couple months. Each of these three life extending necessities in the terms of creation (air, water and food) are presented as symbols of God’s word or His Spirit in Scripture. This was the lesson in the manna. “And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live” (Deut 8:3). It is the word of our Creator that is the source of life, whether it is eternal life from the written word and the word made flesh or it is the spoken word that constructed the features of creation by which we are currently and temporarily sustained. Another creation shadow of these three stages — to the realization of total creational immortality — is the three specific trimesters in the conception to birth progression of a new human life. Creation constantly testifies divine truths to those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

The number of the name of Jesus had to have triple eights. He is our source of life. He is our oxygen, our water and our bread. He is the key component of each of the three immortalization events in the divine plan. He is the key to understanding the three divinely appointed feasts that were each identified with harvests (judgment) throughout the year, indicating the same three immortalization events. The glory in the number of his name is hidden in the shadows of Scripture and veiled in the features of creation for the exclusive witness of those who have circumcised their hearts, rejected the serpent philosophy and truly love our Creator and His principles.