St. Irenaeus Ministries

Zec 4:6-10 tells Zerubbabel that he will restore the temple, but by God's power, not by his own. The people of the lands around Israel attempted to frustrate or co-opt this building of the temple for the with their own worship. This harassment would go on in some form for around 70 years. Playing on the fears of the Persians, they were able to halt construction on occasion, but God shepherded the rebuilding of His temple and it was eventually completed.

Paramount importance was placed on creating an altar to God, as Moses had commanded of the original altar. This is appropriate, since sacrifice is the Old Testament way that sinful men can approach a holy God. These sacrifices are ways that men would pray that God would remember the covenant.

The book of Ezra continues with the story of the people separated (or set aside) for God, starting with a census. Some were not able to prove their lineage, and were given a separate designation. Professed priests who fell into this category were excluded as unclean until the Urim and Thummim could be consulted. These people came back to a dry, desolate land with high ideals and many gifts for the restoration of the land, but they would be called to a greater purity than many were prepared to undertake.

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah mark the greatest reform of God's people in the Old Testament. God gave the law to Moses, a temple and kingdom to the Israelites, and prophets to proclaim that the people would be carried into captivity if they were not faithful. The people remained lukewarm, and were carried off to Babylon. In the Babylonian captivity, we see the Israelites become the Jewish people, and they restore the land starting in 538 with the great decree of the Persian king Cyrus that the Jews were to return to Israel. God stirred Cyrus up to ask the Jews to rebuild the temple, which is something very unusual for the Persian Empire until that point. Sheshbazzar, a Jewish prince, begins this return from exile, but after this, we do not see his name show up in the Bible. Zerubbabel continues the return.

Central to the incarnation is the fact that it is a great act of humbling God's self. The God of the universe exists outside of time and space, and knows the incarnation, the passion, and even the fall of Adam before creation. It is humbling in the extreme to know that we were created even knowing the fall would come.

Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, united in something called a hypostatic union. Some have called into doubt just how much He knew about His divinity at different points in His life on Earth, but it is clear that Jesus knew from earliest times that He is God. He knew that He should be about His father's business in the temple, He proclaimed Himself as the Son of God, not as an adopted sonship, but as a natural son. His opponents used the very same statements to condemn Him, stating that He had called Himself God, and when they gave Him an opportunity to clarify what He meant, Jesus did not deny that He is God. Heresies arose about this doctrine from both sides, with some like the Arians denying Christ's divinity, and the Docetists attacking His humanity. The Church has made statements several times refuting these errors.

Melchizedek is an impressive priest. He blesses Abraham, which implies that even father Abraham is inferior to him. This is an order that would be described as hieros, rather than the usual term used in the New Testament, presbuteros, and coms not by descent from Levi, but is an order that allows sacrifice to be offered from the rising of the sun to its setting.

All of the Bible leads to the conclusion that God will come to be with us, but sin separates us from God. Sometimes we are tempted to downplay our sin, but that downplays God's holiness. We see God's holiness overpower many people in the Bible. We also see that the Messiah is prophesied to have a priestly role, who will finally end sin by sacrifice of Himself, and that He would come in what we call now the first century AD. The Messiah, however, need not be a Levitical priest, but as we know, is a priest forever of the order of Melchizedek.

We can be confident that God will save us if we call on His name, but salvation is a process, and is not a magical proclamation that assures us Heaven no matter how wicked we are in this life. We must rejoice in our hope and in our sufferings, and know that to the extent that we cooperate with God's grace, we are rewarded in the next life.

Throughout all of biblical history, God has rewarded those who hope in Him. There are those who will deny the action of God in their lives, even as the Hebrews ignored the explicit miracles they saw in the times of the Exodus, but those who have a fear of the Lord or who have an expectation the Lord's grace in the world are praised in the Bible.