chesed – It Is Finished

Distorted view of the Father

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be merry. ~ Luke 15:24

What a beautiful description Luke 15:24 is of the Father’s love for us. Truly His heartbeat is restoration and His response to our being restored to Him is to celebrate over us!!

Zephaniah 3:17 in God’s Word Translation says “The LORD your God is with you. He is a Hero who saves you. He happily rejoices over you, renews you with his love, and celebrates over you with shouts of joy.” I love that.

Psalm 91:15 He says He will rescue us and then throw us a party.

The more I meditate on His goodness, the more I see Him in this light…. rejoicing over me, renewing me with His love, celebrating over me and throwing me a party!! I begin to see Him as Love… extravagant, lavish, outpouring, overflowing Love towards me! This is the picture of the Father that Jesus is showing us in this parable… a picture of a Good, Good, Daddy.. full of chesed (Covenant Love) toward us (for more on chesed see my post Goodness and Grace).. a love that just won’t let us go!!

BOTH SONS HAD A DISTORTED VIEW OF THEIR FATHER

Both sons had a distorted view of their father and therefore a distorted view of themselves…. this identity problem made them unable to walk in the fullness of their positions as “sons” and enjoy the benefits of their inheritance. They couldn’t see themselves the way their father saw them… accepted, loved and favored.

The Greek word for son is ‘huios’ and means son… a son having the nature of the father; a son representing the father — this is a word of position. As opposed to the Greek word ‘teknos’ which means child… meaning one not fully grown or mature, still needing to be under tutors and governors (Galatians 4:2).

God has called us as sons…. Ephesians 1:5 Having predestinated (in Greek: proorizo…determined our destiny) us unto the adoption (in Greek: huiosthasia… declaration of sonship) of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will”. How awesome and powerful is that truth!! Before the foundations of the world, He determined and established our destiny as His sons… being conformed to the image of the Firstborn Son.

And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. ~Luke 15:9

He had 2 sons… both were huios. We are first introduced to the elder son as a huios (Luke 15:25)… again meaning having the nature of the father; one representing the father — it’s a word of position. But his distorted identity was based on works… on what he did for the father instead of who he was. Verse 29 gives us a glimpse of how this son saw himself. “But he answered his father, ‘Look, all these years I have served you and never disobeyed a commandment of yours. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.” The word served is douleuo which means “to serve as a slave” — slave is “doulos”. This was the distorted the view the son had of himself.

He was a son, not a slave but he saw himself serving as a slave…. not as a son! And the rest of the verse gives his distorted view of the father… not as an extravagant, generous father but someone withholding from him — even something as small as a goat to celebrate.

The younger son is introduced in verse 12 also as a huios…. again meaning having the nature of the father; one representing the father — this is a word of position. His distorted view of his identity was based on his inheritance.. what he would possess at his father’s death — his priority was on his inheritance instead of relationship. Although even after he leaves with the inheritance, he is still called a “son” (huios). His position hadn’t changed even though he walked away from it.

Later in the story, he comes to his senses and realizes he has sinned against heaven and against his father and decides to tell his father he is no longer worthy to be called “a son” but instead a hired hand (with no inheritance). But the father’s response is one of love and although the son no longer sees himself as a son but a servant, the father sees him the way he always has… as a son… his son.

HE ALWAYS MAKES GRACE AVAILABLE FOR US

Redemptive grace was offered to both sons to see themselves as they truly were and to see the father as he truly was. While we know the younger brother repented (changed his mind to align with the father’s) and began to see clearly who he was, sadly we never know if the elder brother repented, if his heart was healed and if he embraced his sonship. But we do get a glimpse of the condition of his heart in looking further into how the father referred to him. In verse 31 the father calls him son but the Greek word used is teknos instead of huios; Teknos means child — a member born into the family but immature; not yet transformed into mature sons who are able to represent the father and administer the father’s house and his belongings.

We are sons of God. And our Father is a good Daddy to us. Ask Abba Father today to reveal this truth to you…. begin to see yourself in Christ… as joint heirs with Him, carriers of His glory, made in His image and as a representative on earth of all that He is and all that He is… and then begin releasing that to those who have lost their way!

~Robin

Full of Grace and Truth

John 1:14 “….We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Jesus came full of grace and truth. Full of is “pleres” in Greek which means abounding in and completely occupied with. Grace is “charis” which means bowing down favorably toward us… it’s also the Old Testament equivalent of “chesed” which is God’s covenant loyalty toward us (see the last blog post Goodness and Grace). Chesed (grace) is His love that will not let us go! And truth is “aletheia” which is not just truth spoken but the reality of truth.. truth revealed.

Summed up, Jesus came abundantly and completely occupied with bowing down favorably toward us… He came abundantly and completely occupied with showing us God’s covenant love toward us and revealing to us the reality of the Father… what He’s like… that He’s a good Father to us all the time. He was completely occupied with reconciling us back to the Father!!

He was consumed with revealing to us the true realities of the Father’s love. The Word, the Son, who is God, became flesh to reveal a divine glory that is “full of grace and truth.” The Word of God became flesh to be gracious to us. The Word became flesh so that this graciousness to us would come in accord with God’s truthfulness.

Paul put it like this in 1 Cor 4:4 “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” The glory of Christ is the image of God, our Father. Verse 18 says although no one has ever seen God, Jesus has revealed Him and made Him known to us. Our Father is full of grace and truth all the time. Verse 16 tells us that we have received “out of this fullness” grace upon grace! We’ve received an abundance of grace.

Sometimes I get preoccupied with the demands of my life… motherhood, being a wife, family time, making a home, friendships, our business, etc. and don’t make the time to be completely occupied with Him…. completely occupied with His love and allowing that Love to flow through me to the world around me. Completely occupied with the truths and realities of what my Father really looks like…. and showing others what our Father looks like.

Not completely occupied with being a walking, talking manifestation of His extravagant grace. Being full of grace makes me more pleasant to be around. I’m not pointing out others faults or weaknesses but rather helping them to look to the One who can pour out His grace upon them. Being full of grace causes me to encourage and walk along side those around me. It makes me realize that apart from Him I can do nothing because in Him I live and move and have my being.

I have become more occupied lately with learning about grace and the truths or realities of my Father. The more I learn, the more it replaces old mindsets… the wrong perceptions of who my Father is and what He’s like. And the more revelation I get, the more I become a walking epistle for a hurting world to read…. because isn’t that truly what we all want… for the world to come up and grab our coat tails and ask us how they can have a life like ours… one that is victorious, peaceful, loving, and full of grace and truth. For them to look at us and not see us but to look into our Father’s eyes and experience His truth (realities) and His grace (chesed).

And then we get the honor of directing them to the One who can give them life more abundantly.

~ Robin

Goodness and Grace

chesed love Yesterday we looked at the word good. We studied 1 Chronicles 16:34 O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good… ” and learned that good is not an adjective describing God but it is who He is (see yesterdays post entitled “Goodness“). Good and God are the same thing… they are a single idea. He is good! And He can’t be anything but good to you!

Good and God are the same thing… they are a single idea. He is Good! And therefore He can’t be anything but Good to you!

The rest of that scripture says “for His mercy (lovingkindness) endures forever”. The word mercy is not an accurate translation. Translators use words like kindness, lovingkindness, mercy, loyalty, steadfast love, and graciousness because there really isn’t a proper English word that encapsulates the meaning of this word. Perhaps loyal love is close.

The Hebrew language has a word for this loyal love that is richer and deeper than anything in English—it is chesed (KHEH-sed). It is a covenant word that goes beyond the requirements of mere duty and obligation…..it is a love that WILL NOT let me go! It is from the root word chacad, which is to be good or kind…..”to bow down.” It is a picture of God coming down to where we are (in the person of Jesus) and providing us the Way of Salvation! It truly is covenant love…. an immovable, unshakable, unchanging loyalty to His covenant with us.

We also quoted Ps 23:6 yesterday “Surely goodness and loving kindness (chesed) will follow me all the days of my life…. goodness, and chesed (God’s loyalty to His covenant) will follow me ALL the days of my life. The word”surely” is set as a seal upon it… it’s guaranteed… a done deal! It doesn’t depend on what I do or don’t do… I can add nothing of myself to it. I am sealed with His goodness and chesed!

Psalm 107:1 is the same verse as 1 Chronicles 16:34 (above) and the same word chesed is used. Psalm 136 is another identical Scripture….again the word used is chesed although our English uses the translation mercy. I like Psalm 136 in the Complete Jewish Bible translation (you can go to bible gateway.com to read it)…. this translation always translates chesed as grace, and not just in this Psalm only.

One of the earliest usages of chesed is by Abraham’s servant, Eliezer, when he was sent to find a wife for Isaac. He realized that his success was because of the Father’s chesed (translated “kindness” in Genesis 24:12). It was because of God’s covenant loyalty to his master Abraham.

Moses used this term to show why God delivered Israel from captivity in Egypt…. because of covenant loyalty (chesed). “You in Your mercy (chesed) have led forth the people whom You have redeemed; You have guided them in Your strength to Your holy habitation” (Exodus 15:13).In Ex 34:5-8 after God gives Moses the Tablets, He descended in a cloud and stood before him proclaiming who He is… verse 6 translates

In Ex 34:5-8 after God gives Moses the Tablets, He descended in a cloud and stood before him proclaiming who He is… verse 6 translates chesed as abounding in goodness! He abounds in covenant loyalty towards us.

We see a similar statement in John 1:17 “grace (charis) and truth (reality) came through Jesus Christ.” Jesus is the manifestation and the reality of grace and truth… of chesed (covenant loyalty). Thus we see the connection between the Hebrew word chesed (translated here as “goodness”) and the Greek charis, meaning “grace.”

Ps 117 says Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!
For great is his loving kindness (chesed) toward us, and the faithfulness (truth) of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD!…..The CJB translation says in verse 2… For his grace has overcome us, and Adonai’s truth continues forever.

Grace and truth! Jesus came full of grace and truth….this had always been His character and by extension the character of His Father.

Chesed is covenant word …. it is the Old Testament equivalent of the New Testament word charis which is “grace.” Sometimes we view the Old Testament (Judaism) as a religion of laws and the New Testament (Christianity) as a religion of grace. God extended his grace in both Testaments… both Covenants. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He revealed his grace to the fullest in the New Testament coming of Jesus …John 1:16-17 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace…….grace and truth came through Jesus Christ…. but His grace is also displayed throughout Old Testament Scriptures

Chesed is definitely a word that begs for a deeper study than we can give to this one blog post. Now that I know it is the equivalent of New Testament grace, it will change how I read scriptures and it will definitely cause me to do a deeper study of it. I hope it sparked you to do a deeper study as well.

Hosea 6:6 says that God desires chesed (covenant loyalty) not sacrifice, and He desires the knowledge of Him (yada – intimate knowing as in a husband and wife) not burnt offerings.

That reminds me of Paul’s words in Phil 3:10 that I may know (ginosko in Greek – the equivalent of the Hebrew word yada) Him and the power of His resurrection. By going deeper, drawing nearer to Him… knowing Him more intimately… only then can I fully understand chesed.

God’s grace is a given that is always being given! There is nothing you can do to earn or merit His grace. It is given because of chesed… His covenant loyalty toward us…. HIS LOVE THAT WILL NOT LET US GO!

~ Robin