5.14.26 – Cleansing Sacred Spaces, Part 6: The Hope of Israel

Jeremiah 17 makes a very interesting statement:

"O LORD, the hope (mikveh) of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters."
(Jer. 17:13)

"For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because that for the hope (mikveh) of Israel I am bound with this chain."
(Acts 28:20)

I want you to notice something about that phrase, "the hope of Israel." Do you know what the word for "hope" is? Mikveh. It is our word for water baptism—the purification bath, the mikveh. How fortunate are we as Israel? Before whom are we purified, and who purifies us? It is your Father in heaven, as stated: "I will sprinkle pure water upon you and you shall be purified." And then He says, "The hope of Israel is God; just as the ritual bath purifies the impure, so too the Holy One purifies Israel." The fountain of living waters is God! It does not say anything about any of this being anti-Torah, anti-temple, or anti-sacrifice. This is all a deeply biblical recognition that the ultimate purification—especially from deep, dark, morally disgusting things—must be a divine act.

So I will summarize it quickly. The prophets do not deny sacrifice or the temple. They do not reject any categories of pure or impure. That is the job of the temple. It does its job, but the deepest stuff must come from God. What they insist on is that God will move the Makor Mayim Chayim—the Fountain of Living Waters.

The prophets expressed their hope for restoration not from Yom Kippur, atonement, sacrifices, or altar language. And that means that when we find theology treating the forgiveness of sins as automatically requiring some kind of sacrifice or substitution, that theology is incorrect. Do you understand? When we discuss the forgiveness of sins, people assume it involves some type of substitution or sacrifice. That is incorrect. Are you hearing what God's Word says? Yes, I know you are.

The voices of the prophets, inspired by God (if you believe in these ideas), are God speaking through them about His plan. They prepare the people. And now, with all that in place, I want to take us to the wilderness, to the duty of the prophet, to the water, to the washing, to the mikveh, to the hope. And now we can move into the language of Yeshua and the Gospels. Because when John appears in the wilderness, calling the lost sheep of the house of Israel to repent and be immersed—in what? Water. Water? Where is the blood? He is not inventing a new religious symbol out of thin air.

Hopefully, now you can see a simple explanation of divine water washing and the mercy of God. He is stepping into the prophetic stream of divine washing (pun intended)—covenant renewal. John the Immerser stands squarely with the prophets. He comes announcing the kingdom is near. He goes to Israel for repentance. He immerses people in water for the forgiveness of sin. That phrase, of course, as I have told you, requires watching your associations. Linking forgiveness immediately to some kind of sacrifice is a mistake.

John's ministry is framed not on an analogy to sacrifice but on an analogy to washing. That does not mean that John has nothing to do with Israel's temple or eschatological hopes or any of this. It means that the immediate prophetic logic of the one who came before Yeshua is about washing and repentance and preparation for the greater cleansing that God is about to bring.

John is acting like a prophet. Do you know why? He is a prophet! And he understands the prophetic voice and the prophetic critique, and his immersion that he is preaching is a proleptic sign for the people. He is taking the hope of Ezekiel, Isaiah, Zechariah, and Jeremiah and embodying it. His immersion is in river water—living water, mayim chayim. It is the natural purification agent for humans. But John says someone greater is coming: "I am immersing you in water. He will immerse you in the Spirit." Where does that take you? Directly to Ezekiel 36:25, which we have already seen—with a new heart, a spirit, a transformation, and a cleansing. That is why the Gospel frames John as the preparer of the way:

"Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you...."
(Eze. 36:25–29)

Making sense?

Shalom,
Alan

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