Judgment: Wrath of the Lamb

by Brian Godawa

  Aaron saw a legionary lying on the ground in a pool of blood. The Roman stirred, and Aaron plunged his sword into the soldier’s chest, killing him for good.

  Simon knelt beside a Jewish comrade who had been slashed in the arm. He held a cloth over the wound, compressing it. “Keep pressure on it until you get stitched up. You’ll be fine.”

  “Thank you, General,” said the young man. He looked no more than sixteen years old. Beside him was another young man, more like a boy, dead from his wounds.

  Simon felt an overwhelming sense of despair at how many young men— the future of the nation—had already been killed in this war. If they didn’t hold the city, their entire seed would be wiped out.

  His eyes focused on two men standing at the edge of the crowd of citizens who had come to see what was happening. He recognized them as the Two Witnesses, Moshe and Elihu.

  “General.” The voice was firm. Simon turned back. Gischala sat strong on his neighing horse, looking down upon Simon.

  Simon stood. “Thank you for your help. We would have lost without you.”

  “Yes,” said Gischala with an air of superiority, “you would have.”

  Simon chose not to address the insult, but to absorb it.

  Gischala responded diplomatically, “You were right. We must put aside our differences and unite immediately. Or we will lose everything.”

  Simon said, “You were right as well. There is a mole in the city.”

  He held up a handful of red cloths in his hand. “One of my men found these signaling the way from a tunnel entrance to these gates.”

  Gischala said, “Traitor.”

  “Or traitors,” said Simon. He looked back, scanning the crowd. “I have a couple of suspects I need to speak with immediately.”

  The Two Witnesses were gone.

  CHAPTER 38

  Pella

  The council of Pella continued its examination of the Ebionites in the congregation at the center of the city. Symeon had last brought up the promise to Abraham as an argument that Yahweh would not cut off his seed and that the Jews would inherit the Promised Land forever.

  Cassandra was still addressing the elders at the front. She had so much she wanted to say but had to focus on the most important truths. She had first started with the conditionality of the covenant. El Shaddai had said that if Abraham or his seed broke the covenant, they would be cut off.160 This was exactly the same as Jesus’s parable of the tenants that described God returning to Israel to destroy this generation and let out the vineyard of his kingdom to others.

  “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a nation producing the fruit of it.”

  Matthew 21:43

  She had affirmed that Abraham was to be a father of many nations, but that this was a reference to the inclusion of the Gentiles into the body of Christ. She quoted Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

  And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

  Galatians 3:8–9

  This brought Cassandra to her penultimate argument: that the children of Abraham were not fleshly descendants but faithful believers. As Paul had repeatedly argued through his letters, those who are of faith are the true children of Abraham.

  For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his seed, but “Through Isaac shall your seed be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

  Romans 9:6-8

  The unbelieving Jews were not God’s chosen people to whom he kept his promise. Only the believing Remnant were. The rest would be judged and cut off like Ishmael. And that was what they were in the middle of right now. The Ebionites had joined the 144,000 elect to come to Pella, but they were not part of the elect. The Christians had to clean God’s house.

  Cassandra drew to her conclusion. “Perhaps most important of all, the apostle declared that ‘the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed. It does not say, “And to seeds,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your seed,” who is Christ.’ So we must conclude that only those who are ‘in Christ Jesus’ are sons of God through faith, heirs according to promise. The eternal covenant to Abraham is fulfilled in Christ and only Christ. To apply the promise to Abraham to fleshly descendants is to deny the Gospel of justification by faith.

  “But the Ebionites may then ask, what about the promise of land inheritance? Was not this nation to inherit the Land of Israel forever? Well, that land inheritance was connected to the old covenant that was replaced by the new covenant. Jesus is the seed of Abraham. Jesus is the eschatological temple. He is also the resurrection and the life. He is our inheritance. For Messiah inherited all the nations. His people are no longer confined to a single parcel of land in Canaan, they are over all the earth. Jesus is the Land. So the new covenant is a spiritual transformation of the old covenant from earthly people, city, temple, and land into a heavenly people, city, temple, and land.”161

  Cassandra heard scoffing from the Ebionites, but more positive chatter from the rest of the audience. She felt that she had done as well as she could. She only hoped the elders were listening. She left it up to God and sat down.

  Boaz took the podium. “The elders will now meet in assembly. Let us return tomorrow to discuss our conclusions. You are dismissed.

  Cassandra looked over at Symeon, who was giving her the evil eye. He was so full of hatred it was almost tangible.

  Good, she thought. I must have been filled with the Spirit.

  CHAPTER 39

  The Valley of Hinnom

  Apollyon and Marduk rode Storm Demon to the southern valley outside Jerusalem. The Valley of Hinnom—also known as Gehenna, the Valley of Slaughter. An earthquake had occurred two years ago that had opened a chasm in the spiritual realm of this accursed valley.162

  They rode up to the edge of the crevice. Apollyon got off the chariot with Marduk. The Master reached down and picked up a heavenly sword used by one of the Watchers. Other heavenly weapons were strewn about, left from the captives.

  Azazel, Zeus, and Ares arrived on foot. Azazel said, “Master,” and gestured to the top of the city wall towering a couple hundred feet over the valley.

  Apollyon looked up to see the Two Witnesses looking down on them. Four archangels stood watching over the humans in the unseen realm. It confirmed Apollyon’s theory: the angels had come to protect the Two Witnesses, spokesmen for Yahweh’s divine council.

  But that was not all.

  “You can have the gods of the nations,” Apollyon muttered to Yahweh. “I get everything else.”

  The Watcher walked up to the chasm ledge, looking down into the pit of darkness.

  Human eyes would not be able to see very far, but Apollyon could see—all the way to Sheol.

  The archangels had ambushed his gods, dragged them here, and cast them into the Abyss, where they would be bound and punished as Isaiah had promised.

  The land is utterly broken,

  the land is split apart…

  On that day the Lord will punish

  the host of heaven, in heaven,

  and the kings of the land, on the land.

  They will be gathered together

  as prisoners in a pit;

  they will be shut up in a prison,

  and after many days they will be punished.

  Isaiah 24:20-22

  Apollyon knew this day had been coming. The principalities and powers had been given the Gentile nations to rule over at Babel. God had given the pagans over to their false gods and depraved idolatry. He’d let them fill up the measure of their sins. At his resurrection, Messiah had stolen back the inheritance of the gods. This was the triumphal procession of hi
s victory. He was completing what he had begun at the cross.

  The words of the psalm haunted Apollyon like an assassin from heaven.

  God has taken his place in the divine council;

  in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

  “How long will you judge unjustly

  and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

  Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;

  maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

  Rescue the weak and the needy;

  deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

  They have neither knowledge nor understanding,

  they walk about in darkness;

  all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

  I said, “You are gods,

  sons of the Most High, all of you;

  nevertheless, like men you shall die,

  and fall like any prince.

  Arise, O God, judge the land;

  for you shall inherit all the nations!”

  Psalm 82:1–7

  The Angel of the Abyss knew that though his generals had been taken, he still had authority. He had the legal right to destroy this city, and Yahweh was not taking that away from him. He had sued in the heavenly court, and he had won that right.

  Apollyon looked back up at the Witnesses through gritted teeth. Then past them up into the heavenly throne above the waters. “Take what you will, tyrant of the cosmos. I am not without allies. I still have my locust demons—and one last measure.”

  He turned his attention to Marduk. “Turn this chariot around. We have a ride ahead of us.”

  He turned to the others. “Azazel, continue with our plans for your prince of desolation.163 You are in charge until I return.”

  He looked up at the Witnesses and their guardians again and continued his orders, “And for this to work, I need a certain two annoying boils of pus to be lanced.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Alexander and his medical assistants had taken care of the new patients who had been brought to the hippodrome from the battle of the second wall. With the help of Thelonius and the other two doctors, they had sewn up lacerations, set broken bones, and watched helplessly as too many died from their wounds, hundreds of them. But the survivors were now resting, healing in their beds. A moment of calm before the next big storm.

  When Thelonius had told Alexander of his betrayal of them all, the doctor had thought he had a slight understanding of how Jesus had felt to be betrayed by Judas. Thelonius was not who he had said he was. It had all been a lie. And they had opened their hearts, their lives, their homes to him like prey baring its throat to a predator.

  Upon learning of Thelonius’s conversion, it was not as easy as Alexander had thought it would be to forgive. Thelonius had manipulated the Christians into danger all for his own interests. And now that the Roman spy was a Christian, Alexander was supposed to just accept him as if he had never done those things?

  Paul of Tarsus had persecuted and murdered Christians, but then he had become an apostle of the Faith. If the “chief of sinners” could be redeemed and forgiven, then why not Thelonius?

  If Alexander could be forgiven, then why not Thelonius?

  Still, Alexander found himself scrutinizing the Roman. Questioning his motives in everything. Forgiveness was not as easy as he had thought it would be.

  But as Thelonius helped him in his duties, Alexander remembered how the Roman had truly changed. The son of Severus had given Titus the location of Cassandra and the Christians. But then he’d warned those same Christians, even risking his life in battle to defend them. And now he risked his life again by coming to Jerusalem.

  Or was that a lie as well?

  Alexander had taken some time to share with their fellow countrymen the good news of Jesus the Messiah through the seven high feasts of their Faith. He had been explaining how Messiah was fulfilling the feasts to completion in their generation. He had explained Jesus as the Passover lamb, sacrificed for our sins. As the Feast of Unleavened Bread commemorated the exodus out of Egypt, so Jesus had become the bread of heaven who was leading the new exodus out of the Egypt of apostate Israel. His resurrection from the dead was the first-fruits of the resurrection to come, just as the Feast of First-Fruits had foreshadowed the harvest.164

  And now Alexander had just finished explaining the typology of the Feast of Pentecost that had been celebrated earlier in the month. Also known as the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost was celebrated fifty days after the start of First-Fruits. It was always on a Sunday, and it marked the beginning of the summer wheat harvest.165

  That new beginning had originated in the first Pentecost that had occurred fifty days after the sons of Israel had left Pharaoh’s Egypt. On that very day, Yahweh had given the ten commandments to Moses on Sinai and created the “heaven and earth” of the old covenant.166

  But forty years ago today, a new covenant had been inaugurated. After the death and resurrection of Jesus on the Passover, a new heaven and earth was inaugurated on the day of Pentecost, a new covenant with his people.

  Alexander had told his audience of that first-fruits of the kingdom. The gathering of the disciples at the temple, the Holy Spirit filling and baptizing the believers in tongues of fire, the shekinah glory. He had explained how scattered Jews from every nation on the face of the earth had come to Jerusalem and were participating in the restoration of Israel. They were the Remnant of God, and they were united with Gentile believers just as the new covenant had promised.167

  That first Pentecost of the new covenant in the days of the apostles marked the beginning of Yahweh building his new temple, a spiritual one made of spiritual stones of believers founded on the spiritual cornerstone of Christ.168 It began the transition period of the Last Days that Peter had proclaimed on that day forty years ago.

  But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:

  “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,

  that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,

  and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

  and your young men shall see visions,

  and your old men shall dream dreams;

  even on my male servants and female servants

  in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

  And I will show wonders in the heavens above

  and signs on the earth below,

  blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;

  the sun shall be turned to darkness

  and the moon to blood,

  before the day of the Lord comes, the great and terrible day.

  Acts 2:16–20

  The last days of the old covenant had begun at Pentecost with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The old covenant had been written on tablets of stone. The new covenant was written on hearts of flesh.

  And the usual prophetic symbolism of cosmic collapse, the darkening of the sun and the turning of the moon to blood, were the poetic expressions of the Day of the Lord for Jerusalem within that generation. It was a day where the destruction of the old covenant temple would consummate the transition to the new covenant, from old heavens and earth to new heavens and earth.

  They were in the middle of that great and terrible day. Would they call upon the name of the Lord?

  Alexander could see that those who were able to listen had been doing so. These concepts were not new to them. Only their fulfillment was. Some faces appeared to indicate that it was making sense.

  Some voices indicated otherwise. “Stop preaching to us your Christian fire and brimstone from heaven! Just heal our bodies and let us get out of here!”

  Another shouted, “Messiah would not let this happen to us!”

  A third yelled back at them, “Shut up and listen to the man! We deserve everything we get from the hand of God!”

  Alexander was about to discuss the last three feasts when he was interrupted by the surprise of Moshe and Elihu entering the hippodrome.

  The au
dience of several hundred patients fell silent as the two approached them. Everyone knew who they were and was afraid of them. The rumors and gossip of all the strange things that followed the Two Witnesses were not just known through word of mouth. Some of these people had seen the signs and wonders with their own eyes. Wherever the Witnesses went, they spread fear.

  Elihu spoke to the patients, “The doctor is correct. The harvest is upon us. The Son of Man is like one who sows good seed into the field of the world. But sons of the evil one are like tares or weeds sown by the devil in that same field. So the harvest is the end of the age that has now come upon us. The Son of Man will separate the wheat from the tares. And the tares he will gather out of his kingdom, and he will throw them into the fiery furnace where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. But the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”169