God the Father

          Since the Old and New Testaments are part of the same Book, we recognize the connections between the Old and New Covenants. We have a shared heritage with the Jews. We generally think we worship the same God. But, in reality, the Jews worship a monotheistic God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As Christians, we worship a triune and living God:  God the eternal Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit). Three persons in one.
            The Trinity is not easy for us to grasp. That’s because it is a super-natural truth. For instance, I can be a daughter, sister, and mother, at the same time, but I am not all three persons to all those relatives at the same time. Likewise, a specific amount of water can take the form of ice, water, or steam, but not at the same time. Every natural analogy we try to use to help us understand the supernatural Trinity eventually falls short. That is why it is a faith thing. The true Israel is always a faith thing and not based on natural lineage.
            The Chronos Lesson: In these last Days, this distinction is crucial. When we call upon God the Father, we automatically recognize that He has a Son, Jesus Christ. When a person or religion rejects Jesus as the Son, they automatically reject God the Father.
            The Apostle John gave this warning:  “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:18, 22-23).
            This is why the Jews are still suffering the consequences of missing their visitation at Christ’s first coming. It is why Daniel’s 70 Weeks prophecy that outlined God’s plan for the Jews was paused in the middle of the 70th Week. When Jesus was cut off mid-week, they were cut off in the middle of the 70th Week. The prophecy was put on hold until they fulfill what Jesus declared, “I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ” (Matt. 23:39).
            Of course, any Jew who accepts Jesus as their Savior during this age (the Church Age) becomes part of the called out ones, the Church. But as for their brethren who do not, they are still considered cut off or fallen away for now. That is why they are often called the Apostate Jews, as in the apostasy (falling away) of this age.
            It is also why God will reject the temple that will be rebuilt in Jerusalem before Christ comes. Hebrews 10:1 sets the stage. “For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.”
            Hebrews 10:8-10 declares the offense. “Previously saying, ‘Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them’ (which are offered according to the law), then He said, Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God’ He takes away the first [Covenant] that He may establish the second [Covenant]. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.’ ”
            Hebrews 10:29 presents the verdict: “Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” Who needs the blood of goats and sheep and doves when the blood of the Lamb has already laid down His life once and for all in sacrificial love?
            This is why, when the Antichrist enters the rebuilt temple in defiance to God—a future event called the Transgression of Desolation—God does not strike the Antichrist dead as would have been the case under the Old Covenant. Not to worry. He is not off the hook. His appointed time is coming.