(NUMBERS 4:21, “ROSH B’NEI…LE’MISH’PE’CHO’TAM” WITH EPHESIANS 4:4, “ONE BODY”)
Numbers 4:21,
VA’YI’DABER ADONAI EL MOSHE LEY’MOR
NASSO ET-ROSH B’NEI GER’SHON GAM-HEYM LE’VEIT AVO’TAM LE’MISH’PE’CHO’TAM
“And the LORD spoke to Moses saying,
Take a census (ET-ROSH, “the Head(s) of the sons”) of Gershon by the house of their fathers, according to their families….”
Ephesians 4:4,
“…there is One Body….”
None of these Torah-Gospel Devotions is intended to imply “Replacement Theology”—the notion that the Body of Messiah (The Church) has replaced Israel. These Devotions intend to demonstrate that the Messianic Community is the full flowering of Covenant Israel* throughout Humanity.
This being the case, the principles brought forth in the Torah are the foundation for the full manifestation of the Kingdom of God in the world by means of the Biblical Covenants as they are completed in the Biblical Messiah, for whom God created the Cosmos and Mankind within it.
This parashah follows the prior parashah in which emphasis was laid on “GUL-GE-LO-TAM” (“a skull, a poll” of individuals)—INDIVIDUAL ISRAELITES within the Nation as a whole, whereas this parashah emphasizes “ROSH”—a HEAD, that is, a Family Unit. In contrast to the prior parashah’s emphasis on the individual, this parashah emphasizes the Family (by the Houses of the Fathers) which then make up the National Family of “All Israel.” In effect, God moves us to count ourselves in terms of Individual Humans (John 3:16, “whosoever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life”), and of MALE-FEMALE UNITIES, the ADAM-EVE unity of Husband and Wife (cf. Genesis 2:24 with 1 Corinthians 11:3 seq.), and then by Extended Families (Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, and your household”).
The Pattern of Individual, Married Unity, and Family Unity within the Corporate Unity of Nation extends seamlessly from the Natural People of God (Israel the Covenant Nation) into the Spiritual People of God (the Global Body of Messiah made up of both Jew and Gentile who are born again of the Spirit through faith in the Son of God: see Isaiah 49:6**).
We who are in Messiah are part of the Global Covenant People whom God ordained to bring forth from among all human families; He does so by means of engrafting into the Commonwealth of Covenant Israel—the trunk from the Root of all the Branches^.
Let us then not separate ourselves from each other through pride or jealousy, but rather let us submit to one another in the Spirit of Messiah as servants of each other in his Name; for our Lord has been crucified for us so that we, being born of His Spirit, may become members of one another and grow into the fulness of Him, so that God our Father may be glorified by Him through the love that comes forth in us as a single holy Nation by which also we radiate His goodness throughout the world.
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[*See Matthew 5:17-19, in which Messiah declared that He came to bring the Torah to full development, not to diminish it or to abrogate it; **Isaiah 49:6, “And he said, It is a light thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob (the restored National Body of Ezekiel 36-37), and to restore the preserved of Israel (the remnant born of the Holy Spirit through Messiah—see Jeremiah 31:7 with Ezekiel 37:9-14 and John 13-16, 20:20 with Acts 2, 10 and 15); I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my Salvation unto the end of the earth”; ^See Genesis 12:1-3 and John 15:1-5 seq. along with Romans 2 and 9-11 as well as with Ephesians 2:12 for the theological unfolding of this truth]
