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The Last Shofar: The Latter Horn of Redemption


WilliamL

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Index and summaries of all articles is here: https://www.worthychristianforums.com/blogs/entry/1403-index-and-summaries-of-articles/

Please note: these articles are meant to be read in reverse order, that is, from the bottommost entry (Introduction) to the topmost..

The Last Shofar: The Latter Horn of Redemption

There is an ancient Hebrew prophecy about the horns of the ram that Abraham offered to God “for a burnt offering instead of his son” Isaac. Gen. 22:13 The Mosaic-era Book of Jasher records this about the event:

that was the ram which the Lord God had created in the earth in the day that he made earth and heaven. For the Lord had prepared this ram from that day, to be a burnt offering instead of Isaac… And Abraham sprinkled some of the blood of the ram upon the altar, and he exclaimed and said, “…may this be considered this day as the blood of my son before the Lord.” …and the service was accepted before the Lord… Jasher 23:70-71, 75

The blood of the ram that was slain became accepted by God in redemption for the soul of Abraham’s son Isaac. Heb. 9:22

This event was one of the many Old Testament living allegories about Yeshua’s mission, and God’s plan of salvation through it. Here are similar testimonies about Yeshua and his mission:

He was led as a lamb to the slaughter… And the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:7, 6

the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Rev. 13:8

you…have redeemed us to God by your blood Rev. 5:9

Now, the prophecy about the former ram says that Abraham cut off its two horns, and made trumpet-horns – shofars – from them. These horns were cut off from the crown of the head of the Ram of Redemption. The legend says that the lesser of these two Redemption-shofars was blown first, when the LORD descended before his gathered people on Mount Sinai, early in the Exodus:

Then it came to pass on the third day…that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet [Hebrew, shofar] exceeding loud…and the whole mount quaked greatly. And the LORD came down upon Mount Sinai… Exodus 19:16, 18, 20

This event culminated the initial period of testing and redemption of Israel, begun 52 days earlier on Passover. On that first Feast of Passover, all Israelite households sacrificed a male lamb at the same time. God accounted this blood-sacrifice as redemption for the nation of Israel’s sins, and immediately brought them out of their Egyptian bondage. But he identified the sacrifice with Himself:

“…you [Israel] shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and YHWH your God redeemed you from there.” Ex. 24:28

Now, according to the prophecy, the greater of the two ram’s/Redeemer’s horns will blown last, at the End of this World-Age. It shall announce the Judgment of God, the Kingdom of the Messiah, the Gathering of Israel, the Resurrection of the dead, and the Redemption of Earth from sin and evil. Perkei Rabbi Eliezer 31; Rosh Hashanah 11b Therefore, it is the Last, Shofar.

Paul’s Prophecy about the Last Trumpet/Shofar

The Apostle Paul, before his conversion, was a rabbinical scholar “brought up at the feet of” the famous rabbi Gamaliel. Acts 5:34; 22:3 Paul undoubtedly learned this legend in his studies. Also, because those days were filled with messianic expectations (Luke 3:15), the prophecy would have been publicly known and discussed.

These things lead us to Paul’s famous prophecy in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 about the resurrection of the dead:

We shall not all sleep [in death], but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the Last Trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead

will be raised incorruptible, and we  shall be changed. [Note: New Testament Greek has no separate term to distinguish a ram’s horn/shofar from a metal horn.]

Paul later gave more details about this event:

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first.

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. 1 Thes. 4:16-17

Now, some people claim that this Last Trumpet, blown to announce the Lord’s descent (as did the trumpet-shofar on Mount Sinai at the LORD's earlier descent), is the Seventh angel-blown Trumpet of Revelation 11:15. However, there is no evidence in any of Paul’s epistles that he ever had any knowledge of the contents of the Book of Revelation. Also, Paul mentions THE Last (not Seventh) Trumpet in 1 Cor. 15 without explanation, clearly presuming that his audience understood what he meant. (Paul was not shy about explaining new teachings.) The ancient prophecy of the first and last shofars had undoubtedly been passed on to the Corinthian Church by Paul and other Jewish elders, because the Church in those days was expecting the Lord’s Coming soon.

The Added Witness of Hebrews 12:18-28

Paul gave a third prophecy that strongly indicates the Last Shofar legend to be the one alluded to in 1 Cor. 15 and 1 Thes. 4. In Hebrews 12:18-28, Paul directly relates and compares the ancient gathering of Israel unto earthly Mount Sinai to the End Time gathering of the Church unto heavenly Mount Zion:

For you are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire [= Sinai], and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet [the shofar of Ex. 19:16, 19]…but you are come to [heavenly] Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn having been registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men having been made perfect, [and] to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant… Heb. 12:18-19, 22-24

Notice the direct contrast between 1) the earthly Mount Sinai at the assembling of carnal Israel on Earth, and 2) the heavenly Mount Zion at the assembling of the sanctified Church in heaven. (Paul makes the same contrast in Galatians 4:21-31.) This direct comparison between

lower versus upper mountains;

carnal (first) versus sanctifying (second/new) covenants;

Old Covenant mediator Moses (Gal. 3:19) versus New Covenant mediator Jesus;

first versus latter trumpets,

is continued in verses 25-26:

See that you do not refuse him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth […all the people…said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us…” Ex. 20:18-19], much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven [Jesus: 1 Thes. 4:16 above] – whose voice then shook the earth, but now…“[will] shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” (See Haggai 2:6; 3:21)

This latter-day “turning away” from God’s Presence is described in Rev. 6:15-16:

And the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the commanders and the mighty men and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said, “…hide us from the Face of the one sitting on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.”

Isaiah 2:10-21 also speaks of this time. Verse 19:

They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, from the terror of the LORD and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily.

And also Rev. 1:7:

Behold, He [Jesus] is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn/wail because of Him.

which brings us, conclusively, to Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:30:

then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

At Mount Sinai, most of God’s called-out assembly, Israel, “stood afar off” (Ex.20:18) – “turned away,” as Paul puts it – from the Lord’s Presence amid the fearsome atmospheric and earthly disturbances.

Paul says even greater disturbances will take place at the Last Shofar, when the Lord comes again. Thus, God’s called out assembly, the Church, must be ready to overcome their natural-born fear of the signs and the Face, and not turn away.

Those whose overcome and are ready will go up to be with the Lord upon the heavenly Mount Zion, even as Moses, Joshua, Aaron, and the 70 elders went up into the Presence on Mount Sinai. “Those who are ready” (Matt. 25:10; cf. Ex. 19:11) will go in with the Bridegroom at his coming, immediately following the heavenly and earthly cataclysms and “great sound of a trumpet [shofar]” of the Sixth Seal = Matt. 24:29-31 = 1 Thes 4:16-17 = Heb. 12:25-28 = Isaiah 2:10-21 = Rev. 1:7.

Those who are not ready, both of the worldly and among Israel and the Church, won’t go up, and will enter into the times of God’s wrath. That wrath begins after the Sixth Seal is opened – “the great day of his wrath is come,” Rev. 6:16 – and extends throughout the Seven angelic Trumpets (the Judgment of Israel), and finally the Seven Bowls (the Judgment of the Nations.)

 

[ Note: the Judgment of 1) the heavenly elohim shall take place first, before the judgments of 2) the Church, 3) Israel, and 4) the nations. That first judgment is spoken of in Rev. 12:7-9, Psalm 82, and Isaiah 24:21, and also by its foreshadowing in Ex. 12:12 and Num. 33:4.]

 

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