Ps 110 (Seeing the Messiah, Part One--The Spirit and Unity)

Seeing the Messiah

  

The Master is the fountainhead. And he is made into the fountain by Yhwh’s oracle to him which places him on a throne next to him so that he, the Master, can participate within Yhwh’s sovereign rule over the cosmos, within Yhwh’s prodigal and life-giving power of the chaos of the nations. He, the Master, is the Field. The one in whom Yhwh will sow his seed so that it

In the book of Revelation, we are transported to the heavenly throne where we see, sitting (somewhere), a lamb as if slain, but a lamb that has the voice of a lion. Around this single throne are twenty four other thrones on which the elders sit. This image of the twenty four elders is likely a reference to the Church, as it rules in heaven. The new Jerusalem has gates bear the name of the twelve tribes and the foundation walls bear the names of the twelve apostles. What is important for our purposes is this image of the one Throne through which, or in which, the twenty four thrones participate. They derive their ruling authority and power in, or through, the Throne. Revelation does this also through the image of the scepter. Christ speaks to the angel of the church of Thyatira and tells them that if they are victorious they will rule with an iron scepter. This ‘scepter’ is in reference to Psalm 2 and the scepter that, importantly, Yhwh grants to his David, very similarly to Psalm 110. What is important is that we see how this One Scepter is now apportioned out to all who are victorious. Like with the Throne, the ‘victorious’ participate within the Scepter.

Psalm 110 begins with image of the single master, sitting ‘enthroned’ next to Yhwh. But, crucially, this divinely powerful act of enthronement is manifested in and through the unifying of the multitude of ‘volunteers’. That is the ‘internal’ way through Yhwh will “make your enemies a stool for your feet.” The master becomes the fountain of unity through which Yhwh will gather together those who will destabilize the nations. They become the ‘scepter of Yhwh’.

So what we see here is a ‘portioning out’ the power of the master and vesting it within the volunteers. And, in so doing, they become a divine army, Yhwh’s scepter, a divinely constituted ruling authority pouring over the earth. This divine empowerment, this divine ‘apportioning out’ of the master’s oracle-power, is the Spirit. The Spirit is what is given from Yhwh and the Master to the volunteers and it is the Spirit, therefore, which makes them into ‘little-Masters’, ‘little-Christs’. It is the Spirit, as the unity between the Master and Yhwh, that divinely unites the ‘volunteers’ beneath the Master. The Spirit does not simply unify, he is Unity. He unifies the volunteers so as to unify the cosmos; he brings everything within the ambit and authority of the Master, who is, himself, unified to Yhwh. It is because of the Spirit that this unity is not competitive. The apportioning out of the Master’s authority to the ‘volunteers’ (or, to the twenty four as in Revelation), is an act of divine, and therefore infinite, power. Nothing competes with Infinity. It can only participate within it and, through that participation, moves infinitely into the Infinite. Further up and further in. This ‘unity’ therefore is not ‘static’. It never ‘arrives’ and then ceases. It always-already is moving not just further up and further in but closer and closer.