LIFE OF THE MESSIAH – 005
DR. ARNOLD G. FRUCHTENBAUM
II. THE AUTHENTICATION OF THE KING – Paragraphs 17-25
9. Messiah’s Authority Over Defilement
Paragraph 45 – Mark 10:40-45; Matthew 8:2-4; Luke 5:12-16
Let’s turn in our Harmony to paragraph 45. We’re still in the second main division of His life, the authentication of the King. And we’re dealing with capital B on your outline, the authority of the King; we’re down to point 9, Messiah’s authority over defilement. It’s the account of the healing of a Jewish leper and although He’s done quite a bit of miracles already since He went public with them at the first Passover, we (?) to see that we’re dealing with something that is really special and something unique. Now to understand why this was such an important and significant miracle keep this in mind, that from the time the Mosaic Law was completed there was no record of any Jew ever healed of leprosy. Again, from the time the Mosaic Law was actually completed there was no record of any Jew healed of leprosy; in the case of Miriam that was before the completion of the Law. In the case of Naaman, he was Syrian, not Jewish.
And Moses spelled out in great detail what the priesthood would have to do in the case of a Jew healed of leprosy. In fact, Moses devotes two lengthy chapters of his Law, Leviticus chapters 13 and 14. Both chapters are 50 verses long so he spends more than 100 verses dealing with the issue of how to confront and deal with someone that had leprosy, especially if he was healed of leprosy.
In the Mosaic Law only the priest had the authority to declare someone a leper; once he declared someone a leper, on that day the declared leper would have to tear his clothing and from now on walk around in torn clothing. He was ostracized from Jewish society; he had to live in a special area of town reserved for lepers only. He had to keep his face covered from the nose down. And he was not allowed into the tabernacle or temple compound and could never receive the spiritual benefits of the tabernacle or temple services. If he happened to be walking down the road and saw someone approaching him he would have to warn the person not with the words “leper, leper,” but with the words “unclean, unclean.” He was ceremonially unclean from the day he was declared a leper, from that day on no one could touch him; anyone touching him would also himself become unclean.
Then Moses also spelled out some details, if a Jew was healed of leprosy he had to go before the priesthood and say I was a leper and now I’m healed of my leprosy and on that day the priesthood had to offer up two separate birds; one bird was killed by shedding of blood, the second blood was dipped in the blood of the first one and then set free. Then came a seven day period of intense investigation for the purpose of answering three questions: number one, was the man a declared leper? And since only a priest would have the authority to make him a leper; there would be a record of it there somewhere. He also was asked, the second question is, was he really healed of his leprosy. And every day for seven days his whole body was carefully investigated, his whole body was shaved of all hairs including the eyebrows. If again the answer was yes, the third question they had to come to was what was the circumstances of the healing to make sure it was legitimate or not.
And if all three questions were answered satisfactorily the eighth day was the day of ritual, with four different types of offerings. First of all, a trespass offering; secondly, a sin offering; thirdly, a burnt offering, and fourthly, a meal offering. So (?) take the blood of the sin offering and apply it to three parts of the man’s body, upon his right ear, right thumb, and right big toe; they did the same thing again with the sin offering, the trespass and sin offering the blood was applied on the three parts of the body. And then the ritual ended with the anointing of oil on the same three parts of the body. Only then was the person allowed to reenter and live among the normal Jewish society; only then could he once again visit the tabernacle or temple compound and receive the benefits of the spiritual services.
While Moses gave them all these details of what they had to if a Jew was healed of leprosy they never had a single opportunity to put any of this into effect because even by the time the Law was completed there was no record of any Jew healed of leprosy. And while rabbinic writings have many cures for many different diseases, we’ll be checking one of those out a bit later in our study, probably next week, there’s no record of that ever applying to a Jewish person and within the rabbinic cures there was simply no way to heal a Jewish leper. And because God, in the Mosaic Law, said that one of the ways He will punish us was by means of leprosy. And we’ll see segments of this in the historical development, as King Uzziah, when he tried to burn the incense God struck him with leprosy. And when Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, lied, God struck him with leprosy.
The feeling by first century was that if a Jew contracted leprosy it meant he was under a special divine judgment. And therefore no Jewish leper will ever be healed until the Messiah comes and there’s our rep. As we shall see in the Gospels as we continue to proceed, there were certain miracles performed in the Old Testament. But certain miracles are never performed in the Old Testament, they’re performed for the first time in the New Testament and those miracles, these special miracles, that I’ll call Messianic miracles, create a stir in the Jewish population which does not create when He performs other kinds of miracles.
And there were three main miracles in this other category. There are two basic categories of miracles, then, and one category were those miracles anyone would be able to perform if he was empowered by God to do so. There was a second category of miracles that were called Messianic miracles, miracles only Messiah would be able to perform. There are three main miracles in this second category. As we shall see in this course, whenever He performs a miracle of the second category the Jewish reaction is very different than when He performs miracles of this first category. These are not Messianic, but these are.
And the first of these three special miracles will be the healing of a Jewish leper. So keep in mind from the Jewish context of first century Israel, anyone healing a Jewish leper by so doing would be claiming to be the Messiah. Also to understand that point we’ll see why things happen here the way they do.
Now Mark 1:40 and Matthew 8:2 simply mentions the man is a leper, but again, Luke being a medical doctor is always a bit more detailed, and so in Luke 5:12 he says he was “a man full of leprosy.” The point he makes is this. At this point of time the leprosy was fully developed; it would not be that much longer before it would take this man’s life. And now this Jewish leper comes to Jesus; he does not say, in Mark 2:40, if you will, you can heal me, but notice, “if you will, you can make me clean,” because he was unclean, untouchable the day he was a declared leper. And for him there was quite a bit of time passed by since he was a declared leper because by now the leprosy was fully developed.
It’s the will of the Messiah to heal him and in Luke 5:13 He stretches out His hand and touches him. Now as we’ve seen previously already, He does not need to touch someone to heal them. In the case of the healing of the nobleman’s son He was twenty miles away in Cana and the son was sick in Capernaum, and yet He was able to heal long distance. So again He does not need to touch the leper to heal him, and in the context of leprosy that is significant. This will be the first time the man was touched by human hands since he became a declared leper. It was a touch that causes instantaneous healing.
And notice what He tells him to do in Luke’s account, in Luke 5:14, “He charged him to tell no man; but go your way, and show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing, according as Moses commanded,” and why? “for a testimony unto them.” Who are the “them?” The Jewish leaders. He now sends the man directly to the priesthood to begin the process of the cleansing of a leper in accordance with Leviticus 13 and 14. He wants to force them to begin taking His Messianic claims rather seriously. And so when this man came before the priesthood and said I was a declared leper, now I’m healed of my leprosy, on that day they offered up the two birds. And then came seven days investigation with the answered three questions: number one, yes, he is a declared leper; secondly, yes, he is healed of his leprosy, but thirdly, it’s a man named Jesus of Nazareth that did the healing. And again, from a Jewish context the healing of a Jewish leper meant He was claiming to be the Messiah.
From the middle of Mark 1:45 of Mark’s account notice what it says, He could no more walk openly into a city. He performed miracles that created a stir earlier, but it was not as big a stir and He was still able to come into a city. But now because He performed this unique miracle it creates a lot more attention and He has to be more circumspect as He walks into a city. Also is a crucial point in Luke 6:16, “He withdraws Himself in the deserts, and prayed.” And the contextually He was praying what was about to happen next.
10. Messiah’s Authority to Forgive Sin
Paragraph 46 – Mark 2:1-12; Matthew 9:1-8; Luke 5:17-26
All right, paragraph 46, Messiah’s authority to forgive sins. Now of the first thing to note is where the next event occurs. That’s the advantage of the thematic approach where we see the correlation of one event to the other. Mark’s account, Mark 2:1, specifies the event occurs up in Capernaum and that’s a three day walk away from Jerusalem. Now keep that in mind, a three day journey from Jerusalem. And then look at Luke’s account in Luke 5:17, “And it came to pass on one of those days, that He was teaching; and there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every village of the Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem.” Note what we do not have here; we don’t really have a few local Pharisees observing what He is doing.
Luke is far more specific, he tells us all of the spiritual leaders from all over the country have come up to Capernaum. He specifies they came from every village of the Galilee, every village of Judea, as well as Jerusalem. All of the spiritual leaders have gone up to Capernaum and the question is: why are they all up there. There’s no Baptist convention being held in that city that year so why are they all up there? This is their response to what happened in the previous segment, the healing of a Jewish leper. This is the first stage, we mentioned earlier, of having this investigation, the stage of observation.
Normally they didn’t have to all go, a small delegation like the one they sent to John would have been sufficient. But this time they’re not responding to someone who merely claims to be the Messiah, now they’re responding to someone that performed a miracle that’s never happened before, so they all chose to go up there for this occasion. And remember in the stage of observation they could ask no questions, they could raise no objections, all they can do is observe. And while they’re observing and hearing what He’s teaching, four friends of the paralytic try to get the man over to Jesus to have him healed but could not do so because all the leaders were there blocking the doorway.
So they just go to the opposite side of the house for every house back then had an outdoor stairwell, and that will lead to a flat roof, and with some effort they got the man up there and it had to take some effort because the man himself was a paralytic and could not help them get him on top of the roof.
Then Mark 2:4 points out they went ahead and broke the roof apart, which must have made the owner of the house rather ecstatic, but the Gospels do not tell us how the owner of the house responded to the demolition of his roof. When the hole is finally big enough they lowered the man on his (?) down to where He was teaching. Now on similar occasions He would simply proceed to heal, but not this time. Instead, in Luke 5:20 He makes the declaration, “Man, your sins are forgiven you,” knowing very well that claiming the authority forgive sins in the salvation sense would raise some serious questions among these leaders. Notice that his sins are forgiven in a passive sense which is significant because in the Hebrew text, the only time you find the passive sense used is in the book of Leviticus, chapters 4-6, which are dealing with sacrifices, a reference to the atonement. So even saying this, “Man, your sins are forgiven,” and using the kind of passive voice He uses, it means He was speaking as if He was God.
Now while this raises serious objections and questions on the minds of the leaders, remember they cannot verbalize these issue. And notice how two of the Gospels make that point. Mark’s account, end of Mark 2: 6, “reasoning in their hearts.” Matthew 9:3, they “said within themselves.” Once you understand the Jewish background then these small phrases begin to make sense. They were not allowed to verbalize anything in the observation stage. All they could do was observe. And their unspoken objection is found in Mark 2:7, “Why doth this man thus speak? He blasphemes: who can forgive sins but one, even God?” And their theology here is correct. No one can forgive sins in a salvation sense except God alone. So if He claims the authority to forgive sins that means one of two things: either He is a blasphemer or He is who He claims to be, the Messianic God-man.
He responds to them with His own question. I mentioned earlier that one of the common ways of Jewish teaching is to go from the known to the unknown; a second common Jewish way of teaching is responding to questions and asking questions. If you go to a rabbinic class in some rabbinic school, for example, you’ll observe this happens all the time. And the purpose is to get the student to reason through his own question and see if he can come up with the right answer without being told what the right answer is.
There’s even a rabbinic story that goes with this. There was a place where a priest and rabbi would get together and the priest liked to ask the rabbi all these different questions. The rabbi never gave him a straight answer. Every question the priest raised the rabbi responded with a question. And one day the priest got a bit frustrated and said, why do you Jews always answer a question by asking questions? The rabbi answered, why not?
And Jesus frequently uses the same method, questions for questions. And the question He raises is in Mark 2:9, “Whether is easier, to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins are forgiven you; or to say Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? And the issue now is what is the easiest thing to merely say. Is it easier for Me to say to this man your sins are forgiven you, or is it easier for Me to say stand up and walk because I’m healing you. What’s the easier thing to merely to say. The easier thing to merely say is your sins are forgiven you because that requires no outward obvious evidence. The harder thing to say is I’m healing you because that will require obvious visible evidence.
I could make the same claim here and now, simply proclaim all right from now no matter what you believe or don’t believe, no matter what you do or don’t do, your sins are forever forgiven so don’t worry about your spiritual future. Having said this, you cannot prove me right or wrong because what I just said does not require any visible evidence. On the other hand, if all of you here had two broken legs, and I also say within five minutes I’m going heal you so you can jog home, that’s a bit harder for me to say because within those five minutes I will have to visibly prove that. As we say in Texas, I’ll have to put my money where my mouth is. You can tell from my accent I come from Texas.
Now using a former rabbinic logic called qal v-homer; qal v-homer means using a light and the systems means you prove the easier by doing the harder. He says to them I will prove to you I can say the easier, “your sins are forgiven you,” by doing the harder, healing the paralytic. Only then does He proceed to heal and there is simultaneous evidence. Mark 2:12, “And he arose, and straightway took up the bed.” Luke says in Luke 5:25, “and immediately he rose up before them,” there is simultaneous evidence that he could do the harder. That in turn becomes evidence that He can say the easier, “your sins are forgiven you.” And if He can say the easier, He is who He claims to be, the Messianic King, the Messianic person. Now it’s obvious that when they came back to Jerusalem their decision was men, the movement of Jesus is significant.
And now from paragraph 47 to paragraph 60 He will undergo the second stage, the stage of interrogation. From now on everywhere He goes, a Pharisee is sure to follow. But now they are asking questions, they are raising objections, looking for a basis to accept or reject a person’s claim. My goal for this morning is to try to get through paragraph 60 and next week we’ll begin with paragraph 61, we have the major turning point of His public ministry. But this becomes the first turning point where they begin to look for reasons to accept or reject.
13. Messiah’s Authority Over the Sabbath
Paragraph 47 – Mark 2:13-17; Matthew 9:9-13; Luke 5:27-32
Paragraph 47, Messiah’s authority over men and here we see the beginnings of that second stage, the stage of interrogation. It comes in connection with the calling of the seventh disciple that goes by the name of Matthew, also called Levi, the son of Alpheus. Now by profession he was a publican. And the job of publicanism was actually a job forbidden to Jews by Jewish law. But some publicans chose to bid for the office, again, not because they are paid well, because of what the law would allow them to get away with. If the Roman authorities determined that Mr. Cohen here owed the government five shekels in taxes, the publican can go and say you owe ten shekels, collect ten, give five to Rome that she demanded, and keep five for himself.
And so publicans were hated for two reasons: first of all, they work on behalf of the Romans; they work on behalf of the Gentile subjugating authorities. And secondly, they became wealthy by extorting from their own people. So if a man chose to become a publican he was ostracized from Jewish society and the rabbis issued many rules and regulations against the publicans. Among these rules was only two classes of society would be allowed to associate with publicans and these were other publicans and prostitutes. The term “sinner” in some of these passages is a euphemism for a prostitute.
There are two types of publicans, both were bad, but one was worse than the other. Now the lesser of the two evils was the income tax collector, the IRS official. The worst kind of publican was the custom’s official, like the guys at customs of the airport that want to charge you for the stuff you buy outside the country. And Luke’s account, Luke 2:27 specifies that he was “sitting at the place of toll,” which meant he was a custom’s official. So Matthew was the worst kind of publican he could possibly be. And rabbinic writings emphasize the issue of honesty. When you’re dealing with a customs official publican, they said, it was permitted to smuggle goods behind his back, because just as a man might hide his things to keep them from being stolen by a thief, by the same token, getting around a publican has the same principle, simply protecting your goods from being stolen by a thief. And many other rules and regulations I can cite but we won’t get into at this point.
And to this man, He said at the end of verse 27, “Follow Me.” And normally when you have this kind of a position you don’t just simply get up and leave it, you would have to make arrangements and find replacements. But Matthew recognizes that the authority of the Messiah supercedes the authority of Rome, so in Luke 5:28 “And he forsook all, and rose up and followed him.” And this marks the point of Matthew’s new birth.
So what he decides to do is give himself a new birth birthday party. But what kind of people attend Matthew’s new birth birthday party? Only other publicans and sinners or prostitutes, and poor classes of them, but contrary to Jewish practice, Jesus and the other six apostles He has at this stage are also there. And this simply contradicts the rabbinic practice of that day. And so at the end of Mark 2:16 they raise the objection, “He eats and drinks with publicans and sinners,” and the point of the objection is that if He really was the Messiah He would not associate with this class of society.
He responds by saying three things in Matthew 9:12-13. First of all, it’s not that people that are well that need a physician but those who are sick. The Pharisees thought of themselves as being spiritually healthy; they declared the publicans to be spiritually sick, so should He not go to them as a spiritual physician to bring about some healing?
Secondly he points out the Pharisees are characterized by much sacrifice but lack mercy. Now being characterized by much sacrifice shows they’re very careful to keep the external demands of the Mosaic Law; they were not as zealous to keep the internal demands of the Mosaic Law, such as showing mercy. And the lack of mercy is seen in the many rules and regulations against the publicans.
And then thirdly, He didn’t come to call the righteous for repentance, but the sinners. The Pharisees thought of themselves as being among the righteous ones. The publicans were declared to be unique sinners, especially custom official publicans. So should not He go to them to bring them to repentance? And this helps to set the stage for what happens until paragraph 60. Everywhere he goes Pharisees are following and objecting, either to things He says or to things He does.
12. Messiah’s Authority Over Tradition
Paragraph 48 – Mark 2:18-22; Matthew 9:14-17; Luke 5:33-39
Paragraph 48, Messiah’s authority over tradition. At this point Jesus enters into a unique period of conflict over a specific issue, because by this point of time in the history of Jewishness and Judaism a whole body of traditions build up that by first century Israel became sacrosanct, equal to Scripture, sometimes more important than Scripture. And the Pharisees expect Jesus to be in submission to all of these new rules and regulations. He consistently refuses to do so.
And so we understand what the issues are we’ll have to do some background work. You often hear people say the reason they rejected Him is because He would not overthrow Rome, but that is never given as a reason in Scripture. And the actual reason given for rejecting Him is not His failure to overthrow Rome; had they accepted Him He would have overthrown Rome. But the issues are elsewhere.
The Jews came back from Babylonian captivity. Ezra, of the book of Ezra, began a school called the school of the sopherim. Sopherim is a Hebrew word meaning scribes; sopherim is plural and sopher is singular. And the original intent of Ezra and the sopherim, the Scribes, was to give the Jewish people a clear knowledge of the Mosaic Law. Hosea the prophet declared because of a lack of knowledge the people perish; and in order to overcome the lack of knowledge give the Jewish people an understanding of what the Law required, how to keep the Law, and avoid another divine judgment like that of the Babylonian captivity. And while as Christians often think of the Law as containing only Ten Commandments, actually the Torah, the Law, contained a total of 613 commandments. That’s how many commandments God actually gave to Moses, 613 specific commandments.
And the goal was to build a fence around the Torah, to build a fence around the Law. Now what does “fence” consist of. It consists of new rules and new regulations that could be largely derived from the original 613. And the thinking was, the Jews might break the laws of the fence, they might break rabbinic law, that will keep them from breaking through the fence and break the Mosaic Law and bring on a divine judgment.
So Ezra’s goals were correct, merely to expound the Scriptures as any Bible teacher would do today, expound the text from the original context and language, and so on. But now they became more serious, they want to build this fence around the Law. And the principle they used was this: A sopher may disagree with a sopher but they cannot disagree with the Torah. The Torah, the Mosaic Law, was given by God, it was sacrosanct, there’s no basis for debating these issues. By making these new rules and regulations they could go on and disagree among themselves until a decision was made by majority vote; and if the majority of rabbis voted on a specific new law it became mandatory for every Jew in the world to follow it. And the kind of logic they used was called pilpul, p-i-l-p-u-l, that’s a Hebrew word meaning [sounds like: petharia] (?), sharp and it refers to a form of rabbinic logic. But given the original statement, how many new ones can you lodge that would be derived from that one.
I’ll give you an example of how that works. Among the 613 commandments God gave to Moses was you must not seethe in the milk of its mother, you don’t boil a baby goat in the milk of its mother. The purpose of the Law originally was to avoid a common Canaanite practice; when a mother goat gave birth to its firstborn kid the kid was taken away from the mother and the meat of the kid was boiled in the milk of the mother as a first fruits offering to the god Baal. The Jews could not practice that type idolatry and therefore you do not seethe a kid in the milk of its mother.
God gave the Law to Moses about 1400 BC, now it’s about 400 BC. The original intent of that rule had been forgotten. And so the sopherim raised the question, how do we now make sure we never, never, never, ever, ever, ever, seethe the kid in the milk of its mother and then that’s how pilpul logic began to work. That’s an example. Suppose you eat a piece of meat and with that piece of meat you drink a glass of milk. It’s always possible the milk may have come from the mother of the meat that you’re eating. And they go down to your stomach, they seethe in your stomach and you break the Mosaic Law. So you have one new rule: Jews could not partake of dairy products and meat products at the same meal; they must be separated by about 24 hours.
You go to a Jewish neighborhood in a place like New York or L.A. which has many Orthodox Jews, and you go into their Jewish restaurants, if it says kosher on it they will either be serving dairy or they’ll be serving meat, but they will not serve both at the same time. In most places in Israel, though it happens less and less now, most places in Israel in old hotels, for example, follow these kosher laws, no mixing of the milk and meat products. There was one restaurant in downtown Jerusalem, it’s gone now but it was there when I was living in Jerusalem, and it was a kosher restaurant that wanted to serve both dairy and meat at the same time, it was a two story restaurant; the ground floor was for meat, the upper floor was for dairy. Either you eat upstairs or downstairs, what you could not do is go up and down and eat in both places because they had people watching to make sure you did not do that. So the pilpul logic went and to this day all Orthodox Jews separate dairy from meat, they’ll often have different parts of the refrigerator or two refrigerators and so on.
But the pilpul logic goes even further; suppose it’s lunch time and you decide to have a dairy meal, you take a plate and from this plate you eat a slab of cheese, and of course after lunch you want to wash it; no matter how well you wash it and scrub it you might not notice a small spec of cheese on that plate. And then in the evening you decide to have a meat meal, and you pick the same plate and you put your hamburger, or if this is kosher law it wouldn’t be a ham-burger, it would be a beef-burger, you put the beef-burger on the plate and it picks up this small spec of cheese you did not see. No matter how remote the cheese may have come from the milk of the mother of the meat that you’re eating you still have them both together, they seethe in your stomach and you break the Law. So rule number two is Jews must have two sets of dishes and to this day all Orthodox Jews have at least two sets of dishes; one used for dairy and one used for meat. If by mistake you happen to use one for the other, you must either destroy the dish or give it away to a Gentile, but no Jew can ever eat on that plate ever again.
And it went on and on and on and to each of the 613 commandments God gave to Moses they issued hundreds, and sometimes thousands of new regulations. The pilpul time is from about 450 BC until 30 BC; that’s when the school of the sopherim came to an end.
But then came a second school of rabbis, called the tannaim, plural for tanna, a Hebrew word meaning teacher, and they looked upon the work of the sopherim and guess what they said? They’re still too many holes in the fence. So they (?) the process of trying to plug up the holes in the fence and their period of time was from 30 BC until AD 220, so Jesus was coming on the scene in the time of the tannaim period.
Now from 450 BC until AD 220 none of these laws were written down. That’s why it’s referred to as the oral law because when the tannaim came into existence they took the laws of the sopherim to be sacrosanct, equal with Scripture, sometimes even more important than Scripture. But then they had to justify their teaching that the rules of the sopherim are equal to the Laws of Moses. And they came up with a teaching that all Orthodox Jews still hold to today. And when I was a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, in tannaim class this is what I was taught.
Now what happened on Mount Sinai is that God gave to Moses two sets of laws; not one but two. The first law is called the written law, and these are the commandments he wrote down, the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and so the written law is the 613 commandments. He also gave to Moses the oral law; oral because he did not write these thousands of other commandments down; he memorized them all, and by memory it was passed down to Joshua, who passed it down to Judges, who passed it down to the prophets, who passed it down to the sopherim. The sopherim did not innovate these news laws; they got it from the prophets, who got it from the judges, who got if from Joshua, who got it from Moses, who got it from God. And therefore they must be observed equally with Scripture and in another paragraph we’ll look at we’ll see that sometimes they went beyond that and they’ll rule the sopherim takes priority over the laws of Moses.
And it was oral indeed because in 450 BC until AD 220 none of these are written down. Certain rabbis had these laws memorized. In the Gospels you read of Pharisees and Scribes; what’s the difference, all Scribes were Pharisees. But the Scribes were those segment of Pharisees that had these laws memorized. If you wished to know whether a tradition was about this or that you would approach a Scribe and he would pull out from his memory.
By the time we come to third century Israel in AD third century Israel less and less are Jews are around, the Jewish population is decreasing, there are less and less men available to memorize all these things so by the rule of one rabbi called Yehudah haNasi, Judah the Prince, finally all these laws were finally written down for the first time, a collection of more than six and a half centuries of material. Then came (?) rabbis called the Amoraim, plural for Mora (?), an old Aramaic word that means teacher. And they looked upon the work of the tannaim and guess what they said: there’s still too many holes in the fence. They continued the process of trying to plug up the fence. And they went from AD 220 to about the year 500 AD, trying to plug up the rules of the fence.
Now the work of the sopherim and tannaim together is now called the Mishnah. And the Mishnah in Hebrew is roughly about 1500 pages. The work of the Amoraim is called the Gemara, that’s about the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica, a massive body of work. When you put the two together that makes up the Talmud.
Now in this study we’re not concerned about what the Gemara says, that’s a later period. The main bone of contention between Him and the Pharisees is over the Mishnah, because for a Pharisee, what was the Messiah supposed to be like? The Messiah will be a fellow Pharisee, and He will not only subject Himself to both the Mosaic Law but also to the oral law. He would help them in plugging up the holes of the fence. He just consistently rejects the authority of the oral law only affirming the authority of the Mosaic Law.
And now in our study through the next two weekends I’ll be using certain words simultaneously or interchangeably; the oral law, Pharisaic law, rabbinic law, Talmudic law, that’s all various phases of what we now call the Mishnah, or Mishnahic law. By the way, the Mishnah is spelled with an “h” at the end. And this will become the key area of contention between Him and the Pharisees.
It begins here in paragraph 48 and it points out in Luke’s account, Luke 5:33 that the Pharisees followed fasting frequently and the disciples of John follow the Pharisaic tradition and by doing the Pharisees fasted twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. Every Monday and every Thursday were the two Pharisaic fast days. There’ll be another paragraph we’ll get to later on where a Pharisee and a publican go to the temple compound to pray; now the publican uses his prayer time to pray for God’s mercy, but the Pharisee uses his prayer time to let God know how lucky God was to have him on His team. And he gives a testimony which ends up being a bragimony, and he says I fast twice a week, meaning Mondays and Thursdays. But Jesus disciples do not follow this tradition and they want to know why and He responds by saying four things.
First of all, in Mark 5:34-35, you don’t come to a wedding feast to fast, you come to feast. The bridegroom was present and if the bridegroom was present there will be no room for fasting; there’ll be fasting only once he leaves. And the time He went public with His ministry in that first Passover there’s no record of Jesus ever fasting.
Secondly, in verse 36 he points out you don’t use a new patch of cloth to cover a hole in an old garment. An old garment has been washed many times, and has shrunk as much as it will shrink. A new garment is one… and if an old garment develops a hole in its old age and you use a new patch of cloth to cover the old garment, the next time you wash the thing the new patch shrinks and pulls the garment out of shape. His point here is He’s not come to help them patching up Pharisaic Judaism; He didn’t come to close up these holes in the fence. He’s presenting something that is quite different.
Now thirdly in Luke 5:37-38 He points out you don’t use an old wineskin and fill it with new wine. An old wineskin has stretched as much as it will ever stretch; new wine is one that’s begun its fermentation process and the fermentation process is still incomplete. If you fill up an old wineskin with new wines the fermentation process continues, the wine will begin to expand; it will cause a rip in the skin, you will lose both the wineskin and the wine. And the point is He did not come to put His teachings into the mold, or the skin of Pharisaic Judaism. He’s presenting something different; He’s presenting something that was new.
His fourth point can be taken in two ways in Luke 5:39, the primary way that I prefer is that in the end they will reject the new and stay with the old. But a secondary possibility: that the old wine is the wine of Old Testament Judaism, the new wine is Pharisaic Judaism and the old wine was better and therefore it’s better to stay with the Old Testament Judaism that’s now being fulfilled by the Messiahship of Jesus, and not the new wine of Pharisaism which turned Judaism into, ultimately, a brand new religion.
This is the first of some examples of His conflict with the Pharisees over the authority of the Mishnah.
13. Messiah’s Authority Over the Sabbath – Paragraph 49-51
a. Through the Healing of a Paralytic – Paragraph 49 – John 5:1-47
On your outline we come to paragraph 49, point 13 on your outline, paragraphs 49-51 together make up three paragraphs concerning the conflict over the Sabbath. The Sabbath had been highly personified in Judaism in the first century and the personification continues to this day. Now to one commandment that God gave to Moses, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” the Pharisees added over 1,500 new Sabbath rules and regulations. It was personified both as a queen and as a bride; Jehovah’s queen, Israel’s bride. In synagogue service in Friday night, as the sundown begins to set, and the Sabbath begins the synagogue doors are opened and they sing a song called melchat (?) Shabbat, welcoming queen Sabbath into the service.
And the school of sopherim when they raised the question, why did God make the Sabbath? The answer was God made Israel for the Sabbath. Why did God make Israel? For the purpose of honoring the Sabbath.
Now the first of these conflicts in paragraph 49 is for the healing of a paralytic; here we have the second of John’s seven discourses; the second of his seven discourses, discourse on the works of God. We also have the third of John’s seven signs. Now John 5:1 says, “After these things there was a feast of the Jews,” and in Jewish writings when they mention a feast without naming it, it’s a reference to the Passover. So again that Jewish practice, this would be a Passover and if so at this point the ministry is now exactly one year old. He (?) went public at the first Passover, one year has passed. And he goes into the pool of Bethesda, he’s the one that initiates what happens here, He finds a paralytic, and on His own initiative He heals the paralytic. As the context shows, the man doesn’t know who even Jesus was.
Notice three things here. Number one, Jesus sought the man out; he didn’t come to Jesus, Jesus went to him. Secondly, there was no requirement of faith. The man does not know who Jesus is. There is no requirement of faith. And thirdly, there’s not even a knowledge of who Jesus seems to be, because at this point it was not essential for people to recognize who He was to receive the miracle. At this point of time, again, the miracles were done to get them to believe and again these are signs to Israel to get them to make a decision. Next week when we get to paragraph 61 the purpose of His miracles will change. But at this stage it is still rather public and so at this point faith was not essential for these miracles to occur as it will be after paragraph 61.
He also tells the man at the end of John 5:8, “Arise, take up your bed, and walk. And straightway the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked.” When He asked him to do does not violate the Sabbath in accordance with the Mosaic Law but it does violate the Sabbath in accordance with the Pharisaic law because in the Pharisaic law, Rabbinic law, Mishnahic law, you could not carry anything on the Sabbath day from a public place to a private place, or from a private place to a public place. He’s carrying it from inside the pool of Bethesda, a private area, into the street which was a public area.
And Jesus knew it would raise the issue and in John 5:10, “Now it was the Sabbath on that day. So the Jews said unto him that was cured, It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed,” so why are you doing this? Why are you violating the law, not the Mosaic Law here but the Pharisaic law? And the man tells them, well the one who healed me told me to do this. They asked him, who healed you, and notice he doesn’t know who it was. He had to go back and find out who it was. Only after he once finds out who He was He finally tells them who it was, we read in John 5:18, “For this cause therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but He also called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” And notice by calling God His own Father that was enough to be claiming to be equality with God.
In cultic groups now days they deny the deity of the Messiah one of their arguments is He’s the Son of God, the Son is not equal to the Father. And that might be true in Gentile reckoning but it’s not true in Jewish reckoning where the firstborn son is equal to the Father. And that’s the way it’s understood by His own Jewish audience; the Jews, when they heard Him claiming God as His Father were not hearing Him saying He was something less than God, notice they understood Him to be claiming equality with God. So now they have two counts against Him: number one, He breaks the Sabbath, and number two, He claims equality with God.
Now Jesus defends Himself in four points in John 5:19-29. First of all, in verse 19-21 He’s doing the works of the Father; He’s doing the kind of work only the Father, only God can do. So if He can do what the Father does He must be equal to the Father. So in verse 19 there is equal righteousness, an equal relationship I should say, so what one does so does the other. In verse 20 is equal love between the Father and the Son, and the works that He does is the works is the works the Father gave Him to do. And in verse 21 there’s equal power. He shares the Father’s power to provide life.
Secondly, in verse 22-23 there is equal honor and the Son will end up judging all men. Now in the Old Testament God was the final judge of all men; if now He’s the judge of all men, it means He must be God.
Thirdly, in verse 24 He has the power to provide eternal life. There again in the Old Testament they would know only God had the power to provide eternal life. So if He claims to provide eternal life then He must be God as well.
And fourthly, He will bring about the resurrection of the dead. Here again in the Old Testament only God had the power to provide the resurrection of the dead; now here in verses 25-29 if He’s the one that’s going to provide eternal life He must be God, clear claims of His deity.
Also notice the two different titles because in the end of John 5:25 He calls Himself the “Son of God,” focusing on His deity, but in verse 27 the Son of man, focusing on His humanity; He is the God-man. Furthermore, there will be three types of resurrections. There will be a resurrection of life for those who believe and there will be a resurrection of judgment for those who don’t believe.
The Jewish context merely claiming these claims does not make it so because Jewish people in the history of the Mosaic Law requires witnesses. In the Mosaic Law two witnesses were sufficient; three witnesses were better. At the testimony of two or three witness will any truth be established. But He goes one beyond them; He provides them with four witnesses; whereas Moses required two, helpful three, He will provide four.
The first witness happens to be John the Baptist in John 5:33, “You have sent them unto John, and he has borne witness unto the truth.” And John was the one that declared Him to be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Secondly, also the works that He does in verse 36, “for the works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me.” His miracles authenticate His claims. And by now He’s performed one Messianic miracle, the healing of the Jewish leper. Thirdly, God the Father bore witness of Him in verse 37, “The Father which sent Me, He has borne witness of Me,” because He publicly spoke at the baptism, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And fourthly we have the testimony of Scripture, the fourth witness. Verse 39, “Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life: and these are they which bear witness of Me.”
The problem, then, is not there was insufficient witness to His Messianic and divine claims; the problem is elsewhere, in John 5:46, “For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?” He was accusing these very religious Jews of not believing Moses. That seems to be an odd accusation. It’s like going up to a very Orthodox Jew today and saying you know, you don’t believe in Moses. Who believes in Moses more than the Pharisees or today who believes in Moses more than Orthodox Jews do? But it’s a valid accusation because of this: they believed Moses the way Moses has been reinterpreted through Pharisaic tradition and Mishnahic law. They did not believe Moses “as it is written,” at points with the written law; they didn’t believe Moses as it’s simply spelled out in Scripture. They believed in the kind of Moses that was reinterpreted through Pharisaic tradition. Had they simply taken Moses at his writings and no more they would have less difficulty recognizing Him to be the Messiah. Because they were testing Him through the prism of the Pharisaic system is the reason they failed to recognize Him. But there is a four-fold witness to His Messianic claims.
One more thing in this paragraph, in John 5:35 you have another example of the sub theme of the conflict of light and darkness common in John’s Gospel.
b. Through the Controversy Over Grain
Paragraph 50 – Mark 2:23-28; Matthew 12:1-8; Luke 6:1-5
Paragraph 50, the Sabbath controversy over the picking of the grain. Now Luke’s account, verse 1 says now on a Sabbath day He was going through the cornfields, that’s the Old English, it should be in our English as wheat fields, “and His disciples plucked the ears of wheat, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.” The Pharisees come attacking because by so doing they just broke four of these 1500 Sabbath rules and regulations numerated by the Pharisees. They broke four separate rules.
First of all, when they picked the wheat off the stalk they were guilty of reaping on the Sabbath day. Secondly, when they rubbed the wheat in their hands to separate the wheat from the chaff they were guilty of threshing the wheat on the Sabbath day. Thirdly, when they would have whoof, (?) their hands to blow the chaff away they were guilty of winnowing on the Sabbath day. And fourthly, when they swallowed the wheat they were guilty of storing the wheat on the Sabbath day. That’s how extreme the situation had become.
In the Pharisaic schools there was a debate about walking on the grass and many rabbis issued a ruling you should not walk on the grass on the Sabbath day. If you asked a rabbi what’s wrong with walking on the grass on a Sabbath day his first answer is nothing; it’s permissible to walk on the grass on the Sabbath day. But here’s the problem, here we have the fence around the law again. You may see only a grassy field; what you might not see is one wild stalk of wheat growing among the grass and as you walk in the grass you might step on the wheat and separate the wheat from the stalk; you’re guilty of reaping on the Sabbath day. And your foot comes down and squeezes the wheat just enough to separate the wheat from the chaff and now you’re guilty of threshing the wheat on the Sabbath day. As you keep on walking the hem of your outer garment might cause enough of a breeze to blow the chaff away, now you’re guilty of winnowing on the Sabbath day. And fourthly, once you’re gone a bird or a rodent might see the exposed piece of wheat and swallow it and now you’re guilty of storing the wheat on the Sabbath day. That’s why we do not walk on the grass on the Sabbath day. See! And that’s how extreme some of these things had become.
But He responds by pointing out six specific things. First of all, in Matthew’s account, Matthew 12:3 David also broke Pharisaic law when he ate the shewbread, in verses 3-4. And the Mosaic Law never said the Levite could not give the shewbread to another Levite, the Mosaic Law never said this but Pharisaic law did say that. And in their case they could not claim that David lived before the Mishnah came into being because remember they were teaching that the oral law also came from Moses, so David could break the oral law without being punished, without being condemned by the Pharisees, so can David’s even greater son.
Secondly, the law of the Sabbath does not apply in every situation, that’s the point in verse 5 of Matthew. Now anybody outside of the temple compound had to treat the Sabbath as a day of rest, you stayed home and rested. That was not the case with the people within the temple compound; for them it was not a day of rest but a day of labor. In fact, they have to work harder on the Sabbath day than any other day. There were daily sacrifices and rituals but on the Sabbath all sacrifices have to be double; on the Sabbath there are certain rituals done not done on any other day. And yet the people who worked in the temple compound were not viewed as breaking the Sabbath because they were not resting but working on the Sabbath day. So again the Sabbath commandment did not apply to every specific situation; it did not apply merely walking through a field and picking some ears of wheat for the purpose of eating; that was not a case of reaping it for the future.
Third, the Messiah happens to be greater than the temple, in Matthew 12:6, therefore the temple can allow work to be done that did not violate the Mosaic Law; so it (?) can allow certain works to be done that did not violate the Mosaic Law; it might break Mishnahic law but it does not break Mosaic Law.
Fourthly, in Matthew 12:7 certain works are always allowed on the Sabbath day, such as works of necessity and works of mercy. Now eating is a work of necessity; healing is a work of mercy. Such works will always be allowed on the Sabbath day.
Fifthly, the Messiah as happens to be Lord of the Sabbath; being Lord of the Sabbath He can allow what they disallow, He can disallow what they allow.
And sixthly, they have misconstrued the purpose of the Sabbath. They were teaching that God made Israel for the Sabbath but in Mark 2:27 the opposite is true, God made the Sabbath for Israel, to give Israel a time of refreshment and rest. It was not for the purpose of enslaving Israel, and by means of all of these additional Sabbath regulations it had the practical effect of enslaving the Jew to the Sabbath and not freeing the Jew to enjoy the Sabbath. So they misconstrued the purpose of the Sabbath.
Now if we’re rather hard on the Pharisees, let me also point out the same kind of legalism and building fences around the law does not escape the Christian church either. And in different segments of the Christian church you have different types of legalisms. At least in Judaism all of these rules are uniform; no matter where you travel in the Jewish world they virtually follow the same rules and regulations with very small differences. But in the Christian church what you have is different rules by different denominations in different areas; even by the same denomination in different parts of the USA you can have different rules and regulations.
For example, some churches say you must never be allowed to drink alcohol, you must never be allowed to go see a movie, you cannot dance any kind of dance, and men and women cannot swim in the same ocean at the same time and so on. And my early years in a Christian college was rather a legalistic school; as we were freshman we had to sit in a special lecture by the Dean of Students to learn the rules we had to live by. And some people resented it and said these are the rules you have to go by when you are in school, that I can live with; every organization, every school has the right to have a standard they want people who are members or students to observe. That’s fine. That’s not the way they presented the case. What they were saying is if you are a Christian you don’t do certain things. They made it a spiritual issue, not an issue for the standards of that school.
And I was saved through a Messianic context and the first few years as a believer I was within the same circles and I didn’t even know about these kinds of rules until that particular year. One of the rules kind of threw me a bit because the Dean says if you’re a Christian you never play with dice. Now I remember in the Bible they cast lots for things, that’s sounded a bit like dice, so I raised my question and asked him, you said the Christians that cannot play with dice, but well where in the Bible does it say that, I don’t recall reading it. The Dean said well it’s not exactly in the Bible that way, what the Bible says is you must avoid any appearance of evil, and because gamblers use dice that’s why we should not use dice, to avoid the appearance of evil. So in my naiveté I raised my hand again a second time and said let me just understand this, you say we should not use dice because gamblers use them. That’s right, he said, we must avoid any appearance of evil. So I said in that case shouldn’t we be forbidden to drive cars because bank robbers use cars to get away with the stolen money, so shouldn’t we avoid using cars for that reason. The next day I was called into his office for a private lecture, one of several that I got throughout the year.
So the first week of school ended and I went to the school’s student activity building and I noticed in the student’s activity building a Monopoly game. And it had the stamp of approval of the school which threw me because in the Monopoly game we had at home you threw two dice and you went around the board. So I took the lid off to see what they were doing and they did remove the dice and in place of the dice they had a spinner, and you have to spin twice in place of throwing the dice. That’s simply building the fence around the law. The church has no more authority than the Pharisees have to pass new regulations about the Scriptures. We judge other people’s spirituality by the Word of God and not by human traditions. So just keep in mind the church has not escaped the same tendency to build a fence around the law.
c. Through the Healing of a Man With a Withered Hand
Paragraph 52 – Mark 3:1-6; Matthew 12:9-14; Luke 6:6-11
Now paragraph 51 we have a third Sabbath controversy with the healing of the man with the withered hand. There’s a synagogue where He was teaching, and both Mark and Matthew simply mention the man was there with a withered hand. But again Dr. Luke is always more specific and tells us it was his right hand that was withered. He’s always more specific. And in Luke 6:7 Luke the Scribes were wondering and the Pharisees were watching Him to see if He would heal this person.
And they wanted to have another base of accusing Him according to Matthew 12:10. He reminds them that even in Pharisaic law if a sheep has fallen into a pit on the Sabbath day, they will pull the sheep out of the pit. And again using the qal v-homer the argument, how much more is a man’s life more important than a sheep? And he reteaches one lesson He taught earlier, in the previous paragraph, works of necessity, works of mercy are always allowed on the Sabbath day and here there was an act of mercy; He proceeds to heal the man.
Now there’s three specific results from these Sabbath controversies, three specific results. First of all, in Luke’s account, Luke 6:11, “they were filled with madness;” again, to be filled means to be controlled, they were controlled by their emotions of madness and anger.
Secondly, in Matthew 12:14 they began they began to counsel and conspire how they might destroy Him, how they might get rid of Him.
And then thirdly, in Mark 3:6 they even carried out this conspiracy with the Herodians and the Pharisees and the Herodians were at opposite ends of the political spectrum. The Pharisees objected to Roman rule of any form, but the Herodians were willing to accept Roman rule if it was ruled through the house of Herod. So these two groups who are at opposite end of the political spectrum come together for what they see the as the common enemy and that is Jesus. Now the Sabbath controversy more than some other controversies is what began them moving towards to find a way to deal with Him.
14. Messiah’s Authority to Heal
Paragraph 52 – Mark 3:7-12; Matthew 12:15-21
Now paragraph 52, His authority to heal. We’re now moving into the earlier parts of His second year ministry and already He continues to receive a great amount of interest. And Mark 3:7 says “a great multitude from Galilee followed Him; from Judea, and from Jerusalem,” this would all be within the borders of the land, now notice His reputation spreads to borders outside the land, to Tyre and Sidon, now Lebanon. Because His reputation spread there we shall see an event occurring between Him and a Syrophenician Canaanitish woman. And also into other territories of Idumaea, and so on. His reputation spread throughout the land, both inside and outside the borders of the land.
Furthermore, in Mark 3:11, who He is is continually being recognized by demons that He confronts. There’s always (?) the remark in verse 12, “He charged them that they should not make Him known,” He continues to refuse to accept any testimony from demons.
15. The Choosing of the Twelve
Paragraph 53 – Mark 3:13-19; Luke 6:12-16
One more paragraph before our break, let’s do paragraph 53, the choosing of the twelve. Out of many, many people following Him, out many people that would like to follow Him more thoroughly, He chooses twelve. While He has many disciples He now chooses twelve men which make up the apostolic group. So in Luke’s account, notice in Luke 6:13, “it was day, He called His disciples,” and he chose from among the disciples twelve men and He gave them the name “Apostles.” The word “disciple” really means learner, someone who learns. It does not carry any principle of authority. But the word “apostle” means one who is sent, or sent one. And these men carried the authority of those who sent them.
There are three reasons for why they were called into a small apostolic group found in Mark’s account, Mark 2:14-15. Number one, verse 14, “that they might be with Him” all of the time. Disciples will be coming and going; He has so many disciples on call when necessary, as we will see. While the disciples were on call, coming and going, this group of twelve men were to be with Him all of the time.
Secondly, “He might send them forth to preach,” now they would go out from city to city, synagogue to synagogue to give the same message He was giving, so they must accept Him to be the Messianic King.
Then thirdly, they “have the authority to cast out demons,” and they will be active in casting out demons.
Now as far as the list of the apostolic group, some have more than one name. I’ll give you the list; this is the purpose, that they might be with Him all of the time, to be sent out to spread the news about the Messiah and about the Kingdom, and they were given authority to cast out demons as evidence of their claim.
The first man goes by three different names; Simon is His Hebrew name, the Hebrew pronounced Shee-mon (?), Peter, Petros is his Greek name, and Caiaphas is his Aramaic name; three different names based upon three different languages. Andrew, and Simon and Andrew are brothers, son of John or Yochanan, you have John, a different John, Yochanan. And James, James was actually in both Hebrew and Greek as Yachov, Yachov (?) is Jacob, his last name was Jacob, (?) same name as the person of Jacob; as the language moved from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English Yachov became James, but if you read the New Testament Greek it’s Yachobas, Yachobas is the Greek form for Jacob or Yachov. And these two were sons of Zebedee, the father and Silome, the mother, Silome is the Hellenized form of the Hebrew Shulamite. Philip means a lover of horses; Nathanael also goes by the name of Bartholomew; now Bartholomew is not a name but a title, it’s the Hellenized form of the two Aramaic words, Bar Tholmei, means of Tholmei, he was Nathanael, the son of Tholmei. We have the word Thomas, which is the Hebrew form and then a misuse of the Greek form, both words mean twin, one is Hebrew, one is Greek, both words mean twin, he obviously had a twin brother. We have Matthew, also called Levi, the son of Alpheus; Alpheus is the Greek form for the Hebrew (?). We have James, the son of Alpheus, Alpheus not the same Alpheus. Then Judas, who is also called Thaddeus or to die. And these two is the third set of brothers, sons of (?).
You have Simon, the Zealot, he was a member of the Zealot party; and finally you have Judas Iscariot, Iscariot is from the Hebrew of two words, ish cariot, (?) he’s a man of the village of Cariot,(?) that must be the village he came from. There are two sets of brothers, Simeon and Andrew; John and James, and then James and Judas, the good Judas. Judas is simply the Greek from for Judah, by the way.
And there are also two extremes here; notice Matthew and also Simon the Zealot; the Zealots were very energetic in opposing the one ruling, and while the Pharisees, mainline Pharisaism believed in passive resistance the Zealots were those Pharisees that believed in active resistance. And often they would go around carrying a small dagger, and they would, in a crowd, kill even fellow Jews that were working for the Romans, they would often kill publicans. And so normally Matthew and Simon the Zealot will be enemies. I always wondered what happened the first time Jesus asked them to sit together next to each other; I wonder how careful Matthew wanted to watch his back at the first sitting.
But if you have your Harmony turn to page 271. This cupped their hands, has a very good appendices you should try to read and the details are given here, I’m only going to summarize what the point is, but on page 271 notice there are four different records of the twelve apostles. Notice the first name is always the same, Simon Peter, with the three names underneath that are mixed, James, John Andrew; the fifth name is always the same, Philip, with the three next names mixed, and then the ninth name is always same with the names below mixed. Judas is always last because of his actions.
Now what the system shows is that within the apostolic group of twelve there was a division of three different groups; each group containing four men, each group had a leader. So Simon was leader of the first group. Philip was the leader of the second group, and James, the son of Alpheus, the third group. And the names below Peter, Philip and James are those that were under their authority. And for more details how this works just read the appendix here.