The name Jesus is in the original, Yeshua – ישוע. Yeshua is a shortened form of Joshua, in the original, Yehoshua – יהושע. Yehoshua means Yehovah saves just as Jehoshaphat or Yehoshaphat יהושפט means Jehovah judges.
The name YHVH or Jehovah is located inside the name Yeshua, even if most people don’t know that. As Yeshua came to save us, so will He return to judge, make war and rule the nations (Revelation 19:11-16).
When we look at the events of the end times, there are tremendous plagues and judgments, which are beyond the ability of most of us to fit in the framework of our theology or of our understanding who God is.
There is much parallel between the events of the end times and the events of the Exodus story. The Rabbis say, “The Last Redemption will be like the First Redemption.” The coming of Messiah and the end of the world will be based on the pattern found in the book of Exodus. As with Moses, so with Messiah.
In the book of Exodus, God brought cataclysmic plagues on Egypt to destroy their empire, bring them to repentance and set the people free. God used a man (Moses) to exercise authority to bring those plagues. (The word in Hebrew for plagues is makot – מכות – meaning: strike or hit. It could have been translated, The Ten Blows.)
The plagues were also described as an attack of the “destroyer” (Exodus 12:13). However, the emphasis of the text is that the Plagues were punishments initiated by God, executed by God’s human representatives, and done with predetermined purpose. The start and end of each plague were controlled by Moses and Aaron, who were obeying God’s direct orders.
These types of events will return in the end times. (See Dan Juster’s “Passover: The Key That Unlocks the Book of Revelation”). There will be an evil Antichrist empire in the image of Pharaoh’s empire. God will bring huge judgments to destroy that empire. The plagues will have three main purposes:
Warn the wicked of impending damnation
Bring sinners to repentance and salvation
Refine the saints to greater faith and purity
God expects His people on earth to be in active agreement with His judgments. We are to cooperate with God by faith, just as Moses and the Israelites were supposed to do. How does that possibly fit with our understanding of God?
We must grasp both the kindness of God and His severity (Romans 11:22). We must expand our understanding of who God is. In order to understand the events of the end times, we have to understand the characteristics of God working in these end times. The unveiling of who Yeshua is in the first chapter of Revelation precedes all the events of the rest of the book.
When Yeshua was born, it was difficult for people to understand that He was God in the form of a human being, in a normal, non-glorified body. After He was raised from the dead, it was again difficult for the disciples to understand who He was. He came in a different form and they needed additional revelation to recognize Him (Luke 24:13-31).
A similar experience happened to Moses in Exodus 6:1-8. God tells Moses that the people have known Him by the name El Shaddai, but they have not known Him by the name YHVH (Jehovah). He goes on to list five or six different ways in which He will act to bring national judgment and redemption, which are characteristic of His name YHVH.
We have a similar situation now. We have known Yeshua as the man walking by the Sea of Galilee. But we haven’t known Him as YHVH-Yeshua, the commander of the armies of heaven, the judge of all the earth, the executor of the wrath of God, the omnipotent and “pantokratic” (all-ruling) king.
In order to deal with the events before us, we need to have a radical change in our understanding of who Yeshua is. This is what happened to John on the Isle of Patmos. Job had a similar experience with the whirlwind, Moses at the burning bush, the disciples on the road to Emmaus.
John was shocked and transformed by the experience on Patmos. We all need to have our own personal Patmos-type experience. How can we deal with the events of the book of Revelation if we can’t deal with the Yeshua of the book of Revelation?
Now is the time for this to happen. This is a critical “kairos” moment of transition. Let’s read and understand Revelation One so we can embrace and experience the events of the rest of the book.
In the Law and the Prophets, I see the Jehovah-Angel appearing in a glorified divine form when He was outside of Israel, and in a normal human form when He was inside Israel (see descriptions of more than 30 appearances of Angel-Jehovah in my book, “Who Ate Lunch with Abraham?).
Yeshua has two forms: one of glory and fire and one of non-glorified human appearance. He came the first time with a normal humble appearance, riding on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9, Matthew 21:1-9). But He will come the second time in the glorified divine form, riding a white horse with eyes of fire (Daniel 7:13-14, Revelation 19:11-16).
We have not known how to deal with a virus epidemic. The book of Revelation speaks of one third of nature being destroyed and one third of human population being killed (Revelation 9:13-18; 16:1-9)! To be able to understand the events of the book of Revelation, we need to understand the Yeshua of the book of Revelation.
Many of the Jews mis-understood Yeshua at the time of the first appearance. Many Christians will likely mis-understand Him at the second. This is no longer a matter of theoretical theology. We are crossing into the end times, and we need to have an understanding of the end times’ Yeshua.
Before Moses faced Pharaoh in Egypt, he needed to understand Jehovah’s mighty ways of judgment and redemption. Before we can face the end times, we also need to understand Yeshua as “Jehovah-Jesus.” The mighty ways of judgment and redemption of Yehovah are also in the name of Yeshua, and we have not realized it.
As Yehovah sent Moses and Aaron to confront the evil empire of Pharaoh, so is Yehovah-Yeshua sending us to stand against the evil powers of the Beast in the end times (Revelation 11:8). The authority of the name Yehovah is inside the name Yeshua. Let us resume the Exodus cry and the Exodus moment: “Let My people go!”
