PART  VI   –  TRANSITIONAL ASPECTS OF THE LAMP-MODEL

SUBPART E – MESSIAH HEAD; Trumpets unto Day of Atonement

Article 3 – Deliverance as Gleaned from Samson’s Massacre of Philistines

By Daniel Irving

a.    God Draws the Elect Nearer unto Himself

b.   The Holding Power of Sin

c.  The Judging of Sin as an Entity Separate from the Man

d.  Samson’s Capture as Typifying the Defeatist Doctrines of the Church

e.   Wisdom from Charles Finney

f.  Samson’s Massacre of the Philistines; The Law of the Spirit of Life

Article 3 – Deliverance as Gleaned from Samson’s Massacre of Philistines

a.  God Draws the Elect Nearer unto Himself

The elect are drawn unto God through His love, manifested to them through the revelation of Jesus Christ.  This is expressed in a prophecy in Hosea:

I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love.  and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws,  and I laid meat unto them.         Hos. 11:4

The Hebrew word translated “cords”[1] primarily means a “cord” or “line”[2] as one would pull or use to draw a thing closer.   The allusion of Hosea’s prophecy is clearly that of drawing something nearer via the use of cords or ropes.  This is a prophetic allusion to the Witness of the Holy Ghost.  The prophecy uses the same word for draw that is used in the Song of Solomon where it reads:

 Draw me, we will run after thee:  the king has brought me into his chambers: we will be glad & rejoice in thee,   we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.      Songs 1:4

There is a drawing forth of the elect that is an operation of the love of God.  This occurs on a variety of levels, beginning with the Father’s initial call to the elect to come to Christ.  Recall that the Lord said:

No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him:  & I will raise him up at the last day.                             John 6:44

While this drawing of men toward Christ occurs on a variety of levels, the drawing power is that of the witness of the Holy Ghost, bearing witness that Christ – our Passover Lamb – has been slain for our account.  Therefore Jesus said:

  And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.     John 12:32

This is that powerful witness of God identified in John’s first epistle as the Witness of the Holy Ghost,[3] and which correlates in the lamp-stand model – redemptively – with the Feast of Passover.

b.  The Holding Power of Sin

The second line of Hosea’s prophecy reads:

and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws,       Hos. 11:4

The Hebrew-word translated yoke,[4] is always translated this way.  The Hebrew word translated jaws,[5] means cheek or jaw.  The metaphor relates to that which compels us to do what we would not wish; a clear allusion to the Gospel principle of sin.  Sin is a drawing force in itself because it is a spiritual principle operating upon the natural man compelling transgression.  Man’s strength to resist outwardly overt transgression comes via that corresponding spiritual principle that is the Law.  The Law is intended only as a temporary measure until God’s revelation of Himself occurs.  That revelation is Christ.  Upon a confession of faith in Jesus Christ we may obtain the sealing of God that is the baptism in the Holy Spirit in order to prepare us for that revelation.  Until that revelation is complete there is a conflict that occurs within our nature as the principle of sin wars against the principle of faith. Thus Paul writes:

For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.  For that which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not.  But what I hate, that do I.   If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.   Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.             Rom. 7:14-17

Prior to coming to God for salvation we did not perceive sin as a yoke upon us.  But after hearing the Gospel and accepting the principle that sin has alienated us from God we began to strive against that which kept us bound, only to find that its binding authority was too strong for us.  Even while confessing faith in Jesus Christ we found that we did that which [we] would not given our carnal nature has been sold under sin.  But those sealed in Christ through His baptism contain the promise that God will – in His time – reveal Christ to the inner man, freeing him from this principle of sin.  But until this revelatory process is complete, we have the encouragement of the apostle, explaining to us:

For I know that in me (that is in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me;  But how to perform that which is good I find not.  For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.  Now if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.           Rom. 7:18-20 

c.  The Judging of Sin as an Entity Separate from the Man

But we find in Paul’s explanation a wonderful principle at work.  Although God’s people are in captivity to the law of sin and death, the judgment of God reveals itself as their salvation and so their hope.  The greater authority of the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ becomes to them a miraculous-intervention; temporarily suspending the law of Sin and Death.  Sin and Death are thus judged as entities separate from themselves.  The judgment upon Sin and Death translates to the instatement of Holiness and Eternal Life via the judgment of God.  The sin that had its power through the flesh is proven powerless through the offering made of the flesh of Jesus Christ unto God.  Therefore we read:

How much more shall the blood of Christ, Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?                                        Heb 9:14

We come into the knowledge of the living God through the application of the blood of Christ to purge conscience before God.  This brings the true knowledge of God; something that many in the church of Corinth did not have resulting in Paul’s complaint:

Awake to righteousness, & sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God;   I speak this to your shame.                               I Cor. 15:34

The carnality demonstrated in Corinth betrayed a lack of the true knowledge of God in spite of the fact that the Holy Spirit had great presence there.   Therefore Paul takes pains to focus their attention upon Jesus Christ rather than upon this or that apostle or teacher, including himself:

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?                                                                                    I Cor. 1:13

Through the means of “Jesus Christ, and Him crucified”[6] the Holy Spirit was about to perform a work of redemption within those whose hopes were firmly set upon that sacrifice.  God was about to perform a work to the undoing of their carnal nature that they might succeed unto the promises as sons of God.

d.  Samson’s Capture as Typifying the Defeatist Doctrines of the Church

We might perceive in these things that redemption involves two reciprocal principles which are stated concisely by Paul as follows:

For the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin & death.                               Rom. 8:2

The power of the greater covenant is that it comes with; “the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”.  Therefore it is called (in Hosea’s prophecy); “the cords of a man”.  This is the new “law” at  work at such time when God; “lifts the yoke from [our] jaws” that is the principle of Sin and Death.

The yoke that goes into the jaw is an allusion to the bridle placed upon a beast of burden.  Nowhere does an allusion to a jaw appear more prominently than in the account of Samson’s horrific massacre of the Philistines when he killed a thousand men using the jawbone of an ass.  What would seem to be symbolized in Samson’s use of a jawbone to slay a thousand Philistines?

The unnatural strength of Samson, of whom it is written that; “the Spirit of the Lord began to move him”[7] must certainly be metaphor for this gospel principle expressed by the apostle Paul as; “theLaw of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”.   Thus Samson’s strength becomes type for that same principle alluded to in Hosea’s prophecy.  Let’s look at the story of this one-man battle against thousands.

As background, in response to his wife having been given to another man, Samson had turned loose 300 foxes in pairs having torches tied to their tails, burning the Philistines’ wheat-fields, vineyards, and olive groves.  They responded by burning his estranged wife and her father-in-law.  In further retaliation, Samson made; “a great slaughter” of Philistines and then went into hiding.  When the Philistines amassed in Lehi, this alarmed the tribe of Judah, and so we read:

Then 3,000 men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, & said to Samson, “Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us?  What is this that you have done unto us?   And he said unto them, “As they did unto me, so have I done unto them”.                                                                                      Judges 15:11

What transpires between Samson and the men of Judah is an interesting study.  Judah sent 3,000 men to convince Samson to surrender to the Philistines.  As a prophetic allegory, the “Philistines” seem closely identified with the gospel-principle of sin and its dominion.  The Philisintes seem to arise – not as an occasional foreign-invader, but – as a chronic and continuous antagonist of Israel.  Recall the words in Hebrews regarding; “the sin which doth so easily beset us”.[8]

On the other hand, “Judah” is the tribe that particularly signifies the “Law”.  Our character Samson seems something of a renegade from this principle.  The men of Judah use the argument; “Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us?”   This sounds akin to the common assertion of the church that; “we must sin so long as we live in this body”.  For the unsanctified church will tell us the same thing; “Don’t you know; that the Philistines are rulers over us?”  And then they will explain to you that you must “do good” and “not do wrong”, and this is the way to evade the judgment of God.  By so doing they counsel the Law as our justification.

e.  Wisdom from Charles Finney

The protest levied at Samson by the men of Judah follow the same pattern of protest heard within the modern church.  One notable evangelist to complain against the church on this account was Charles Finney.  Consider his words:

In all my Christian life I have been pained to find so many Christians living in the legal bondage described in the 7th chapter of Romans–a life of sinning, and resolving to reform and falling again. And what is particularly saddening, and even agonizing, is that many ministers and leading Christians give perfectly false instruction upon the subject of how to overcome sin. The directions that are generally given on this subject, I am sorry to say, amount to about this: “Take your sins in detail, resolve to abstain from them, and fight against them, if need be, with prayer and fasting, until you have overcome them. Set your will firmly against a relapse into sin, pray and struggle, and resolve that you will not fall, and persist in this, until you form the habit of obedience and break up all your sinful habits.” To be sure, it is generally added: “In this conflict you must not depend upon your own strength, but pray for the help of God.” In a word, much of the teaching, both of the pulpit and the press, really amounts to this: Sanctification is by works, and not by faith.”

In an 1874 article published by The Independent of New York called How to Overcome Sin, Finney writes with great clarity regarding what is the fundamental and crucial element of every release from sin’s bondage: [8.5]

Every victory over sin is by faith in Christ; and whenever the mind is diverted from Christ, by resolving and fighting against sin, whether we are aware of it or not, we are acting in our own strength, rejecting the help of Christ, and are under a specious delusion. Nothing but the life and energy of the Spirit of Christ within us can save us from sin, and trust is the uniform and universal condition of the working of this saving energy within us. How long shall this fact be at least practically overlooked by the teachers of religion? How deeply rooted in the heart of man is self-righteousness and self-dependence? So deeply that one of the hardest lessons for the human heart to learn is to renounce self-dependence and trust wholly in Christ. When we open the door by implicit trust he enters in and takes up his abode with us and in us. By shedding abroad his love he quickens our whole souls into sympathy with himself, and in this way, and in this way alone, he purifies our hearts through faith. He sustains our will in the attitude of devotion. He quickens and regulates our affections, desires, appetites and passions, and becomes our sanctification.   Very much of the teaching that we hear in prayer and conference meetings, from the pulpit and the press, is so misleading as to render the hearing or reading of such instruction almost too painful to be endured. Such instruction is calculated to beget delusion, discouragement, and a practical rejection of Christ as he is presented in the Gospel.  Alas! for the blindness that “leads to bewilder” the soul that is longing after deliverance from the power of sin.

And finally, Finney asserts sanctifying faith as the active state, called “holiness”:

Faith itself is an active and not a passive state. A passive holiness is impossible and absurd. Let no one say that when we exhort people to trust wholly in Christ we teach that anyone should be or can be passive in receiving and co-operating with the Divine influence within. This influence is moral, and not physical. It is persuasion, and not force. It influences the free will, and consequently does this by truth, and not by force. Oh! that it could be understood that the whole of spiritual life that is in any man is received direct from the Spirit of Christ by faith, as the branch receives its life from the vine. Away with this religion of resolutions! It is a snare of death. Away with this effort to make the life holy while the heart has not in it the love of God. Oh! that men would learn to look directly at Christ through the Gospel, and so close in with him by an act of loving trust as to involve a universal sympathy with his state of mind. This and this alone is sanctification.”

Charles Finney was denounced by the institutional churches in his day that he preached a legalistic gospel of works.  While his sermons were certainly characterized by demands for immediate moral righteousness, we find that his critics might easily levy the exact-opposite accusation after reading such articles as the one we have just read on the subject of deliverance from sin and sanctification of the Spirit!   When this anointed-evangelist preached moral righteousness he was accused of being legalistic; when he taught sanctification by faith he was criticized for encouraging spiritual passivity.  But it is curious indeed, that the same pattern of criticism was levied against John-the-Baptist in his day, as the Lord said:

“To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, & what are they like?  They are like children who sit in the market place & call to one another; & they say, ‘We played the flute for you, & you did not dance; we sang a dirge, & you did not weep.’   For John the Baptist has come eating no bread & drinking no wine; & you say ‘He has a demon!’  The Son of Man has come eating & drinking; & you say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man, & a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers & sinners!’”  Yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”                         Luke 7:31-35

f.  Samson’s Massacre of the Philistines; The Law of the Spirit of Life

And so, these devout men of Judah follow Samson up into his hideaway in which he is seeking refuge against their common enemy who is also God’s enemy, and gives him the same counsel that the church gives to sinners, ie. “Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us?” In truth, Samson was a dread slayer of Philistines because the Spirit of God was upon him.  In every confrontation, they came out on the losing end by a wide-margin!  And yet, the church convinces that our success is not be won in this life; rather our recourse is to clean-living and well-doing until an age to come.   In truth, this constitutes acquiesence to the demands of sin.

Did Samson fear the punishment of the Law?  He did, or else he would not have asked the men of Judah to refrain from killing him.

And they said unto him, “We are come down to bind thee,  that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines.”    And Samson said unto them, “Swear unto me, that you will not fall upon me yourselves.”  & they spoke unto him, saying, “No, but we will bind thee fast, & deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not kill you. And they bound him with two new cords, & brought him up from the rock.          Judges 15:12-13

Therefore Samson removes himself from his true justification by trusting in the Jews to give him correct advice regarding the Philistines.  We read that after promising they would not kill him, they bound him with “two new cords”.  They placed him in bondage before his captors ever laid a hand upon him!  Samson had the Spirit and power of God that accompanies calling and election.  Therefore, how was it that Judah became the vehicle for Samson going into Philistine captivity?  That Judah bound him with cords stands metaphor for the yoke of bondage, which Israel had never been able to bear, as Peter says:

  Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?         Act 15:10

The binding of Samson by Judah would reflect that principle expressed by Paul:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, & be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.                    Gal 5:1

 But recall the prophecy:

The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty.        Zeph. 3:17

And so . . . what does Samson do when this new principle faith comes to the fore?

And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: & the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, & the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, & his bands loosed from off his hands.                                                                                 Judges 15:14

His bondage was broken as easily as one breaks; “flax that [is] burnt with fire”![9]  Therefore the true power of the faith in the Son of God proved itself.  And how does Samson go about relieving himself of his oppressors?

And he found a new jawbone of an ass, & put forth his hand, & took it,   & slew a thousand men therewith.          Judges 15:15

The jawbone stands as a metaphor for the placement of the bridle of the Law, and is the same word used in this prophecy of Hosea when it states that the Lord; “became to them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaws”.   A yoke had been placed within the “jaw” of Samson, and when he “died to the Law”, what was left?  Consider that the Law did not die simply because Samson had died toit. Rather the Law remained as an active agent for the judgment of God!  Thus Paul declares:

Do we then make void the law through faith?  God forbid: yea, we establish the law.                                                                                    Rom 3:31

Rather than nullify the Law, the Law remains a vital agent allowing God to render judgment upon that over which the Law still had force and effect, ie. the darkness of this world that would keep us in bondage.  Only now, did the Law truly have its true and intended effect! What was dead in reference to Samson, was now an active agent-of-destruction in his hands.

While the KJV calls it a “new” jawbone, the NASV and IV call it a “fresh” jawbone.  The Hebrew word is; taw-ree’,[10] which is believed to mean; “moist”.  What did this signify when Samson picked up a “fresh jawbone”?  The rejuvenation of the Law; no longer as accuser, but as the perfect liberator given the truth of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.  This is the “New Letter” of which Paul writes:

Who also has made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit:  for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.         II Cor. 3:6

This horrific slaughter of Philistines at his hands, it was due to the operation of this principle of; “the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”, for we read that; the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him”.  Despite his having been bound by the men of Judah, there was a stronger principle at work in; “the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”.  This is the word of God that declares to us:

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.                                                                                     Rom 6:14

And then Samson declares a prophecy:

“With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.”                     Judges 15:16

While the KJV uses two different words (ie. “jawbone” and “jaw”) this is the same Hebrew word; lekh-ee’,[11] and ironically the word actually means “soft” or “fleshly”, and is the word meaning “cheek”.  We find it used (also) as follows:

Son 1:10 Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.

Son 5:13  His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies . . .

Lam 1:2  She weepeth sore in the night, & her tears are on her cheeks: among all her    lovers she has none to comfort her:

Therefore Samson could have just as correctly said; “with the cheek of an ass, heaps upon heaps”.  This is significant because the cheek figures in prophecy.  The striking of the cheek is a prophetic allusion to the insults suffered by Christ, and therefore this stands as a recurring allusion which uses this same Hebrew word, beginning when the false prophet struck the true prophet on the cheek:

But Zedekiah . . .  went near, & smote Micaiah on the cheek, & said, “Which way went the Spirit of the LORD from me to speak unto thee?         I Kings 22:24

This is a common prophetic-allusion to the willful submission to reproaches for the purposes of God in Christ,[12] which serves the purpose of strengthening those principles of the covenant in the blood of Christ; the covenant of which Paul writes:

For the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin & death.                           Rom. 8:2

And what did Samson accomplish by the Spirit of Christ?  The impact of the new law of the Spirit of life resulted in; “heaps upon heaps”.  The word “heaps” is the same word for “mortar” or “clay”, in which it is prophesied:

& he will come upon rulers as upon mortar, even as the potter treads clay.    Is. 41:25

This speaks of the terrible impunity through which the things of Christ march against the things of this world.[13]  As the Psalms declare:

He shall cut off the spirit of princes: He is terrible to the kings of the earth.                                                                                    Ps. 76:12

and . . .

Come & see the works of God: He is terrible in his doing toward the children of men.                    Ps 66:5

Therefore these “heaps upon heaps” represent the impunity of the witness of Christ, who has; “feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace”.[14]

And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking,  that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, & called that place Ramathlehi.             Jdg 15:17

“Ramoth” means “height” or “high place”, and lekh’-ee means “jaw” or “cheek”, and therefore the name is “high place of the cheek (or ) jaw”.[15]

And he was sore athirst, & called on the LORD, & said, “Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: & now shall I die for thirst, & fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?                         Judges 15:18

     Notice what the Lord provides Samson as a source of water:

  But God clave a hollow place that was in the jaw, & there came water thereout; & when he had drunk, his spirit came again, & he revived:  wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day.         Judges 15:19

The NASV has incorrectly translated this to mean that God brought water from a hollow place within the geographic-location.  But the KJV has translated it correctly.  The Hebrew word is not; raw’-math lekh’-ee (ie. the name of the site), but rather the Hebrew word is; lekh-ee’. [16]  Therefore it seems that God provided Samson water from the jawbone itself.  God broke or cut open a hollow place.  This word “hollow place”[17] is used only one other time in Scripture as “pestle”:

Pro 27:22  Though thou should bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle . .

A mortar is a hard bowl for grinding.  As well, the lexonic-definition of the Hebrew word acknowledges that this word means socket, such as a socket for a tooth.  Therefore Samson drank from one of the tooth-sockets of the donkey’s jaw.  This was a “fountain” for him to survive after his deliverance.

Recall that most basic principle recited by Jesus Christ when He Himself was close to perishing in the wilderness from hunger:

But he answered & said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone,  But by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.         Matt. 4:4

His drink became the Word proceeding from the mouth of God, as an allusion to the true drink from heaven.

“If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, & drink.         John 7:37 

For My flesh is meat indeed, & My blood is drink indeed.              John 6:55

Samson’s slaughter of the Philistines and deliverance of God gave him knowledge of the atonement as a spiritual revelation of Christ.  He could now drink freely from the rivers of the waters of life.  The word; Enhakkore[18] is a combination of; en’ (which means either “eye” or “fountain”) and kaw-raw’ which means “to call” or “called”.  Given that this was a place Samson was provided water, we should favor the interpretation of “fountain” or “spring”.   Samson called unto God, and was heard.  For Samson was himself called of God.  Christ was within him, the child of God . . . called of God, for the purposes of overcoming through the faith of Jesus Christ.