HAMZ MUSINGS: TOUCH NOT MY ANOINTED
TOUCH NOT MY ANNOINTED
By Hamz
The line above has been ringing a bell for the past two days on this street, and last night, I was forced to research on the origin of it and found out that it was made by King David of the Israelites while rejoicing about the return of the Ark of Covenant, He sang a psalm recounting the power of God as shown through a thousand generations. One of the sentences he made was the command of God, “TOUCH NOT MY ANOINTED AND DO MY PROPHETS NO HARM.”
Fast-forward time to several millennia later to the 20th and 21st Century and somehow, certain people have taken the line in scripture quoted above quite out of context, twisted them extremely out of shape and intended meaning and set them up as a bulwark for the ever-increasing nefarious excesses of the clergy. They give the impression that clerics are God-substitutes here on earth and that to dare to question them would be to risk having the 21st century upgraded version of leprosy visited upon you and yours.
Is this true? Is it correct that the clergy is answerable to God alone and that if they do err [as it seems this group has recently formed a habit of doing ] that no one has the right to question them or render them accountable? In a word, my answer is a resounding NO! I will lay out my case according what I get and my own understanding of what the scripture says.
1. While Moses operated under a dispensation of the Law and instant judgement, You believers operate in a far different dispensation- one of Grace.
One characteristics of the former dispensation is the fact that there was ONLY ONE high priest through which the people inquired of or sought the Lord. He was a representative of the Lord and to challenge him would be to challenge the One who gave him that authority. But the book of Hebrews lays a methodical and compelling argument when it says that order is effectively ended and we now have a High Priest that is Jesus the Christ and we ALL may approach freely the throne of grace.
2. When Christ was crucified, immediately he yielded his spirit with a loud cry, something startling happened. The veil of the temple was ripped in two. The old Levitical order had been effectively ended and a new order begun. Whereas before the rent, only once a year and after rigorous cleansing rituals could a priest approach the Holiest which contained the
Ark of Covenant, now, EVERYONE who is born into the family of Christ carries within him the Divine, and they are the living Ark of the Covenant.
3. In light of [1] & [2] above, leaders in the body of Christ are NOT earthly substitutes for God. They are NOT the keys to the Kingdom. They do NOT have more rights than the laity. They are NOT an access card to the Divine. They are supposed to be those who have come to a deeper understanding of the Word and a closer relationship with God and who should help others come to that same understanding and level of relationship and good standing where they no longer need milk, so to speak, but now are able to eat meat. They are NOT supposed to keep the laity dependent on them. The laity are not supposed to keep themselves perpetually dependent on any one human to understand God. As Paul writes to the believers in Ephesus, “ that God may give unto YOU the spirit of WISDOM and REVELATION in the knowledge of Him ” not “ give a PASTOR the wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him ON YOUR BEHALF ”. So, to tie your understanding of God, which should be a personal experience, to your understanding of your pastor or to see Christ through the paradigm of your pastor, is to set yourself up for disappointment.
4. The place where you have come to where the church has come to mean more about the physical building and less about the people; where we build bigger structures and smaller people; raise mega-churches and mini-people; put up perfectly magnificent edifices and groom pitifully malnourished and dependent laity; this place is not a good place. This is
you deliberately moving back to an old, abolished order. This is you believing in a privileged sect who appropriate to themselves a special, albeit spurious, claim to the ear of God. We see not a few times in the bible where the disciples tried to constitute themselves into a fence to limit access to Christ, and where He specifically forbade it. Everyone- not pope, priests or pastors but every people- was free to come to Christ.
5. The supercilious position of unchallengeable freedom to do as they deem fit that the clergy has come to comfortably occupy has no support in the bible they claim to teach or the precepts they claim to represent.
When people bring up the story of Korah, Dathan and Abiram or Miriam and Aaron to show that God will punish whoever speaks against the excesses of those who should know better or be an example and not a stumbling-block, they are ignorant. In both sqcriptural instances, we do NOT see people trying to correct any wrong action of God’s servant and getting punished for it. What we see, if we will not be wilfully blind, are people, one, who attack a PERSON rather than an ACTION; and, two, who driven by PRIDE, try to use that as a medium for SELF-PROMOTION.
6. When David sang, “TOUCH not my anointed ” he made NO allusions to “CORRECT not my anointed”. David was skilful enough with words not to confuse ‘CORRECT’ with ‘TOUCH’. Furthermore, when he referred to that
statement, he was singing a story of the Israelites, strangers journeying through unfamiliar and hostile territories, and how God commanded the surrounding nations not to do them any harm. The command, “Touch not
my anointed” referred to THE WHOLE NATION OF ISRAEL, not some priest or pastor.
7. A MAN OF GOD is, first, a ‘MAN’ before the ‘OF GOD’ . He can make mistakes. And no well-meaning Christian should crucify, condemn or
cast stones at them for that- as long as they ACCEPT their FAULTS to the One to whom they are accountable and genuinely repent . In the same vein, no well-meaning Christian should sit by and watch idly as the name of your Christ
is sullied. You are not of them who fight for their God. No one asked you to. And He is big enough to do so. But you should take care that either through your actions- or inactions- you do not lead people astray.
James writes, “To him who knows to do good and does it not, to him it will be accounted
as sin ”.
And finally, I advice you perused and discern your scripture well before you condemn those who stand against the ills being perpetrated by men who disguise themselves with cloak as religious leaders.
Written by Hamz
All rights reserved ©HamzWrites
Connect with me on >>>
Facebook: Esoteric Hamz
Twitter: @Hamson_Skillz
Instagram: Hamson_Skills
By Hamz
The line above has been ringing a bell for the past two days on this street, and last night, I was forced to research on the origin of it and found out that it was made by King David of the Israelites while rejoicing about the return of the Ark of Covenant, He sang a psalm recounting the power of God as shown through a thousand generations. One of the sentences he made was the command of God, “TOUCH NOT MY ANOINTED AND DO MY PROPHETS NO HARM.”
Fast-forward time to several millennia later to the 20th and 21st Century and somehow, certain people have taken the line in scripture quoted above quite out of context, twisted them extremely out of shape and intended meaning and set them up as a bulwark for the ever-increasing nefarious excesses of the clergy. They give the impression that clerics are God-substitutes here on earth and that to dare to question them would be to risk having the 21st century upgraded version of leprosy visited upon you and yours.
Is this true? Is it correct that the clergy is answerable to God alone and that if they do err [as it seems this group has recently formed a habit of doing ] that no one has the right to question them or render them accountable? In a word, my answer is a resounding NO! I will lay out my case according what I get and my own understanding of what the scripture says.
1. While Moses operated under a dispensation of the Law and instant judgement, You believers operate in a far different dispensation- one of Grace.
One characteristics of the former dispensation is the fact that there was ONLY ONE high priest through which the people inquired of or sought the Lord. He was a representative of the Lord and to challenge him would be to challenge the One who gave him that authority. But the book of Hebrews lays a methodical and compelling argument when it says that order is effectively ended and we now have a High Priest that is Jesus the Christ and we ALL may approach freely the throne of grace.
2. When Christ was crucified, immediately he yielded his spirit with a loud cry, something startling happened. The veil of the temple was ripped in two. The old Levitical order had been effectively ended and a new order begun. Whereas before the rent, only once a year and after rigorous cleansing rituals could a priest approach the Holiest which contained the
Ark of Covenant, now, EVERYONE who is born into the family of Christ carries within him the Divine, and they are the living Ark of the Covenant.
3. In light of [1] & [2] above, leaders in the body of Christ are NOT earthly substitutes for God. They are NOT the keys to the Kingdom. They do NOT have more rights than the laity. They are NOT an access card to the Divine. They are supposed to be those who have come to a deeper understanding of the Word and a closer relationship with God and who should help others come to that same understanding and level of relationship and good standing where they no longer need milk, so to speak, but now are able to eat meat. They are NOT supposed to keep the laity dependent on them. The laity are not supposed to keep themselves perpetually dependent on any one human to understand God. As Paul writes to the believers in Ephesus, “ that God may give unto YOU the spirit of WISDOM and REVELATION in the knowledge of Him ” not “ give a PASTOR the wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him ON YOUR BEHALF ”. So, to tie your understanding of God, which should be a personal experience, to your understanding of your pastor or to see Christ through the paradigm of your pastor, is to set yourself up for disappointment.
4. The place where you have come to where the church has come to mean more about the physical building and less about the people; where we build bigger structures and smaller people; raise mega-churches and mini-people; put up perfectly magnificent edifices and groom pitifully malnourished and dependent laity; this place is not a good place. This is
you deliberately moving back to an old, abolished order. This is you believing in a privileged sect who appropriate to themselves a special, albeit spurious, claim to the ear of God. We see not a few times in the bible where the disciples tried to constitute themselves into a fence to limit access to Christ, and where He specifically forbade it. Everyone- not pope, priests or pastors but every people- was free to come to Christ.
5. The supercilious position of unchallengeable freedom to do as they deem fit that the clergy has come to comfortably occupy has no support in the bible they claim to teach or the precepts they claim to represent.
When people bring up the story of Korah, Dathan and Abiram or Miriam and Aaron to show that God will punish whoever speaks against the excesses of those who should know better or be an example and not a stumbling-block, they are ignorant. In both sqcriptural instances, we do NOT see people trying to correct any wrong action of God’s servant and getting punished for it. What we see, if we will not be wilfully blind, are people, one, who attack a PERSON rather than an ACTION; and, two, who driven by PRIDE, try to use that as a medium for SELF-PROMOTION.
6. When David sang, “TOUCH not my anointed ” he made NO allusions to “CORRECT not my anointed”. David was skilful enough with words not to confuse ‘CORRECT’ with ‘TOUCH’. Furthermore, when he referred to that
statement, he was singing a story of the Israelites, strangers journeying through unfamiliar and hostile territories, and how God commanded the surrounding nations not to do them any harm. The command, “Touch not
my anointed” referred to THE WHOLE NATION OF ISRAEL, not some priest or pastor.
7. A MAN OF GOD is, first, a ‘MAN’ before the ‘OF GOD’ . He can make mistakes. And no well-meaning Christian should crucify, condemn or
cast stones at them for that- as long as they ACCEPT their FAULTS to the One to whom they are accountable and genuinely repent . In the same vein, no well-meaning Christian should sit by and watch idly as the name of your Christ
is sullied. You are not of them who fight for their God. No one asked you to. And He is big enough to do so. But you should take care that either through your actions- or inactions- you do not lead people astray.
James writes, “To him who knows to do good and does it not, to him it will be accounted
as sin ”.
And finally, I advice you perused and discern your scripture well before you condemn those who stand against the ills being perpetrated by men who disguise themselves with cloak as religious leaders.
Written by Hamz
All rights reserved ©HamzWrites
Connect with me on >>>
Facebook: Esoteric Hamz
Twitter: @Hamson_Skillz
Instagram: Hamson_Skills
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