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THE NAZIRITE
VOW
(shortened
version)
In Numbers 6:1-8, the institution of the Nazirite vow required three points for fulfillment:
1. They had to abstain from anything whatsoever from the grape,
2. They could not cut their hair, and were to let it grow long, and
3. They could not go near a dead person.Here in this highly important vow we find in legally representative form the three unique elements of the garden of God. Two of these elements were clearly the two trees located in the middle of the garden – the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life. A third element was that Adam and Eve were clothed with the glory of God – they had no clothing as we know it today, but rather were covered with Yahweh’s glory, His splendor. In Psalm 104:1-2 we read: "O Yahweh my God, you are very great; You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering Yourself with light as with a cloak.” Before Adam and Eve sinned, Yahweh was their covering, taking full responsibility for them; and whether literally or simply governmentally, they were clothed by His splendor, His light.
There were many other things unique to the garden, but these three – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life, and the glory of God covering them – were of great judicial significance. Let us now see how the Nazirite vow and the garden of Eden relate.
The first requirement for the Nazirite was that they had to abstain from anything whatsoever from the grape. It is clear from the Scriptures that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a grape tree. Even as the snake was cursed to crawl on its belly, obviously the snake-inhabited grape tree of the knowledge of good and evil was likewise cursed.
The second point of this vow – they could not cut their hair, but were to let it grow long – represents the glory of God that clothed Adam and Eve. In 1 Corinthians 11:15 we read that a woman's long hair "is glory to her." Her long hair is a prophetic testimony of the glory the woman (as well as Adam) lost in the garden of God at her temptation, fall, and death via the serpent. Thus we see the second point of identification of the Nazirite with the garden of God – letting the hair grow long represented the glory of God that covered Adam and Eve.
Third, they could not go near a dead person. This point of the vow obviously represents the second specifically noted tree in the garden – the tree of life. If Adam and Eve had eaten from that tree, they would have never died. Appropriately, the Nazirite's third and final point of this vow – abstention from contact with death – clearly represented eating from the tree of life and not experiencing death.
Here then in this all-important vow were all three elements of the original garden of Eden:1. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil – abstaining from the grape,
2. The glory of Yahweh clothing them – letting the hair grow long, and
3. The tree of life – not going among the dead.And very importantly, any attempt to restore the original garden, “to return [man] to his own property” as afforded in Jubilee (Leviticus 25:10), had to be legally effected through this sole representative touch-point. This vow, we find, was the solitary legal link back to the garden; and anyone who was to restore the corrupted garden had to effect it as a Nazirite. The word "Nazirite" means – "one consecrated, devoted." In truth, the Nazirite was devoted to God for the all-important purpose of restoring the garden.
Three Who Tried, and Failed
We find in the Scriptures that Yahweh raised up three men as Nazirites to try to effect this restoration – Samson (Judges 13:4-5), Samuel (1 Samuel 1:11), and John the Baptist (Luke 1:15).
These three men bear unique common unifying identities in at least four highly significant ways. First, they are the only individual Adamic men recorded in the Scriptures to have been under this special vow of the Nazirite. Second, each of these three were placed under their vows prior to their conceptions. Third, and very uniquely, they each had miraculous births. All three of their mothers were barren and could not naturally conceive children. Yahweh's miraculous and sovereign intervention was required for each of these women to bring forth these devoted Nazirite vessels. And fourth, they each experienced failure in their lives.
Samson failed because of his immorality (Judges 16). Samuel failed because he could not bring forth godly offspring – his sons did not follow in his ways (1 Samuel 8:3). And John the Baptist failed at the end of his life in that he faltered in his belief (Luke 7:19-20). But most importantly, since their vows were life-long, no matter if they had perfectly kept them all their days, their vows were violated at their deaths – they too, in the end, went among the dead, and their vows could not be restored since the grave held them captive!
The Law of Restoring the Vow
We just noted this critical issue of restoring a Nazirite vow that had been violated. In Numbers 6:9-12 we read the sole legal provision for restoring one’s defiled vow. You will notice that it has only to do with being among the dead, and there is no mention of defiling one’s vow by accidentally eating from the grape or if one’s hair was cut. Quite obviously, this speaks prophetically per this unique and critical vow.“But if a man dies very suddenly beside him and he defiles his dedicated head of hair, then he shall shave his head on the day when he becomes clean; he shall shave it on the seventh day. Then on the eighth day he shall bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest, to the doorway of the tent of meeting. The priest shall offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering, and make atonement for him concerning his sin because of the dead person. And that same day he shall consecrate his head, and shall dedicate to Yahweh his days as a Nazirite, and shall bring a male lamb a year old for a guilt offering; but the former days will be void because his separation was defiled.”
Thus we see that the restoration of one’s vow was specifically an eight day process; and once completed, the former days were void.
The Fourth Nazirite
All of this has been laid out thus far for one purpose – to point to the only one who would come and fulfill this vital vow and thereby make Jubilee possible, legally restoring man back to the garden of God, the garden of Eden. Who was that one? Yahshua.
Like His predecessors, He was the fourth man to have come under this vow. We will examine this shortly. But unlike His three predecessors, Yahshua did not take this vow until the end of His life. But certainly, before His conception by the Holy Spirit, it too was determined that He would become a Nazirite. And per His conception, like the preceding three, very significantly, He too was a miracle birth. Yahweh's miraculous and sovereign intervention was required once again in order to bring forth this fourth Nazirite vessel devoted to His redeeming purposes. But unlike the three, this Nazirite was without sin and would accomplish what the others failed to perform.
At His last Passover meal with His disciples, just before His crucifixion, Yahshua declared and entered into His Nazirite vow. Matthew 26:29, Mark 14:25, and Luke 22:18 record Yahshua's vow to not drink from the fruit of the vine. From the account in Mark we read:"Truly I tell you – no more by no means will I drink of the fruit of the vine until I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
At this pivotal point, Yahshua entered into the all-important Nazirite vow, even as His cousin John had been under it for life. Yahshua came to fulfill the Law (Matthew 5:17), and as you will see, it was vitally important that He fulfill the Law concerning the Nazirite.
Upon making this highly important vow, very significantly, He then removed Himself into a garden (John 18:1). Only in John is it stated that Yahshua went into a garden, and the specific identity of that garden is not stated; it only identifies it to be "a garden." While we read in these accounts the drama that took place at a natural level, a far more important, much higher level intercession was taking place. Intercessorally and governmentally, as a Nazirite, Yahshua was in the garden of Eden – alone.
Having taken this vow, three times in the garden Yahshua cried out to His Father: "if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:36-46). “This cup” was the cup of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And making His abstention even more significant, equally three times in the course of His crucifixion He resolutely rejected drinking from the cup possessing this same fruit of the cursed tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Mark 15:23, Matthew 27:34, and Luke 23:36).
Why did He continually reject the cup? Because to drink from it would have been to take upon Himself all the sins of man, from Adam onward, and to die.
Truly, and most surely, through the vow of the Nazirite and His garden experiences, Yahshua entered a place of intercession, and therein returned to the garden of Eden to legally redeem the sins of all men and restore the defiled garden! In "time travel" reality, Yahshua, by intercession, was in fact slain as a Nazirite "from the foundation of the world," legally taking the cross within the original garden!
“I Am Thirsty”
John enlighteningly records the significance of this moment: "Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled, said 'I am thirsty'" (John 19:28). What "scripture might be fulfilled"? The scripture being fulfilled at this critical end of His life was clearly Numbers 6 – the vow of the Nazirite! In order to restore the garden of Eden/the kingdom of God, Yahshua had to take the vow of the Nazirite and then partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which effected the death of all men.
By partaking of the vine as a Nazirite, Yahshua legally went all the way back to the garden and identified with "dead" man and the corrupted kingdom. By taking the Nazirite vow, He had in legal type reentered the garden. By drinking of the cup of the cursed vine, He identified with all the sins of fallen man from its very source – the garden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. By taking the Nazirite vow, He was “slain from the foundation of the world”!
Thus, at the culmination of this entire drama, at the final request of the Son of God, sour wine was lifted up to Him in a sponge upon a branch of hyssop, and as His final act, as a Nazirite He drank from the cup of the fruit of the vine! All things now completed, it was written: "When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, He said, 'It is finished!' And He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit." As a Nazirite, His final identification with the cursed garden of God and cursed man by drinking the cup of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was completed, and He died. His vow had come to its crescendo, and His life’s work was thereby complete.
Restoring the Garden
Did this final act now restore the garden, the kingdom? Not at all. At this point, the kingdom was still as corrupted as it remained when the three preceding Nazirites had died. It would take more than the identifying commitment of a Nazirite to restore the garden. In order to restore the garden, the defiled Nazirite, according to the Law of God, had to return to the tent of meeting (the place of Yahweh’s presence), offer sacrifices, and restore His vow (Numbers 6:9-12). Neither Samson, Samuel, nor John had the power to accomplish that. Death held them in the grave and forbade the restoration of their vows. Only One, this fourth Nazirite, had the power to lay His life down, and the power to pick it up again (John 10:18)! After rising from the dead, Yahshua departed for the heavenly "tent of meeting" and restored His vow, thereby, after 4,000 years, restoring the corrupted garden of God!
How do we know that this was indeed what Yahshua performed while in heaven? Numbers 6:9-12 tells us that the atoning process in the restoration of the Nazirite's vow, when defiled specifically by being among the dead, was an eight day process through which "the former days" were made "void." How long was Yahshua in heaven? John 20:26 clearly states: "And after eight days again His disciples were inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst, and said, 'Peace be with you.'" What was Yahshua doing for eight days in heaven? The answer is clear – He was (among other things) legally restoring His vow as a Nazirite, and thus restoring the garden of God, "the former days" of the corruption of the garden being made "void"!
Though this phrase – "the former days shall be void" – might be thought to simply apply to the days of a Nazirite's vow, prophetically and intercessorally it speaks far more! For it was through this all-important vow that all the "former days" of cursed man and the cursed kingdom were made legally "void" by Yahshua. Therefore, by Yahshua taking the vow of the Nazirite at the Passover supper, His garden/Garden intercession, His final act of drinking from the cup on the cross, His death, His resurrection from the dead, and then His ascension to the Father for specifically eight days to restore His vow, He restored the defiled garden of God/the kingdom of God and made the former days of the corruption of the garden and man void. Yahshua, as a Nazirite, and having the power of an indestructible life, restored the garden of God!
The truth you just read was revealed to this man in May/June, 1994, the very year when Yahweh declared Jubilee for man 120 Jubilee waiting periods (or 5, 880 years) following Adam’s fall and his banishment from his land, from the original garden. This is the year Yahweh afforded man the legal right to “return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.” (See Appendix 10 link.) It is quite significant and telling that the very year of Jubilee, when the way back into the garden was opened and thereby availing access to the tree of life, was the year when He revealed for the first time in the history of man this legal work that Yahshua performed as a Nazirite. Before now man had never known this truth.