Is the Term 'Carpenter's Son' More Interesting Than It Seems At First?
We're told that Jesus was a carpenter's son. Carpenters build things...homes, etc. Yahweh was Jesus' Father, and we learn in scripture that Yahweh built everything, building it through Jesus. Gospel of John, Chap 1:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it." NIV End quote
So, through Jesus all things were made it says.
Joseph was a carpenter, and he was the human being God chose to be Jesus' Earthly dad, though scripture very specifically lets us know that he provided no human seed into the womb of his wife Mary until after Jesus was born. But again, Joseph was a carpenter. So Jesus was the son of a 'carpenter' (builder) whether you look at it the one way (Earthly parentage) or the other way (his Heavenly parentage.)
Now let's switch subjects for a second. God the Father (Yahweh) foresaw all things. He foresaw the rise and fall of empires, as was proven when Nebuchadnezzar had Daniel interpret his dream about the colossus. God showed Daniel the coming empires of the world. Yahweh also orchestrated the formation and variation of languages, as is shown when he stopped the work men were doing on the Tower of Babel, which was designed and intended as a sanctuary they could use to thwart God's will for them that they spread out and colonize the Earth. But God was unhappy with their rebellious actions and suddenly gave post-flood mankind different languages by family groups so that they could not speak with each other, and so couldn't cooperate with each other on building the tower anymore. So, God is expert on everything about language and foresaw the English language, for instance. And He foresaw the writing of the Bible, including the English versions of it.
There is a numerical code you can make with the English alphabet. Many cultures have actually employed some letters in their alphabet to serve as their numbers. This is similar. A=1, B=2, C=3. D=4, E=5, F=6, G=7, H=8, I=9, J=10, K=11, L=12, M=13, N=14, O=15, P=16, Q=17, R=18, S=19, T=20, U=21, V=22, W=23, X=24, Y=25, and Z=26. Pretty simple...each English letter corresponds to a number.
Carpenter and Son...they are the two words employed in the phrase Carpenter's Son. Carpenter and Son. So what number do their letters add up to?
C=3, A=1, R=18, P=16, E=5, N=14, T=20, E=5, R=18. So CARPENTER = 100
S=19, O=15, N=14. So Son = 48
So, Carpenter and Son add up to 148. That is a 1, and a 4, and an 8.
If we go to Genesis (the Bible's Book #1), Chapter 4, verse 8 we see this part of scripture...Cain commits the first murder..the first killing of an innocent... because the sacrifice of the innocent one (his brother Abel) was acceptable, whereas the sacrifice of the killer was not:
4 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.
2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.
4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
6 And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
9 And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;
12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
13 And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
15 And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
16 And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
End Quote, from Genesis Chapter 4 KJV
So, Cain (a name which has a couple of meanings, but one of them is SPEAR) slew Abel (a name which has a couple of possible meanings, but ABLE or CAPABLE is one sense of the word, as in 'a person that can get it done'.)
So, that was the story of Cain and Abel from Genesis. Abel should have been loved by his brother Cain, But Cain was jealous of the favor God showed Abel, so he slew him, and as punishment Cain was forced to be a wanderer, though God did mark Cain as special to God so that others would not slay him for what he had done. God punished, but not to the full extent He could have. He left a bit of hope for the future in Cain's mind and heart it looks like. And back in 70 A.D. the Jewish people of that day were defeated by Rome and were nationless (and would be for almost 2,000 years!) but they were not utterly wiped out. They survived it and sojourned on through the rolling out of the centuries even until our present day.
Jesus ministry again: another look at the time period of Jesus' ministry. We know how it ended. Jesus, though guiltless and in great favor with God, was placed on a cross...a cross, the work of a carpenter...and He died there. He was Jesus, God's Son made into flesh to live out a ministry and offer a New Covenant, and He was the only one who was ABLE to save mankind. Because He was held in such favor and high regard by God the Father, he was CAPABLE of shedding His own blood that would count as sufficient atonement for the sins of those who would accept His covenant and follow Him. He was also run through with a SPEAR while up on the cross, pieced with the spear of a Roman Centurion. And His blood, along with much water, was spilled out upon the rock at the base of the cross.
Forty years later the Jews were sent wandering for the killing of Jesus just as Cain was sent wandering because of the killing of Abel. The story of Cain and Abel seems to be, in part, a foreshadowing of the killing of Jesus by His brother Israelites who should have loved Him and received His arrival, favor from God, and teachings with gladness.
Cain had his own separate history, and the line of Cain, his progeny, is recorded in Genesis. It does not specifically say that someone from the lineage of Cain was allowed to get on Noah's ark (a 'type' of the coming Jesus as well as a real boat) but certainly there were ladies, 4 wives, on the boat: Noah's wife, and Ham, Shem, and Japhet's wives. One or more of them might certainly have been of the line of Cain, reunited with the line of Seth, who in his mother Eve's mind had 'replaced' Abel and who was Noah's ancestor. A descendent of Cain on the Ark? It may not be so, but perhaps it might be so. And as for the Jews, sent wandering in A.D. 70, about 40 years after they had Jesus crucified, they too seem destined (at least part of them) to accept Jesus as their Messiah in the end times. Multiple prophecies of the Bible seem to say so. Cain and Abel. The Jews and Jesus. There are similarities to their stories.
God said in His word that LIFE was in the blood of a creature. And He anciently told the Israelites that it was a wrong thing to let the blood of a sacrifice, or just blood perhaps, lay there, bare to the sky and Heaven, upon a rock. You spill it into dirt! It should be covered; scripture says in Moses' day. A couple of examples showing that blood bared to heaven was not a good thing:
"And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust." Leviticus 17:13. End Quote
"O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place." Job 16:18. End Quote.
Job apparently knows that blood ought to usually be covered, but not in his case because his situation is unusual.
Scripture lets you know that the sight of spilt blood can be very angering to the Father, like here in Ezekiel chapter 24, when it speaks about how angry God is at Jerusalem when He is letting Babylon conquer and destroy Jerusalem:
6 Wherefore thus saith the Lord God; Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is therein, and whose scum is not gone out of it! bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it.
7 For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a rock; she poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust;
8 That it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance; I have set her blood upon the top of a rock, that it should not be covered.
9 Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Woe to the bloody city! I will even make the pile for fire great.
10 Heap on wood, kindle the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned.
11 Then set it empty upon the coals thereof, that the brass of it may be hot, and may burn, and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed.
12 She hath wearied herself with lies, and her great scum went not forth out of her: her scum shall be in the fire.
End quote, Ezekiel 24, KJV
So, the sight of blood can be angering to the Father, as the sight of Jesus' blood shed unjustly by the Jews led Him to be very angry back at that time towards the Jews of that day. And He punished them, His special children that had greatly angered Him, by having Rome crush their city. And they were sent out to be a wandering people, with no true homeland, for nearly 2,000 years. (Actually about 1878 years) But it is not for the Christian to think to punish the Jews. Were it not for their great sin of rejecting their Christ there would have been no room for the gentiles to be grafted into the Tree of Life. Because their branch was broken off of the tree for a time, there was a place for the gentile to be grafted in. But the gentiles were gentiles because they too had rebelled against God at an even earlier time.
God once declared the Israelites be His special peculiar people, so He did and does with them (the Israelites descendants in general I believe and also the professed Jews in particular) as He wishes. Christians do well to treat the Jews with special regard for the sake of the Father to whom they particularly belong. Also, we Christians are sinners just as they are...perhaps worse. So, we present Christ to all sinners. That is the job of a Christian, who is after all only a wretched but now saved sinner. Should we look with disdain upon those who have not yet accepted Jesus? We are nothing good except that part of us supplied to us by the Lord. One of our core beliefs is that our only righteousness is that applied to us by the blood of Jesus.
(Men are a creature made from dirt. Is Jesus' blood inside of us? We take it in when we take communion, don't we? In the form of wine, but wine is a stand-in for the blood of Jesus, our accepted and acceptable Sacrifice. So, the blood is inside of us, absorbed into us creatures of dirt, etc. Was that figuratively intended?)
So, this "Carpenter's Son" is an interesting name perhaps. It is how the people of Jesus' home town referred to Him when He came back there to preach at one point, in Matthew 13:55:
"Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?"
End Quote KJV
But 'codes' can be something placed in the Word of God by God, or something misconstrued there by men. This could be either one. It is just something that was interesting to me when I noticed it.