2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Friends,
Yesterday, I made the point that a message God repeats loud and often in the Scriptures is that we should get to know Him, so that we can make Him the Lord over our hearts. One way we experience Him is by obeying His commands, thus letting Him carry out His will through us. In that situation, our lives become permanently intertwined with His, and we are blessed by this. Through this we take the narrow, not easily traveled path that leads to eternal life. The Scriptures reveal God a being a Triune God, having three personalities in One. This understanding never negates the foundational belief of Judaism expressed in the “Shema,” DT 6, 4-5, “Here O Isreal, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” His transcendent, (mysterious and impossible to fully perceive) form is that of the Father. His immanent form, the one we can perceive with our senses and thus, have an easier time relating to is the Son, Jesus Christ. You may wonder by now why I always refer to the Son as “Christ” rather than “Jesus” and why I always capitalize both the proper nouns applying to any form of the Deity and the pronouns to which they are antecedents. Both practices are my way of expressing the reverence I have for God.
It occurred to me that a discussion of the Son needs to begin with what we learn about Him in the OT. This may seem curious to some readers, because the name, Jesus Christ, is never said straight out in this first 39 books of the Scriptures. You already know that this is the argument that traditional Jews use for denying Christ is the Messiah. The life of any Jewish believer in Christ is all about finding a way that is appropriate to show his traditionally Jewish brothers and sisters Who the Messiah actually is. While I don’t have time to write out every Scripture cited here, I invite you to spend the time to do that at your own pace, knowing full well that you will be blessed by doing this as I was. In a previous message I mentioned that when the words “the Lord God” in GN 2 are translated into the original Hebrew, the pleural word for God, “Elohim,” is used. There is no accident here; God has had His triune nature right from the very beginning before the world was created. There could have been no pre-determinate council as discussed in CO 1: 15-20, AC 2: 23 & 4: 27-28, EPH 1: 5, 9-11, and 1 PET 1: 20-21 had that not been the case. Christ is often referred to as the “Rock of our Salvation,” so my supposition that He is symbolized by the rock in which Moses hid his face from God (at God’s command) in EX 33: 20-22 is not unreasonable.
There are some very special places in the OT in which the Son’s presence is unmistakable. PS 2: 6-9, part of David’s prophetic song “God’s Chosen King.” “ ‘On Zion, My sacred hill,’ He says, ‘ I have installed My King.’ ‘I will announce,’ says the King, ‘what the Lord has declared. He said to me: ‘You are My Son; today I have become Your Father. Ask and I will give You all the nations; the whole earth will be Yours. You will break them with an iron rod; You will shatter them in pieces like a clay pot.’ “ Since the best way to understand Scripture is to allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, look at Nebuchadnezzar’s giant statue dream in DN 2. DN 2: 34-35 and Daniel’s interpretation in DN 2: 45. The statue which represents a series of human empires is shattered by a stone representing Jesus Christ replacing those temporary kingdoms with an eternal one given Him by the Father. Now, David and Daniel never met each other or had the chance to agree upon a story they would tell. DN 7: 13-14 , his vision of the Christ being presented to God and given authority was also no coincidence.
I would be very remiss if I didn’t talk about Christ’s presence in Isaiah. Anyone who has ever heard and appreciated Handel’s “Messiah” has heard the words from IS 9: 6-7. “Unto us a child is born! A Son is given! And the government shall be upon His shoulders: and His name shall be called ‘Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His Kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts, will perform this” (KJV). IS 11: 1, “The royal line of David is like a tree that has been cut down; but just as new branches sprout from a stump, so a new King will arise from among David’s descendants. “ I don’t have space in this message to write out the entire 53rd chapter of Isaiah, but please read it. It is about The Suffering Servant, Our Savior To Come. Here is one delicious sampling, IS 53: 11-12. “After a life of suffering, He will again have joy; He will know that He did not suffer in vain. My devoted Servant, with Whom I am pleased, will bear the punishment of many and for His sake I will forgive them. And so I will give Him a place of honor, a place among great and powerful men. H willingly gave His life and shared the fate of evil men. He took the place of many sinners and prayed that they might be forgiven.” I looked in my copy of the Masoretic text, the version of the Bible that traditional Jews use, and there was IS 53 in plain black and white! I have no memory of my teachers in the synagogue of my childhood ever mentioning or trying to explain this chapter. How can one deny that Jesus Christ is present in the OT in the face of what I present here!?
Micah 5: 2,4 “The Lord says, ‘Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are one of the smallest towns in Judah, but out of you I will bring a Ruler for Israel, Whose family line goes back to ancient times.” It is interesting to note that there was more than one town with the name Bethlehem in Israel, but only one with the name Bethlehem Ephrathah, the birthplace of Jesus Christ! “When He comes, He will rule His people with the strength that comes from the Lord and with the majesty of the Lord God Himself. His people will live in safety because people all over the earth will acknowledge His greatness, and He will bring peace.” Malachi 3: 1, “The Lord Almighty answers, ‘I will send My messenger to prepare the way for Me, Then the Lord you are looking for will suddenly come to His temple. The Messenger you long to see will come and proclaim My covenant.” As so often happens, I’m running out of room in this message before I have shared all the Lord has given to me. Tomorrow, we will look at the Son as He appears in the NT. For now, join me in this prayer:
PRAYER: O Lord, You knew we would have a problem perceiving You in your transcendent person, so You sent us Your Son, Your immanent person with Whom we could more easily relate. The extent to which You want us to know You knows no bounds, except those placed on us by our limited human ability to perceive and the sin we allow to interfere with it. You sent Your Son to teach us Your ways and to die on the cross as a propitiation (a once and for all sacrifice that satisfies Your thirst for righteousness). What greater love can there be? We dedicate ourselves to expunging the sin in our lives and to making the way clear for You to reveal Yourself to us. Thank You and Praise You, Dear Lord for loving us this much. In Christ’s name, amen.
Our Lord has given us the greatest of all gifts, faith in Jesus Christ. He has made clear Who the Messiah really is. My prayer, and I hope yours, is that all those who don’t know this will come to know it as soon as possible. Be encouraged in your faith, and know that by making Him the Lord of your life, He might choose to use you to help Him bring others to faith. Open yourselves to this, and I know you will be blessed. Peter and I send you our love and prayers.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn