John 5:16-18

Easter has come and gone, but I hope you all will remember throughout the year that Christ is risen. If we have new readers that are staying with us after this weekend through hearing about us at Slipstream, welcome aboard. Right now, we’ve been going through the Bible for clues to understanding the doctrine of the Trinity. Right now, we’re in the New Testament and in the gospel of John.

In John 5, a miracle takes place in that Christ heals a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years and was waiting by a pool for a healing. Jesus tells him to take up his mat and walk. This gets him into some trouble with the religious leaders of the day as the day the man was healed was a Sabbath. It was forbidden to carry a mat on the Sabbath as that would count as carrying a weight. Before too long, the authorities find out Jesus had told him to do such so now they come to challenge him. Let’s see the first part of what is said in John 5:16-18.

16So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 17Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” 18For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Jesus did not deny that he was “working” on the Sabbath. However, in response to the Jews, he claimed that his Father was always working on the Sabbath and that he was working too. To the Jewish mind at the time, this was tantamount to claiming to be deity.

It’s important when we realize this to also realize that while in a modern American culture, the way to claim to be God would be to step out and say “I’m God.” That wasn’t the way that Jesus would say it in an honor-shame culture. We often have this mindest that if Jesus did not come out and explicitly claim deity by our understanding, then he never did. Jesus did explicitly claim deity, but it was most often done by Jewish understanding and not ours.

Where did they get this idea that he was claiming deity? Jesus said his Father was always working. Who would it be that was working on the Sabbath? It would be God, as he is at work in providence sustaining the creation. Just as God is at work, Jesus claims that he is also at work. In essence, Jesus is claiming to be a co-laborer right alongside God.

Note that it was in stating his relationship to God that he was making himself out to be God. He never corrects the Jews on this in this whole exchange either. He never states something along the lines of “You are misunderstanding me.” Instead, he keeps going.

This dialogue has a lot in it and so we will spend quite a bit of time on it. Tonight, we will leave it at the point that Jesus sees himself as working alongside God and is justified in working as God is always working. Also, Jesus sees himself in a unique relationship to the Father that points to his unique status.

He Is Risen!

I hope everyone has had a blessed Easter and I hope we’re still getting readers that have joined in from the suggestion of Slipstream. That’s a ministry broadcast out of the U.K.. A link to their ministry can be found on the right side of this page. A number of other Christians have been following through with blogs on the resurrection. A list of them can be found on the blog from the Thursday before this blog.

Today, we talk about the resurrection.

He is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Slipstream invites all readers to go to their website to hear Gary Habermas give a talk on the resurrection. I encourage that as well and recommend his excellent website of www.GaryHabermas.com. For an excellent book on the topic, get the book he co-authored with Mike Licona called “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus.” The book also comes with a game where you can quiz yourself on the material that you’ve read to see how much you’ve learned. 

The case for the resurrection today is focusing on the facts of the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances, both of which are attested to in the creed in 1 Cor. 15:3-8. Now some may say the empty tomb is not mentioned explicitly, yet to say that Jesus was buried and that he rose again would in the mind of a Jew imply an empty tomb. There was no concept of Jesus resurrecting and a body still being in that tomb.

The appearances point to the fact that the disciples claimed to have seen the resurrected Christ. Paul mentions that there were 500 who say him at one time. He’s practically telling the people that they can go and ask for themselves. The witnesses were there. The story would be well-known especially since this was an early Christian creed. It would be known who these witnesses were.

The appearance to Paul is quite important in that Paul was one who was a skeptic and went on to die for his faith. There is no reason why Paul would embrace a faith he sought to persecute unless he believed it was true for some reason and a stron g way he would have come about that conclusion is by having an appearance of Christ to him. Some attempts to explain away the conversion of Paul are quite hysterical, particularly one like Dan Barker who says that Paul might have been struck by lightning. 

The most noted attempt to explain the appearances is hallucination. Hallucination doesn’t work though as first off, they don’t explain the empty tomb. Second, people have to be in a suspectible state of mind to have hallucinations. The apostles were not. Third is the problem that if hallucinations had taken place, they would have been in Jesus in Abraham’s bosom or something like that. They would not have been hallucinations of a resurrection. Fourth is the problem of group hallucinations. That all of these people would hallucinate the same thing is extremely unlikely. 

Another case can be made based on who it was. The argument for the resurrection of Christ fits in with biblical prophecy and the claims of who Jesus was and one can build a whole doctrine of atonement around the resurrection. It is the missing piece that fills in the gaps in the puzzle.

This is why N.T. Wright believes the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most likely explanation for all that followed and this can be seen in his work “The Resurrection of the Son of God.” If you want your PH.D. in the study of the resurrection, you need to go with that one. 

There’s something else about this creed in 1 Cor. 15. It can be dated to within one year of the events. This is a gold mine in ancient history. In that kind of study, we consider ourselves fortunate if we have an account just 100 years after the events took place. 

A lot of my readers are already Christians and I’ve pointed to the work of others for a lot of this as a single blog cannot go into all of this. Perchance later on I might do a series on the resurrection. I’d be amiss to not end this with the application of the resurrection truth.

I do not tend to be an emotional person. I would like to tell you that my life is filled with passion for Christ, but I would not say it is. A friend of mine pointed out to me recently that that’s not what really matters. What matters is how you act and not how you feel. There’s a lot of truth to that and we’ve easily confused the two.

There were times today though that I really did stop to think, “Yes. He is risen.” There are times I think that we have sadly heard the story so much all of our lives that the grandeur of it has not sunk in. Imagine if you lived right next door to a beautiful cathedral and you could walk outside and see it any time. You might be at a disadvantage compared to a tourist who can only see it when they travel a great distance and then feel blessed to be there.

I think we do that with the resurrection also. We’ve got so familiar with it that it doesn’t stun us as it should. We can hear about the resurrection but does it really sink in? As I ponder this, I think this is the problem a lot of marriages go through. Too many people in them don’t stop to remember the joy of their honeymoon and take for granted that they’ve got the other person. They seem to lose sight of the wonder that this person really is in their lives.

The resurrection should be something that stuns us. We must remember that death is a defeated foe. We do not say good-bye to loved ones in the Lord. We say “Until we meet again.” It’s only a temporary separation. It is not eternal.

It also doesn’t stop from us. Resurrection is not just of us. It’s resurrection cosmos. C.S. Lewis showed this well in the Chronicles of Narnia. When a deeper magic takes effect, even death itself will work backwards. We are not going to Eden though. We are bypassing Eden. We are getting something that will make Eden look paltry. 

The resurrection is good news. It is because of that that I believe we have hope in this world.

He is risen!

He is risen indeed!

That Saturday

Some of us have been working with the ministry of Slipstream this weekend. You can find a link to Slipstream on the side of my blog and you can find a list of fellow blogs participating on the blog post I made Thursday. Last night, I blogged on the crucifixion and how we call it “Good Friday.” Tonight, I’d like for us to think a bit about what that Saturday with Jesus in the tomb must have been like.

There are all these apostles and they had believed that Jesus was the Messiah. Their dreams had just been dashed to the ground. They may not have known much about the Messiah, but they surely knew that a Messiah would not be crucified. To be crucified was to be under the curse of God. Jesus had been making some unique claims. It would seem that those claims were false due to the treatment that he had.

But now they must be on the run somehow. It was bad enough that their Messiah had been crucified. They were the ones who had followed him. If the priests were looking for others who would be a threat after the movement Jesus had started in his 33 years, the apostles would have been next on the list.

They had left everything to follow him, so what did they have? Pretty much nothing. They would have been shamed by all their family and friends for being duped by a false Messiah. Not only that, all their hopes and dreams of Israel being freed from Roman power were gone as well. Their great light had died. He had spoken so well and worked so many miracles, that it would be a wonder to know exactly what was going on in their minds on that Sabbath Saturday.

Let’s not forget the women also. The women had been the financial contributors often of the ministry of Jesus and had been there for him. They were followers in many ways just as the men were, which was quite revolutionary in the time of Christ. Jesus had treated them the way no teacher ever had.

Yet they had watched him on the cross. They had seen his skin ripped off of him. His internal organs would have been exposed. They had seen him as the nails were driven into his wrists and his feet. They had watched him die on that cross. They had been there when he was buried. They were watching and seeing the stone be sealed shut on that tomb.

And seeing it be sealed shut on their hopes of him being the Messiah. The stone was as strong a “no” as you could possibly want.

What were they doing that day? It was a day of rest, so they wouldn’t be doing much. Where the apostles looking out the windows constantly behind locked doors wondering if Caiaphas would be coming by soon seeking to put to death the followers? Were the women being scolded by their husbands for being duped by a charlatan and giving so much of the money they had to him? 

What about the leading Jews on the Sanhedrin? Were they celebrating their victory? They had managed to not only put to death that wicked deceiver, but they had done so with the help of the crowd. Truly, they had been the saviors of Israel. Because of the action of crucifying a blasphemer, they had avoided bringing God’s judgment on their nation. Their future ancestors would look back and be thankful.

What about Pilate? He had heard and seen a number of things? There’s a legend that there’s a lake where one can see the spirit of Pilate still trying to wash his hands of the crime he committed. What was he thinking? Had he sold himself out to the Jews? What about his wife? She had told him to do nothing to that righteous man. What if he was a righteous man? What if he had put to death a righteous man?

We don’t know about that day. Nothing was written, but it is something worth speculating about. When we think of how dark that day must have been, we can see how wonderful things were when that day was reversed.

And that is our topic for tomorrow.

Good Friday

Good. What does the word mean? The word good in Aristotle referred to that which is desirable for its own sake. Ultimately, the true good for himw as happiness. We Christians locate that goodness in God. We have things that we consider good by their nature, but that is because they possess being and insofar as they are, they are good. For actions and events, we have a different criteria. For some reason, we call this day “Good Friday.”

Have you ever wondered about it?

Do we see Mormons celebrating the day that Joseph Smith was killed? Do we see Jews celebrating the day that Moses died? Do we see Muslims celebrating the day that Muhammad died? Do we see Buddhists celebrating the day that the Buddha died?

Yet we choose the day that our Lord died, and of course I know that he rose again, and we call that good. There is a lot in that statement. Tonight, let’s look at that.

I wish to remind everyone about Slipstream ministries, which can be found in the links section at the right, whose request on their podcast is responsible for my writing this series this Easter weekend instead of the usual Trinitarian study. It seems Deeper Waters has had more hits than usual and if you came from Slipstream or another blog that is doing this event, welcome aboard. I hope you enjoy what you read and I hope that you will stick around afterwards. Unless noted in advance, Deeper Waters will bring you a new blog every evening.

Good. Let us make it clear. I do not believe we are saying the death of the innocent Son of God in itself was good. It was a sinful act done by wicked men and as such it was not good. Does that mean it was not used for good? Of course it was! That’s the glory of God. He takes what is even meant to be used against him and uses it for his own glory.

What is good is that the ultimate act of evil really brought about the ultimate good. We have been blogging lately on the Trinity and I would like those of us who have been thinking Trinitarian to consider the way that we look at the cross in light of the claims of Christ. Either Jesus was claiming to be God and was not and considering the level at which he made the claims, it was then the most righteous act that could be done putting to death the most wicked blasphemer of all, or he was who he said he was, and then it was the most wicked act that could ever be done putting to death the only righteous one who ever lived.

No one leaves the cross neutral.

Why is this called Good Friday? It is because of the good that came out of it. It was the greatest good. God’s plan worked. He did it at the greatest cost possible. He did not use a created being, a mere tool to bring about man’s redemption, but rather he gave his only Son. 

In the Brothers Karamazov, the skeptic Ivan asks his brother, the religious one, Alexei, a question. If he could build a perfect world but know that in order to do that, he would have to make one innocent person suffer the worst pain possible, would he do such?

Apparently, God would and did, and he made it so it wasn’t one of us, but the Son took it on instead.

Look at the cross. It should have been you. It should have been me. This is one reason I’m hesitant to condemn my brother for his sins. I will condemn the sins, but even so, I will not do so with glee. My brother needs my encouragement to not walk that way again. I deserve the cross just as he does. 

Good Friday reminds us that God is in control. The crucifixion was not an accident. God knew it from all eternity. How does this work? I will not even claim to know. Eternity is such a mind-boggling concept, but I believe that that is true based on my philosophical ponderings and my exegesis of Scripture.

If God is in control, that also means redemption is not an accident. We are not a mere afterthought. We have always been there. I consider it a very orthodox statement that if God ceased to think about you, he would cease to exist as God. God knows all things at all times. That includes you. If he lost thought of you, then he would be temporal. Maybe an OVT can accept that. I cannot.

The main area that needs to be covered is how the followers of Christ handled this event when it happened. How would they have seen it? That will be our topic tomorrow.

Resurrection Weekend Begins

Recently, I went to the apologetics315 blogspot to find some apologetics MP3s to listen to. While there, I got a link to a ministry in the U.K. called Slipstream where Gary Habermas was speaking on the resurrection. The request was that on Thursady, Christian bloggers should write on the resurrection. Well, it’s Easter weekend and we’re going to interrupt our current Trinity study to look at the resurrection. New readers of the blog are invited to stick around afterwards and continue diving with us into the deeper waters of the Christian faith. For now, here are the other blogs you can read that are to be writing about the resurrection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

gkcorner.blogspot.com/

 

 

If you haven’t heard Gary Habermas speak on the resurrection, I urge you to do so. I also invite you to go check the blog where I commented on a debate between Bart Ehrman and the next big name in the defense of the resurrection, Mike Licona, who co-wrote with Gary Habermas “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.” I have no doubt that Mike knows the history well and the problem with the debate was that it was more a philosophy of history debate than a history debate. Nevertheless, Mike is a force to be reckoned with and will continue to be such. A link to that blog is here:
As for Slipstream, a link to its ministry can be found at the side.
Now it’s not my goal to write exclusively on the resurrection today, but I plan to take us through bit by bit. Today is a noted day for Passover celebrations however. As I walked through my town, I would sometimes pass a local winery where I’d see signs advertising that wine was available for the Passover. This is the defining moment in Jewish history. It marked their establishing themselves as a nation and becoming the covenant people.
It’s also around this time that Christ died, and that is no coincidence.
So when Christ institutes the Lord’s Supper he points to two different aspects, the bread and the wine. These are taken to represent his body and blood, an aspect we will certainly be giving a deeper look at when we get to John 6 in our Trinity study. Each of these is quite important however.
The bread was bread that was made without yeast. Why? Israel was on the move and there was no time to waste on bread with yeast. This was to remind them of how they had to flee in haste from Egypt. Now the Jews were not totally anti-yeast as it was used at later times and Christ himself used yeast as an analogy, but the symbol was to remind Israel of that time.
Wine was used as a symbol of joy and Christ pictures it as his blood. In this case, the blood would remind any Jew of the aspect of covenants. In the Passover, the sign that one was of the covenant people was that they put blood of a lamb on their door and the angel of death going through Egypt and killing all the firstborn would not visit a house that had blood on its door. It became the seal to avoid the scourge of death. In the same way, the blood of Christ is what protects us from spiritual death.
The Passover reminded the children of Israel that they were not slaves any more. They were a chosen people set apart to fulfill a great service. In the Last Supper, Christ is pointing to the ones who will continue that. They will be, as it were, the Israel of Israel. It’s not a coincidence that he chose 12 apostles and that he was the one above them. If the 12 apostles represent the 12 tribes of Israel, what position does Christ play then?
N.T. Wright speaks of Christ’s ministry as not hailing the end to slavery in Egypt, but the end of the exile under Babylon. The New Kingdom is here. Christ is bringing in its citizens. Come and take part in the Kingdom of God.
Yet to establish his kingdom, this king will have to go to a cross. How will this work out exactly? Continue staying with us this weekend here at Deeper Waters. Friday, we shall write about the horror of crucifixion. Saturday, we shall write about that empty time when it seems all hope was lost, simply to set the mood for Sunday, when we will share about the joy of the resurrection and why we believe it really happened.
In the end, may we all say it together:
He is risen!
He is risen indeed!

The Second Sign

We’re going through the gospel of John looking for a greater understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. We’re going to be in chapter 4 tonight looking at the second sign that Jesus performed. Note that he performed that in Galilee at Cana. He had been in Judea and was passing through Samaria on his way to Galilee. Let us go to the text at this point to see what happened. 

43After the two days he left for Galilee. 44(Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) 45When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, for they also had been there. 46Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. 47When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

 48“Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”

 49The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

 50Jesus replied, “You may go. Your son will live.” 
      The man took Jesus at his word and departed. 51While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living.52When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.”

 53Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and all his household believed.

 54This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee.

The case that we have here is of a boy who is sick. We do not know what with, but we know that he is near death. Jesus is at Cana and from Capernaum comes the official whose son the boy is. He begs Jesus to heal him. He begs Jesus to come to see the boy before he dies.

Jesus tells him to simply go. His son will live. The translation we have says “You may go.” Jesus speaks with authority. While one may think the official is the one who would give the orders, it is Jesus instead who is giving the orders.

The official obeys however and goes back and on the way is greeted by his servants who tell him that the boy is living and the official finds out that it was the time that Jesus said “Your son will live” that he was healed.

Living is mentioned three times then. John wants us to know that. Could there be something also to the mention of it taking place on the 7th hour? Numbers mean something in John, such as Jesus coming to Cana for the first time on the third day. That doesn’t count against true chronology taking place, but it is a point worth pondering. 

What is the purpose of this sign? For one thing, Jesus’s divine authority as he is at a distance and healing. Let us remember the lesson we got from the centurion’s servant in Matthew 8 and Luke 7. Secondly, that he is life. John emphasizes this by mentioning it three times.

Tomorrow, we will be skipping for the Easter weekend and begin blogging on the resurrection. Hope you’ll be there for it.

The Woman At The Well

We’re going through the Bible looking for clues to understanding the doctrine of the Trinity. We’re in the gospel of John and last time, we looked at how we are called to lower ourselves for the cause of Christ. He must increase and we must decrease. Tonight, we’re going to be in John 4. The passage is the woman at the well. It’s quite lengthy, so I’m going to recommend you either open up a window so you can read the text or get out your own Bibles and consider what is being stated tonight.

In this story, Jesus is passing through Samaria. That’s the first unusual event. If you were an orthodox Jew at the time, you avoided Samaria. Even if it meant extra traveling time, Samaria was just not the place that good Jews went through. In fact, you were to spit on the ground if you heard the word “Samaritan.” I suspect that in the story of the good Samaritan, when Jesus asked the question at the end, this is why the answer was “The one who showed mercy.” The Lawyer did not even want to say “Samaritan.”

Second strike this woman has is, well, she’s a woman. In those days, men did not associate with women in public and men did not teach women. Christ was quite revolutionary in the way that he treated women.

Third strike we see against her is she’s an outcast. How do we know? She comes to draw water at the well at high noon, which is when the heat would have been the worst. No one else was there at the time, which meant this lady wanted to avoid people. She was the town pariah.

She met Jesus at a well. That’s interesting. Why? Let’s go back to our old testament and look at some of the patriarchs. When Abraham sends his servant to fetch a wife for Isaac, the servant finds the wife at the well. When Jacob is on the run, he stops at Laban’s place and helps Rachel get water from a well. In Exodus 2, Moses is at a well and drives off a gang of shepherds who are keeping some women from the well. Moses gets his wife there. It seems wells are pretty romantic places. (Excuse me while I do a websearch to find our nearest well.)

And since this lady converts, it would seem that Christ is meeting his bride at a well. How is she his bride? The same way you and I are. If she becomes a believer, then she is a part of the church. Christ came to meet this one at the well. It was a divine appointment. 

This is a very unusual dialogue. It starts out innocent enough, but even that stuns the woman. How does a Jewish man talk to a Samaritan woman. Christ then tells her about the living water. The lady wants to know if Christ is greater than the Jewish patriarchs, including Jacob, whose name if you recall, was changed to Israel. How does Christ stand in relation to Israel?

The lady is interested in this water, but she is thinking of it as physical water. Double-entendres are quite common in John. He frequently uses a term that can mean two different things. Most often, people get the wrong idea. Just as Nicodemus misunderstood being born again, this lady misunderstands water.

Christ tells her to go get her husband. She tells him she has no husband. Christ then reveals more of his nature saying that she is quite correct. She has had five husbands and the man that she is living with now is not her husband.

Again, this lady is an outcast. Divorce was a shameful procedure and was public. This lady has been publicly shamed by five men. At the time, she is living with someone else probably just to have support and to avoid some of the shame, though we can be sure it is with her always. 

But since she’s got a prophet here, this lady is again a pragmatist and asks where the right place is to worship. The Samaritans had their own penteteuch and their own temple where they worshipped. Now that there is someone here who has divine authority, why not ask him and see what he says?

Jesus’s answer is that God cannot be confined to anyone place, but that the Jews were the ones to whom the original message came. Nevertheless, there will be a time when the revelation that came to the Jews will be open to all and all will be able to worship God wherever they are, Jew or Samaritan, or Gentile for that matter.

The lady says that she knows the Christ is coming and when he comes, he will explain everything. One wishes they could see the look on her face when Christ said “I am he.”

The lady is changed. She had been ashamed of what she had done, but now she wanted everyone to come out and meet someone who told her all she had done. This was the first witness to the Samaritans. Christ again uses the most unlikely candidates to do great things and what is the conclusion? Christ is the savior of the world.

Is he yours?

He Must Increase. I Must Decrease

We’re going through the New Testament now and trying to come to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of God. I am referring to the Trinity as there are other doctrines of God as well, but this is one that is truly unique to Christianity. I have this idea that if the church could grasp the concept of the Trinity, it would turn us around. Perhaps the American church would finally have the revolution that it needs. We’re in the gospel of John and tonight, we’re going to be concluding the third chapter.

 22After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 23Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were constantly coming to be baptized. 24(This was before John was put in prison.) 25An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.” 27To this John replied, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. 28You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.’ 29The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30He must become greater; I must become less.

 31“The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

When I started writing this blog, I was writing the first part in the title and thought “I cannot put that title without putting in the second part.” It would be awfully easy to have simply stated the truth that Christ must increase. What is hard to put in is that we must decrease.

The ancient worldview was that there was limited good. If one person had goodness, it was because it was taken from another. This was especially the case with honor. It wasn’t given out freely. Honor had to be earned. If someone attacked your honor, you had better defend it.

John the Baptist was told that his following was decreasing. John the Baptist, however, saw that this was to a greater good. (Thus further indication that part of John is written to stop an idea that John the Baptist was not the end-all.) The Baptist knew the truth. He must decrease. Christ must increase.

Why? Christ came from Heaven. (Contrary to those who think our souls might drop down from heaven like gumballs when we are conceived.) He is the one who is above all. I believe this is John the writer’s testimony again as he speaks in the same style that he did in the dialogue with Nicodemus. We have a response to Christ and then we have commentary. The Baptist publicly certified who Christ is. Nicodemus came by cover of night.

Let us make further comparisons. John the Baptist was a figure willing to lose what he had. Nicodemus was ashamed. John the Baptist understood what was going on at the time. Nicodemus, who was a teacher of Israel, did not. Nicodemus spoke to Jesus as just a teacher. John the Baptist saw him as the Christ, the bridegroom, and the lamb of God.

In this passage, we see the contrast and the only reason I can think of for the different responses these men had to Christ is the different way they saw him. John was willing to lose all. Nicodemus was afraid of losing what he had. 

Which side are you on today? Are you on the side of John the Baptist who saw Christ as the bridegroom and was willing to lose everything and did not seek his own honor at the expense of Christ, or are you coming by cover of night like Nicodemus because who knows what those around you could think if they knew that you were a follower of Christ?

You know the answer to that.

God So Loved The World

We’ve been going through the New Testament and trying to come to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the blessed Trinity. We’ve mainly been looking for clues that Jesus had to the understanding of his own person as well as clues to what those closest to him had to say about who he was. We’ve been going through the gospel of John lately and right now, we’re in John 3 and we’re going to start tonight’s reading looking at what was once the most quoted verse of Scripture.

16“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

Yes. There was a day and age when John 3:16 was the most quoted verse of Scripture. Today, it has been overtaken by Matthew 7:1 and only part of it with the “judge not” idea. It is my judgment that those who quote “Judge not” in such a way do not properly judge to have a clue about what Jesus is really saying here. Now some of you might be angry that I’ve said that. Please do complain. I want to hear your judgment that I am wrong in my judgment while all the while you don’t believe we should judge. The message is about hypocritical judging. Not all judging. 

Martin Luther called this verse “The gospel in minitaure”, and while it has the great message of the love of God in it, let’s be sure we don’t miss the other side. The message came so that people might not perish. Perishing is a real possibility. In fact, as we look at this passage, we see shades pointing back to the prologue with the message of light coming into the world and people not accepting the light.

Also, some Bibles might have this included in the text of what Jesus said. I think that’s in error. I don’t believe Jesus said these words, but this is John’s inspired commentary in response to the conversation Christ had with Nicodemus. 

Note the goal is not condemnation but salvation. The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. We can be reminded of the message in Ezekiel that God does not delight in the death of the wicked. It is my contention that God is doing all he can without being overwhelming ot people and restricting their freedom further to bring about salvation to them. God is looking for people who really seek the truth for the sake of the truth. I will also contend that if anyone is following that path, they will eventually find Christ.

Part of the hesitancy though is that mens’ deeds are evil. C.S. Lewis once compared the idea of man searching for God to the idea of a mouse searching for a cat. We might find him, but we didn’t mean to find him as he is! Surely it didn’t come to that! If any other concept of god can be found, let us go with it! Let us go with all the popular ideas of a god who is a force or one who needs us or one who is simply love and makes sure everyone is happy in the end. We can chase those gods all we want, but we will not find them, simply because they do not exist.

This is also one reason I try to not be hard on the sins of my fellow man. It’s really easy to do of course. Don’t get me wrong on this. We should call sin sin and we should not tolerate it. However, we must remember that we are fallen as well and we don’t desire to come to the light in our sins either. How many of us have been quite good at justifying things that we know are wrong?

The message of Christianity reminds me that God did not come to save pretty good people who just needed an extra boost. He came to save sinners. He came to save people who could not save themselves. He came to save the worst of the worst.

Note though again that Jesus is the focal point. All of eternity hinges on what someone does with the Son of God. He is the light and if people come to him, then they are saved. If they do not, then they are not. Of course, I am speaking of those who know the message. My answer of those who have never heard is quite different, though readers of my blog will probably know my answer by now.

The light isn’t always pleasant at first and in many cases, none of us like it. We think it would be easier to stay in sin rather than come to Christ, even though it is far better for us to come to him. Whatever it is you are dealing with, it is easier often to stay in it than to come to him. Of course, I’m not saying Christ cures you instantly. I believe this is a huge misnomer we’ve given to people who suffer from a variety of temptations that we give the impression of disappearing immediately if they will just repent. Can that happen? Yes. Is it the norm? No. Often times, it could take good counseling and the presence of the Christian church being a body of fellow believers in love.

Yes. Christ is the ultimate light that saves, but let us remember that he said we are to be the light of the world. Let us not live in darkness either but let us be tiny beacons pointing to the true light. If we act as darkness, it will make it all the harder for those in darkness to find the true light.

Lifting Up The Son of Man?

We’re going through the New Testament seeking a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity, an essential doctrine of Christianity. Right now, we’re in the gospel of John. Last time, we looked at the first sign that Jesus did at the wedding of Cana. Tonight, we’re going to look at his talk with Nicodemus and address an idea that seems obscure to some. Why would Jesus compare himself to a snake that was lifted up in teaching that we must be born again?

10“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

There are several stories of salvation in the Old Testament through miracles, yet of all the stories in the Old Testament that Jesus could have used, he decided to point to this one. What is going on in this story that points to the work of Christ?

Let’s look at the whole story in Numbers 21:

4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea,  to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” 6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

 8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

What was going on was that the people were rebelling again. They wanted to go to Egypt where they thought they had it better. In response, God sends snakes? Why snakes? Snakes were a symbol of Egypt. In essence, instead of bringing Israel to Egypt, he brought Egypt to Israel.

When the people repent, God tells Moses to make a bronze snake and put it up for all to see. The snake was a symbol of death, but the Israelites had to look to that which they considered a shameful curse in order to find life. When they looked to the snake, they were healed. So what’s the connection?

Christ is speaking of his own death by crucifixion here. This was the most shameful death you could have, yet that which Israel saw as shameful was to be their source of life. Once again, they would have to look upon a source of shame and in that shame, they would see life.

Christ is the fulfillment of what Moses did in that passage. He is the source of life that brings true healing, not from the poison of the snake, but from the poison of sin. In speaking such, Christ saw himself as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and the source of life for Israel. We are reminded of what John said earlier. “In him was life.”

How are we to respond? Do we look to the Son and live or not look and die?