Jn. 12:20-29, Glorious Son: Faithful in Life and Death

God is faithful, by which we mean He is always true to His word.  He who calls you is faithful who also will do it (1 Thess. 5:24).  God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor. 1:9).  First, in today’s post, let us see three ways Jesus manifested the faithfulness of God.

·       Jesus was absolutely clear in His claim that He came to do the will of His Father.  My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me (Jn. 4:34).  I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me (5:30).  I have come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me (6:38).  This is truly a faithful Son, who will not venture outside the will of His Father.

·       We read in several passages that Jesus was true to the Father’s timetable.  At the wedding of Cana He told His mother, My hour has not yet come (2:4).  He said these same words to His brothers: My time has not yet come (7:6).  The crowd could not take Him because His hour had not yet come (7:30).  Again, no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come (8:20).  These kinds of words can be used as an excuse by people, sometimes.  But not with Jesus.  Because the day did come when Jesus said, The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified (12:23).  There was no hesitation, even though there was trouble in His soul.  He was the faithful Son.

·       Shepherds in the Church these days are often moved by the size of the crowds.  If they diminish, they take it as an indication something in the ministry must change.  This could never be said of Christ.  John 6 is a perfect example.  He had been aware of the fickleness of the crowd early on (John 2:23-25).  What Jesus believed was that He would have the followers His Father intended to give Him (6:37).  Men were incapable of coming to Him without the Father’s drawing them (6:44).  Thus, when many departed (6:60-71) He did not change His ministry.  He was, as always, the faithful Son.

Thus, there is no surprise, that even on the cross Jesus manifested His deity in the time of greatest “weakness.”  He manifested the love that characterizes God.  His first words were, Father forgive them.  He even cared for His mother from the cross.  He bore our sins on the tree.  From the cross He manifested the faithfulness that characterizes God.  He did not acknowledge the thirst until the bearing of sin was complete.  With the sour wine at His lips, He said It is finished, and gave up His spirit.  It was dark at the cross, for three hours.  Yet, the light of fulfilled prophecy shone, even after His death.  Not one of His bones shall be broken (19:36; Ps. 34:20).  They shall look on Him whom they pierced (19:37; Zech. 12:10).  And, of course, three days later, the light of glory burst at an empty tomb in a garden. 

The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him!

Jn. 14:5-11, Glorious Son: Declares God in Life

Today’s post is pure meditation on this idea that, everything Christ did in His earthly life was God revealing Himself through His Son.  For the most part we are staying in the Gospel of John.  If you are unfamiliar with the event we draw attention to, we will include references so you can search them out.

·       God is love (1 Jn. 4:16).  Jesus showed this in His life and ministry constantly.

o   Jn. 1:39: He invited men to come to Himself (to come and see).

o   1:43: He gave hope to a man (Peter) who didn’t know what God could do for and in him.

o   1:46-47: He overlooked the prejudice common to men (Nathaniel).

o   4:7: He built a bridge of love to a sinner, a bridge she could and would use to come to the Savior.

o   9:35: When others excluded the man from the temple, Jesus sought him out.

o   11:35: He wept over unbelief in the face of death.

o   13:1: He loved His disciples to the end.

o   13:27: He washed the feet of His disciples, including Judas.

o   21:18: He restored the one who had denied Him.

·       God is light (1 John 1:5).  Daily, people living in darkness saw a great Light in the life and ministry of Christ.  Jesus said, As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world (Jn. 9:5).

o   John 3: Nicodemus existed in the darkness of self-righteousness.  Jesus brought the light: you must be born again (v7).

o   John 4: The woman was in the darkness of sin, failure and false religion.  Jesus shone the light: I who speak to you am He (v26).

o   John 5: The crowd was in the darkness of inconsistent legalism, seeking to kill Jesus for healing on the Sabbath.  Jesus turned on the light: he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life (v24).

o   John 6: This crowd was in the darkness of materialism, who sought Jesus just to be fed again.  Jesus said, I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger (v35).

o   John 8: Now the crowd was in the darkness of bondage to sin, and they didn’t even know it.  But Jesus told them, If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (v31-32).

As John wrote at the start of the story, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend (overcome) it (1:5)!  The Son perfectly revealed God to mankind.  They had no excuse in rejecting Him. 

Jn. 2:1-11, The Glorious Son: Declares God through Miracles

Since the Son of God is God, come in the flesh, then we must conclude that everything He said, felt, willed and did was the express image of His person.  One of the ways He declared God was through the signs / miracles / wonders He performed.  John specifically says, in Jn. 2:11, that after seeing the first miracle, Jesus had manifested His glory.  He did something that shouted loudly of Deity.  Near the conclusion of John’s Gospel he tells us …

³⁰ And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; ³¹ but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. (John 20:30-31)

Let us take the time today to review the seven miracles John recorded, prior to the greatest miracle (the Resurrection of Christ) and the miracle performed after His resurrection in John 21 (the amazing catch of fish).  We will seek to draw attention to how each event declares something about Christ that is only true of God.  Perhaps you will see other things.

·       John 2:1-11: turning water to wine.  Jesus performed a creative act, doing something that can only be done by the Creator.

·       John 4:46-54: healing the nobleman’s son.  Jesus demonstrated omnipresence, healing the boy from Cana while the boy was in Capernaum, fifteen miles away.

·       John 5:1-15: healing the man by the pool of Bethesda.  Jesus demonstrated power over time, as the eternal One, since the man had been ill for thirty-eight years.

·       John 6:1-14: feeding the five thousand.  Jesus performed a creative and omnipotent action.  But He said the point had to do with Him being the Bread of Life (6:35).  Life is inherent in Christ.  That is only true of God.

·       John 6:15-21: walking on the water.  Jesus demonstrated His Lordship over all creation.

·       John 9:1-38: healing the man born blind.  Again, Jesus declared the point of this miracle, that He was the Light of the world (9:5).  The entire event, from the man’s birth, was that the works of God should be revealed in him (9:3).

·       John 11:1-44: the raising of Lazarus.  Jesus demonstrated His power over death, declaring I am the resurrection and the life.

We will add to this in our next post.  Again, everything Christ did revealed something of God to those who witnessed His earthly life.  At the same time, and this is important to remember, He also revealed true Man.  He was the Second Adam, without the failings of the first Adam.  Adam was made in the image of God.  Jesus was the express image of His person!

Heb. 1:1-4; John 1:14-18 The Glorious Son: Express Image

There were times, in the OT, that people saw Someone that made them exclaim, as did Manoah, the father of Samson, We shall surely die, because we have seen God (Judges 13:22)!  God did not disagree with them, that we are told.  In the case of Samson’s parents, they saw “the Angel of God.”  It was one of those God-appearances we spoke of previously, a “theophany.” 

Yet, John 1:18 tells us no one has seen God at any time.  Is this a contradiction?  No!  We considered this in our previous post.  The Son of God is the One of the Godhead who makes visible manifestations of God to men.  God is invisible; He is to be worshiped as invisible: Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen (1 Tim. 1:17).  Thus, what we can say of these people who claimed to see God, is that …

·       They were seeing God, manifested in a form chosen by God to fit His purposes.

·       And they were seeing God through the eyes of faith.  Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Heb. 11:1).   Thus, Moses by faith … forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible (11:27).

There is something in John 1:18 that tells us this was not an accident or a mere technicality in the Godhead.  This was God’s express purpose in His Son, that He should “declare” Him.  This word, in the Greek, was a very technical term.  When the Greeks wanted to talk about their “gods” in some way and tell about their exploits in some way, they used this term (exegeomai).  Literally, we might say they were giving a “shout out” about their gods.

The NT uses this term in exactly the same way. 

·       Luke 24:35: The two disciples on Emmaus Road told what things Jesus did in their presence, and how He became known to them.

·       Acts 10:8: Cornelius told his soldiers all the things the Lord told him to do, in sending to Joppa for Peter to come.

·       Acts 15:12, 14: Barnabas and Paul declared the miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles. Peter had declared how God had opened up the hearts of the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius.

·       Acts 21:19: At Jerusalem, to the Jewish believers, Paul declared the things God had done among the Gentiles.

Thus, we are not surprised that, in speaking of His Son, the One with such a perfect intimacy in the Godhead (who is in the bosom of the Father), that He is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us, whose glory we beheld, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.  He is the One who has declared Him.  What better “shout out” could there be of the Father than the Son!

Psalm 141

Here is a Song of immense practical value for the righteous of all ages.  The question is, “How can the godly live godly in an unrighteous world?”  Given our enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil, how can we ever hope to be faithful in our walk?  This Psalm gives us the right focus as well as very practical helps.

·       141:1-2: Our brother turns us to the Lord from the very start.  When he is beset by the workers of iniquity (v4,9) and facing a struggle in his own heart and soul (v4,8) his cry is not to his mentors or parents or best friends; it is to the Lord!  All of the above may be used in our sanctification but our focus must be on God.  So first, as regular as the evening sacrifice, lift your prayer to God as you seek help in walking in righteousness.

·       141:3-4: We must have the restraint of the Lord.  We must ask Him to be on 24/7 patrol, something we cannot do in the flesh.  This is a Psalm of David so we are hearing the Old Testament saint plead for God’s guarding and keeping.  God promises the saints of the Church He is able to keep them (Jude 24-25) and preserve them blameless (1 Thess. 5:23).  And remember that our Lord Jesus promised a Helper/Advocate to help us at all times, the Holy Spirit whom He would send in His absence (John 14:15-18).  This is a great prayer given us by David.  Let us ask God to guard our tongue and our heart.

·       141:5-7: We must have the reproof of the Lord.  Notice: David pleads for the righteous to strike him; but to whom does he plead?  It is to the Lord!  The Lord, our Father who loves us enough to reprove and chasten us (Heb. 12:5-6, a quote of Prov. 3:11; so again we see a truth for saints of all ages).  Friend, examine your heart in this matter!  Do you resist God’s chastening?  You may accept the chastening of some physical or financial trial.  But what about God’s chastening through your brother in Christ?  What is common in our society is that when a brother reproves us we just change churches.  But what David says here (how it is better to be judged by the righteous than the unrighteous) is repeated for the Church by Paul (1 Cor. 6:1-8).  Let us not just endure this reproof; like David let us cry out to God for it.

·       141:8-10: We must have the refuge of the Lord.  1 Cor. 10:13 promises that god will not allow us to be tempted above what we are able to withstand with His help.  Jesus instructed us to pray for deliverance from temptation (Matt. 6:13).  Psalm 125:3 promises that things will never become so difficult that the righteous must reach out their hands to iniquity.  In the same vein as these passages we here have David, setting his focus on the Lord for refuge.  This must be our constant experience, that God is watching over us even when we do not realize it.  In this way we are trusting His protection as well as His righteousness, that in all things God is the Sovereign.

Let us so walk, praying without ceasing for His restraint, reproof and refuge.

Psalm 110, The Glorious Son: Inheritance (2)

Sometimes the oldest son was not faithful and lost his right to the inheritance.  Jesus is the faithful Son of God.  Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant … but Christ as a Son over His own house (Heb. 3:5-6).  He was the heir by decree of the Father.  He was and is faithful as Creator and Sustainer of all things.

·       He was declared faithful through His role in the Godhead.  While mysterious, the Bible is clear that the Godhead consists of three distinct Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The Son is that Person of the Godhead who makes visible manifestations on earth.  In OT days it was through “theophanies,” God-appearances.  If God appeared as the shekinah, the glory that shone at Mt. Sinai, the Son was that visible glory.  We know this because Hebrews tells us the Son is the brightness of glory and the express image of His person (1:3).  When God appeared, with two angels, to Abraham (Gen. 18:1-3), Christ was the One who took on that form.  God is, by nature, invisible.  When He manifests Himself, and He did this many times in the OT, He did it through the Son.

·       His most powerful declaration of faithfulness was the Incarnation.  This was not a theophanie, God taking on a form for a specific occasion.  This was the Word becoming flesh (Jn. 1:14), becoming one of us, from birth to death.  He lived a righteous life, a sinless life.  Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered, and having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him (Heb. 5:8-9).

o   His faithfulness extended to Calvary.  He died as we do (Hb. 2:9), becoming obedient to the point of death, even death of the cross (Phil. 2:8).  Through His death He reconciled all things to God (Col. 1:19-20).

·       Evidence of the faithfulness of the Son was also seen in His exaltation to the right hand of power.  Because of His obedience in the incarnation God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow … every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2:9-11).  He awaits at the Father's right hand, while the Father completes the Inheritance for the Son: Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool (Ps. 110:1).  From there He is exalted, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him (1 Pt. 3:22).

Thus, Jesus is the faithful Son, the heir of all things.  And notice what it says: when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1:3).  By the grace of God, I am part of the inheritance God is giving to His Son.  He is giving Him the nations.  Some will apparently have to be forced to submit.  But because Jesus purged our sins at the cross, He offers freely, to all who believe, the right to become children of God, to be joint-heirs with Christ.  He is the faithful Son of God.  I see no other logical move but to bow the knee to Him now, and to confess Him as Lord.  Will you join me and many others?

Malachi 3:1; 4:1-6, Merry Christmas from Malachi!

Everywhere you go in the Bible you find Christ.  Malachi is no exception.  And actually, being the final OT writing, it ends with a flurry of Messianic hope, a hope that continues to encourage the righteous at the time of Jesus’ birth.

·       Malachi has some powerful things to say about John the Baptist.  In 3:1 the LORD speaks of my messenger who will prepare the way before Me.  Malachi is building on Isaiah’s prophecy of the voice of one crying in the wilderness (Isa. 40:3-5).  Then, at the end of Malachi (4:5-6) there is the famous “Elijah” prophecy.  John fulfilled the roll of Elijah for those who repented in preparation for the coming of Christ (Matt. 17:10-13).  Even though there is a future great and dreadful day of the LORD when Israel will again be warned to repent, she cannot complain that in Christ’s first coming the call was issued loud and clear.  The people knew this about John, though the leaders rejected him (Lk. 7:29-30).

·       Malachi 3:1 speaks of another Messenger, the Messenger of the covenant.  It is the same word, but it speaks of the Messiah.  Pay careful attention to the words: My messenger … will prepare the way before Me … John would prepare the way for the LORD.  But who is the Lord?  The Lord … will suddenly come … even the Messenger of the covenant.  The messengers are not the same.  One goes before the Lord; the other is the Lord.

o   What covenant is spoken of here?  I suspect that the answer must be, as I have seen with many commentators, the Abrahamic Covenant.  This is the one “whom you seek.”  He will come to fulfill the covenant that some might think God had set aside.  But when you say that, the OT prophets made it clear that the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant is bound up in a New Covenant (Jer. 31:31-34).  And Jesus is the Mediator of this New Covenant (Heb. 9:15). 

·       There is another Malachi reference to Christ, in 4:2: He is the Sun of Righteousness.  Yes, the “Sun,” not “Son.”  In the context of Malachi 3-4 this is a title of hope for Israel.  As the sun is a great blessing on the earth, so the Sun will be a great blessing in the restoring of Israel.  And it will all be in the context of His righteous reign on the earth. 

Now, read Luke 1:67-80, the prophecy of John’s father Zacharias.  As you do, note, first, how Zacharias realizes the coming of the Messiah means the long-awaited salvation and deliverance for Israel is coming.  God has not forgotten His people.  As Malachi indicated, the deliverance will come after Messiah does some cleansing (3:2-3).  Second, Zacharias used a title for Messiah that is reminiscent of Malachi.  He calls Him the “Dayspring from on high” (Lk. 1:78).  The Dayspring speaks of the beginning of the sunlight, the light from the Sun of Righteousness.  May I say, this Christmas, that our hope would shine more brightly if we believed the promises of God.  And if we would heed His calls to us to repent, to put off the old man and put on the New Man created in righteousness and true holiness!

Num. 27:8-11; Rom. 8:15-17, The Glorious Son: Inheritance

When Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, the issue between Abram and God was that God promised Abram many descendants, and Abram had no son, no heir (Gen. 15:1-7).  Eliezer of Damascus was going to inherit all Abram’s possessions upon his death.  But God said, “No! You will have a son!”  And Abram believed God.  And the rest is history.

Our intimate and deep relationship with God is bound up in the fact that we are heirs.  Because we are sons, we speak to God as Abba, Father (Rom. 8:15-17).  In the Biblical view of things, upon the death of a man, the inheritance goes to the sons.  In the case of multiple sons, a double portion went to the oldest son, or to a son so designated by the father.  There are many important stories in the OT that revolve around inheritance, such as Isaac, Jacob and Esau; Jacob, Reuben, Judah and Joseph; and Ruth and Boaz.  And each of these stories is critical to the ancestry of the Christ.

Sons receive an inheritance from their father.  This includes the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Son of God receives an inheritance from the Father.  In Heb. 1:1-4, inheritance forms bookends for the description of Christ: whom He has appointed heir of all things … as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they (the angels).  On what basis is Jesus the heir of all things?

·       It is based in God’s decree.  Psalm 2:7-8 says this: I will declare the decree: the LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.  Ask of me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession.  Christ was a faithful Son to the One who appointed Him to this inheritance (Heb. 3:2).  In Genesis, in the story of Jacob’s sons, you will remember that Judah, the fourth son, was the one blessed to produce the Messiah.  And Joseph, the eleventh son, received the double portion.  What happened to the older sons?  Reuben disgraced his father through an immoral relationship; and Levi and Simeon disgraced themselves by their anger.  They were not faithful sons; so, Jacob appointed others.  Christ was a faithful Son.

·       It is based in Creation.  Jesus was the creator of all things (John 1:3).  As Col. 1:16 says: For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.  All things were created through Him and for Him. 

·       Not only did He create all things; He is the sustainer of all things.  Col. 1:17 goes on to say: And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.  He holds everything together.

(To be continued.)

Heb. 1:1-4, The Glorious Son: “Son-ness”

The passage for today and the next several days is one of those amazing, exalted, and grand pictures of Christ in the NT that include John 1:1-18, Phil. 2:5-11 and Col. 1:15-19.  a study of these four verses can go on forever.  As a matter of fact, it will go on forever!  In eternity, those who live in the presence of God, will never plumb the depths of this description of the Son of God.

It will be helpful if we understand the likeness of father and son, and thus the perfect likeness of Father and Son.  When God purposed to make us holy and blameless, He brought us into “sonship” by adoption.  God Himself is holy and blameless.  So, to make us like Him, He made us His “sons” (Eph. 1:4-5).

When God purposed to make the clearest revelation of Himself to His creation, how did He do it?  He sent His Son.  A father can only beget someone like himself.  “Like father, like son” is a fact.  Human fathers do not beget foxes or dogs or lions.  Thus, as we have noted often in our studies, Jesus, as Son of God, is, in fact God.  He has the essential characteristics of Deity.  Jesus is not the Son of God by adoption.  He is God’s only begotten Son (KJV, NKJV, NASB1995).  Other English translations refer to Christ as God’s only Son (NASB, ESV), or one and only Son (NIV).

On the other hand, when John 1:12 tells us that, by faith, we have authority to become sons of God, what is it talking about?  It is a spiritual birth: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (Jn. 1:13).  Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born in the human way (born of water) and in a spiritual way (of the Spirit, Jn. 3:5-8).  This is regeneration, being born again, being born from above.  We have put on the new man (Christ in us) which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24).  In Christ, through the gospel, we have great and precious promises, so that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

Thus, Christ is the only begotten of God.  We are sons by adoption so that we can share in the family blessings.  We are heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17).

Which brings us back to Heb. 1:2. How did God reveal Himself to His creation in the most complete way possible?  He has in these last days spoken to us by Son!  The word “His” is not there; that’s why your English Bible has it in italics.  It means God spoke through the concept or essence of “Son-ness.”  You cannot know God any better than through the Son of God.  Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14:9)

Psalm 130, 131, There is Hope (5)

The third Hebrew term for hope is yachal.  It means to wait, remain, delay.  When your hope is in the LORD, you must be willing to wait.  If you do not, you will miss out on God’s provision in your situation.  Here are some powerful pictures and illustrations of yachal.

·       Gen. 8:12 provides the first and defining picture of yachal.  Noah waited yet for another seven days and sent out the dove.  Noah and his family had been in the ark for a long time and were undoubtedly ready to disembark.  But they had to wait until the right time.  Turning the animals loose might have been disastrous if the ground was not ready for them.  So he “hoped” or “waited.”  There is hope.  But we must wait for it.

·       Yachal appears at very strategic points in the Pilgrim Psalms.  Let me remind you, that Psalm 120-134 were often read as pilgrims journeyed from their homes in Israel to Jerusalem for one of the feasts.  Psalm 120-122 concern the pilgrim’s decision to leave his home, a decision that must be bold, and with the realization that there will be troubles along the way.  By the time you get to Psalm 132 the pilgrim has arrived in Jerusalem.  Thus, Psalm 123-131 provide encouragement along the way.  In that group of Songs, the last two (130-131) call Israel to yachal.  It is at that point that the pilgrim is getting very weary.  He needs to persevere, to wait for the LORD.  Hear these words.  It is a call we must hear and heed as we come nearer to the end of our pilgrimage.

O Israel, hope in the LORD; for with the LORD there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption.  Psalm 130:7 

O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forever.  Psalm 131:3.

·       Surely it will not surprise you to know that Job used this term often.  Here are a couple that should encourage us to have the patience of Job.

Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.  Job 13:15a 

If a man dies, shall he live again?  All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes.  Job 14:14 

·       Lastly, here is an illustration of the tragedy of not waiting on the LORD.  In 1 Sam. 10:8 Samuel gave instructions to King Saul.  You shall go down before me to Gilgal and surely I will come down to you to offer burnt offerings and make sacrifices of peace offerings.  Seven days you shall wait, till I come to you and show you what you should do.  In 1 Sam. 13:8 we read, Then he waited seven days, according to the time set by Samuel.  But Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him.  You likely know the story.  Saul did not wait; instead he offered sacrifices himself.  And God rejected him as king.  What an important reminder.  God defines “wait.” 

Psalm 71:5; Joshua 2:8-21, There is Hope (4)

Now let us consider two other Hebrew terms for “hope.”  The first of those terms is tikveh, and we posted on this Aug. 3,5, 2019.  I am going to repeat the Aug. 5 post.

We should be aware as we read and study the Old Testament that many Hebrew words derive their significance in the story where the word was first used.  For example the word “good” (towb) is first used in Gen. 1:4 when God pronounced His creative work to be good.  The pitch (Gen. 6:14) that covered the ark, wherein Noah and his family were saved, became the term for the ransom price for redemption, the price that covered our sin (e.g. Ps. 49:7).

The first use of the word “hope” is found in the story in today’s reading.  Did you see it?  Likely not because it wasn’t translated “hope.”  It is in Josh. 2:18,21.  Rahab was to bind a line of scarlet (v18), a scarlet cord (v21), hanging it from her window.  When the army of Israel took Jericho they would see this and they would know that Rahab and all in her house were the ones, the only ones, they were to spare. 

Isn’t that a marvelous picture of salvation?  The scarlet of course reminds us of the blood of Christ.  As the blood over the doorpost at Passover would be seen by the angel of God and would bring salvation to that family, so the scarlet line would do the same for Rahab.  It all speaks of Christ who is our hope. 

Rahab needed to understand that this was her only hope.  The spies made it clear: the scarlet hope must be hanging from the window and her family must be IN the house.  For that reason we gave you Psalm 71:5 to read today.  There is a parallel phrase that reads: You are my trust from my youth.  Trust!  That’s synonymous with hope in many ways.  And do you know the first use of the word for trust (mibtach) in the Bible?  It’s in Job 8:14 where Bildad (one of Job’s so-called friends) speaks of hypocrites whose trust is a spider’s web.  What a graphic picture of a false trust, a false hope.  If you are falling and you grab onto a spider’s web to save yourself you will not be helped at all.  Of course.  So if Rahab did not put the scarlet cord out of the window and if her family did not gather in her home they would have died with all their friends and neighbors in Jericho.  And you do remember, I am sure, that Rahab is, by the grace of God, in the genealogy of our Savior, our Hope, our Trust, the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 1:5).

Who is your hope today for salvation?  In what are you trusting?  Is it as effective as a spider’s web?  Are you trusting in something other than the price of redemption paid by God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, when He died on the cross?  Jesus is the Redeemer.  Believe it or not.  But if you don’t believe, what is your hope?

Psalm 140

Let us briefly consider this Psalm which has a tremendous message for us today given the ascendency of the wicked to places of great power.

·       140:1-5: The nature of the proud.  Note that David’s enemies were not always kings with armies.  As with us, he was often attacked by people with warring words and with schemes to make him stumble (discredit him) or get him off the narrow path where they could catch him in a trap.

·       140:6-8: The nature of the God in whom David trusts.  God IS the strength of David’s salvation; God HAS sheltered David in the past.  This encourages David’s faith.  David’s concern is that if the wicked succeed then they will be exalted rather than God.  That is an issue that is important enough for what follows.

·       140:9-11: The imprecations of David’s prayer.  This may sound a bit over the top.  Perhaps you would think that today we should pray for their salvation.  We should, certainly.  But we should also pray that they will be absolutely frustrated in their plans, because their success denies the glory of God.  So David’s prayer is correct for us as well!

·       140:12-13: The confidence of David’s prayer.  Not only is God’s glory at stake; God’s faithfulness to the humble is at stake.  Since David knows God’s heart he is emboldened in this prayer.  The righteous tend to be on the short end of earthly power, given the god of this age.  But God exalts the humble and desires their presence forever.

Let us not deal with the deceitful, powerful people of our day by complaining about politics and politicians.  Let us rather come before God lest they be exalted.

Acts 2:38-47; 1 Peter 1:3, There is Hope (3)

o   Isaiah 22:11:  Recently we wrote a post called “trust.”  We spoke of how Israel was made beautiful by God, but then trusted in her beauty rather than in her God.  Here, we see a perversion of Israel’s hope.  This is a form of the term mikveh and it is translated reservoir.  The prophet is talking about how Israel built all her defenses so as to be solid against an enemy siege.  This included the “casemate” walls often used in ancient cities.  The enemy had to clear one wall, and then would be in the open as he tried to get to and scale a second wall.  If you put a ditch or mote in between, it of course made it even harder for the enemy.  But you did not look to its Maker, nor did you have respect for Him who fashioned it long ago.  Interesting.  A couple days ago I saw that Israel, for the first time, with their missile defenses (Iron Dome, Arrow and David’s Sling), shot down a cruise missile.  They are feeling pretty good about it, of course.  But are they trusting in a god of fortresses (Dan. 11:38)?  Is there trust in the LORD?  But, enough about Israel.  What about me?  Who is my hope?  My oasis?  My spring of living water?

o   One final note on this term has to do with our identification with the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  A mikveh in Jesus’ day was a pool of water that the Jews used for ceremonial washings.  They could descend into the pool on one set of stairs, immerse themselves in the pool, and then ascend from the pool on another set of stairs.  With that in mind, have you ever wondered how the Apostles baptized (literally, immersed) about three thousand souls on the Day of Pentecost (Ac. 2:41)?  Have you wondered why all those Jewish believers in Christ were ready, on the spot, to do such a thing?  The answers to those questions are easily found by an hour spent in the Ophel area on the south end of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  This is the area of the main entrance to the Temple by pilgrims.  It is where Peter preached the sermon, explaining why there were so many to listen.  Amazingly, they are continuing to uncover the ritual baths, the mikvahs; they are at fifty and counting.  The Jews understood what it means to descend into those pools in the name of Christ, and to ascend as His followers.  Those pools became a picture of the hope of the resurrection, found in Christ!  Hallelujah!!!  That deserves some pictures from our February 2020 trip to Israel.

John 7:37-39; Job 19:21-27, There is Hope (2)

Let’s recap from the previous post.  Ponds, places where water is gathered together, are a picture of hope.  Egypt’s waters were turned to blood.  That, of course, was a demonstration of the LORD’s greatness versus the gods of Egypt.  But we also saw that a carcass can damage a pond so it is no longer a hope.  What a picture for believers.  We are an oasis, a gathering of water, the residence of the Holy Spirit who is like a fountain of living water flowing from us.  But what happens when we allow some vestige of the old man, the man that died in Christ, to take up residence in our “pond?”  Not good!

o   The term is used twice each in matching passages, 1 Ki. 10:28 and 2 Chron. 1:16. Solomon bought his horses from a place called “Keveh” according to the NKJV.  Perhaps it was a town with a great pool.  You can’t have a town anywhere without a gathering of water.  A drive across the middle of the United States is marked by small communities whose water towers are visible for miles.  Gesenius, who is the recognized expert in Hebrew, sees the term as applying to the “gathering” of merchants and of horses. 

o   1 Chron. 29:15: David, near the end of his life, said these words: Our days on earth are as a shadow, and without hope.  We have to understand what he is saying.  This is David who confesses, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.  He speaks as one who says we are aliens and pilgrims before You.  That is our earthly existence; it is but a shadow.  There is no hope of living forever in this life.  This is David’s way of saying what Job said about the resurrection: how my heart yearns within me (Job 19:27).

o   Here are three powerful uses of the term mikveh in Jeremiah.

§  14:8: Jeremiah asks the LORD, who is the Hope of Israel, his Savior in time of trouble, why He just seems to pass through Israel without stopping to do something about those troubles. 

§  17:13: Again, the LORD is the hope of Israel, and Jeremiah confesses, All who forsake You shall be ashamed.  “Shame” is what you get when your “hope” lets you down.  He alone is the fountain of living waters.

§  50:7: This is part of a judgment on Babylon.  They were the nation that God used to chasten His people.  But the LORD has not ceased to be the hope of their fathers.  God promises to raise up a nation against Babylon and deal with them.  In v8 God speaks of Israel leaving Babylon.  As “hope” refers to the gathering of waters, so the Hope of Israel will gather His people and bring them back.

When we started these meditations on “hope” we said there were three OT terms.  We’ll move on in the next hope after one more passage.

Ezra 10:1-6, There is Hope

The context of today’s reading is, of course, after the Babylonian captivity.  The people have returned.  Instead of living holy lives fitting to their calling as God’s people, they have again joined with the pagan world around them, taking foreign/ pagan wives.  The good news is that they have responded to Ezra’s reading and teaching of the law.  They are weeping over their sin.  And perhaps they have also remembered that God is merciful and faithful in keeping His covenant.  For whatever reason, Shechaniah says some amazing words: We have trespassed against our God … yet now there is hope in Israel in spite of this.

Let us take a couple of days to tackle three different words for “hope” in the OT.  They will provide us with some great pictures.

·       Ezra 10:2: the word is mikveh.  It is used twelve times in the OT.  You learn the power of “hope” by the pictures that define it.

o   The first picture is in Gen. 1:10. Pay attention: And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas.  And God saw that it was good.  Just in case you missed the word “hope” I underlined it for you.  The waters existed (v6).  God divided them, putting the firmament in between (air, heaven, or literally, spaces).  But then He gathered the waters together, revealing the dry ground which is essential for Man’s existence, yet with pools in the vicinity which are also essential.

o   Here’s another picture in the second use of the term in Exodus 7:19: all the waters in Egypt, the streams, rivers, ponds, and all their pools of water became blood.  You know how important Egypt’s irrigation system was.  The waters of the Nile essentially produced what was needed for the entire nation to exist.  Thus, there were pools that dotted the landscape, not too much unlike our part of Montana.  We have, truly, the wide open spaces.  Yet, as you drive through miles and miles of just the occasional ranch house, you pass a lot of pools, and you realize too that there are many more pools you can’t see.  Most of these pools are the result of man-made earthen dams, that gather the water from rain and snow-melt.  The livestock depend on this as they graze the afore-mentioned wide open spaces.  Now think of Egypt: it was all turned to blood.  Their “hopes” were dashed.

o   Lev. 11:36 has the same two words together as the previous two passages.  The NKJV translates it: wherein there is plenty of water.  These gatherings of water, whether a spring or a cistern, provide hope for people in the area.  This passage deals with Levitical statutes concerning the cleanliness of the water if a carcass is in it.  That’s important, isn’t it.  A spring or cistern that is infected might kill you if you drink from it. 

Isn’t this a great picture of hope?  Let’s meditate on it more in the next post.

Ezek. 16:15,30; Eccl. 5:8-12; 1 Tim. 6:6-10, Trust

My typical daily reading plan is to draw from the OT, the NT, and a short section in the Proverbs or Ecclesiastes.  One day, recently, these were my three passages.  And I was struck by what they collectively said about “trust.”

·       Ezekiel 16 is a lengthy narrative of God’s goodness to Israel and Israel’s abominable response.  It is terrible.  Let me say how glad I am that the chapter went to the last verse, v63, where the Lord GOD provides atonement for Israel.  God is so gracious and merciful. 

o   What was Israel’s problem?  After God made her beautiful, she trusted in her beauty.  She did not trust the One who made her; she trusted what He made!  The word for trust is used 120 times in the OT and is a list of trusts that are unworthy of our confidence.  God would send a nation to besiege the fortified walls in which she trusted (Dt. 28:52).  The men of Shechem trusted in Gaal, under whose leadership they were defeated (Judges 9:26).  And on and on!

o   In Ezekiel 16, the result was disastrous.  How degenerate is your heart!  Trusting in your own beauty is a recipe for being taken advantage of.  Read on, past v30, and you will see.

·       In Ecclesiastes 5 we see the person who makes wealth his life-principle.  In 5:8, why do the politicians take advantage of the poor?  It is so that they can become rich.  We see it in our own country, the land of freedom, of noble men and women, etc.  Twenty years in congress will make you filthy rich.  And, of course, however much silver you have, it will never be enough (5:10-11).  Sadly, those who live to be rich fail to understand that they will never be able to enjoy the riches (5:12).  He who trusts in his own heart is a fool (Prov. 28:26).

·       Is the problem the money?  No!  It is always the heart.  So, we are taught that, if we have money, there is a way we can find satisfaction.  1 Tim. 6:

o   6:1-2: Respect the master; don’t envy or hate him because of his money.

o   6:3-5: watch out for those who connect godliness to money.  That is always heresy, to think that godliness is a way to get rich.

o   6:6-10: Be driven by contentment, first and always.

o   6:11-16: Pursue (be driven to attain) righteousness, godliness, and so forth.  Fight the good fight, not the monetary fight or any other fight that focuses on this earth.  Press on until you come into Christ’s presence.

o   6:17-19: Trust God.  Not the money.  Thus, be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share.

o   6:20-21: Guard your heart, your regenerate heart, by the grace of God!

Consider this matter of trust.  What do your words and actions and thoughts reveal as to the object of faith.  Are you trusting your beauty?