Understanding the Bible - Letters 1-12

[Resource Manager]

THE JEWISH RACE

 

It is this relationship to the promises through Jesus, which gives point to His statement, “Salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22): It is everywhere recognised in the Bible that the Jews had the peculiar privilege of being the custodians of God’s promises, both in the written word, and in enshrining the heritage of the Son of God (Romans 3:1-2 and 9:4-5): It is true that the promises of abundance given to them in the Old Testament were conditional, and their failure to play their part led to them being for the time withdrawn. It is true that they rejected their opportunity of accepting Jesus when He came, and were themselves turned away in consequence (Romans 10). For Jews now there is the same hope of salvation, and only the same, as that available for Gentiles: “We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they” (Acts 15:11).

 

But as the Jews have been the custodians of God’s word, so they are to the world the witnesses of His truth. Their very sufferings bear testimony to the inerrancy of His judgements. And they must return. Their desolations must have an end, and a chastened and repentant people be restored to their land. The evidence for this will be dealt with immediately when we come to the third of the Old Testament themes which points forward to Christ—the Kingdom of God.

 

READING: Most of the book of Genesis, from chapter 12, should be read, with the opening chapters of the Book of Exodus, and all the passages which have been referred to in this letter. Romans 3 and 4, which have already been read, should now have a fuller meaning and should be read through again, and it will be well also to include chapters 9,10 and 11 of this Letter. Galatians 3 is important, too.

[Resource Manager]

7. THE KINGDOM OF GOD

 

We must sum up very briefly the history of Bible times from Abraham onward, so as to set the stage for this last great theme. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were the principal figures in the last letter, were the founders of the nation of Israel, a race specially marked out from the nations around them as being in close relationship with the true God of heaven, when the rest of the world was given over to the worship of idols. The nation dates its beginning as a conscious unity from the time of Jacob and his twelve sons, and takes its name, Israel, from the new name given to this man (Genesis 32:28 and 35:10).

 

About seventy people went down into Egypt in Jacob’s old age, guided and directed by Joseph, one of his sons. After the death of Jacob and Joseph, the new ruler of the country was not so well disposed to the people, and a time of tribulation arose for them, from which they were only delivered when God led them out of Egypt by the hand of Moses (Exodus, chapters 1 to 12). Once outside the land, the people were led to the wilderness of Sinai, and from Mount Sinai God gave them the system of law (of which the well-known Ten Commandments’ are only a small part, and the laws of sacrifice to which we have already referred are another) which now we know as the Law of Moses. Large parts of the remaining Books of Moses are devoted to detailing these laws.

 

After much wandering, caused by their unwillingness to trust God when He bade them enter the land of Canaan (Numbers 13), the people did arrive at the borders of the Promised Land and were led over Jordan by Joshua (Joshua chapters 1 to 3). They had been commanded to exterminate the evil nations who dwelled in the land (Deuteronomy 7:1-8), but in fact they only partly responded to this injunction, and their disobedience led them into all the troubles which Moses had said it would.

 

For some time, they lived in Canaan, ruled over by judges who were sometimes God-fearing, but very often not, and the evil condition of the people in those days is well summed up in the words of the Book of Judges itself: “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (21:25). In the days of the last and greatest of the Judges, Samuel, however, the people decided that they wished to have a king like the nations around them (1 Samuel 8) and were given Saul. His dynasty ended with his death at the hands of the Philistines, his people’s enemies who dwelled in the coastal strip of Palestine, and David succeeded him.

[Resource Manager]

With the name of David we shall have much more to do, but we leave him for the present to complete our survey. He was succeeded as king by his son, Solomon, and he by his son Rehoboam. At this point, however, the nation divides into two. One part, the greatest, is ruled over by a rebel named Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:20) and then by a succession of evil rulers of many separate dynasties. The other, known from now on as Judah, remains loyal to the house of David for the remainder of its history as a kingdom.

 

Each part in turn collapses, however. The larger and northern first at the hands of the empire of Assyria, the southern afterwards at the hands of Babylon. The last king of the house of David is deposed and blinded.

 

Thus is summarised the history of the Old Testament as far as the end of 2 Chronicles. Much of this period is covered, too, by the prophets (from Isaiah onwards in our Bibles) who spoke the word of God during the reigns of the kings. There was a fairly small-scale return to Palestine about 70 years after the last overthrow of Judah (recorded in Ezra and Nehemiah and the prophets Haggai and Zechariah) and the Old Testament leaves us with a picture of a few Jews in Palestine awaiting the New Testament’s story of the coming of Jesus. After Jesus was born there was only about 70 years further tenancy of the land for them, for in A.D. 70 the Romans destroyed their city and their new Temple, and scattered them as slaves throughout their empire. In A.D. 160 Jews were forbidden to dwell in the land, and from that time to our own century they have been strangers throughout the world.

 

This is, briefly, the history presented as a human story. But from what we have already said, it will be quite plain that it is not merely a human story. Abraham was called by God and guided by Him; the people of Israel who followed Moses out of Egypt were delivered by God, and at Sinai they received His laws. And it is there that God calls them “a Kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:6).

 

The Israelites were the people of God, and whatever earthly ruler they might have, God was to be their King. If they wish to have a man visibly ruling over them, then it will be his duty to study diligently the Law of God, and rule the people justly, as God’s viceroy (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). When settled in the land, they do so decide, God reads rightly the spirit of their decision, and says, “They have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them” (1 Samuel 8:7).

 

Yet they remain responsible to God still, and God chooses for them the House of David: The kingdom remains the Kingdom of God (1 Chronicles 28:5 and 29:11).

 

As such, it has a peculiar responsibility to God. As a prophet said later: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). Plain alternatives had been put before the people, as in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, of obedience and prosperity, or disobedience and desolation, and the later records are full of the warnings of the prophets as to what will come upon them for their rebellion (see 2 Chronicles 36:14-21). In the reign of the last king of Judah. Zedekiah, the greatest judgments of God were poured out, the Kingdom of God was overturned (Ezekiel 21:25-27).

[Resource Manager]

“UNTIL HE COME WHOSE RIGHT IT IS”

 

But this overthrowing was not the end. In the very act of pronouncing it, God speaks of One who shall come “Whose right it is” and restore the Kingdom, and we must go back to David to learn a little more about Him. The passage we come to is interesting too, from its introduction of the word “Seed” again. Speaking to David of the events which would happen after his death, the prophet Nathan says: “When thy days be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy Seed after thee ... and I will establish His kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be His Father and He shall be My Son” (2 Samuel 7:12-16, see 1 Chronicles 17:11-15). There is a strong resemblance between this promise and some of those to Abraham (dealt with in the last letter): a child to arise after the parent’s death, to set up a kingdom, and yet to be seen by the parent: “Thy house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee” (2 Samuel 7:16).

 

The prophets are continually repeating this promise in various forms. See Isaiah 9:6-7 and chapters 11 and 32; Jeremiah 23:1-8 and chapter 33. It is quite clear on the face of it that such a One must be the same as the Seed of Abraham who shall “possess the gate of His enemies”, and we are not therefore surprised when, on turning to the New Testament, we find Jesus Christ repeatedly referred to as the Son of David, whose lot it will be to set up his kingdom and sit upon his throne. We are not surprised to find that the burden of His message is the “gospel of the Kingdom of God”.

 

Thus, the angel foretelling His birth says, “The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David” (Luke 1:32). the list of His ancestors in Matthew calls Him “The Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1); as though to relate Him at once to the promises of the Seed and the King of which we have spoken). His birth took place at Bethlehem, David’s city, and people were not slow to see the significance of the fact (Matthew 2:1-6; Micah 5:2; 1 Samuel 16:1-13). They called Him “the Christ”, and “the Christ” meant “the Anointed One”, the heir-apparent to the throne, and when Jesus asked His enemies “What think ye of Christ, whose son is He?” they had no difficulty in answering, “The Son of David” (Matthew 22:42-45).

 

The title was given Him by His disciples, Andrew said “We have found the Messias (which is, being interpreted, the Christ)” (John 1:41). Nathaniel said, “Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel” (verse 49). Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16).

[Resource Manager]

THE KING OF THE JEWS

 

They had been expecting Him. There was an air of expectancy about at the time when He came (e.g. John 1:19-28; Matthew 2:1-6). Their prophets had spoken of Him long before and one in particular of them had fixed a time which was at the point of fulfilment: (Daniel 9:24-27). When He set about His work, there was more than one attempt to force the Kingdom upon Him (John 6:15; Mark 11:7-10), and anxious questionings and doublings when He seemed in no hurry to do as they wished (Matthew 16:21-26; Luke 17:20).

 

The reason for this we will consider presently, but there is no doubt that Jesus renounced all intention of setting up the Kingdom then by force (John 18:36), that His disciples lost faith in Him on this account for a time (Luke 24:13-21), that His enemies had Him done to death, and mocked Him with the title “King of the Jews” as He hung upon the cross (Mark 15:18-26,32).

 

We are brought to the same situation as we were with the promises to Abraham: that they have not been fulfilled yet, and if they are to be—as they must since they are God’s—Jesus himself must return to do it. And of course there are countless indications that He will. The detailed evidence for this will be given in one of the remaining letters, but, since we are thinking especially at the moment of the Return of Jesus in relation to the Kingdom of God, it will be well to turn to the narrative in Acts 1, where Jesus is just about to leave the earth for heaven. To the disciples’ question about the establishment of the kingdom, He answers only, “It is not for you to know the times and the seasons”, and yet, as He leaves them, the angels standing by comfort them  with  the assurance: “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven” (verses 7 and 11).

 

The second coming to establish the Kingdom is therefore sure, and a parable which Jesus Himself spoke to those who were expecting it too soon, conveys the same plain meaning (Luke 19:11-27).

[Resource Manager]

BIBLE - THE CITIZENS OF THE KINGDOM

 

Although the Kingdom of God does not now exist in power upon the earth, the heirs of the Kingdom are being prepared. Israel was to be “a kingdom of priests and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), but Israel failed of its tasks. When Jesus spoke to His rebellious fellow-countrymen, He warned them, “The Kingdom shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matthew 21:43). Those, therefore, who obey Jesus now as their, king are spoken of by Peter as “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9), just as Israel were before. Such servants are subjects of Christ’s Kingdom in exile, having in hope and promise a Kingdom which cannot be moved (Hebrews 12:28), and looking for the time when their King shall appear in glory.

 

It will be seen that the Bible teaching about the Kingdom of God differs fundamentally from many current ideas. It is not heaven (though the King is at present in Heaven, “sat down at the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool”—Hebrews 1:8,13 and 10:12-13). It is not any existing church or federation of churches (though the gospel of the Kingdom is preached now, and those who receive it are heirs). It is not primarily a condition of things in the hearts of those who believe (though these must certainly be dedicated to God as His proper territory, and He has promised the blessing of His presence to those who trust and obey Him—John 14:23). It is a real rulership of God upon the earth, which has existed in limited measure already, and which will exist in its fulness when Christ upon the earth shall have accomplished the work of God.

 

For the Kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever (Daniel 2:44).

 

READING

 

This has again been mainly indicated in the note. It would be well to read in addition Daniel 2 (to show how the kingdoms of the world will be replaced by that of God). Psalm 72 (for a picture of the restored Kingdom in its glory), and Matthew 25 (for the circumstances attending the return of Jesus to establish it).

[Resource Manager]

8. THE LIFE OF JESUS

 

In the letters which have preceded this, we have learned a good deal about Jesus. Quite apart from the evidence that He rose from the dead (which occupied letter 3), all the steps we have taken have obviously had Him as their goal. It is His authority which gives the seal to the authority of the Bible as a whole. It is to Him that the sacrifices of the Law pointed forward, it is to Him that Abraham and the faithful men who followed looked when the promise of the Seed was given to them; it is to Him that kings and prophets look, as the King of the house of David Who shall reign over all the world.

 

The purpose of God centres in Him, and so the path we have pursued could not have been other than it was. We have come to know that Jesus was in the line of descent from Abraham and David, that God was to be His Father, that He should in some way offer Himself as a perfect sacrifice for sin, and become the Saviour of all who trust in Him, and that He must return from His present sojourn in heaven to overthrow the power of evil in the world, to restore the fallen fortunes of His nation, and to raise from the dead those who have received the promises of God.

 

But it is obviously not enough. We have the records of Jesus’ life and work, of His death and resurrection, in the Gospels, and we have divine comment upon them all in the letters which follow. It must be our present pleasure to deal with these: to see His life as a whole as it is written, to hear from His own lips the commandments of God, and to ask Himself what He would have us to do. Such an investigation will gather into itself much of what has gone before, but it will also teach us much that is new.

[Resource Manager]

THE BIRTH OF JESUS

 

The records of this are in Matthew 1:18; 2:11, and Luke 1:26, 27; 2:40. In both of these it is expressly stated that it was a Virgin Birth; that Mary a woman of our human race was His mother, while God, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, was His Father. Such a miracle must have the very highest significance, which we must try, however humbly, to under­stand. It is not a doctrine which we can accept or reject as we choose, but one which lies at the very heart of God’s work of redemption. Such passages as the well-known, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son” (John 3:16), depend on it for their meaning. Statements such as that He was “In the form of God” (Philippians 2:6), and “the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3), are only true because, in some way, the likeness of God was stamped upon Him by the circumstances of His birth.

 

Something we learned quite early will help us to start. Adam was made “in the image of God”, but Adam fell and the image was debased. Jesus, as the Philippians passage says, was “in the form of God”, and there can be no doubt, from reading the section (Philippians 2:5-11), that it is Paul’s intention to compare Jesus and Adam together. Adam did think it a thing to be grasped at to be equal with God, and, grasping, was lost. Jesus, notwithstanding His high parent­age, did not grasp at equality with God. His life was a life of humble service to the Father’s will, and where Adam had been puffed up with ambition, Jesus “emptied Himself” and was “meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). We showed how Adam followed his own will and rejected God’s: the hallmark of Jesus is that He overcame human desire and devoted His whole life to glorifying God. We shall refer to repeated examples of this.

 

Since, then, no human sin or folly disfigured Him, it was possible for Him to show forth without taint the glory and the qualities of God, who was His Father. Therefore John can say of Him, “No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him”. (John 1:18), and Jesus can say of Himself, “He that hath seen Me1 hath seen the Father. If ye had known Me, ye should have known my Father also” (John 14:7, 9). The apostles use similar words of Him, when they speak of the disciples as seeing “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”, and call Him “the image of the invisible God” (2 Corinthians 4:6: Colossians 1:15).

 

And so, when we are told that God, Who formerly spoke through the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us in His Son (Hebrews 1:1,2) we sense a great change—a change in intimacy. Formerly, the prophets declared what God said, now Jesus Christ, the Son of God, shows what He is like. We, who could never have looked upon the face of the Majesty in heaven, “dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see”(1 Timothy 6:16), have been permitted to know Him in the person of His Son.

 

This truth demands the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. It is important, however, to see a distinction between what we have shown, and the doctrine commonly known as the doctrine of the Trinity. According to the latter, the Incarnation took place when “God the Son took flesh in the Virgin’s Womb” and became man. According to the Scripture, the Son of God was born as a man, when the Holy spirit had operated from the Father to give conception to Mary. The Scriptures show Jesus as the manifestation of God in His Son, the doctrine we have mentioned submits that He is the manifestation of God the Son in Flesh. The distinction is important, because the true doctrine leaves room for our next point, the manhood of Jesus, while the false is embarrassed by a subtle doctrine of “two natures”, which makes His temptations unreal and His sinlessness inevitable.

[Resource Manager]

THE TEMPTATIONS AND SINLESSNESS OF JESUS

 

Whatever the Virgin Birth implies, it leaves Jesus with all the qualities of a man. The title by which He most often chose to be known was “Son of man”, and every episode of His life brings out His fellow-feeling with those among whom He walked. We pass over the brief narratives of His early life (Luke 2:40-52), noticing only the evidence in this delightful story that His Father—His true Father, not Joseph—was already undertaking His education, and giving Him that knowledge which should cause men to wonder and say, “Whence hath this man this wisdom?” (Matthew 13:53-58), to which His answer would have been, “I speak that which I have seen with my Father” (John 8:28, 38). In whatever circumstances Jesus found Himself, we can be sure that He had the knowledge to deal with it, the question with which He was confronted was always, to what use He should put His knowledge and His power.

 

The first temptation in His manhood came when, at about 30, He went to be baptised at Jordan by His cousin John, as recorded in Matthew 3. Baptism has been mentioned once or twice already, and this record gives us the opportunity of knowing more about it. The people who came to John confessed their sins, and if he felt any doubt about the reality of their repentance, he had no hesitation in asking them to produce proof. That done, they went into the river and were covered with its waters, and came out pledged to a new life in service to God. There will be more to say of repentance and baptism later. But here we note that John was aghast at the idea of Jesus coming to baptism. His baptism was for sinners, and he knew that Jesus was not a sinner, like the other people who came to his baptism. “Master, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?” He had rightly estimated their relative positions, but wrongly understood the nature of Jesus’ work. Never do we find Jesus presuming upon His righteousness: always do we see Him ready to humble Himself and obey, and in the wonder of the humility of His reply to John, we see the whole spirit of an acceptable approach to God: “Suffer it to be so now, forth us it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”.

 

Immediately upon this there follow the Temptations in the Wilderness, and in this connection we are introduced for the first time in this study to the subject of the Devil. After his baptism, Jesus is submitted to three trials, and the record says that the Devil was the agent. We can learn much about this devil from a careful consideration of them. The first temptation is to satisfy His hunger, by using the great power which God had given Him to turn stones into bread. He refused, giving as His reason, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3). His work was not to use His special powers to gratify Himself, but to glorify God, and therefore the Man who was willing to provide food for five thousand and four thousand when they were hungry, would not do so for Himself.

[Resource Manager]

The second temptation is to throw Himself from a pinnacle of the Temple, relying on angelic protection. Certainly He could have done it, and it would have won Him great fame before the people. But again the Scriptures defeated the devil, and with “thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matthew 4:7; Deuteronomy 6:16), He declined to test the powers of which He was quite sure, and refused to work wonders on His own behalf. But the temptation was in the wilderness, from which Jesus did not return, until it was; over (see Luke 4:14), and there is no Temple in the Wilderness.   Must we not therefore conclude that the temptation was a thought which suggested itself to Jesus, that He should go and do this, and that there was no devil other than the prompting of sin?

 

The third temptation makes this clearer yet, for when the devil taketh Him into an exceeding high mountain from which He can see all the kingdoms of the world, and offers them at the price of worshipping him, there are two problems which no theory of a personal devil can solve. There is no mountain, in the wilderness or anywhere else, which affords such a view, and there could be no power, human or devilish, which could exchange the kingdoms of the world for worship. The temptation must have come from within (as all temptations do: James 1:14), and only Jesus Himself could have had the power to undertake that awful disobedience.

 

In a later temptation. He confessed to the power to summon more than twelve legions of angels to His defence (Matthew 26:53), and we miss the point of much of the temptation of Jesus unless we realize the opportunities which were His to misuse the power given to Him. But in His reply to this temptation He stated the guiding principle: “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve” (Matthew 4:10; Deuteronomy 6:13). He was to make similar statements more than once through­out His earthly career. “My meat, is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work” (John 4:34). “I do always those things which please Him” (John 8:29). We can trace His response to this principle in all His actions. Even good­ness He would not claim in His own right, for “there is none good but one, that is God” (Matthew 19:17), and He knew “UNDERSTANDING” that righteousness consists in doing God’s pleasure, not in priding oneself on one’s own achievements. He knew that it was not possible for any man to accumulate a reserve of good works and show a profit to God: “Ye, when ye have done all those things, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do’” (Luke 17:7-10).

 

It is impossible now to go into the details of His other temptations, but these first three provide the key to the whole, and show us the principle upon which He worked. The resisted temptation to throw Himself from the pinnacle of the Temple bore fruit when His enemies led Him to the brow of a hill to cast Him down, and He was content with slipping quietly away from them (Luke 4:29-30). The resisted tempta­tion to take the kingdoms of the world in the wrong way, bore fruit when Peter, having confessed Him to be King, strove to stop Him going to be crucified (Matthew 16:21-23). The resisted temptation to satisfy Himself with the power of the Spirit of God was constantly manifest in every act of kindness and sympathy with which He considered others, while “the foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath no where to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20).

[Resource Manager]

In the life of Jesus, the command “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 19:19 and 22:39, Leviticus 19:18), did not mean merely, as so often now we water it down to mean, “Do unto your neighbour as you would have him do to you”, but “Do unto your neighbour as selfishness makes you want to do unto yourself”—treat him as though he were you.

 

In all His life, therefore, it is written of Jesus that He did no wrong. He could claim for Himself “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” (John 8:46), and the trivial nature of the evidence which they brought against Him at His trial shows how well-grounded His confidence was (see Matthew 26:59-62; Mark 14:55-60; John 18:28). The Apostles’ verdict on His life afterwards is, “He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth”. “He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin” (1 Peter 2:22-23; Hebrews 4:15). And we have seen that His sinlessness consisted, not merely in the fact that He did nothing wrong, but that He did the right things in the right spirit of humble association with the will of God. “He committed Himself unto Him that judgeth righteously”.

 

At no point is this more fully illustrated than at the time of His death. This marks the climax of His obedience, and a critical point of the purpose of God in Him. This will be the solemn subject of the next letter.

 

The Gospels are our field for this lesson, and there is nothing in them which does not bear on its subject. The best course will be to take one Gospel, say that of Mark, which is the shortest, and read it through, with the following chapters from other Gospels:

 

READING

 

Matthew—chapters 3, 4

Luke—chapters 10, 15, 16, 17

John—chapters 3,4

[Resource Manager]

9. THE DEATH OF JESUS

 

We can summarise the circumstances of this very briefly. Entering Jerusalem in His last   open   triumph   (Mark   11:8-11), (which   shows again  how  the people thought of the  Kingdom of God as the restoration of the Kingdom of David, and still  looked to  Him  to fulfil their hopes) Jesus behaves very differently from the King they would have liked.   Gathering His disciples, He gives them a detailed and gloomy prophecy of the impending desolation of their city and the scattering of its inhabitants (Mark 13:2-23). Making   detailed   arrangements with them for the celebration of a last meal together, He uses the occasion to take   bread from the table, bless and break it, and say. “Take, eat: this is my body”, and to take a cup of wine, bless and distribute it, and add, “This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed   for many” (Mark 14:22-25). This done, He leads them from the supper-room to the Garden   of Gethsemane at the foot   of the Mount of Olives, leaves all save three of them behind, and then, separating even from them, falls down and prays, “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee, take away this cup from me: nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt”. (Mark 14:36; Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:42).

 

Strengthened by an angel from heaven (Luke 22:43), He awakens His sleeping followers, and goes out to meet His captors led by the betrayer Judas. Refusing the offer of force which Peter makes, and severely rebuking the attempt to shed blood in His defence (Matthew 26:52), He permits Himself to be led away to trial.

 

Before the Jews after much false witness has broken down, He is condemned on a charge of blasphemy, because He admits the title of “The Christ, the Son of the Blessed” (Mark 14:61).

 

But this purely religious charge is of no interest to the Romans, who alone have the power to execute a death sentence. that the rulers frighten Pontius Pilate into accepting a charge of treason, because Jesus, as King of the Jews, must needs be a leader of sedition against Caesar (John 19:12-16). After suffering many indignities, including scourging and royal mockery, He is led away to be crucified.

 

And there, between two wrongdoers, they do Him to death. No word of complaint escapes His lips. Those who call cat-calls at Him receive from Him only the plea for forgiveness, “For they know not what they do”. His head remains erect, through all His sufferings, and He declines the offered opiate of His pain. Only when His throat is so parched that He cannot speak the words with which this part of His work shall be closed, does He confess, “I thirst”, and receiving the sour wine, cry with a loud voice, “It is finished”. Only then does He bow His head, and die.

 

They take the body of the Lord from the Cross and lay it in a new tomb. They close the tomb with a heavy stone, and seal it against all interference, setting a guard against it to make it doubly sure (Matthew 25:57-66). There, to all human appear­ances, the episode ends.

[Resource Manager]

THE MEANING OF THE CROSS

 

Whatever this death of Christ means, it lies at the heart of Christianity. “I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified”, and “The preaching of the Cross is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18 and 2:2): these show Paul’s estimate of its importance.

 

The fact we have noted much earlier, that the death of Christ is given an enormous space in the records of the Gospels, goes to show the same.

 

What is this importance? We will illustrate it with three passages. The first has already appeared in this letter, as the cry of Jesus in the Garden to the Father: “Not my will, but thine be done”. The second is the Apostle Paul’s summary of His death: “Being in the form of God, He thought it not a thing to be grasped to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross”. (Philippians 2:6-8, partly from R.V. and R.V. margin). The third is a saying of Jesus Himself about His death, when He had told His disciples that He was to go and be crucified, and then added the exhortation, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me”. (Matthew 16:24).

 

The first of these takes us forward from what we had al­ready discovered about the work of Jesus. His constant determina­tion to do the will of God, and His refusal to take credit to Himself, even to the title of “Good”, find their culmination here. We have already branded the flesh which we bear as being the seat of self-will in its battle against God. As long as that power exists undefeated, the possibility of rebellion against God will exist. And Jesus was of our flesh (Romans 1:3; 8:3), and as the latter passage shows, His death was in a very real sense the condemnation of sin. There was nothing beautiful, or worldly glorious, about the death of the Cross: it puts to shame that which hung there. “Not my will, but thine, be done” is taken now to the lengths of offering to God the very source of self-will. With the giving up of His life—the willing giving up—there was nothing now which could possibly exist to separate Jesus and His Father.

 

At this point the second passage takes up the story. A deliberate contrast is implied here between two men made in the image of God The first was Adam, who did consider it a thing to grasp to be equal with God, and, filled with pride, became the author of sin and death in his disobedience. The second was Christ, Who. so nearly related to God in the manner of His birth, emptied Himself where Adam had puffed himself up, became obedient where the former had become disobedient, and gave Himself to death.

 

The third passage extends the importance of this beyond Jesus to all who would be His disciples. A picture is drawn: a picture of a leader carrying a cross, and a group of followers going after Him, carrying crosses also. And together they are transfixed upon their crosses. Where Paul says that Jesus “emptied Himself”, Jesus says that the disciples must “deny themselves”, and the meaning is the same. It is not expected of the followers of Jesus that they shall be literally done to death upon crosses. It is, however, that they will perform that act of submission, of faith, and of repentance which we know as baptism, and which will be more fully expounded shortly.  

 

The lesson on which we have insisted so strongly before, is thus driven home here beyond question. The Cross is necessary because of what we are: of what our race as a whole became when Adam chose his own way rather than the way of God. It is necessary as demonstrating the kind of life which alone God can approve: the life of entire submission to His will, even to the humbling to death of the flesh. It is necessary so as to convince us that “in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). It is necessary as compelling us to look away from ourselves for our salvation, and put our trust in God.

[Resource Manager]

THE CROSS AND THE CHARACTER OF GOD

 

So far, the Cross has been considered chiefly in relation to man. The sufferings of Jesus and His temptations and sinlessness have been considered as those of a Man who “was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin”. But as soon as we began to consider His life, we recognised that there were two aspects to be considered—that He was Son of man and Son of God.   The expression “being in the form of God” (Philippians 2:6) tells us, not only that Jesus was like God  in the dignity which was given Him, but that He had the opportunity of  displaying God to the world.   If He had sinned, the image of God would have been defaced as   it was in Adam;   since He did   not.  He showed God to the world in the way in which He could be understood, in the   person of a   Man Who could   be seen, and   heard, and Who could be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

 

The Scriptures therefore often speak of Jesus as the   em­bodiment   of the   purpose,   the character and the love of God. He Himself says, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9 and 12:45), and there are many other expressions in the New Testament showing that what Jesus was and did was the supreme revelation  of God  (e.g. Colossians   1:15; Hebrews 1:3; 2 Corinthians 4:4-6).   The whole counsel was of God, and without Him it could not have been accomplished.  “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish” (John 3:16). “God hath commended His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “God hath set forth” Jesus Christ “to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins” (Romans 3:25).

 

The Cross is the assurance of God’s working for the salvation of men, when no salvation could otherwise occur. It Is the most expressive picture of the self-giving of God which the human mind can understand, for it shows us the Father offering that which is dearest to Him and giving His Son for the life of the world.

 

The whole Bible teaching about the death of Jesus, rebels against the stupid theory that Jesus died “to placate the wrath of an angry deity”. There is, as we have shown, a proper place in the   Bible for the wrath of God: it must fall, from His very character, upon the race which has   sinned. But the wrath is neither bad-temper nor spite, but a proper consequence of His righteousness. And it does not lead God to demand that someone shall shed His blood as a price whereby His wrath shall be turned away. The very reverse is true, because God Himself has provided the offering, and paid the price whereby the salvation can be assured. “God   commended His love”. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent  His Son  to be  the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

 

If the wrath of God which   falls upon sin was to be turned away, it must be done by the work of God Himself. It was God who set Jesus forth. No mere man living a righteous life in his own strength, even if this were possible for him to do, would have done what Jesus did for us. The very perfection of Jesus consisted in the flawlessness with which He showed that the credit and the glory go to His Father. God’s strength was made perfect in the weakness of a man, and the angel from heaven who came from God to strengthen Jesus in His agony in the garden is the most touching illustration of the entire dependence which Jesus always acknowledged.

 

That Jesus’s work did succeed in turning away the wrath of God is plain Scriptural teaching, however, and it has been well observed that the truth of Jesus’s showing forth the love of God is only treated with such coldness in the world at large because it has not been realised how real is that wrath under which our sinful natures laboured. If we were more conscious of sin and the wrath it brings, we should be readier for love and the righteousness It offers. (See Ephesians 2:11-18; John 3:35-36; Romans 5:9-10).

[Resource Manager]

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

 

We can look upon the work of Jesus in another way. The sentence which was passed upon our race in its sin, was a just sentence. Humanly speaking, there is no remedy to the situation in which we find ourselves. God cannot become unjust in forgiving our sins, and giving life where justice demands death. All the sacrificial system of the Law (see Letter 5) enforced the lesson that We deserve the death which will come to us. The problem of the Atonement is, therefore, how God can be just, and still give righteousness and life to members of our fallen race. It is just this which, as Paul writes, the work of Jesus accomplished: “That He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

 

The work of Jesus showed plainly what the flesh deserves It showed plainly the kind of righteousness which alone is righteous—the entire submission of all to the will of God. It showed how in the face of such submission, God could accept the One who made it, and glorify Him (as we shall see immediately).

 

It set the stage for the “righteousness of faith”, as opposed to the “righteousness of the Law”.  In the latter, our sins condemn us, and there is none righteous.   The former has a different basis. Taking the example of Abraham which we have met before (Gen­esis 15:6; Romans 4:1-5; Galatians 3:6), Pauls show that real righteousness  does consist of trust in God,  in believing what He says,   and   going   the  way  of   His   commandments.    This is what Jesus did without failure. Abraham’s acts of faith in going out to a country which he knew not, and believing in the promise of a great multitude of children when there was no human likelihood of his having a child, and looking constantly forward to a “City which hath    foundations whose builder and maker it God” (Hebrews 11:8-10), were of the same kind.

 

Righteousness, real righteousness, consists not in adding up the good things we do which always leaves us with a deficit, and is in any case the sin of pride, but in trusting in God and walking in the way of His promises. Looking at the bright vision ahead, Abraham went into exile. “For the joy that was set before Him” Jesus “endured the Cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). Seeing the work of God in Jesus, assenting to Its implications and , trusting in its purpose, the disciple of Christ who is baptised Into Christ follows in the same tradition, and his faith is reckoned unto him also for righteousness.

[Resource Manager]

THE DEATH OF JESUS AS A SACRIFICE

 

We have said before that the death of animals pointed forward to the death of Jesus and the shedding of their blood to the shedding of His. It has been emphasised that these sacri­fices of animals were in themselves useless, and served only to point to the greater sacrifice. In this letter we have tried to see something of what that sacrifice involves.

 

But we shall now find repeatedly in the New Testament expressions which look back to the long series of types which went before the death of Jesus, and compare His death with theirs. When we read, therefore, that we have been redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19), we shall understand that this comparison is being made, when we hear of being “Sprinkled with the blood of Christ” (Hebrews 12:24; 1 Peter 1:2), we shall know that our association with the work of Jesus is being com­pared with the cleansings associated with the animal sacrifices under the Law of Moses. In examples too numerous to mention we shall see the proofs of what we said before, that the ordinances of the Old Testament pointed forward to their own fulfilment in the New. One figure we might comment on a little further. On the great Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), the High Priest of Israel, having shed the blood of animals, entered into the presence of God Himself in the Most Holy Place, so making atonement for the sins of the people. Hebrews tells us that this figure, so imper­fect in itself that it had to be repeated every year, points to two aspects of the work of Jesus. The slaying of the animal typified the slaying of Jesus Himself as a condition of acceptable approach into the presence of God. But the entry into the Most Holy Place typified Jesus also, the offering over, going into “the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:12-24). His death opened the way for something else, without which It would not have been complete. The work of Jesus did not finish with His crucifixion, either for Himself or for those who obey Him. With this point we proceed in the next letter.

 

READING

 

There is a wide range of reading connected with this sub­ject. Almost everywhere we turn we encounter it, and the refer­ences in the notes will give some idea how vast it is. The following chapters should be specially read.

 

Mark—chapters 11 to 18 (and corresponding records in other Gospels).

John—chapter 3         

Philippians—chapter 2
Romans—chapters 3 to 6                  

Hebrews—chapters 9 to 11
Ephesians—chapter 2                                

[Resource Manager]

10．THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS

 

If it is true that the Cross lies at the very heart of the Christian gospel of salvation, it is no less true that the Resurrection gives the heart its pulse of life. To be satisfied with the moral teaching of Jesus without the Cross is to be gravely mistaken but the mistake is no greater than to be satisfied with the Cross without the Resurrection. With either error, the gospel has been deprived of its power, for the former ignores the reality of sin and the need for Atonement, while the latter assures us of Sin and denies us Redemption.

 

That Jesus should have come bodily out of the tomb after the life He lived, is as significant as that Adam should have been condemned to enter it after his sin. As the presumption of Adam led him to estrangement from God, and to death, so the entire submission of Jesus to the will of God made it possible for God to work His good will upon Him, and restore Him to life. So Peter expresses it, when he said, “God hath raised (Him) up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be holden of it” (Acts 2:24), giving as the reason the Psalm which speaks of Him as having the Lord always before Him (Psalm 16:8). So Paul concludes in a passage we have used before, when he says that, because Jesus was obedient to the death of the Cross, “God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Philippians 2:9-11). Jesus appealed “with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared” (Hebrews 5:7). He Himself taught His disciples how necessary it was that His glory should come after, and in consequence of, His sufferings (Luke 24:25-27, compare 1 Peter 1:11).

 

The Resurrection proved, therefore, that Jesus had lived a life altogether acceptable to God, and had given Himself wholly to His Service. It proved the power of the Gospel, too, for those who taunted Him upon the Cross—“He saved others, Himself He cannot save” (Mark 15:31)—were answered now. Before His death, Jesus had assured them, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:17-18), and those who had marvelled uncomprehendingly when He spoke of dying, and rising again the third day (Mark 8:31 and 10:33-34) were now persuaded of the truth and significance of what they had heard (Luke 24:7-8, Acts 10:40).

 

Jesus was all He had claimed to be. The generation which crucified Him might reject the “sign of the prophet Jonas” which he offered them (Luke 11:29-32), but His disciples accepted it and proclaimed that He was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead’” (Romans 1:4). When Paul was persuaded of the truth of the Resurrection by the appearance of Jesus, “straightway he preached Christ in the synagogue, that He is the Son of God” (Acts 9:20). And Jesus could do all that he had said He would: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). “I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen, and I have the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1:18).

[Resource Manager]

THE NATURE OF THE RESURRECTION

 

We have already insisted (letter 3) how real it was. It was a bodily resurrection, for when He rose the body was no longer in the tomb. The body was a tangible one, for the women could come and hold Him by the feet (Matthew 28:9).

 

Jesus persuaded His disciples of its reality by eating and drink­ing in their presence (Luke 24:41; Acts 10:41); and expressly dealt with their suspicion that He was a ‘spirit’ (Luke 24:37-39). He established the continuity of the new-risen body with the old by showing them the marks in His hands and feet, and inviting them to touch them (Luke 24:40; John 20:20). It will be by those marks again that He will be known (Zechariah 12:10; Revelation 1:7).

 

These facts are important. It was a man of flesh whom God created at first in His own image, and that fact should in itself be sufficient to rebuke the silly superiority which sees something unworthy in eternal life being enjoyed in a body. True, the first man did not attain that life, through his iniquity, but it is altogether fitting that the last Adam should be given the glorified body to which Adam might have attained. Our modern world has been so besotted by the unchristian doc­trine of ethereal souls that, even now, the fact is hard of acceptance, but the unchallengeable evidence for the state of the risen Christ must overcome our reluctance. The Resurrec­tion of Jesus is (as we shall see) the ground of all Christian hope, and to understand it rightly is essential if we would understand what that hope is.

[Resource Manager]

THE EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION

 

A letter (No. 3) has already been devoted to this, and might well be re-read at this stage, but what we have since learned about the Bible and the work of Jesus now qualifies us to take a little further the evidence of the Scriptures. There is no doubt that, at the time when Jesus came, the Jews were expecting their Christ, and the early pages of the Gospels vibrate to their expectations (Matthew 2:2-6 Luke 2:25-32; 3:15; John 1:19; 10:24). There are plenty of passages in the Scriptures which gave them ample ground for expecting their Deliverer—sometime—as we have already seen, but we need now, as they must have had, evidence which pointed to Him then.

 

There is one such passage pre-eminently, in Daniel 9:24-27. Here the prophet, looking for the deliverance of his people from captivity as the prophet had foretold (verse 2, compare Jeremiah 25:12-29; 10; Ezra 1:1), is referred to a much longer period than Jeremiah’s 70 years for the real deliverance, and is told of “seventy sevens” which  are determined (verse 24) for the accomplishment of great ends. The period is divided up into seven sevens (49 years), sixty-two sevens (434 years) and a final seven, and the prophet is told that Messiah shall come after the first two periods (483 years, verse 25). The period is to begin “from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem”, and we have a narrow interval between two possible dates. The first (Ezra 7:1-10) is 457 B.C., while the second (Nehemiah 2) is 444 B.C. We will not try to decide between them, nor to judge what precisely is the length of year to be used in determining the exact application of the prophecy. Suffice it that 483 years from these dates take us to about 26 A.D., which is very close to the time when Jesus began His preaching.

 

Jesus came, then, just when the Jews were expecting their Messiah, their Christ. But He did not do the things they wanted Him to do, and we know that they rejected Him and crucified their King. In their judgment, then, He proved that He was not the Christ after all. But Paul puts his finger on their error when he says, “They that dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew Him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have filled them by condemning Him”. (Acts 13:27). This was the one on which they based their hopes! For, speaking of the last seven in his prophecy, he writes “After the threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself”, and “in the midst of the week He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease” (verse 26-27). And we know now, first that Jesus was crucified after 3½ years of preaching, and, second, that His death was a sacrifice for sins which made all other sacrifices and oblations null and void from that point.

 

If the Jews had rightly read their prophecy they could not have done as they did to Him, as Paul rightly says, but, in their ignorance, they had Him “cut off”, which in the Scriptures means executed. And so they put their own unwilling seal upon His work, “to finish transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness” (verse 24), which we have shown Him to do. By this amazing fulfilment of prophecy, Jesus and Daniel are vindicated together.

 

But Jesus is “Messiah the Prince”, and such a One, though cut off, must rise again, or He could be no Messiah. The Crucified must take again His life to play the part of Prince, and since the fulfilment of Daniel shows Him to have been Messiah, the Resurrection could not fail to follow. The sacrifice prophecy of Isaiah 53 gives the same sequence: “When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied” (verses 10-11).

[Resource Manager]

THE PREACHING OF THE RESURRECTION

 

The Apostles put this truth in the van of their message. This was the driving force of what they had to say. See Acts 1:21-22; 2:22-24, 32; 3:13-15; 4:2; 10:6; 10:30-31 and 10:40; Romans 1:4; 1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Peter 1:3. This was the fact which brought them together again in hope, where before they had scattered in despair. It was this which turned the sadness of a death which looked like defeat, into the rejoicing of victory, “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25) seemed an empty mockery when He lay in the grave, but the evidence that it was true lay deep within them now. And to the world, the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus was the prime reason for believing in the truth of the gospel as a whole. A consciousness of sin might make them (if they had this consciousness) look for a Saviour, but only the supreme demonstration that the Saviour really could save would lead them to accept Him. And therefore, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved”, (Romans 10:9). “God hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). 

 

THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION

 

In all that we have had to say about Jesus, up to and including His death, we have had to recognise that His work was unfinished. If we thought of Him as a sacrifice for sin, we could see   no   reason for believing on Him unless the Resurrection were to show His power. If we thought of Him as the promised Seed of Abraham, we could see no hope of the real fulfilment of the promises of God if He remained in the grave. We know that Abraham died in faith, not having received the promises (Hebrews 11:13), and we know also that Jesus said he would be raised from the dead (Mark 12:26-27) and inherit the Kingdom of God (Luke 13, 28), but what guarantee have we that this can happen if the one who promised it remains in the grave? If we thought of Him as the Seed of David who would restore again the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6), we could have no hope that He would do so if He were dead.

 

But now that the Resurrection has been preached, we can have hope of all these things. We see that His conquest of sin led to His conquest of death also, so much so that Paul can speak of Him as having “abolished death” (2 Timothy 1:10). We know that He can fulfil His task as the Seed and establish the Kingdom of God, with the fulness of power which has been given to Him. We are certain that the gentle preacher who permitted Himself to be slain by His enemies, has now the authority to overcome them and “possess their gate” (Genesis 22:17).

 

So the New Testament writers speak of the fact. If Christ were dead forever, “Your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Corinthians 15:17-19). But since Christ really did rise, there is hope for all those who are in Him: “Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept”, (verse 20). His claim to be the Resurrection and the Life is established. The Resurrection at the last day (John 11:24 and 5:29) is an assured thing. “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

 

The Resurrection is an event of world significance. For “God hath appointed a day, in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).

[Resource Manager]

THE ASCENSION OF JESUS

 

But these things have not happened yet. In spite of the earnest entreaties of His disciples—“Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)—Jesus did not do so, but, left them for heaven (Acts 1:9). In spite of His victory over death, His disciples die still, like all men, and there has been no resurrection. In spite of His conquest of sin, sin ranges the world still, and there is no sign that its power has weakened. His bodily resurrection, which led us to hope for so much has not yet borne its fruits. This cannot be the end.

 

If it is true that the gospel of Jesus has been kept alive, in His absence, by the preaching of the Apostles, and the word which has come to us in the Bible, the fact of the Resurrection has given this preaching an authority which we must not ignore. It is the power of the Resurrection which gives point to God’s command to “all men, everywhere, to repent”. It is true, as the last letter showed at its close, that Jesus’ departure to the right hand of God in heaven (Acts 5:31; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Hebrews 1:3; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2), has established a close relationship between His disciples upon earth, and God in heaven, wherefore He is spoken of as the “Mediator” between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5), whereby those who have believed and obeyed Him can approach closely to the throne of God, and obtain help and forgiveness in acceptable prayer (Hebrews 4:16; Ephes. 3:12).

 

Both these are true and glorious, but they need something else for their completion. Jesus at the right hand of God is “expecting” (Hebrews 10:13) till His enemies be made His footstool. And expecting means waiting: the time of waiting must draw to a close, and then another and the culminating aspect of the work of Jesus will be revealed.

 

READING

 

1. The narratives of the Resurrection (as in Letter 3).

2. Acts 17 and 26.

3. 1 Corinthians 15.          

4. Philippians 2 (again).   

5. 1 Thessalonians4.

6. John 11.

7. Hebrews 10, 11 and 12.

[Resource Manager]

11. THE RETURN OF JESUS

 

This is a much disbelieved doctrine. It is disbelieved first of all, perhaps, because the prevailing error (among religious people) that our souls go to their reward at death seems to make it unnecessary. What would be the purpose of Jesus’ return to a world which is a mere kindergarten of immortal souls? It is disbelieved, second, because of the common religious notion that “The Church” (some particular church, or the churches all together) is the means whereby the Kingdom of God will be spread abroad upon the earth. Why should Jesus come to do what the Church can do itself?—of which, indeed, there is little sign. It is disbelieved, third, because even religious people seem to prefer their miracles to be in the past: there is a great number of people who will assent to a Virgin Birth and a Resurrection two thousand years ago, who seem to think it incredible that such a thing as the Second Advent of Jesus upon the earth should occur. And all this is apart from the general disbelief of those who have forsaken the foundation of the Christian religion.

 

We must begin, then, by going over the overwhelming Bible evidence that Jesus is to return. Already we have given good reasons why He must, if His work is to be completed, but now is the time to be systematic about it.

 

THE TEACHING OF JESUS

 

1.—“The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then He shall reward every man according to his works” (Matthew 16:27, Mark 8:38, Luke 9:26).

 

2.—“In the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28).

 

3.—“Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:39).

 

4.—“They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds with power and great glory, and he shall send his angels . . . and they shall gather together his elect” (Matthew 24:30, 31; Mark 13:26, 27; Luke 21:27).

 

5.—“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory”. (Matthew 25:31).

 

6.—“The parable of the man going into the far country (Luke 19:11-27).

 

7.—“Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced Him”. (Revelation 1:7).

 

8.—“Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be”. (Revelation 22:12).

[Resource Manager]

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

 

9.—“This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven”. (1:11: spoken by angels).

 

10.—“Repent... that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of the restitution of all things”. (3:19-21: spoken by Peter).

 

11.—“God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained”. (17:31: spoken by Paul).

 

12.—“Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come”. (1 Corinthians 4:5).

 

13.—“In Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward, they that are Christ’s at His coming”. (1 Corinthians 15:22-23).

 

14.—“Our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ”. (Philippians 3:20).

 

15.—“The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God”.  (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

 

16.—“The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ”. (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8).

 

17.—“I charge thee, therefore, before God and our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom”. (2 Timothy 4:1).

 

18.—“As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many: and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation”. (Hebrews 9:27-28).

 

19.—“We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”. (2 Peter 1:16).

 

20.—“Abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his com­ing ... We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him”. (1 John 2:28-3:2).

 

This number could without difficulty be doubled, and it takes no account of a large range of passages where the Second Coming of Jesus is taken for granted without being actually stated. It is an excellent exercise to look for these in the course of our reading, and note them as they occur. Examples of what is meant may be found in Matthew 5:5 and 13:39; Luke 22:18; John 6:39-44. It will be seen that the return of Jesus is established beyond all possible doubt by His own words and those of His apostles. There remain the questions, Why and When He will return.

[Resource Manager]

THE PURPOSE OF JESUS’ RETURN

 

From what has previously been promised and unfulfilled, we can see what this must be, but we are not left to con­jecture. As the Seed, He must fulfil the promises made to Abraham, and the faithful children of that patriarch must receive their reward with him; as the King, He must restore the fallen throne of David, and re-establish upon the earth the rule of the Kingdom of God; as the Saviour, He must com­plete the work He began before and give to them the fruits of His work and their service.

 

RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT

 

Passages in the above list have already shown this, such as (1), (5), (12), (17) and (20). To these we can add from the Old Testament Daniel 12:2, and we have then this general picture: when Jesus returns bodily to the earth (“In like manner as ye have seen Him go. Acts 1:11), He will cause to be raised from the dead those who have understood the responsibilities of his gospel, and died while He has been away. To them will be united people in a similar position who are still alive, and the group will be judged before Him on the basis of their response to His teaching and example. The faithful among them will receive the blessing: “Come, ye blessed of my Father; inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, and the unfaithful the curse: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels”. (Matthew 25:31-46).

 

“Everlasting fire, in the Bible, is not “the hell” of a now unpopular orthodoxy. It is the symbol of utter destruction at judgment, of those found displeasing to God. See Matthew 5:22 and 29; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15; 23:33; Mark 9:43,45,47; Luke 12:5; where the word (Gehenna) is the name of a refuse-pit outside Jerusalem. It has nothing to do with eternal torture, and the phrase “Where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched” is taken from Isaiah 66:24, where the destruction of BODIES of rebels is considered’1 no doubt in the same place...’

 

KINGDOM OF GOD

 

Repeatedly we are told that it will be as a King that Jesus will come, as in examples (2), (5), (6), (11), (13) and (17). It will be then that the promises of His kingship which were outlined in Letter 7 will receive their fulfilment. In the words of Daniel: “In the days of these kings shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever”. (2:44). The Scriptures contain many pictures of the state of affairs in this kingdom, in which the righteous rule of Jesus and His glorified saints will replace the faulty governments of men, and the evils which flowed from sin be eliminated until the last enemy, which is death, shall be abolished also. Examples will be given in the reading selection at the end of this letter. It appears from one passage (Revelation 20), that the forces of evil will make a last stand after a thousand years of Jesus’ government, and will be defeated and finally destroyed, with the ultimate result of which the prophets had spoken, that “the earth shall be full of the glory of the Lord” and God will, with His Son and His saints, be all in all (Habakkuk 2:14; 1 Corinthians 15:24-28; Revelation 21 and 22).

[Resource Manager]

THE JEWISH RACE

 

We have already seen (Letter 6) that the true heirs of the promises to Abraham are not his fleshly descendants of Israel, who have in the main rejected Christ, but those of all nations who copy his faith, and look to his great Seed, which is Christ. Of Abraham himself, we know that he, together with the other faithful men and women who lived before Christ, will be found established in the glory of the kingdom (Hebrews 11:39-40; Matthew 8:11 and Luke 13:28), but there is a special promise of the natural descendants of this man. True, they are cast off from the promise of life in Christ unless they accept Him (Romans 9,10,11). but there is a firm promise that the nation as a whole will be regathered to its land at the time of the Resurrection of the dead and of the establishment of the Kingdom (Romans 11:15; Ezekiel 36 and 37; Jeremiah 30 and 31). This does not mean that the rejectors of the Lord Jesus will be taken in spite of themselves and glorified as His saints will be glorified. On the contrary, their return is evidently to be a time of great tribulation to themselves (Zechariah 12:6-14). There will come with it a realisation of the wrong done by their forbears to Jesus and, on the part of the penitent, a great sorrow. The people who return will be invited to choose between obedience to God and the retribution which their “abominable things” will bring upon them (Ezekiel 11:14-21), and only those who humble themselves under this reproach will be purified and cleansed, and have their hitherto stony hearts of unbelief changed to an heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:24-34). This is a national restoration to mortal habitation of the land of Palestine, not comparable with the resurrection to immortality which will be the lot of the faithful.

 

THE TIME OF JESUS’ RETURN

 

Jesus never gave a specific date for this event. Of the establishment of the Kingdom He said, “It is not for you to know the times and the seasons, which the Father has put in His own power”. (Acts 1:7), and earlier he had said, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36). The time periods given us in the Revelation leaves us in no doubt that Jesus shares that knowledge with the Father now, but it is not the purpose of this letter to enter into such detailed predictions. Rather, it will give certain signs by which the epoch can be identified by those who are alert to the fact that Jesus will come.