Seeing Jesus In All of Scripture #LeadersAreReaders May 2022

After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus. This is one of the many post-resurrection appearances. The Scriptures say that “God kept them from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16). Interesting. As they were walking, the two disciples talked about “the things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth” (v.19) to… Jesus. Interesting indeed. I’m not sure whether they believe everything they heard about Jesus was true or not, for sure, they heard that “Jesus is alive!” (v.23). Then, imagine this, Jesus, a stranger to them said strongly, “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?” (v.26). There and then, Jesus did an overview Bible Study with them. He “took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from ALL the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (v.27). read the rest of the passage. The good ending is this: “Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him” (v.31).

I love this sacred narrative. We can know about Jesus without really knowing Jesus. We can study the Scriptures diligently without recognizing Jesus in them (In John 5:39, Jesus said the Scriptures “point to me!”). And we can outline facts about what happened to Jesus from A to Z without really believing what we said. The two disciples were foolish and so are we if we don’t have faith to see Jesus the Messiah as He is. By God’s grace, He has opened my eyes to see and recognized Jesus in the pages of the Scriptures (This simply means I was foolish then and if I don’t see it now, I’m being foolish again). Now, this is both a supernatural and natural phenomenon. We can’t see and believe if God doesn’t open and make known to us the truth first. So we need to pray, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law [or the Scriptures]” (Psalm 119:18, bracket mine). Yet, we can’t see and believe if we don’t read and study the Scriptures. The supernatural and natural must go hand in hand. For example, in Isaiah 32 verses 1 and 3, “Look, a righteous king is coming! [So we must look]… Then everyone who has eyes will be able to see the truth” [But God is the One who enables us to see].

I have no advice for the supernatural since it is beyond our willpower to do so except to pray and ask God the Holy Spirit with humility. But I do have advice for the natural ways to see Jesus in “ALL the Scripture.” First, read the Scriptures a.k.a. the written Word of God a.k.a. the Bible prayerfully. This is essential and all else is subordinate! Secondly, join sound teaching and Jesus-centered Bible Study (if you want to join #DugDownDeep let me know). And thirdly, read books that can supplement and instruct you deeper into the Scriptures. Good faithful pastors, preachers, teachers, and writers are God’s gifts to us for the growth of His church. Two books that I finished reading in May 2022 that are very instrumental in helping me to see and read the Scriptures with Jesus at the center anew are: 1) Finding Jesus In the Old Testament (2015, 2017) by David Limbaugh. He wrote, “Just as the Old Testament is foundational to the New, our basic understanding of the Old Testament is crucial to our comprehension of how Christ dominates its pages”; and 2) Encountering the Book of Hebrews: An Exposition (2002) by Donald A. Hagner. The Book of Hebrews doesn’t make sense without the Old Testament and the Old Testament - particularly the Law, the sacrificial ritual, the covenants, and typologies - doesn’t make sense without it all being fulfilled by Jesus the Messiah as explained very beautifully in the Book of Hebrews. Blessed!

#ServeToLead #PreachTheWord #LetsMakeReadingCoolAgain #JesusInAllofScripture

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THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

During the Covenant Making Abram Fell Into a Deep Sleep, So God Slapped Him? (Genesis 15:10-22)

“God said, ‘Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon.’ [Abram] brought all these animals to him, split them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. But he didn’t split the birds. Vultures swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram scared them off. As the sun went down a deep sleep overcame Abram and then a sense of dread, dark and heavy…  When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch moved between the split carcasses. That’s when God made a covenant with Abram: ‘I’m giving this land to your children, from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria—the country of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites’”

(Genesis 15:9-12, 17-21, The Message)

Either you don’t understand what you’ve just read or you’re saying What?!! to this bloody business, I find that this encounter is interesting. Abram killed three large animals, cut each in half through bone and muscle, and laid the pieces out. But lucky birds, their bodies remain in one piece (but probably their heads were chopped off. Easy dead). Imagine the smell of meat and blood. Thus, Abram had to scare the vultures off.

I assumed Abram probably recognized the making of the familiar ritual – the Cutting of a Covenant – during the Old Testament period. When two kings made a covenant, they sometimes cut an animal in half and walked between the pieces as way of saying, “If I don’t keep this agreement, may I be like this animal.” Sometimes both parties walked between the pieces, sometimes it was only the weaker of the two kings.

“As the sun went down a deep sleep overcame Abram and then a sense of dread, dark and heavy.” Many commentaries tells us that Abram woke to a vision of God. In a form of “a smoking firepot and a flaming touch” God passing between the pieces of the animals. If it was God, then I assured you, it was not the weaker of the two parties putting Himself on the line for the sake of the Covenant, but the stronger. The only One. I interprets it as of God was saying, “If I don’t give this land to your offspring as I have promised, may I be broken like these broken animals.”

God came to the man and woman who waited in faith. There is no record of Abram walking between the pieces since God’s Covenant is not a bargain between equals. It is totally dependent on God’s initiative of grace. Abram role – our role even today – is to receive what God gives, obey what God commands and so live in the enjoyment of God’s blessings. I learned, through my darkest moments, when I don’t understand why I have to wait for God’s promises to be fulfilled, I know that that is precisely the moment for faith to hold on to God’s Word and to say,

“I know that the God who has brought me to this point is not going to let me down now, so I am going to confirm my commitment to Him, whatever the appearance may be, because He is committed to me forever. Amen.”

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

God’s Anger is Always Answered by His Grace and Mercy (Genesis 9:12-16)

“[God] said. ‘This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth’”

(Genesis 9:12-16, NIV).

In the Old Testament (no less than the New Testament), God’s anger is always answered by His grace. The global destruction of the Flood was followed immediately by the promise of hope and mercy. “Never again,” God promised, would He send the kind of flood that Noah and his family had just lived through. And the sign of that promise was a bow in the sky – a rainbow.

FES staffs like to see rainbow. Rainbow is like a giant bow in the sky. It is worth noticing that the bow is aimed to shoot its arrows up toward heaven, not down toward earth. The bow is not against humankind that say: “Behave yourselves or the arrow of God’s wrath are going to shoot at you again.” No, this bow is positioned to shoot at the heart of God. It is as if God is saying: “I promise, cross My heart.” In this covenant, God puts Himself on the hook.

Most of the covenants in the Bible are two-sided, in which God’s people agree to hold up their end of the bargain. But this covenant – between God and the earth – is all about God. God’s anger is always answered by His grace and mercy.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

So You Want to Be a Calvinist? John Calvin on the Relation between Old and New Covenants

Law and Gospel, separate or continuity? (Pic from: http://project246.com/)

Martin Luther argued for a sharp distinction between “law” and “gospel.” While conceding that the Old Testament contained “gospel” and the New Testament “law,” Luther’s general line of argument is that the Old Testament belongs to a different category than the New. In contrast, John Calvin insists on the continuity between the Old and New Testaments. They are identical in terms of their substance; their difference relates to their administration. Calvin sets out three such points of difference.

“Now from what has been said above (previous notes of the Institutes), we can see clearly that all people who have been adopted by God into the company of his people since the beginning of the world were covenanted to him by the same law and by the bond of the same doctrine as remains in force among us… The covenant made with all the patriarchs is so similar to ours, both in substance and in fact, that the two are really one and the same; what differences there are relate to their administration…

First, we hold that it was not material prosperity and happiness which was the goal set before the Jews, and to which they were to aspire, but the hope of immortality. Faith in this adoption was made certain to them by oracles, by the law, and by the prophets. Second, the covenant by which they were bound to the Lord did not rest upon their own merits, but solely upon the mercy of the God who called them. Thirdly, they both possessed and knew Christ as Mediator, through whom they were joined to God and were to benefit from his promises.”

So you want to be a Calvinist? Please reread what John Calvin himself wrote.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

References:

1) Institutes, II.x.1, 2; in Joannis Calvini: Opera Selecta, ed. P. Barth and W. Niesel, vol.4 (Munich: Kaiser, 1931), 403.5-404.22.

2) The Christian Theology Reader edited by Alister E. McGrath (Oxford: Blackwell), pg. 58

So You Want to Be a Calvinist? John Calvin on the Nature of Faith

In this important analysis of the nature of faith, provided in the 1559 edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin establishes a direct relation between faith and the merciful promises of God. Note the emphasis placed upon the role of the Holy Spirit in revealing and sealing this knowledge. Calvin also deals with the question of whether the certainty of faith necessarily implies that doubt is excluded from the Christian life. For Calvin, doubt is a normal part of the Christian life, and is not inconsistent with his emphasis upon the trustworthiness of God’s promises. Calvin wrote:

“Now we shall have a right definition of faith if we say that it is a steady and certain knowledge of the divine benevolence towards us, which is founded upon the truth of the gracious promise of God in Christ, and is both revealed to our minds and sealed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…

When we stress that faith ought to be certain and secure, we do not have in mind a certainty without doubt, or a security without any anxiety. Rather, we affirm that believers have a perpetual struggle with their own lack of faith, and are far from possessing a peaceful conscience, never interrupted by any disturbance. On the other hand, we want to deny that they may fall out of, or depart from, their confidence in the divine mercy, no matter how much they may be troubled.”

So you want to be a Calvinist? Please reread what John Calvin himself wrote.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

References:

1) Institutes, III.ii, in Joannis Calvini: Opera Selecta, ed. P. Barth and W. Niesel, vol.4 (Munich: Kaiser, 1931), 16.31-35; 27:25-36.

2) The Christian Theology Reader edited by Alister E. McGrath (Oxford: Blackwell), pg. 15

So You Want to Be a Calvinist? John Calvin on Predestination

Young(er) John Calvin

[I just want you to read John Calvin himself and make up your own mind. God's Word is forever remain the Truth above all truths] The doctrine of predestination is of major important to Calvin. In this mature statement of his views, Calvin declares that some people are predestined to eternal life, and others to eternal death. This doctrine, known as “double predestination,” affirms that only those who are elected to salvation will, in fact, be saved. Notice how Calvin draws a clear distinction between “predestination” and “foreknowledge.” He writes:

“The covenant of life is not preached equally to all people, and amongst those to whom it is preached, it does not meet with the same acceptance either constantly or in equal degree. In this diversity the unsearchable depths of God’s judgment are made known. For there is no doubt that this variety is subordinate to the will of God’s eternal election. If it is clear that salvation is freely offered to some while others are barred from access to it, on account of God’s pleasure, this raises some major and difficult questions.

They can be explained only when election and predestination are rightly understood. Many find this a puzzling subject, in that it seems to be nothing less than capricious, that out of the human community some should be predestined to salvation, others to destruction. But it will become clear in the following discussion that such confusion is needless. In any case, the complexity of this matter makes known both the usefulness of this doctrine and also the very sweet fruit which it brings. We shall never be clearly persuaded, as we ought to be, that our salvation flows from God’s free mercy until we come to know his eternal election, which casts light on God’s grace by this comparison: he does not indiscriminately adopt all to the hope of salvation but gives to some what he denies to others…

Predestination, by which God adopts some to the hope of life, and sentences others to eternal death, is denied by no-one who wishes to be thought of as pious. But there are many, especially those who make foreknowledge its cause, who surround it with all kinds of petty objections. Both doctrines are indeed to be located within God, but subjecting one to the other is absurd. In attributing foreknowledge to God, we mean that all things always have been, and always will be, under his eyes, so that there is nothing future or past to his knowledge, but all things are present – present in such a way that he not only conceives them through ideas, as we have before us those things which our minds remember, but he truly looks upon them and discerns them as things placed before him. And this foreknowledge is extended throughout the universe to every creature. We call predestination God’s eternal decree, by which he determined with himself what he willed to become of each human being. For all are not created in equal condition (non enim pari conditione creantur omnes); but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any person has been directed (conditus) to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him or her as predestined to life or to death.”

So you want to be a Calvinist?
Please reread what John Calvin himself wrote and other writings.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

References:

1) Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.xxi.1, 5; in Joannis Calvini: Opera Selecta, ed. P. Barth and W. Niesel, vol.4 (Munich:Kaiser, 1931), 368.33-369.14; 373.33-374.17

2) The Christian Theology Reader, edited by Alister E. McGrath (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1995) pg. 232-233.