Today we introduce a new writer to you, Darren Colwell whose site is called To See Jesus. Darren is a pastor in Ogden, Utah. Click the title below to read at source.
18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.
When God met with Moses on Mt. Sinai the holiness of God descended and there was darkness, gloom, thunder, and earthquakes. The whole mountain shook under the weight of the glory of God. One man went up that mountain to meet with God and reveal him to his people. The result was the 10 commandments, God's moral and perfect law, and the pattern for an earthly meeting place, the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was a design of sheer grace. God, the Most High, would meet with his people in a tent. But the Tabernacle also signaled complete separation. The Levites were encamped around it to ensure no one came close, and within it there was the outer court, the Holy place, and the Holy of Holies, and it was only in this last place that God would meet with his people. He would meet with one person, once per year (on the Day of Atonement), and only through blood. That blood would be poured out on the Mercy Seat and it was there that God would meet with his people (Ex. 25).
45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. 51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.
Jesus, likewise, went up a mountain to meet with God on behalf of his people. As the holy wrath of God was poured out on Christ there was darkness and gloom and the earth shook. But this time God didn't send our representative down the mountain with an earthly pattern for a meeting place. Jesus, himself, was the meeting place. He is the temple of God. And as Jesus entered into that Holy of Holies for us his blood was poured out upon the Mercy Seat (the word in Ex. 25 is the same word for propitiation–the wrath-absorbing sacrifice) so God could meet with us. Through Christ's death the earthly temple and all of its separation was ripped in two by the very hand of God. Jesus met with God so we could meet with God face to face, covered in the blood of Christ. The God who dwells in unapproachable light became approachable! But this isn't the last time the earth will shake.
26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." 27 This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.
Jesus will shake the earth one more time. The first time he revealed his law and his holiness (this was grace that a people might know and worship him). The second time he destroyed the spiritual separation we have from God and made a way into the Holy of Holies for us. The third, and last, time he will shake the earth to remove all that is temporary and usher in the New Heavens and the New Earth where we will dwell with God forever.
When Jesus left the tomb that Easter morning so long ago there was another earthquake. Death was defeated and tomb was emptied. Jesus walked out victorious. His death on the cross, the empty tomb, the shaking of the earth, point us forward the last shaking when all will be removed except God and his people in his permanent kingdom. So let us draw near to him while we still have time, for, "Our God is a consuming fire!" (Heb. 12:29).
Today is Christianity 201's 8th Birthday!
If you haven't already, begin with Part One, which appeared yesterday.
The Father has given His Son the mandate of destroying the devil's work and has given Him the authority and power to accomplish that mandate. The crucifixion of Christ gave Him victory of death and Hades. It did not give mankind victory apart from through Christ. Some talk as if the victory has been won for them. It is Christ who possesses the keys for death and Hades. "I [Christ] am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever. And I hold the keys of death and Hades."5 It is Christ who will determine who will be confined to death and Hades. He has the keys and the authority. He will determine through His judgment the final destiny of each man. In the end the Father's Kingdom will be holy.6 "He will punish those who do not know (appreciate) God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power."7 The crucifixion of Christ gave Him victory over death and Hades and He will identify those who have had sufficient faith to walk in obedience…He has the keys.
The crucifixion of Christ did not provide "victory" for all those who profess faith in Him but does so for all of those who have also demonstrated faith in Christ through the practice of obedience to the one they have called their Lord/lord. "They overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony8; they did not love their live so much as to shrink from death."9 Victory cannot be proclaimed until the end and until the battle has been fought.
Provision to avoid the wrath of God was made available through the crucifixion and death of Christ and the gift of the Spirit, but victory must still be accomplished as the believer lives in obedience to the Spirit. It is still the obligation of the believer to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling;13 however, he has Christ to accomplish that victory in his own flesh just as the Lord accomplished in the body that the Father had prepared for Him in the womb of Mary.
8 "The word of their testimony" does not necessarily mean by their words, but the testimony that their life speaks to Christ and others.
Allan Connor is a retired missionary who has also authored two books and produces a series of devotional studies under the title Trail Mix. Allan is part of Clarke Dixon's church; Clarke returns next week.
Jesus and his eleven disciples emerged from a house in Jerusalem, crossed the Kidron Valley to the east and entered a garden on the thickly wooded slopes of a long limestone ridge named the Mount of Olives. This walled enclosure was called "Gethsemane" from the Aramaic word meaning "oil press." It was about to become a place of great crushing.
The Master took three of his intimate friends and moved off a short distance from the rest. "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," he confided in them. "Stay here and keep watch with me." Going a little farther he knelt down and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done." Then an angel came to his help, strengthening him. But he prayed more earnestly, in great anguish, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
What is happening here? Why this convulsive struggle? What is the cup? Jesus knew he would soon die on a cross but even death by crucifixion could not create such torment of soul. Here is the strong and mighty Son of God in an astonishing state of overwhelming agony!
Jesus, the sinless Savior, is about to die on the cross, taking on himself the world's sin, breaking his oneness with the Father, facing the blackness of hell, drinking the cup of God's wrath. "And his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." Christ is being crushed beyond endurance in Gethsemane's press; he will drink the cup until not a drop remains.
Next morning Roman soldiers fasten him to a crude wooden cross, the fiendish instrument of torture used by the Romans to punish and execute slaves and the worst type of criminals. At noon darkness descends over the land for three hours. Then Jesus cries out in a loud voice, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Someone runs to get him a drink. Then his last words, "It is finished." He bows his head and gives up his Spirit.
"It is finished." Three English words are used here to translate a single Greek word, "tetelastai," a word written across tax receipts of the time that meant, "Paid in Full." Through his shed blood Jesus has become the supreme sacrifice required to pay our debt completely, to grant us full and complete salvation.
If Christ was willing to endure the horror of Gethsemane, the physical pain of crucifixion and the unthinkable separation from the Father as he bore my sin on the cross, there is a message here that I must breathe into my soul: God is the great Lover. As such he has an urgent need to be loved in return; that need requires our response.
John the apostle, one of the three disciples Jesus drew aside in the garden, put it this way: "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life" (John 3:16, TM).
So I take my stand: I will endeavor, with the help of his Holy Spirit, to love the Lord with all my heart and soul and mind and strength (Mark 12:30). For that is his desire.
The days and hours leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus are so rich in meaning. There is the drama itself of the story. There are the many, many prophecies being fulfilled. There are the numerous parallels to Passover. There is the theological underpinning of atonement.
It's so easy to get caught up in all of these and to miss the simplicity of one additional element: There is Jesus, pouring out his love. I was reminded of that reading this article by Cecil, a pastor in New York State, who blogs at L-Squared: Life and Leadership. (You might want to copy/paste this and email it to someone you know.) Click the title below to read this at source.
There on the hilltop once called Golgotha but now forever redeemed as Calvary, hung a perfect, blameless man who was God. There, let us zoom our focus in on that person, Jesus, who was being sacrificed instead of you or me. He was paying the wages of our sins, which was death. With that payment, we received our salvation, freedom, healing, and life here on earth and for eternity in heaven.
When we see Jesus on the cross, we must see mercy, wrath, justice, forgiveness, commitment, obedience, courage, power, humility, faith, hope, and the greatest of all, LOVE.
His love for you covers a multitude of sins. His love is like a roof on a home. It covers me as a refuge to run to and find shelter.
His love for you believes there is greatness inside you. His love for you believes for the best in you. His love for you gives you the benefit of the doubt.
His love for you goes a few steps beyond just believing, its called hoping the best for you. God believing in you solely has you in His focus. By hoping, God takes into account the crazy, hopeless situations staring you in the face. In the middle of pain, troubles, temptations, hopelessness, His love for you hopes beyond your realities. He can see the silver lining on that cloud in your life. Jesus has a positive and forward outlook for your life.
His love for you is unending, unfailing, and unrelenting. His love for you perseveres. He endured the cross because His joy was to see you restored to Him.
He started a good work on that "Good Friday". He's not done with that work in your life even until this moment. His goal and desire is for greatness in your life, for your life, and through your life. Allow me to lead you or just point you to the cross and introduce you to Jesus.
Only He, with the greatest love of all, can take you FROM GOOD TO GREAT!
I tried to find this online or some other information about it, but was unsuccessful. My beloved wife agreed to type this out manually. The copy we have attributes it to T. G. Low. As you study this, you might think of some key scriptures that come to mind beyond the four we've started with above.
With human eyes we see the greatest tragedy of all time, but God in the cross sees the greatest victory that has taken place in heaven or on earth.
So What is Our Response to the Easter Story?
The song asks the question: How can you see what Christ did for us on the cross and then just walk away, knowing it was your sin that put him there; knowing that he did this for you?
Take the next four minutes just to focus on this song and all that it means.
our pain[c] and distress, our sick-to-the-soul-ness.
Good Friday is the mirror held up by Jesus so that we can see ourselves in all our stark reality, and then it turns us to that cross and to his eyes and we hear these words, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." That's us! And so we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. We see in that cross a love so amazing so divine that it loves us even when we turn away from it, or spurn it, or crucify it. There is no faith in Jesus without understanding that on the cross we see into the heart of God and find it filled with mercy for the sinner whoever he or she may be.
Christ died. He left a will in which He gave His soul to His Father, His body to Joseph of Arimathea, His clothes to the soldiers, and His mother to John. But to His disciples, who had left all to follow Him, He left not silver or gold, but something far better – His PEACE!
As out of Jesus' affliction came a new sense of God's love and a new basis for love between men, so out of our affliction we may grasp the splendor of God's love and how to love one another. Thus the consummation of the two commandments was on Golgotha; and the Cross is, at once, their image and their fulfillment.
This Word played life against death and death against life in tournament on the wood of the most holy cross, so that by his death he destroyed our death, and to give us life he spent his own bodily life. With love, then, he has so drawn us and with his kindness so conquered our malice that every heart should be won over.
As someone who has been responsible for helping to introduce modern worship at two different churches, I am very supportive of what many of today's worship leaders and modern hymn-writers are doing, and believe very strongly in the "theology of 'New Song'" as expressed in Isaiah 42:10 and other scriptures. However, I'm also very appreciative of the richness in many of the old hymns.
The challenge with many of the hymns however is that they were written at a time when the style dictated following a certain format. Many started with a strong thought, but were evangelistic in nature, imploring and pleading with the hearer in successive verses to cross the line of faith before it is too late. For that reason, some of the first verses of many of these hymns are worth remembering, but successive verses seem out of date, and also don't conform to the nature of what we now call 'vertical worship,' that is songs directed directly to God.
Still, this morning I got to thinking about many of those first verses, especially in songs that could have application either to a communion service or Good Friday. These lines may be foreign to you, or familiar, but I hope they resonate with you. If you're under a certain age, I hope you'll stick with this today.
Most of these songs focus intensely on the saving work of Christ on the cross. Many mention the blood of Jesus. Today, some preachers shy away from talking about the blood of Christ and people are uncomfortable singing "Are you washed in the blood." There are very few contemporary books being written about the blood of Jesus.
For His blood; His power to save.
This song takes an end-of-life perspective and also introduces the idea that in the age to come, Jesus will still be recognizable by the nail scars in his hands. Certainly when he appeared to Thomas — in what we describe as a 'glorified body' — Thomas was invited to see the scars in his side and his hands.
This song has a strong basis in the book of Romans and is more doctrinal or theological, looking at our position in Christ. The chorus is more evangelistic than what we're including here — it's an invitation song, though a bit up-tempo — but two of the verses showcase the writing.
In a few days we'll return to this theme and look at a single hymn that chronicles the final hours of Jesus leading up to the cross.
Read more scripture verses relating to the blood of Jesus.