Daily Archives: February 10, 2014

A True Son

Bible Study, , , ,

A TRUE SON 

“‘Who are you?’ they asked.’Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,’ Jesus replied.’I have much to say in judgment of you. But He who sent me is trustworthy, and what I heard from Him I tell the world.’ They did not understand that He was telling them about the Father. So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases Him.'” John 8:25-29 (NIV).

Another outrageous claim if it were not true! “I always do what pleases Him.”

This was the hallmark of the Son of God. He always did what pleased the Father. Have you ever wondered what that was? What do you think it is that pleases the Father more than anything? We can speculate and find many answers to this question. He was generous and merciful just like the Father — that would be a good answer and it would be true. He glorified that Father in everything He did — that would also be true.

But what is it that surpasses everything else that pleases the Father? To find the answer we have to go back to the beginning. At the beginning of human history God gave Adam one instruction in the Garden of Eden, ‘Leave that one tree alone.’ If that one tree was going to be an issue between man and God, Satan made sure that man would focus on it until it became so important to him that it would become the reason for their disobedience.

The history of God’s ancient people was a history of disobedience, focusing especially on God’s instruction, ‘Do not worship idols.’ They worshipped the idols of the surrounding nations until they became vile, like the thing they loved (Hosea 9:10). Disobedience took them to Babylon and eventually to crucifying their Messiah.

God had a different verdict on David, their model king, the man who followed their first king, Saul, who was rejected because of his disobedience. “After removing Saul, He made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.'” Acts 13:22b (NIV).

Books have been written about David, the only man in the Bible of whom God said, ‘A man after my own heart’, giving many reasons for God’s approval, yet it is recorded plainly in the Word that God was pleased with him because ‘He will do everything I want him to do.’ David may have slipped up on more than one occasion but the drift of his life was that he ‘inquired of the Lord,’ and then followed through on God’s instruction.

Compare him with his predecessor, King Saul; Saul failed to carry out the two instructions we read about in Scripture.  Because of that God could not trust him to be the leader of His people. Saul had a dangerous self-consciousness that made him a people-pleaser and he disqualified himself from being the first of a dynasty of kings.

Jesus could claim, without a qualm, that He was the true Son of God. His obedience to the Father was absolute and unquestioning. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He wrestled with the horror of the cross until the blood ran, He still submitted to the Father’s will and endured everything without resistance. “When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.” 1 Peter 2:23 (NIV).

Is it not true that God is more interested in our obedience than in our achievements? It is our obedience that makes our achievements of significance to God because obedience gets the job done. “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him…” Hebrews 5:8, 9, (NIV). Obedience is best learned by obeying!

Obedience presupposes that one knows what God’s requirements are and that presupposes that one spends time with the Father and in His Word. We have the pattern of the Son, perfect in every way. And we can’t say that of the Pharisees!

Don’t you also want to please the Father? Then find out what He wants of you and do it!

You Will Die In Your Sins

Bible Study, , ,

YOU WILL DIE IN YOUR SINS

“Once more Jesus said to them, ‘I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.’

“This made the Jews ask, ‘Will He kill Himself? Is that why He says, “Where I go you cannot come”?”

“But He continued, ‘You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.

“‘I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am He, you will indeed die in your sins.'” John 8:21-24 (NIV)

‘And go to hell when you die!’ Is that what Jesus meant?

How differently we non-Hebrew-speaking people interpret the Word!  Is it not true that we automatically assume that that is what He meant? Unfortunately, we have come to use “heaven” and “hell” as the measure of salvation. “Saved” people are going to heaven; “unsaved” people are going to hell.

We have already discussed the meaning of “light” and “darkness” in Scripture. Now we need to examine two other contrasting concepts that Jesus frequently used; “life” and “death”. Although it is impossible to treat this subject fully in a short article like this, I will attempt to give pointers to a better understanding of what He meant by “eternal life”.

In His night-time encounter with Nicodemus, Jesus uttered the words of the most well-known verse in the Bible — “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16. Three things stand out clearly in this statement: Eternal life is a gift; it comes through faith in Jesus; and it rescues the one who believes in Him from perishing.

We have to ask the questions: When does this “life” begin? Is it only for the future or is it a present reality? What is eternal life?

According to Jesus, ‘Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.’ John 5:24 (NIV). Eternal life, then, is not living forever in heaven when a person dies. It is a dimension of being he enters into as a gift from God the instant he believes and receives the truth that Jesus is the Son of God.

Eternal life is a present reality. The other three gospels focus on “the kingdom of God”; John speaks of eternal life. These are inseparable truths about the life Jesus came to model and to give to those who believe in Him. Eternal life is living in the kingdom of God, in the realm of God’s rule, under His authority and in submission to Him, modelling Jesus’s attitude and behaviour in the way we live.

This life is a free gift (John 3:16); it comes to us through Jesus (John 14:6b); it is about reconnection to the Father through Him (John 14:6a); it is sustained by intimate fellowship with Jesus (John 6:35); following Him enables us to understand and live this life (John 8:12); it is about self-forgetful and self-sacrificial love for others (John 15:13).

But what is this life? God is love. Although His love is immeasurable and beyond the limits of our understanding (Ephesians 3:16-19), Jesus came to model the Father’s love so that we catch glimpses of the enormity of a love that gave His only Son to free us from self-destructive lives of self-will and alienation from God; and that we can follow that way through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The more we follow Jesus, the more we move towards the essence of salvation; becoming whole people again; “being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Colossian 3:10 – NIV).

Because the Jewish leaders had rejected Jesus and refused to believe that He was the Son of God, they were perishing in their chosen path of self-destruction. This was not Jesus’ judgment on them. It was the inevitable result of their selfish and greedy lifestyle. They were destined for the trash heap because they were wasting their potential as sons of God and were living worthless and useless lives.

To everyone who believes in Jesus He offers the opportunity to escape the destruction of self-indulgence and return to the way of life that enables us to become truly human as God intended. Real life is living in loving interconnection with God and with all of creation and is only possible through faith in Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Do you have this kind of life?