Tag Archives: Son of Man

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – DOOMSDAY TO THE TRAITOR

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DOOMSDAY TO THE TRAITOR

“‘Do you realise that the hand of the one who is betraying me is at this moment on the table? It’s true that the Son of Man is going down a path already marked out – no surprises there. But for the one who turns Him in, turns traitor to the Son of Man, this is doomsday.’

“They immediately became suspicious of each other and began quizzing one another, wondering who might be about to do this.” Luke 22:21-23 (The Message).

What a disconcerting experience this must have been for Judas! His “secret” plot was right out in the open. Jesus was actually advertising it to the whole group without disclosing the traitor’s identity. Why did He do this?

Was He wanting Judas to know that He was fully aware of what he was up to, and giving him an opportunity to back out of his plan, own up and save himself from the terrible judgment that awaited a traitor? The very fact that He had eaten a meal with him, treating him as the honoured guest, suggests that Jesus was offering Judas a way out and full forgiveness and restoration if he was willing to change his mind.

Was He indicating to Judas, ‘I know what you are up to and, boy, am I going to get you back!’? Would Jesus ever do a thing like that? No, that was not His yoke. His yoke was to show mercy and compassion and He was extending mercy to His enemy right up to the moment when Judas finished his dastardly deed with a kiss.

It was certainly not intended to make the disciples suspicious of one another. But, true to human nature, that is exactly how they reacted. Instead of taking stock of their own intentions, they became suspicious of one another which ended in their quizzing one another instead of searching their own hearts.

Jesus had spent more than three years with this bunch of men. He had handpicked them after a night in prayer with the Father. He had lived in intimate fellowship with them, day and night, teaching and modelling a true son of God, and giving them every opportunity to become like Him.

He had spent precious hours with them in the upper room, sharing a meal with all its rich symbolism, establishing a new covenant which He would sign with His own blood, pleading with them to model His love for them as the hallmark of His disciples and praying for their protection from the evil one and their unity with Him and with one another.

How much fruit had all His efforts borne? Seemingly nothing at this point! A lesser man would have given up, walked away and gone to his death a broken and disillusioned loser. But not Jesus! Even at this eleventh-hour apparent failure, Jesus demonstrated His absolute confidence in the success of His mission and the power of God to transform losers into winners and a messed up, self-centred, bickering bunch of men into passionately loyal, single-minded apostles who would turn the world upside down.

Jesus had painstakingly sown the seed of God’s word. Although it was lying dormant then, given the circumstances that were about to unfold in the next few days, that seed would begin to germinate and grow. These same men, except Judas, would be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit into fearless witnesses of the resurrection, living and working together in unity and taking on the greatest powers of their day, Caesar and the Roman Empire.

Once again, because Jesus looked beyond the present circumstances to the predetermined outcome of His suffering, He could go with confidence into the fire, knowing that He would emerge the victor, not those who were scheming to eliminate Him. Instead of planning and carrying out their extermination plot, Judas and his accomplices were playing right into God’s hands! But they would still have to take responsibility and pay the price.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – HE SIMPLY COMES

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HE SIMPLY COMES

“He went on to say to His disciples, ‘The days are coming when you are going to be desperately homesick for just one glimpse of one of the days of the Son of Man, and you won’t see a thing. And they’ll say to you, ‘Look over there!’ or ‘Look here!’ Don’t fall for any of that nonsense. The arrival of the Son of Man is not something you go out to see. He simply comes,’” Luke 17:22-24.

Jesus warned His disciples time and again that bad times were coming because His people had refused to receive Him. He wept over Jerusalem because of the people’s insensitivity to their opportunity. Because they had rejected their Messiah, the Roman army would come and raze Jerusalem to the ground, demolish their temple to a pile of rubble and kill their people until their blood ran like a river in the streets.

Like a thief in the night, Jesus appeared on the human scene, unexpected and unannounced except to the few who were looking for Him. Even His words and His works did not convince them and they killed Him as a fake. How they would long to turn the clock back when Rome finally took revenge for their rebellion against their overlords! They had foolishly called down His blood on their own heads, not realising that their own mouths had sealed their doom.

Jesus made it clear that He was no phenomenon to be viewed as an object of curiosity or interest. When He came the first time, He came quietly. No-one heard the angelic announcement except a few humble shepherds on a hillside outside Bethlehem. He simply came. Those who visited Him were invited by the Father Himself. The rest were unaware that Messiah had made His appearance in human form.

Even when He comes to dwell in the spirit of a human being, He comes quietly. Jesus assured Nicodemus that the work of the Spirit is like the wind. You cannot see the wind but you can see and feel its effects. So it is with the Spirit of God. When He comes as Jesus’ personal representative on earth, to take up residence in a human heart, the effects of His coming are real as the new believer is rescued from the dominion of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of light.

His return will not be a phenomenon to be observed, but a sudden, visible and earth-encircling flash, like a flash of lightning which lights up the sky from east to west. His return heralds instantaneous changes, not like the ideas conjured up by the imagination of movie writers and producers. As much as they are intrigued by the concept of “the end of the world”, they all, strangely enough, ignore its association with the one who created it in the first place.

Nuclear war, heavenly bodies crashing into the earth, massive volcanic eruptions and earthquakes line up to take responsibility for the final demise of our planet, but God is omitted in the mix. However, the Bible tells us that He will destroy all evil by the word of His mouth and make all things new. This makes sense since it was His word that brought forth the world in which we live.

It is not God’s plan to destroy the planet which He created to be the perfect home for man. Just as He did with the flood, He will destroy all the wickedness on it, and restore it to its former perfection to be the dwelling place of all those who have responded to His invitation to join His family through faith in his Son.

“Then I saw a new (renewed) heaven and a new (renewed) earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea….And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them…’  He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!'” Revelation 21:1-5 (NIV).

He did not say, “I am making all new things,” but “everything new”. When God renews all things, He comes full circle, completing what He started and perfecting forever His family of men and women who have been recreated in the image of His Son. When Jesus returns, He will simply come and that’s it, forever.

The time to decide is now…

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – JESUS TURNED TOUGH?

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JESUS TURNED TOUGH?

“As they were walking along the road, a man said to them, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.’

“He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But he replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’

“Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord: but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.'”  Luke 9:57-62 (NIV).

I have deliberately not used The Message for my Bible reference today because the paraphrase misses the impact of Jesus’ words. When you read this passage, does He not sound rather unsympathetic and off-handed? It is so out of character that we have to dig deeper into the meaning of what He said to the individuals who wanted to follow Him.

At face value and in response to the first man who wanted to follow Him, it seems that Jesus was trying to put him off because the life of a disciple meant a life of poverty and deprivation. What a horrible misrepresentation of God! Jesus was neither poor nor did He call those who follow him to a life of poverty. He wore the outer garment of a man of means and status – a seamless robe. Wealthy women supported Him and He would have received offerings from people who followed Him and valued His ministry.

Hebrew people did not always take the words of their rabbis literally. They would have asked the question, ‘What do foxes do in dens and birds do in nests?’ They don’t live in them; they reproduce in them. It was a rabbi’s intention that his followers reproduce him in the way they lived and what they taught — his yoke.

Jesus is the head of His body, the church, but the church had not yet come into being because He had not yet died and risen again, and the Holy Spirit had not yet been given. On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell on the believers, the church was born and began to reproduce. Jesus was telling the man that he would have to wait until He, the head and the church, the body came together to become one so that He could begin reproducing Himself through people.

It is not clear why Jesus discouraged one and called another. Was it a test to gauge the sincerity and determination of each individual?

The second man had an excuse for not following Him immediately. It was not that his father’s funeral was imminent. A year after a body had been placed in a tomb the bones were removed and reburied in an ossuary, a box in which they were stored to make room in the tomb for another family member. This man was waiting to place his father’s bones in their permanent resting place, and that could be months away. He was putting off following Jesus indefinitely.

Jesus saw through his excuse and warned him not to waste his opportunity. Burying bones could be done at any time and by those who had no interest in following Him.

The third man had another kind of excuse. Going home to say goodbye to the family was not about giving each one a hurried kiss and then catching up with Jesus. It involved a long, drawn-out farewell, homesickness and regret and then trying to find Him when He has long since moved on.

Jesus is not interested in having people follow Him reluctantly with one eye on what they have left behind. He wants those who throw in their lot with him wholeheartedly without giving a thought to the family from whom they have walked away. Although family ties are precious and important, they must take second place behind our loyalty to Jesus because He calls us to participate in the life of a family far bigger and with a destiny more glorious than any earthly family.

Are you following with gladness or regret?

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – A COMMON PHENOMENON

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A COMMON PHENOMENON

“While they continued to stand around exclaiming over all the things He was doing, Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Treasure and ponder each of these next words: The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into human hands.” They didn’t get what He was saying. It was like He was speaking a foreign language and they couldn’t make heads or tails of it. But they were embarrassed to ask Him what He meant.” Luke 9:43-45.

This was the second time Jesus told His disciples about His impending suffering and death. The first was in the context of His identity. He had questioned them, in the environment of Caesarea Philippi, the “red light” district of Israel, who they thought He was. Peter’s reply indicated that they were at least a little farther along in understanding than the people who constantly thronged Him.

At the same time it was clear that both Peter and probably the rest of the disciples along with him, had no idea what “Messiah” meant. To them He was no more than a political figure sent to deliver them from Roman oppression. All His teaching and demonstration of the nature of the kingdom of God ran off them like water off a duck’s back.

Why did He repeatedly inform them of His coming ordeal in Jerusalem, even exposing them to what they had just seen and heard on the Mount of Transfiguration, involving two of their greatest historical figures? Was it to inform, to warn, to prepare them for what lay ahead? Was it to expand their understanding of who the Messiah was and what He had come to do?

Jesus was up against something in the disciples that is common in human nature. We all seem to be able to block our ability to understand what we refuse to believe. They refused to believe that suffering and violent death was included in the purpose of His coming. It was not on their agenda for Him because salvation from sin and reconciliation to the Father was not on their agenda. Their tunnel vision prevented them from accepting anything outside of their expectation.

Was there something in the words Jesus used that they could not understand? And yet they did not grasp what He was telling them! We know, from hindsight, exactly what He was saying because we have the benefit of everything that followed.

In the context of our own experience, there are many things in God’s Word that we don’t understand, not because the words are difficult, but because our brains block out our ability to understand those parts that do not fit our expectation.

Take for example, the way we perceive and experience God’s love. The Bible is a continuous story of the way God treats people because of His love for them. His mercy and compassion overshadow the story of His stubborn, rebellious and wayward people. He had every right to take them out and start all over again. And yet, time and again, He forgave them and rescued them from the consequences of their wickedness, Why? Because He loved them.

His Word assures us that He loved the world so much that He sent His Son to redeem all mankind. However, when we go through hard times, what do we do? We blame God and doubt His love! We cannot translate the love that provided a Saviour into a love that cares about us in our troubles and problems.

What is the solution? We find in His Word what our expectation of Him should be. He tells us what He wants to do and is capable of doing in our lives. We will only be transformed when we renew our minds with His Word instead of stubbornly holding on to our inadequate and misinformed ideas of who He is and what He had promised He will do.

What’s on your agenda for God that does not come from Him? Let His Word shape your thoughts and your understanding of who He is, what He says and what your expectation of Him should be, and you will come closer to the truth of what He has in mind for you.

Jesus Did Not Say That The Ungodly Would Be Left Behind

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JESUS DID NOT SAY THAT THE UNGODLY WOULD BE LEFT BEHIND

Amazing how biblical expositors can twist the Bible to mean what they want it to mean, and even more amazing that thousands of people believe them without checking the facts!

Take the popular theory that Jesus will take believers to heaven when He comes and that the ungodly will be left behind. “Left Behind” is even the theme of a series of novels which have garnered millions of dollars in royalties but do not have a shred of truth in them. Many have even based a false hope on the idea that they or their loved ones will get a second chance to believe in Jesus when the church is “raptured” and the antichrist takes over the world. Where in the world does that idea come from and how can they justify it from the Scriptures?

Now let’s look at what Jesus did say.

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the Ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. (Matt. 24: 37-39)

“As it was . . . so it will be” is quite clearly a comparison. Just as it happened then, so it will happen now. That is clear, isn’t it? So what happened then? God told Noah to build an ark because it was going to rain. The people of the earth had become so corrupt that God decided to purge the earth of its evil and rescue only one family, Noah’s. It had never rained before because the earth was watered by a mist (see Gen. 2: 5-6).

While Noah and his sons constructed the ark, Noah warned the people of coming judgment.

. . . If He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others . . . (2 Peter 2: 5)

Whether his preaching was verbal or silent, Peter did not say but, what he and his sons were doing was enough to alert his neighbours that something big and catastrophic was about to happen. But they obviously refused to take him seriously because they carried on living the way they always did until the flood came.

What was God’s provision for the Noah family? He did not rapture them to heaven. He protected them from the flood in a well-constructed boat. Here again is what Peter had to say about the event.

. . . To those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water . . . (1 Peter 3: 20)

Peter compared what happened to Noah and his family when God rescued them from the flood by protecting them in the ark, to what happens to those who are baptised, implying that they have been identified with Jesus’ death and resurrection and have been initiated into God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The very water that took the lives of the ungodly in Noah’s day was the water that saved him because he was in the ark.

Jesus’ comparison falls flat if we insist that it was the ungodly who were “left behind”. Clearly Noah and his family survived the flood when everyone and everything that was not in the ark perished. God did not destroy the earth with the flood. He re-established it in another form. Everything was changed by the water which fell from above and burst out of the ground.

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month – on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. (Gen. 7: 11-12)

At the end of the catastrophe, who emerged from the ark onto a transformed and purged earth? Who was left behind? Many thousands of corpses and one living family, Noah’s! God had accomplished His goal. He preserved a righteous man and his family to start all over again.

Where, then, does the idea come from that Jesus will whip the righteous from the earth and leave the ungodly behind to carry on as normal? Before you get hot under the collar and point me to the “rapture”, we have to examine the big picture. This is only point one. Jesus did not say that He would take the church out and leave the ungodly behind. He did say that, just as Noah was saved in the ark when God poured His judgement on the earth and its corrupt inhabitants, so those who are “in Him” will be protected when He brings judgment on the earth and its corrupt people once again.

As the writer to the Hebrews testified:

See to it that you do not refuse Him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, how much less will we if we turn away from Him who warns us from heaven.  At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, ‘Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ The words ‘once more’ indicate the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain. (Heb. 12: 25-27)

Tomorrow we’ll examine point two of what Jesus did not say and what He did say.  

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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