Tag Archives: Son of Man

Glimpses Of The Great God: Day Twenty Eight

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DAY TWENTY EIGHT

I,  John….was on the island of Patmos

because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus….

On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit

and I heard a loud voice behind me like a trumpet…

I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me.

And when I turned I saw seven golden lamp stands,

and among the lamp stands was someone “like a son of man,”

dressed in a robe down to His feet

and with a golden sash around His chest.

His head and His hair were white like wool, as white as snow,

and His eyes were like blazing fire.

His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace,

and His voice was like the sound of rushing waters.

In His right hand were seven stars,

and out of His mouth came a sharp double-edged sword.

His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead.

Revelation 1:9a, 10, 12-17

The Jesus we worship is not a baby in a cradle, a carpenter in his workshop or an itinerant preacher walking the dusty roads of Galilee.  He is a glorious and glorified Lord, majestic, beautiful and so terrifying that John, who once leaned on His breast, “fell at His feet as though dead.”  We need to lay aside the image of the human Jesus and focus on the risen Christ who is God and who stands in our place in the presence of the Father to intercede for us.

Jesus Turned Tough?

Bible Study, , , , ,

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 and impact 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 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?

Luke, The Chronicler of Jesus, Son of man

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LUKE, THE CHRONICLER OF JESUS, SON OF MAN

“So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives. Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story’s beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honourable Theophilus, so you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt the reality of what you were taught.” Luke 1:1-4 (The Message)

Luke was a Gentile, possibly a Greek or a Roman, who was acquainted with Theophilus, a Roman judging by his name, who was a believer in Jesus of high rank, either socially or as a government official somewhere. He was a follower of Jesus but he needed the anchor of an authentic record of the life of the one he had chosen to follow. Luke undertook the task, researching and writing as accurately as possible, using the verbal or written reports of eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, but those who themselves believed in Him.

Luke was only one among many, according to him, who had undertaken this task, but it was his work that made its way into the canon of Scripture. While he used the work of others, it was his that was “God-breathed” and acknowledged as inspired. It would be a fascinating story of how a document written for only one man, made its way into the public eye and eventually into the New Testament. Did Theophilus share Luke’s story with family and friends, with work colleagues and social acquaintances? Did Luke show his gospel to Paul? Did Paul circulate copies to the churches because he recognised the value of Luke’s work?

This side of eternity we will never know but God designed this book to be part of the written witness to the life of His Son. It is part of the four-fold fulfilment of the prophetic picture of Messiah represented in the four faces of the living creatures around the throne of God. Matthew presents Jesus as the King of the Jews, the fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, symbolised by the face of a lion (Ezekiel 1:10; Rev 4:7). Mark’s picture of Jesus is that of a servant, symbolised by the face of an ox. Luke portrays Jesus as the Son of Man, symbolised by the face of a man, and John the exalted Son of God represented by the flying eagle.

Luke’s purpose was to present Jesus as the Son of Man, not just the human Jesus, but the Messiah, the God-man who was anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the link between heaven and earth; God in human form, weak, vulnerable, ordinary, yet extraordinary in His nature and function, filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be a perfect man and a perfect sacrifice. He was true man, yet more than a man. He was true God, veiled in a human body to live out a real human life and to die a real human death so that we can be reconnected to God.
Luke’s research and writing skill has left us with an incomparable record of aspects of Jesus’ birth, glimpses into His childhood and His short public life, and examples of His matchless teaching which are recorded nowhere else in Scripture. Together with the other gospel writers, we have a fully rounded and comprehensive record, not of every detail of Jesus’ life, but of the witness He left by His life and death to His reason for coming – a revelation of the Father through His miracles, His life and His teaching and His death and resurrection.

Luke’s story would be incomplete without the other gospels, yet in his writing he presents a very ordinary person, a man of prayer and dependence on the Father, who lived an extraordinary life and accomplished extraordinary things because He was empowered and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that fell on the church on the day of Pentecost and empowers us to live the same life He lived.