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Learning To Be A Son – Chapter Three – Jesus The Authentic Son

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CHAPTER THREE

Jesus the Authentic Son

Although the Father chose sonship as His model for the relationship He desired between Himself and mankind, and sent the second person of the Trinity, whom He named Jesus (Yeshua), to be the human model for us, it was not cut and dried that Jesus would be the perfect Son. He had to learn to be a Son by going through all the experiences of humanity, from birth to death without failing in His submission and obedience to the Father. He had to be a perfect Son where Adam failed.

He had to be a Son in the Hebrew culture and religion into which He was born. To be a son in the Hebrew language and understanding was to “continue the house”. It was His role to continue God’s house through reproducing Himself in His disciples so that they in turn would reproduce Him in those they taught to be disciples.

Through thirty years of growing up in a Jewish home and three years of public ministry during which time He was under constant harassment from His arch enemy, the devil and those of His own people who opposed Him, Jesus never faltered. He passed every test; His love, loyalty and commitment to unity with the Father remained intake in the wilderness, during three years of scrutiny by His disciples, the common people and the religious leaders and received the Father’s wholehearted affirmation at every step along the way.

His final test was the cross. Gethsemane was the ultimate expression of His submission to the Father’s will. He passed the test and was resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit to authenticate Him once and for all as the perfect Son and fully qualified to be the sinless lamb who was sacrificed to take away the sin of the world.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

To order your 0wn copy of either book, contact

Toll free – 0800 990 914 (South Africa)

orders.africa@partridgepublishing.com

www.partridgepublishing.com/africa  or call

+44 20 314 3997 (outside South Africa)

ISBN: Hardcover – 978-1-4828-0891-9                                                                                     Softcover 978-1-4828-0890-2                                                                                                              eBook 978-1-4828-0889-6

Check out my Blog site – www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

 

Patriarchal Faith

Bible Study, , , ,

PATRIARCHAL FAITH

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future. By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instruction concerning the burial of his bones (Heb. 11: 17-22).

As little as the patriarchs knew of God, they were men of faith. Oops! What did I say? They probably knew God far more intimately than many of us do. Who was this God whom they worshipped? He introduced Himself to Abraham as el, the one who, to the Hebrew person, was not some unique being who was holy, eternal and unknowable except through revelation, although these facts are true.  God was, to them, the one who had power and authority. When He spoke, they obeyed and when He promised, He acted.

Later on, He added another dimension to Abraham’s understanding of Him – El Shaddai – the Mighty One who nourishes. He is the one who has strength and authority and who provides for those who trust Him. These were the simple, everyday experiences of the early fathers because they trusted God and did what He told them to do, even to the near-killing of Abraham’s only son-of-his-old-age who brought him joy and laughter.

God said, ‘Go, sacrifice Isaac,’ so Abraham went without hesitating or questioning. How about that for trust! He no Bible to check up on God. He had no history of a people who knew and followed El. He was a pioneer who had left home and kindred to go where this God had told him to go and he went. In his going, he discovered that his God was able to exactly as He had promised. Wasn’t Isaac proof of that? Whoever heard of a ninety-year-old woman having a child, and that after she had gone through menopause?

So confident he was in God that he was willing to put Isaac’s life on the line, as much as he loved him, for the sake of obeying God, and leave the outcome to Him. The writer commented that Abraham even credited God with the power to raise Isaac back to life after he had plunged in the knife and taken his life. Why did he believe that? He knew Him. His past was spread out in front of him like a panorama of everything he had experienced, and God was in it from the moment he first heard His voice.

Abraham lived up to God’s expectation.

Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about what He has promised Him (Gen. 18: 18-19).

Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, Abraham’s descendants, all eventually followed the way of Yahweh because Abraham obeyed God and taught his offspring to do the same. Although the Bible does not mention his influence on his grandchildren, he was still alive long after they were born. He lived to the ripe old age of one hundred and seventy five years.

Abraham’s son, Isaac and grandson, Jacob received the same promise that God gave to Abraham (Gen 26: 3-5; Gen 28: 13-15). Joseph, although he died in Egypt, was so sure of the fulfilment of God’s promise that he left instructions for his bones to be take back to Canaan when the people eventually left Egypt to take possession of the land of Canaan (Gen 50: 24-25; Ex 13: 19).

These were momentous days. Think of what this meant to these families. Abraham was uprooted from a stable life in Ur to spend the rest of his life as a nomad, with no land of his own, living in tents and moving from place to place, always at the mercy and goodwill of the local inhabitants.

Isaac and Jacob never knew what it was like to live in a house and have land of their own. Jacob twice had to relocate hundreds of miles from where he was born, ending up in a land where the ruler eventually turned hostile and enslaved his descendants.

Joseph was sold into slavery by jealous brothers, ripped from his beloved father’s side and carried off to a heathen land where he served for thirteen years before God promoted him to a position of power and authority. Even there, in spite of the honour he had received, he was still alone, without family and heritage until his brothers came and he was reunited with them.

What a story! And yet, God was in it and behind it all, working out His will to bless and provide for His people. How did they know that? He had promised and they trusted Him and did what He instructed. What about us? Would we have done what they did at the command of someone they could not see? That’s real faith!

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.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublshing.com.

Untested!

Bible Study, , ,

UNTESTED!

“When Jesus entered public life He was about thirty years old, the son (in public perception) of Joseph…son of Adam, son of God.”

“Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days He was tested by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when the time was up, He was hungry.” Luke 3:23-4:2 (The Message).

I don’t know about you, but as I read Luke’s story, I am struck by the sober, down-to-earth way in which he reported the results of his investigation. There was nothing fanciful or imaginative about the details of his story. He was writing about things that happened.

At the age of thirty Jesus was eligible to enter the priesthood. But wait a minute. He was neither a Levite nor the son of a priest. He was from the tribe of Judah and His father was a carpenter and a builder. He had no earthly claim to priesthood.

But He had a connection with God the Father which overrode His human connections. As a twelve-year-old boy, He was already aware of His role as a Son, which took precedence over His obligation to be under the authority of Joseph and Mary. At the age of thirty He stepped into public view at the Jordan River to take up His office as High Priest, not in the order of Levi but in the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 6:20; 7:15).

He was baptised in the River Jordan by John; baptised into humanity, baptised into John’s ministry and baptised into His High Priesthood. After He was anointed by the Spirit and affirmed by the Father, He left the Jordan and made His way into the wilderness to be alone for a while. He had the connection with His Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. Now He needed the strategy for the huge mission that lay ahead of Him.

Satan needed no invitation to join Him! He was there, hovering in the background and waiting to pounce at every opportunity. And that was just what the Holy Spirit wanted him to do. The devil was playing right into God’s hands! If Jesus was to “get” God’s modus operandi, Satan would help Him to understand what it was not. Get rid of the alternatives and the right way would become crystal clear.

At this point in His life Jesus was untested. He had passed the test of infancy, boyhood and youth with flying colours and affirmed by the Father — “You are my Son in whom I am well pleased,” but, from now on it would be a whole new ball game. He was stepping onto the battlefield, and it would be a fight to the death, not just the death of His physical body, but either His own death if He went the way Adam went (and He was fulfilling the role of the “last Adam”), or the death of His adversary if He consistently lived as a true son.

“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission. Son though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him and was designated to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 5:7-10 (NIV).

What was the “death” this passage is talking about? If it refers to physical death, then it is not telling the truth. Was Jesus saved from physical death? No. But He was saved from eternal death because of His “reverent submission”. Does that mean that by becoming a man, Jesus risked eternal separation from God if He stepped out of line like Adam did? It surely does, otherwise He would not have been qualified to be the perfect lamb that took our place on the cross.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet He did not sin” Hebrews 4:15 (NIV).