Illustrated Summary of Christianity Is Jewish by Edith Schaeffer

Christianity Is Jewish made its debut in 1975 with a striking work of fine art by Marc Chagall on its cover. In 2012 it was reprinted with a haunting observation by the author's son-in-law: "This book deserves a re-edition at a time of unrelenting persistence of anti-Semitism, when much of the world turns their backs on Israel and the Jews." It was written by Edith Schaeffer, co-founder of L'Abri with her renowned Christian philosopher husband, Dr. Francis Schaeffer. L'Abri means "shelter" since it was, and is, a growing worldwide community where matters of eternal significance are discussed intelligently and respectfully.

Schaeffer begins her book by recounting 5 conversations she had with Jewish people about what it means to be Jewish and how that relates to what the Bible unfolds in a steady narrative from beginning to end. Schaeffer listened very carefully to these Jewish individuals and answered questions. During one of those conversations, when she got to the place of needing to continue beyond the Hebrew Bible into the New Testament, she stopped and asked respectfully, "Do you want me to go on?"

"Go on ... please go on ... don't stop," came the reply. Edith continued with what she calls the bird's-eye view of the Bible. When she finished, the man listening with his daughter asked, "Daughter, have you ever heard anything so beautiful?"

"No, Father, I never have." Another Jewish person, after a similar in-depth discussion, replied, "What do you call this religion? It sounds like a Jewish religion."

"Yes," Edith replied firmly, "Christianity is Jewish." She decided to make that clear in book form. Christianity Is Jewish has 18 chapters, simply enumerated, but here are summary descriptions of each so you can see the biblical flow at a glance. It is meant to be read from beginning to end since it is one divinely true and enthralling story, but you may want to reread or skip to certain parts. In some places the Scriptures are filled out in more detail, useful links have been added throughout for further study, punctuation modified, and material rearranged slightly on rare occasions. Italics emphasize things especially worth noticing. Nothing was done without thinking Edith would be delighted with it.

Edith Schaeffer, 1975 back-cover photo, Christianity Is Jewish

Chapter 1 (5 Conversations with Jewish People)

Chapter 2 (Philosophical Foundation: Personal vs. Impersonal Universe; Truth Is There to Be Found)

Chapter 3 (Genesis 1-2: Creation)

Chapter 4 (Genesis 3: Choice of What to Believe; Genesis 4: Divergent Paths of Abel and Cain)

Chapter 5 (Noah and Abraham, Isaac and the Lamb)

Chapter 6 (Jacob and Joseph, 12 Tribes of Israel, Moses and Passover)

Chapter 7 (The Exodus, Wilderness, and Golden Calf)

Chapter 8 (Circumcision, a Remnant, Gideon, Hannah, Samuel, David, Solomon, Elijah)

Chapter 9 (Elisha, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah)

Chapter 10 (Daniel, Jonah)

Chapter 11 (Immanuel, Mary, Elizabeth)

Chapter 12 (John the Baptizer, Jesus, Nicodemus)

Chapter 13 (3-Year Ministry, Final Atonement at the Cross)

Chapter 14 (Burial, Resurrection, Ascension)

Chapter 15 (Pentecost; Gentiles Included)

Chapter 16 (Rabbi Saul/Apostle Paul)

Chapter 17 (Paul's and Peter's Letters)

Chapter 18 (John and Revelation)

Chapter 1: 

5 Conversations with Jewish People

The menorah chapter illustrations come from Christianity Is Jewish.
 

Edith Schaeffer begins her first chapter by telling of the conversations that led her to write this book.

1. A conversation with a Jewish newspaper reporter and his wife. Edith and her husband, Francis, met this couple over a warm fire on a hiking vacation after the birth of their first child. A question the reporter posed about his own child gave Edith and Francis the desire for a deep conversation with them that lasted long into the night. This Jewish father, remembering his own painful childhood, said, "When I look at my beautiful curly-headed three-year-old boy asleep in his crib, I ask why does he have to be Jewish? Why can't he be just a plain American after three generations? What is a Jew anyway? Why does he have to be always a Jew?"

Edith and Francis quickly perceived it was a double-sided question asking not only what it means to be Jewish, but also about the source of anti-Semitism. They talked about the God of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph working through Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Moses, David and Isaiah. The fire burned low as the discussion continued, warm, vivid, and real. As the couples parted for the night, the reporter said, "I want to quote you a poem, author unknown, which is a great way of expressing my own past puzzle about these things":

How odd of God

To choose the Jew,

But not so odd

As those who choose

The Jewish God

And hate the Jew.

2. A conversation with a Jewish dentist and his daughter. Years later, Edith was asked to give a talk to a ladies' group on the biblical Day of Atonement. She studied Leviticus 16 in the Bible, learning about animal sacrifices and the scapegoat. Then she decided to speak with a Jewish neighbor to find out what the Day of Atonement means to Jews today. The neighbor did not know how to answer but referred her to the home of a Jewish dentist nearby whom she described as a good Jew. When Edith knocked on the door, the man's daughter answered and warmly invited her in after she explained her quest.

The dentist proved equally kind and soon was telling Edith and his daughter of his boyhood in Austria. He told how his father, grandfather, and he himself as a boy anticipated the Day of Atonement each year. He tried to remember his sins through the year and be sorry for them one by one. He told what it felt like to fast and do no work that day, adding, "We fasted properly: we drank no water and did not even brush our teeth that day." Then he brought his own thoughts up to date. Edith thanked him heartily for taking the time and care to tell her so completely what she wanted to know.

The man's daughter, sensing Edith's sincerity, felt emboldened to ask a question of her own: "Please, would you tell me what makes your own attitude so different from most Gentiles I have met? You are so warm and I feel a love for us in your attitude. What is it that makes you love us? I can feel it and I want to know why."

Edith thought carefully and replied, "If you really want to know, if you aren't asking for a superficial answer but the real one, I would need to give you a bird's-eye view of the Bible. I have just come into your home with a question your father has wonderfully answered. I don't want to presume upon your hospitality to tell you something you may not want to hear. I don't want to thrust upon you something that might seem offensive, having not really been invited in the first place."

The three of them were soon willingly involved in considering together the Bible's central theme from beginning to end. After Edith received permission to continue this message straight through the New Testament to Revelation and the heavenly city, the dentist sighed in wonder and said, "For 30 years I have been a dentist in this city. For 30 years I have had Gentile patients. Why has no one ever told me all this before?"

3. A conversation with a Jewish international news editor. Years later, after the founding of L'Abri in Switzerland, a reporter for a prominent news magazine was spending a day at L'Abri to thank the Schaeffers for their kindness to his daughter at a nearby boarding school. He was out of his element hearing prayers said before meals and high-level biblical, theological, and philosophical conversations, but his reporter's desire for information led him to ask, "What is it you believe? Is this a new religion?"

Edith replied, "This is going to be a full answer, but if you really want to know, it would be foolish for me to give you a surface reply." He encouraged her to go on. Two hours later he observed with wonder that it sounded like a Jewish religion. After Edith affirmed that Christianity is Jewish, she went on to affirm that anti-Semitism is a horrible sin.

This conversation reminded her of years before, when she was unexpectedly lifted up to speak on a soap box for the first and last time in her life. Facing her were Jewish men from New York City, wondering what was being said from that makeshift platform. What could she say? This flashed into Edith's mind: "One of the early Christians, a Jew named Paul, said regarding fellow Hebrews in a letter, 'Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I.' 

"This same Paul explained to Gentiles that the Jewish people could be described as a tree with many branches. This tree is an olive tree made up of people chosen by God in Abraham, with whom a covenant was made. Because of unbelief in God and His Word, branches of that natural olive tree were broken off and branches from a wild olive tree were grafted in to those broken-off places. 'You believing Gentiles,' says Paul, 'were grafted into that true tree when you believed, but you came from a wild olive tree. How can you possibly boast or be proud of your place? If God cuts off natural branches because of unbelief, He won't spare the wild branches if they don't believe. If the natural branches later come to believe, don't you think God will graft them back in even more into their own tree? Someday you will see Israel turning back to God in belief'" (Romans 11). How different history might have been if more Gentiles had heeded that warning from the Jewish apostle Paul—how different if people wearing the label "Christian" had all been real.

Olive Tree with Grafted Branches

4. A conversation with university students in a Jewish home. The dentist originally from Austria and his daughter invited Edith back into their home for Bible discussion. During their question-and-answer time, she noticed a steady stream of university-age men entering the house. "My son's fraternity meeting is here tonight," explained the daughter. Soon the son came into the discussion area and asked a few questions of his own, two of his friends listening in. After a time Edith said, "Since I've been answering questions, I'd like to ask you one, if you don't mind."

"Sure, go ahead," said the son.

"I'm going to read you a passage from one of your Jewish prophets, Isaiah, who lived 700 years before Jesus was born. Remember now, this was written 700 years before the birth of Christ." Then I read:

"He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; he was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

"He was taken from prison and from judgment.... He was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of my people he was stricken. They made his grave with the wicked, but with a rich man in his death although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him and bring him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring and prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

"He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant make many to be accounted righteous, for he shall bear their iniquities.... He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors" (Isaiah 53).

After Edith read that passage she asked the university students whom Isaiah was referring to. One of them quickly responded, "That's easy: it is a description of Jesus Christ." An electric silence followed that outburst. Edith replied, "Do you realize what you just said? Don't forget I was fair to you in prefacing what I read by telling you it was written 700 years before Christ was born." All three young men sat down as if struck down into their seats with a blow.

The son of the household suddenly looked up at Edith and said, "Tell me then why the Jews don't accept this Jesus Christ as the Messiah?"

Her reply came as gently as she could make it: "The early Christians all were Jews because that is exactly what did happen: some Jews who read their Torah carefully and  were waiting for the Messiah did recognize and accept him as the one who fulfilled the prophecies. You see, Christianity is Jewish."

5. A conversation with a Jewish doctor. In Italy Edith was thanking an orthopedic surgeon originally from Poland for taking the time to examine her son before returning to his hospital in Israel. The conversation turned to the doctor's years in Israel. He said that although he was an atheist himself, he had a question to ask: "Why is it that Jewish people in India, absorbed in that culture for so many centuries, are coming to Israel at such tremendous cost and upheaval to their lives just because the land of Moses is once more a nation of Jews? It doesn't make sense unless ... but, you see, I don't believe there is a God."

"You're going tomorrow," observed Edith, "and perhaps there won't be another time for conversation. I'd like to tell you what I think is the answer to that question." You can read it yourself in the chapters that follow.

Chapter 2: 

Philosophical Foundation

Edith Schaeffer in this chapter lays a philosophical foundation before starting her biblical bird's-eye view in the next. She begins by quoting her husband, Dr. Francis Schaeffer: "The universe had either a personal or impersonal beginning. If it is an impersonal universe, the evolvement of personality is a sad thing because there is no satisfactory explanation giving meaning to thinking, acting, communicating, loving, having ideas, choosing, being full of creativity, and responding to the creativity of others. It is like a fish developing lungs in an airless universe. The longings and aspirations of personality drown without fulfillment." (Here are links for learning more about Francis Schaeffer and his major works.)

Francis and Edith Schaeffer feeding ducks and swans at Territet Quay near Castle Chillon, Switzerland at time of writing How Should We Then Live? Photo taken around 1976 by Mustafa Arshad-Müller.

Edith recalled listening to a lecture by a Jewish scientist and Nobel prize winner who discarded Genesis as far as history goes, and therefore was left with believing in the impersonal beginning of all things. He began, "Billions and billions of years ago, eons and eons of time ago, there was nothing but particles moving about in chaotic order. And suddenly—by chance—two came together with an affinity for each other." He went on to spin out a succession of formulas, unfolding a faith accepting that time plus chance were the only two factors involved in all that we taste, see, feel, think about, observe emotionally, intellectually, or psychologically or discover through years of study.

"Four hundred years ago a collection of molecules wrote Hamlet," she distinctly remembered the scientist asserting. He went on to speak similarly about musicians such as Beethoven and concluded with a plea about reducing the atomic stockpile and stopping the destruction of algae in the sea to avoid running out of oxygen. His final words? "I have no place for the supernatural in my scheme of things, but I am one who reads the Bible and I leave you with this quote from it: 'Therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.'"

That is a citation by Moses, which in its context reads, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to Him, for He is your life and length of days" (Deuteronomy 30:19-20). The prophet Ezekiel said something similar with this message from God: "'Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? I have no pleasure in the death of anyone,' declares the Lord God, 'so turn and live!'" (Ezekiel 18:29-32). But how can a collection of molecules chemically predetermined by its formula choose anything? Something here does not fit.

If one chooses an impersonal beginning, one must go on to the logical conclusion of an impersonal universe and an insignificant human being and meaningless history. Before going on to the rest of her book, which is to show the reality that flows from the biblical explanation of all things, Schaeffer describes the relativistic thinking that flows from an impersonal view of the universe. Instead of choosing between right and wrong, it leads to a middle choice between them and on and on in a series of choices that go from black and white to gray and eventually something unrecognizable. You have no base for morals, government, or law because there is no absolute or fixed point for justice, action, or teaching the next generation. All is in a state of flux with no assurance that the stove will not freeze tomorrow. Thankfully, that is not our experience of reality.

Philosophical darkness is nothing new. The prophet Isaiah vividly described it like this: "Behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples," but he also says, "Arise, shine for your light has come.... The Lord will arise upon you and His glory will be seen" (Isaiah 60). There is a light in the darkness. There is truth to be found. What is truth? Francis Schaeffer coined the term true truth: that which simply is, always has been, and always will be, whether we like it or not.

What are the answers to: Who am I? What is my purpose for existing? What is ahead of me? Is there any life after death? What possible base is there for moral judgments? Does history have any meaning? Is my place in history significant at all? What are the answers if one starts with a personal beginning? That is the topic of the rest of this book.

Chapter 3: 

Genesis 1-2: Creation

It is necessary to start with the first book of Moses: "In the beginning God" (Genesis 1:1). That is to say, in the beginning a Person—an Infinite Person, but truly a person. In the beginning thinking, acting, feeling, love, communication, ideas, choice, creativity. We are told in Genesis 1:26 that "God said, 'Let us make man in our image.'" The Bible makes it clear from beginning to end that there is only one true God, yet here we see that some kind of yet-undefined plurality has a foothold in His own nature. God makes man in His own image in a people-oriented universe created by a Person. This is a universe with fulfillment in it for the aspirations of artists, poets, musicians, gardeners, and the like because it has been created by an Artist, Poet, Musician, and Gardener. We are made in the image of our Creator so we are made to be creative. Bach, Beethoven, Tolstoy, and Leonardo da Vinci, for example, were created with the ability to create superlative works of art in a variety of areas, and to appreciate what other people create. Virtues like compassion do not suddenly appear out of nowhere, but already characterize the One who made man in His image. The Lord is His name.

Picture a child asking, "Who made this house?" The answer is a person who thought up the house in his or her mind and then chose how to arrange it. All such questions trace back to a verbalizing God, able to communicate with the verbalizing people He created. He has put into understandable words the account we need to know concerning the beginning of all things. Moses was given by divine inspiration the understanding and factual knowledge to impart in words that could be read, reread, and studied.

God has provided us with a verbalized condensation of what we need to know to understand something of the situation we are in. The spoiler alert is that this is a spoiled universe, but the Lord God is making sure it will not stay that way. What happened?

Isaiah was given a piece of the jigsaw puzzle to understand where sin and evil originated. Before God created human beings, He had already created angels: rational creatures, like man acting by choice rather than instinct, but of a higher order than man. Isaiah 14:12-17 tells us that Lucifer, meaning son of the morning, was the most beautiful of the angels, but he chose to rebel against the leadership of God. He desired to be equal with God and have a throne so other angels might worship him. That rebellion became the conflict of the ages and brought sin into God's newly created universe. The Bible tells us elsewhere that Lucifer and the angels who joined him, becoming demons in the process, will be cast down and completely defeated. People at that future but certain time will look at Lucifer with amazement, saying, "Could this possibly be the one who caused all the disruption in the earth, who brought about all the horrible things that shook the kingdoms of the world, who vandalized the world into a wilderness and caused cities to be destroyed?"

That is the vandal who caused the world to become spoiled, but not completely ruined. He is the forerunner of Hitler, who with the same type of bitterness resolved that even if he was going to lose the war, he would take as many down with him as possible so nothing, or as little as possible, would be left for his enemy, God. Evil is not an impersonal bowl of something that spilled out into the world. Evil is a matter of choice, and that choice has to take place in a rational mind. Notice the choice involved in Lucifer's recording sayings: "I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will ascend into heaven, I will be like the Most High." This war still continues, and all other wars have some relationship to it.

The reality of a personal universe is seen not only in the creation we observe, feel, taste, see, and hear, but also in the constant evidence within us of this struggle: to do or not to do, that is the question. We have a choice to make moment by moment; we know we have choice. How did the choice of Lucifer, later known as Satan and the devil, lead to causing the perfection of God's creation to be spoiled? That is revealed in Genesis chapters 3-4.

Chapter 4:

Genesis 3: Choice of What to Believe; Genesis 4: Divergent paths of Abel and Cain

After God's creation of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, and His ongoing communication and interpersonal relationship with them day by day, how long was it before Lucifer, now Satan, waited to make his attack? We have no record of the length of time, but we are told that one day he came in the form of a serpent and spoke to Eve, saying, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?'" That was a subtle injection of doubt into Eve's mind. The implication was that perhaps God had not spoken the truth. Even knew God had told them to eat of every tree except one. Eve answered that God had told them that if they ate the fruit of that one particular tree, they would die.

Satan is not very original. His subtle question is really the same through all centuries, including this one. Every human being who has ever heard or read the words in the Bible hears Satan's question at one time or another: Did God really say that? Is this really the Word of God? Can you trust this as truth?

Satan's flat contradiction of God's word to Adam and Eve came next as he stated dogmatically, "You will surely not  die." Satan is saying God has lied. The serpent continues, "God knows that when you eat this fruit, you shall be like Him, knowing good and evil." He is essentially saying, "God is trying to keep you ignorant. If only you eat that forbidden fruit, you will be brilliant and wise with instant knowledge." One statement is true; one is false. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Adam and Eve should have chosen to believe God since He is trustworthy and is truth personified, but they chose to believe Satan instead. They ate with faith, but in the wrong person. Faith in itself is nothing special; what matters is in whom faith is placed.

If Adam and Eve had truly loved God, they would have wanted to please Him. If they had been eager to obey Him, they would not have disobeyed His command. If they had believed God, they would not have believed the lie of Satan. If they had a question or doubt, they could have said, "We will ask in our talk together with God tonight as we walk in the cool of the evening. He will explain to us who you are and why you have contradicted Him." Remember, they had open communication with God back then.

But they rushed ahead to eat, believing Satan rather than God, plunging themselves and all generations following them into darkness. Death had now entered the universe, bringing multiple forms of separation with it: separation from clear communication with God and expulsion from the blissful Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve's perfect relationship with one another was spoiled, and separation of person from person begins. Separation psychologically of the person inside had its beginning. Separation of body and soul was ahead, but disease, physical pain, and brokenness began. The universe became abnormal. Satan had walked through God's art museum and vandalized it with slashes of senseless destruction. He is still trying to separate people from God with seemingly endless lies to contradict truth in a variety of ways, but God has ordained that Satan's rebellion will end. We are still in that period of time before the end.

Why did God allow things to happen like this? Remember, God made people in His image as personalities who could think, act, feel, have ideas, choose, communicate, and create. Choice is involved in every moment of life, mundane or fantastic. Choice gives a person significance and dignity. It is a basic ingredient of freedom, purpose, and incentive.

Adam and Eve's very real historic period of time in close relationship with God in a perfect environment came to an end on the basis of their choice, so real and significant that history was changed. But God, being God, already knew that would happen and announced a predetermined plan of rescue when pronouncing sentence on the serpent for his deception, saying, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring: He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel" (Genesis 3:15). That is the first promise of the Messiah, who is the Savior and Deliverer of humankind. Adam and Eve were given hope immediately and another statement by God to believe.

That hope promises this isn't the end; there is something good ahead. Things can be put back together again someday. The first man and woman needed now to really believe in God and act on that belief. They, and we as we read the Genesis record, see God's attributes of holiness, justice, mercy, and love on display. God replaces Adam and Eve's flimsy fig-leaf coverings with animal skins. That act is a vivid illustration of an important truth: something had to die because of the rebellious choice the first humans made. Before they sinned, no covering at all was needed. They had not known shame in any slight degree. Do you think as their hands smoothed the softness of their skin clothing that Adam and Eve would have forgotten their first glimpse of violent, bloody death as a result of their sin?

Cain and Abel, as sons of Adam and Eve, surely had some explanation of what had happened to their parents. We know they knew of God's existence because Genesis 4 tells us they came to make an offering to the Lord. In some way it had been explained to them what kind of offering to bring. Imagine two altars of rough, unpolished stones. Cain brings his fruits and vegetables, perhaps an artistic arrangement of oranges, polished apples, artichokes, bananas, cabbages, bright carrots, and shining purple onions with green grapes trailing their curls and leaves over the edges of the stone. "How spiritual!" one might exclaim. Now Abel brings a little lamb, a perfect one, and kills it on the altar. Do you think, What a sight to turn away from! What has this to do with worship?

We are told that God accepted Abel's offering. Why? On the basis of the lamb. God rejected Cain's offering. Why? Because Cain came with his own works in defiance of what God had said and modeled. The book of Hebrews in the New Testament was written to Jewish people to make things clear to them at that time. It states, "By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained certainty that he was righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, Abel still speaks." Abel's faith, to this day, continues to help people by making clear to us what God wants us all to know.

Abel's sacrifice reveals that coming with the lamb is the way to come to God, looking forward to the Messianic promise given to Adam and Eve that someone would make a costly but successful sacrifice to atone for rebellious humanity. If it had been possible to look over the two altars and the history springing from them, we might have seen something like this:

Illustration from Christianity Is Jewish.

This represents people who have believed God and acted on what He said, like Abel, and those like Cain who did not believe but said in one form or another, "I'll do my own thing." All religions that have ever been thought up have had something in common: the belief that through religious or moral works, they will be accepted by whatever concept of God or Spirit they have. Abel's bringing of the lamb was with some measure of understanding that it was impossible to pay for sin oneself, and that God had really spoken truth when He said to come with the lamb as a substitutionary sacrifice. We will see that theme emphasized in the lives of Abraham and Isaac.

Chapter 5: 

Noah and Abraham, Isaac and the Lamb

Was Abel a Jew and Cain a Gentile? No, there were two streams of people, but not yet had the people of God been given a specific and more detailed covenant. Abel was dead by the hand of Cain, but Adam and Eve had other children who believed, from whom came Noah. In Genesis 6 we learn there were no people left, outside Noah's immediate family, who believed God. The majority had rebelled and believed a lie rather than the truth. Noah was given a message from God to give the people, but they laughed at him in scorn, declaring that message was not true. When God told Noah to prepare an ark for a coming worldwide flood, he believed and acted on that belief in the midst of a jeering crowd. The ark was open for a long time for any who would join Noah and his family before the flood came, but no one came. The minority who did believe were safe in the ark while the earth was flooded, but others could have been inside if they believed God's warning was true.

In the book of Hebrews we are told that "by faith Noah, being warned by God of things not yet seen, moved with fear [born of belief that the flood was really going to come], preparing an ark to save his family, by which he condemned the world and became an heir of righteousness, which is by faith." Verse 6 of Hebrews 11 gives a brilliant summary of the Bible's main message: "Without faith, it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him."

Genesis 12 makes it clear that Abraham followed Noah and Abel in living by faith in God. Abraham lived in Ur of the Chaldees, which we learn from archaeology had a highly developed culture, but God told Abraham to leave that area and go to a land God would show him, making this great promise: "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." That promise fits with the original promise made to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15 about the Messiah. Abraham will be the head of the family from whom the Messiah would come.

By the time of Genesis 15, Abraham is still old and childless. He suggests a backup heir to God but is told, "Your very own son shall be your heir." Then God led Abraham outside at night, saying, "Look toward heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them. So shall your offspring be." Verse 6 tells us that Abraham "believed the Lord, who counted it to him as righteousness." Isaac was later miraculously born and nursed by Abraham's elderly wife, Sarah.

How did Abraham worship? With the lamb as a sacrifice, looking forward with some understanding to a coming person who will bless the peoples of the earth. Abraham realized this promised one would come through a descendant of Isaac. Genesis 22 makes this clear with Abraham's supreme test of faith. God calls Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice on one of the mountains in the land of Moriah.

Abraham, trusting God with all his heart and believing somehow that the promises He made will be fulfilled, starts out early in the morning with two servants, a load of wood for the burnt offering, and a saddled donkey. Isaac is with him. How do we know Abraham trusted God? Because when he saw the mountain God indicated, he told the servants: "Wait here with the donkey. I and the boy will go and we will return to you." That plural we is important. Abraham shows confidence, knowing very well that God is not worshiped with human sacrifice, but with a lamb. God has said Isaac will be the father of many people, so Abraham therefore expects God either to prevent Isaac's death or bring him back to life.

Abraham and Isaac walk up the mountain, Isaac carrying the wood and Abraham carrying fire and a knife. Knowing that a lamb is missing, Isaac asks, "Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Abraham replies, "God Himself will provide the lamb." Isaac walks on, also showing confidence in God. He is now more a young man than a child, stronger than his elderly father and able to offer resistance. The fire, knife, and wood must have been put down as they prepared an altar built of stones. Isaac allowed his father to place him on the wood now arranged on the altar and bind him there with knife outstretched.

Suddenly a voice comes out of heaven and tells Abraham to stay his hand. In a thicket nearby is a ram, the lamb needed for the sacrifice, with its horns stuck fast. "So Abraham went and took the ram, offering it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. He called that place Jehovah Jireh, which means 'the Lord will provide.'" This was a very important demonstration that God was going to fulfill His promise that one day the nations of the earth would be blessed through the line of Abraham and Isaac. A substitution would take place on that very mountain as God's solution to the spoiled universe and man's sin. Mount Moriah later became known as the Jerusalem Temple Mount.

Later, as the Jewish people celebrated the Day of Atonement with the coming of the Mosaic Law, they were meant to have some understanding of the substitutionary atonement of the Lamb, the Messiah, taking their place once and for all in a way one-for-one animal sacrifices never could. Abraham and Isaac came down Mount Moriah knowing they had been shown a substitution. They even had been shown where it would take place one day. This is the covenant God made with them that day: "By Myself I have sworn," declares the Lord, "because you have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven and the sand on the seashore.... In your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed My voice."

Two thousand years after that, Simon Peter, another Jew, one who had become convinced that the prophecies had been fulfilled, declared to his countrymen: "You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, 'In your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.' God, having raised up His servant, sent Him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness." The seed of Abraham, born of a woman, opened the way to blessing Jew and non Jew alike. That was a Jewish idea before it became a Christian idea, as we can see when we take a closer look at the painting by the renowned Jewish artist Marc Chagall, which Edith Schaeffer selected for the cover of Christianity Is Jewish. Chagall called it "Sacrifice of Isaac," but in the background it portrays another sacrifice involving a cross that will be discussed later when we reach that part of the Bible.

Chapter 6: 

Jacob and Joseph, 12 Tribes of Israel, Moses and Passover 

Years passed and the family of Abraham, through the seed of Isaac and Isaac's son Jacob, increased. The 12 sons of Jacob, who was later renamed Israel by God (Genesis 32), were to be the fathers of 12 tribes that later would become the backbone of a new nation. One of those sons, Joseph, was persecuted by his jealous brothers and sold as a slave in Egypt. Joseph was a wise, godly man whom God blessed and elevated to second after Pharaoh in the land. He is a picture of one to come from God in the future: a person rejected by his own people, yet willing to endure and provide them and others the help they so desperately needed.  A compassionate Joseph looks forward to a compassionate Messiah. Joseph later would tell his brothers, "'You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good ... that many people should be kept alive.... So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.' Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them" (Genesis 50:20-21). 

By the end of Genesis, Jacob and his entire family, numbering around 70 now, have come down to Egypt to have their needs met during a severe famine. Joseph unfolds something of what the Messiah will do when he gives the bread of life to the family members of Israel who once rejected him. The next book in the Bible  begins about 400 years later with the Hebrews multiplying in the land of Egypt (Exodus 1). A new pharaoh came to the throne who did not know and appreciate the history of Joseph and his people. He made their lives bitter with hard work: making brick and working in fields. Moses was born at a time when that pharaoh was seeking to destroy the baby boys of his Jewish subjects to keep them from multiplying, but God protected Moses.

When Moses was 80, God called him to be an instrument of delivering His people from Egypt to a new land of promise. Something would happen in Exodus 12 that would remind the people perpetually of what they had been taught about Abraham and Isaac, and take them one step further into understanding what it means to come to God with a lamb as their substitute. (A kid or goat could be used instead.) Each Jewish household was to nourish and cherish a spotless lamb for several days, kill it, and apply its blood to their door posts on each side and above. The angel of death would see that blood and pass over their houses in the final plague from God that would motivate the stubborn Pharaoh to let the Israelites go from Egypt.

Was faith needed that first Passover night? Yes, the kind of faith Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph needed: that what God says is true. As the people of Israel ate their Passover meal, they were ready to move out soon after and be pilgrims in a wilderness. Passover was a picture of the promised seed of the woman from Genesis 3:15. Someone was coming who would have victory over death. He would die that others might live forever.

Pharaoh treacherously decided to lead his army to pursue the Israelites making their exodus from Egypt. Moses said to the people, "Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will work for you today. The Egyptians you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you" (Exodus 14:13). That day the Israelites saw the Red Sea split into great sea walls of water with a dry road between for them to walk over—probably over a million people by this point after 400 years of fruitful generations. Is it hard for the Creator of the universe to push back the water of His own creation for His people to be given safe passage? Enabling them to walk between those walls of water demonstrates the truth of God's strength and power now as well as then. As the Egyptian army rushed ahead on that road between the walls of water in pursuit, all that water came rushing back in. God simply removed the miracle and the sea went back to its normal position.

God's people had seen the salvation of the Lord from the death of the firstborn because they fulfilled His command to use the blood of the lamb as a sign of their believing. They saw it again when Pharaoh decided to pursue the very-much-alive firstborn sons of Israel. It is right to thank God these matters of history were written for the generations to come, for we are in that category and can follow the thread of continuity with understanding and belief. Our praise for God is to be real—not a hollow, irrational hope, but a hope based on truth.

Chapter 7: 

The Exodus, Wilderness, and Golden Calf

The book of Exodus was given by inspiration to Moses, who was living through much of what he was writing about, as well as being given knowledge and understanding far beyond his own. Think about the realities the exodus from Egypt: a million+ Jews, babies  born daily, people airing out their sleeping pads in the desert, shaking out clothing, and talking with one another about all that happened. What important topics of conversation they had been given! What terrific proof that there was a true and living God who had freed them from the whip and sweat of slavery! There must have been eager expectation to see how God would lead next and provide for their immediate needs.

What were those needs? Food and water. Sadly, the forgetful majority soon complained they would be better off dead than to wait for God's provision. The Lord patiently said to Moses He would rain bread called manna morning by morning, which would be like coriander seed and taste like wafers made with honey. Perhaps it was like a wheat germ, yogurt, and honey mixture; surely it had all the right nutritive ingredients for the people and their children. Morning by morning people would swarm out of their tents. There was plenty for everyone. In fact, if people were greedy and took too much, any left over would go sour and moldy overnight. It was a perfect demonstration of how God means for His people to be supplied with their daily bread. In Exodus 16:32 Moses says, "This is what the Lord has commanded: 'Let an omer [a few handfuls] of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.'" The words written by Moses would be read over and over again through the years. Actual manna was supernaturally preserved for a time so it could be seen by people not yet born as a proof to them that all this was true history. The written record serves that purpose for us now.

Remember that during the first Passover, the lamb had been eaten (after its blood had first been applied) to supply strength for the exodus ahead. Now the manna, their daily bread, had a double reason for being given. The lamb was to point forward to the Messiah, who would one day come and take the place of those needing atonement. The manna looks forward to spiritual food, which this same Messiah would supply day by day to those who come believing. When he comes he is to say to Jews, who had the books of Moses and were meant to study them and discuss them with their children day and night, "I am the bread of life." The people in the wilderness thirsted and were miraculously provided with all the water they needed. Is it a surprise the Messiah would later say, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water'" (Isaiah 44:3; Isaiah 55:1; John 7:37-46)?

Back to Moses: he had gone up Mount Sinai, leaving his brother, Aaron, and the other elders below with the people. He received the Ten Commandments and had been given specific plans for the tabernacle, a place for worship. Moses had been told that two lambs were to be offered day by day, one in the morning and one in the evening, at the door of the tabernacle. God promised to meet him there and declared, "I will dwell among the children of Israel and be their God. They shall know that I am the Lord their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt" (Exodus 29). 

But even as Moses was about to start down that long mountain with tablets of stone on which God Himself had written, an impatient, complaining mob of people were persuading Aaron to give them a visible god to bow in front of. What an amazing turning away from evidence! People don't change much. Eve and Adam had the words of God ringing in their ears, and all His perfect creation around them, but they turned from that truth to a lie. Abel believed and offered a lamb, but Cain—who had the same opportunity to know the truth—defiantly brought the work of his hands instead. Now the multitudes persuade Aaron to set up an idol, a golden calf, essentially leading the people to the altar of Cain.

Here there is no living lamb dying to provide necessary atonement from sin, but a bloodless idol. False religious leaders today likewise provide a variety of golden calves, happy to find ways of leaving the altar of the bleeding lamb. Moses prayed and interceded for his stubborn people after punishing the worst of them, asking God to remember His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel. God answered his prayer by giving the people another chance to repent.

The tabernacle later is built, with details given by God to Moses. Worship is centered about the lamb. In its most holy place, behind a heavy curtain, the ark of the covenant—a box including the tablets of the law and the manna sample—has a lid or covering called the mercy seat. Year after year the high priest went into this holy of holies to sprinkle the blood of a spotless lamb for the sins of the Jewish believers on the mercy seat. Children's questions on what this was all about were meant to be answered in full. There was supposed to be understanding and a growing anticipation that the Messiah would come in person, fulfilling all that was pointing toward him as the one would provide complete and final atonement.

When Moses died, God spoke to Joshua to carry on with this great promise of continuity. Before Joshua himself died, he urged the people, saying, "Fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and in truth. Put away the gods your fathers served [Cain's line of false worship, in other words] and serve the Lord. Chose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24). The people cried out that they did not want to serve any other gods, but that they indeed would serve the Lord God, who had brought them out of Egypt. Their choice that day was very strong, and they did serve the living God for the rest of Joshua's life and the time during which the elders lived who were Joshua's helpers and had known the works of the Lord during his time. How marvelous it would have been if everyone born of the Israelites continued to know, believe, and act upon their belief throughout the centuries! We know that is not what happened, yet always there were some who did believe and continue in the stream of believers looking forward with hope to the fulfillment of all the promises God gave to Abraham.

Chapter 8: 

Circumcision, a Remnant, Gideon, Hannah, Samuel, David, Solomon, Elijah

As we fly like an imaginary bird over time and space to see the continuity of God's truth and the dominant stubbornness and occasional faithfulness of people, we consider Abraham again, who was the first person to be circumcised as a mark of the covenant God made with him (Genesis 17). After that, every male child born in the line of Abraham, called Jews or Israelites since the time of Moses, was circumcised to show he was included in the covenant as one of God's people. But circumcision did not protect anyone from making foolish choices. It was an outward sign that a boy had been born into the line of Abraham, but an inward belief by boys, girls, men, and women was necessary to be in the eternal family of God. Notice what we read in Deuteronomy 10: "And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord Your God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him and serve Him with all your heart and soul? Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and no longer be stubborn. Love the stranger, for you yourselves were strangers in Egypt. Fear the Lord Your God: Him you shall serve and to Him You shall cleave and swear by His name."

What counted then and now is inward belief that God's verbalized, understandable message is true, with day-by-day actions demonstrating that fact. Circumcision was an individual sign given to families that they were part of the people of God: people who worshiped the one, true, living God and not the gods of men's making, people who came to their worship through a substitutionary lamb. These circumcised people had the sign in their bodies that their parents had solemnly promised to teach them the truth of God's Word morning, noon, and night. That included telling them what the Passover lamb meant. Sadly, a lot of parents broke that promise.

 

When any man came to believe in the truth of the God of the Jews being the one real God of the universe, he became circumcised to show that fact. In that way some "outsiders" came into God's real family through belief, while many circumcised ones shifted to Cain's line of unbelief. In the New Testament we read that Rabbi Saul, known also as the apostle Paul, says this to other Jews: "No one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God" (Romans 2:28-29). He goes on to ask if there is any advantage at all in being a Jew. His answer is that there is much advantage because Jews were committed to the teaching of God in the Bible. Just because some did not believe does not cancel out true belief: just because people say a thing is not true and turn away scornfully, their unbelief does not affect reality one bit. What really exists remains whether anyone believes it is there or not. The bump you get on your head from hitting the corner of a door is just as painful even if you say the door is not there. Paul then goes on to discuss the faithfulness of Abraham.

Happily, there were other circumcised ones through the centuries who were faithful to God. There was always a remnant to teach the next generation and confront false teachers. Some came to have the courage to stand in the most terrifying places of danger. Look, as we fly hurriedly on, at Gideon (Judges 6-8). At his moment in history,  the Israelites were being devastated by the Midianites, who were stronger and had a large army. When God spoke to Gideon and commissioned him to step out and lead a counterattack to drive the enemy away, Gideon was amazed and, like Moses, spoke of his inability and weakness. He asked God for a sign to be sure it was God telling him to lead. The Lord, very gently and patiently, gave not just one sign, but several. Now Gideon, convinced this was his task, gathered together an army of 32,000 men to fight, but God wanted Gideon to trust in Him more than that army so after two tests, 22,000 soldiers went back home and all but 300 were eliminated.

Those 300 soldiers were set against the hosts of Midian and their allies. By following God's strategy, Gideon arranged his men in groups of 100 on three hills surrounding the Midianite tents in the valley. It was the middle of the night. The three groups were armed with pitchers, lamps, and horns. The lamps were lighted but covered with pitchers so that the light did not show. At a given signal they blew blasts on their horns and smashed their pitchers. As the groggy Midianites rushed out of their tents to see what the noise was, they were confused by the lights above and rushed at each other. They defeated themselves as they fought each other in the dark! After the blast of the horns and the crash, the 300 warriors shouted, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" further sealing the doom of the Midianites because the fear of Gideon was already running through their camp because of a dream God gave to a Midianite soldier.

Many women are recorded as strong in their faith in the living God, and their stories are meant to convince and strengthen others who hear from generation to generation. Stop to look at Hannah praying in the tabernacle as she asks for a son and promises to give him in a special way to the Lord. Listen to her prayer after Samuel is born: "My heart rejoices in the Lord; my strength is exalted in Him.... There is none holy as the Lord ... neither is there any rock like our God" (1 Samuel 2). Listen to Samuel years later (1 Samuel 12) as he ministered as a priest and prayed for a miracle to convince his people that God is indeed God and to turn back to Him: "Stand and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes!... Do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve Him with all your heart.... As for me, God forbid that I should sin in ceasing to pray for you, but I will teach you the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord and serve Him in truth with all your heart, for consider the great things He has done for you."

Soon after, Samuel is led by God to anoint an unknown teenage shepherd boy in preparation for later becoming king of Israel (1 Samuel 16). Come to the moment when this David stands before the giant Goliath, saying, "You come to me with a sword, spear, and shield, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts—the God of the armies of Israel—whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand. I will strike you and take your head from you, and give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth that all the earth may know there is a God in Israel. Everyone here will know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's and He will give you into our hands" (1 Samuel 17:45-47). Ask yourself, Has God been fair through the ages in making things clear to the Jews and any of the watching world who care to look and consider seriously whether God is really there?

Think about the psalms of this poet king and gifted musician:

• Psalm 9: "I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will show forth all Your marvelous works.... Those who know Your name will put their trust in You, for You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You."
• Psalm 19: Picture David as a shepherd boy sitting on hillsides under starry skies and watching the sun come up as he played his harp, later writing, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day to day utters speech and night unto night reveals knowledge."
• Psalm 22: David was given by God one more piece of understanding about the coming Messiah who would himself be the Lamb, the atonement. It is a startling prophecy that, like Isaiah 53, instantly reminds people about the crucifixion of Christ—1,000 years after David's time—if they know anything about it. David wrote and sang prophecies by inspiration, but the people who would live at the time it all happened and who had heard Psalm 22 sung in the temple Sabbath by Sabbath were given a key to open the door of understanding by the very fair Master of the universe, the living God who loved His people and wanted them to be prepared to recognize the moment of history so long prepared for when it arrived.

Solomon, David's son and successor, built the temple, a more permanent structure replacing the tabernacle. Before David died he charged Solomon to stay close to the word of God, the Scriptures, saying, "That the Lord may establish His word, which He spoke concerning me, saying, 'If your sons take heed to their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel'" (1 Kings 2:4). King Solomon sinned and turned from the law of God in many ways, but he did believe not only in the existence of the God of Moses, but in worshiping Him as prescribed (1 Kings 8-10)—until he compromised (1 Kings 11). He not only married many wives, but also got entangled with the false gods of those women, diminishing the possibility of truth being understood by many who would otherwise have known it.

As time went on, the Davidic and Solomonic kingdom became split and descended into fearful idolatry. In the days of King Ahab, Israelites worshiped the fertility god Baal, but the prophet Elijah stood firm and proclaimed the truth of God's Word. He had the courage to stand alone, like Abraham, Moses, and David, but in a unique way. Consider his preparation for ministry (1 Kings 17): Elijah is all alone in a wilderness spot by a brook when he learns to trust God for his morning and evening food in a time of famine. Ravens are birds that steal food and are not likely to drop it, but God ordered them to bring bread and meat to Elijah day and night! He was providing in just as definite a way for that one man as He had when He caused manna to drop down for the million plus. God is a personal God and since He is also infinite, time is no problem to Him, nor space, so He can care personally for each one of His children, no matter how many or how few.

Let's advance to when Elijah courageously faces 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel before the people of Israel (1 Kings 18). Elijah represents the true and living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel,  Moses, and David. He comes before the people and says to them, "How long will you halt between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him, but if Baal, then follow him." No one spoke up. Elijah called for a test: two altars were built and a bull prepared for each. The God who sends down fire to consume the sacrifice will be proven to be the true God. The prophets of Baal had the first turn. They called from morning until evening and nothing happened. They jumped around in a frenzy and cut themselves with knives, but nothing happened. When it was Elijah's turn, he dug a trench around his altar, filled it with water, and even soaked the offering on the altar. Then he prayed, "Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel, that I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your command. Hear me, O Lord, that this people may know that You are the Lord God and that You have turned their hearts back to You again." Elijah asked that their turning back would be on the basis not of emotion but a knowing with their intelligent understanding that God is really there.

Then the fire of the Lord fell in awesome power. True history is being given. This kind of religious truth is historical truth. When the people saw what took place, they fell on their faces—7,000 of them—and worshiped, saying, "The Lord He is God, the Lord He is God!" Elijah is someone special. Later he was taken to heaven alive in a fiery chariot with his assistant Elisha looking on in astonishment (2 Kings 2). Elisha caught Elijah's mantle or cloak as he went up and then took Elijah's place as a faithful prophet. God enables continuity in faithfulness in the past, present, and future. We now are either among the believing people of God, spiritual descendants of Abraham, or we are on one of the lines shooting off Cain's line, rebelling against coming to any god at all or making up our own religions.

Chapter 9: 

Elisha, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah

The prophet Elisha believed and spoke courageously. God gave him power to do many miracles so men, women, and children might realize what he was saying was true and listen. The Lord enabled Elisha to cause an axe head to float so it could be retrieved (2 Kings 6), and to heal  the commander of an enemy nation, Syria, from leprosy.  That officer, Naaman, came in faith to Elisha because of a young Israeli serving girl who had the courage and compassion to speak about God and His prophet (2 Kings 5). Previously, God worked through Elisha to multiply 20 loaves of bread and some corn to feed 100 men with food left over (2 Kings 4). When Elisha and his servant were surrounded by enemy chariots, the servant was terrified but Elisha was not and prayed for that servant's eyes to be opened to see the other part of the real universe. God allowed that servant to see the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire. That servant now knew Elisha was right when he said, "Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them" (2 Kings 6:16).

Time after time in history, one or many who believed were given understanding and courage to make the truth known. Some were always affected and came to the conviction that "the Lord, He is God," while others sneered or made up counter-explanations of beginnings, endings, how to live, and what life's purpose is.

King Hezekiah was a faithful believer who lived during the time of the prophet Isaiah. Listen in on his prayer in the midst of a grim situation: "O Lord God ... You are the God ... of all the kingdoms of the earth; You have made heaven and earth. Lord .... see and hear the words of Sennacherib ... to reproach the living God. Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the mere work of men's hands.... Now, therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech You, save us out of his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You, O Lord, are God alone" (2 Kings 19).

It was a prayer for another confrontation like the one between Elijah and the false prophets of Baal. The prophet Isaiah gave this answer from God to King Hezekiah: "I will defend this city and save it for My own sake and for My servant David's sake." That night the Angel of the Lord wiped out the Assyrian army—185,000 soldiers! Why? That all may know that the Lord is God alone and so the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and David would see God's promises fulfilled.

The promise to Abraham that was passed down through his line to Isaac, David, and now Hezekiah was that all the families of the earth would be blessed through someone coming from that family line: a messiah, a lamb (Genesis 3, Genesis 12, Genesis 22). Isaiah would be given the clearest picture yet of this savior. Isaiah chapter 53 starts out with questions: "Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" To any who will listen with ears and minds. To any who will read with eyes and an ordinary understanding of words and grammar. Isaiah is going to reveal what God has made plain to him so the people could have further understanding concerning the central aspects of their worship. Lambs are brought morning and evening to the priests. Lamb's blood is taken into the holy of holies once a year by the high priest to atone for the sins of the people, demonstrating the need for a substitute.

What about a one-time final substitute requiring no more sacrifices? That is what Isaiah goes on to describe, but it is not a what but a who—a suffering servant: "when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." This coming one is described as a man who will not look special, who will not stand out as a handsome, desirable person, or have a magnetic personality. "He is despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him." Isaiah is, 700 years before the Messiah comes, identifying the people and himself with the "we" who will reject the Messiah later. Isaiah is portraying what would happen, but in such a vivid way that the people who lived when Christ was actually being rejected should have been jolted into recognition—and some were.

"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." Clear? Very clear to a people who knew something about atonement from Moses's time onward. It was clear that this someone, the Messiah, would come and be bruised for the sins of others. He would be beaten with "stripes," and because of that the people could be healed, spiritually and eventually physically, and experience peace.

"All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." People, like sheep, wander off in a senseless fashion, looking for other pastures in dangerous spots. They need a shepherd to look out for them. Listen to what John, a Jew who much later wrote down some of the things the Messiah said about himself: "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep" (John 10).

Back to Isaiah as he points forward: "He was oppressed and he was afflicted, but he did not open his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth." The Messiah is to be the lamb. The Messiah is the one promised from the time of Adam and Eve. The Messiah, promised to all Jews from Abraham on, the one whom all the little sacrificial lambs represented, is to be the lamb. His atonement for the sins of the people is pointed forward to with crystal clarity now. This is no mere man. This one is to die for the people, and is the only one who could do it.

What a switch: the shepherd is to be the lamb! The lamb is the great shepherd. Think of King David's song about the shepherd, Psalm 23: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me like down in green pastures, He leads me beside the still waters, He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

"The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep." This shepherd is willing to become the lamb for the sake of his flock. The one and only true Lamb of God is willing to be the substitute—not just for Isaac on Mount Moriah as the ram pointed forward, but now in reality for all the children of Abraham who become part of the people of God through faith in the lamb He has provided to be a blessing to the world. The shepherd who becomes the lamb is able to be the substitute so that lost lambs, lost people, can indeed have goodness and mercy follow them all their days and enjoy everlasting life in the blessed house of their Shepherd Lord.

Isaiah tells us more: "He was taken from prison and from judgment. Who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of my people was he stricken." Here, 700 years before the death of Christ, is a description of his being taken from the judgment hall of Pontius Pilate to die—to be cut off from the land of the living as an atoning sacrifice. "They made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich in his death because he had done no violence, neither was there any deceit in his mouth." Jesus did die between two criminals, and the grave that Joseph of Arimathea offered was the tomb of a rich man. He died not for any sin of his own, for he was the sinless  Messiah, who alone could be a fitting substitute for sinful humanity. He was the perfect lamb without a single blemish.

"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him," Isaiah goes on to write. "He has put him to grief. When You shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed; He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. He shall see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and the strong because he has poured out his soul unto death and was numbered with the transgressors. He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors."

The approach on the line of Abel to the reality of the lamb is coming nearer, only 700 years away. He is going to bear the sins of many, many people: to people not yet born in Isaiah's time and all who have believed from Isaiah back. The shepherd will die for his sheep by becoming the sacrificial Lamb of God on their behalf. The one who is the lamb will be able to pray for—intercede for—his people without bringing the blood of a lamb because he himself is their lamb. God accepted his atoning sacrifice, demonstrated by raising him from the dead or prolonging his days to his joyful satisfaction, as Isaiah 53 records.

In the next chapter Isaiah cries out to Israel with a loud voice: "Fear not, for you shall not be ashamed.... Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth.... My kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord who has mercy on you" (Isaiah 54). Nearly 100 years later, another great prophet, Jeremiah, would be inspired to write of a new covenant or testament that describes work the suffering servant or lamb of Isaiah 53 would accomplish: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant ... not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make: ... I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.... They shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31).

One more testimony to the power of what is written in Isaiah 53 takes place after the resurrection and ascension of Christ. We are told that an Ethiopian man "of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, the one who had charge of all her treasure, had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah the prophet" (Acts 8). God prepared a man named Philip to talk to him in the desert location where he was reading. Philip overheard the man reading Isaiah out loud and asked him, "Do you understand what you are reading?" The Ethiopian replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" So he invited Philip to come into his chariot and ride with him. The portion of Isaiah he was reading from was what we call Isaiah 53, specifically: "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb is silent before his shearers, so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation, for his life is taken from the earth." The Ethiopian asks Philip, "Of whom is the prophet speaking: himself or someone else?" We are told, "Philip opened his mouth and, beginning with that Scripture, told him about Jesus."

What Philip did was use that precious portion of Isaiah to explain to the Ethiopian official what the sacrificial lambs in Hebrew Scripture were pointing forward to and what Isaiah himself pointed to as he described the atoning death and resurrection of the Messiah. The result was that the Ethiopian went back to his country a believer that this was all true, that Jesus Christ really was the Messiah. In fact he asked Philip to baptize him before they parted from each other. We are told that official went on his way rejoicing. Why not? He had just learned how the pieces fit together from the Holy Scriptures he had and how they related to significant events taking place in Jerusalem recently.

Chapter 10: 

Daniel, Jonah

Daniel was faithful to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When he was only about 18 years old, he and many other young noblemen and artisans were carried into captivity around 605 B.C. by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II (Daniel 1). Three of those fellow captives and friends of Daniel also proved to be faithful. When Nebuchadnezzar erected a huge golden image of himself and demanded everyone to bow down to it amid great musical fanfare, the three young men remained standing (Daniel 3). The penalty for not bowing down was to be thrown into a burning fiery furnace. Nebuchadnezzar, later repeating that threat to the three in person, demanded to know, "Who is the God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" Good question.

The three men answered confidently and respectfully: "We are not worried about answering you in this matter, O Nebuchadnezzar. Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from your furnace and will do so if He desires. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods nor worship the image you have set up." The king was furious. He commanded the strongest soldiers he had to bind the young men and heat the furnace seven times hotter than before, foolishly killing some of his own men in the process. But when the three were cast in, Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in astonishment and said to his counselors, "Did we not cast three men into the furnace? Look, I see four men walking freely about without harm, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods!"

Addressing the three by the names he assigned, the king humbly calls out, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out!" They did and we are told that the king and "the princes, governors, and the king's captains and counselors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power. Not a hair of their head was singed, neither were their clothes changed nor the smell of fire had passed on them."

Meditate on this factual history. Is it not obvious God cares to demonstrate His existence to all kinds of people? What a variety of miracles God has done and recorded that men and women, boys and girls throughout the ages might be impressed and believe! Always some believe, yet many more turn away, whether they are reading or whether they are actually there to taste, smell, feel, hear, and see. God has kindly orchestrated a series of memorable confrontations that have been carefully recorded to be remembered and passed down from generation to generation. For example, God vs. Pharaoh, Moses vs. the Golden Calf, Gideon vs. the Midianites, David vs. Goliath, Elijah vs. the prophets of Baal, Elisha vs. the Syrians, Hezekiah and Isaiah vs. Assyria, Daniel and his friends vs. Babylon.

Back to Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar proclaimed, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent His Angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him and set aside the king's command, yielding their bodies that they might not serve and worship any god but their own God. Therefore, I make a decree that every people, nation, and language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be cut in pieces and their houses made into a dunghill because there is no other God who can rescue in this way." Then the king promoted the three young men in the province of Babylon.

What a turnaround! First the king throws them into the furnace because they won't bow to his idol and then he is so overwhelmingly convinced by the miracle of God's working that he orders everyone to be cut up in little pieces if they say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, whom he praises for not obeying him! Faithful Jews were a blessing to the Gentile peoples among whom they lived, just as the unfaithful ones were a curse their own children by turning away to false gods—jumping down to Cain's line, in other words.

Daniel emerging unscathed after spending the night in a den of hungry lions is another proof to the observant that the God of Daniel is God indeed (Daniel 6). Daniel was privileged to receive visions of future events past Babylon to our own time and beyond that include the Messiah forever reigning as King of kings and Lord of lords. Daniel's contribution, along with others whom God chose to write the Bible, was to help complete all that God would have people throughout history, including ourselves, to know the next step toward that great climax. Sadly, many Jewish people were presented with a confused mixture of prophetic events, so they latched onto the positive notion of a reigning king and minimized the humbling notion of a lamb who would die as the final atonement. Hebrew Scripture predicts that the Messiah would come first as the lamb and then as the king. They are like two peaks in a mountain range, but when you examine them closely, you see there is a long valley in between them, representing what has proven to be about 2,000 years so far.

The distance from which we are looking often affects the perspective we get. Reading an accurate history book gives a clearer idea of what really took place than reading daily newspaper equivalents of the period one is studying. The Bible is God's portrayal of actual history—past, present, and future—and what to do about sin to be forgiven. That does not mean the writers of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures understood every detail they themselves wrote. Here are two famous New Testament Scriptures about that:

• "The prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit ... in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you .... Even angels long to look into these things" (1 Peter 1:10-12).
• "Now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12). 

Seeing through a mirror dimly is still seeing something, however. Isaiah wrote a clear description of the suffering servant or lamb being judged unfairly and dying for his people as a substitute. Daniel wrote of the Messiah coming as king. Both were right. The Messiah is to be both things—but the time is separated and people got mixed up. At the time the Messiah came, a lot of the Jews were confused, but some were able to see with increasing clarity.

A passage in Isaiah  refers to the first coming of the Messiah and then immediately to his second coming. Jesus read that passage (Isaiah 61:1-2) out loud in the synagogue he grew up in (Luke 4:16-30). Dr. Luke tells us, "He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.' He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. He began to say to them, 'Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'"

At the point Jesus deliberately stopped, proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor, Isaiah 61 goes on to speak of the day of vengeance of our God and comfort given to those who mourn in Zion, who will receive beauty to replace ashes and the oil of joy to replace mourning. He stopped there because those things will take place in the future at the Messiah's second coming. We will speak more of that later.

Finishing our time in the Hebrew Scriptures, God many times promised to remember His people if they would repent and remember Him, seeking Him with all their hearts. These are just two:

• In Deuteronomy 4 Moses states, "You will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul..... In the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice (for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them." 
• Nehemiah, who led faithful Jews back to Jerusalem to rebuild after the Babylonian captivity, prayed, "Remember the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.' Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand" (Nehemiah 1). 

From the prophet Jonah we learn that the promise to seek and find God with all one's heart applies not only to Jews. God called Jonah to go the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in modern-day Iraq and cry out against its great wickedness. Jonah's reaction to the command of God was not commendable for a prophet: he went the opposite direction as fast as he could, boarding a ship for Tarshish or Spain. He paid his fare, got into the ship, and thought he succeeded in getting away from the Lord and his unwanted commission. Jonah 1 tells us, "But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up."

The terrified sailors were praying to their gods and decided to cast lots in a desperate attempt to find out if someone was responsible for this catastrophe. The lot fell on Jonah, who was excruciatingly honest, saying, "I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who has made the sea and dry land." The mariners were even more afraid since, we are told, "They replied, 'Why have you done this?' For the men knew he had fled from the presence of the Lord because Jonah told them." Jonah also told them the only solution was to toss him overboard, but the sailors did not want to do that. Perhaps they were attracted by his honesty and courage. After trying very hard to row back to land, they gave up and prayed—not to their own gods now but to the Lord God of heaven and earth: "Please do not let us perish for this man's life, and do not charge us with innocent blood; for You, O Lord, have done as it pleased You."

After that prayer "they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows." Those once-pagan mariners earnestly sought the Lord with all their heart and found Him! This certainly was a different reaction than Pharaoh had in Egypt when he saw miracles. People don't automatically believe when they see or hear of a dramatic answer from God Almighty to specific prayer.

Back to Jonah in the sea: we are told that "the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah." We have recorded instances of great fish swallowing people who later live to tell about it, but this fish was especially prepared to be in the right place at the right time so Jonah would not drown and have a second opportunity to make God known to other pagans in danger of perishing. When the time came, "the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land" (Jonah 2). "So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent. And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk. Then he cried out and said, 'Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!' So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them" (Jonah 3).

What happened? "God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it." These people really changed, showing outwardly the reality of what had taken place inwardly. How did Jonah respond? He was angry, knowing God is always gracious and merciful toward those who truly repent (Jonah 4). Jonah would rather have had those notorious enemies of Israel perish than repent and join God's family by genuine saving faith. God confronted that bad attitude gently: "Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?" God continued to confront that bad attitude among the Jewish leaders of Jesus's day, and still does today. Let's learn more from the New Testament.

Chapter 11: 

Immanuel, Mary, Elizabeth 

In this flight through history, if you now are or have been identifying with the ones believing that God is speaking understandable truth, we come now to the important moment so long ago promised to Eve: that her seed will deal a fatal blow to the enemy of our souls who brought sin and death into our world (Genesis 3:15). But how could that happen? Couples since the first man and woman have known that the seed comes from the man, not the woman. This great mystery is solved in the first chapter of the New Testament, Matthew 1, which begins in a very Jewish way: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus the Christ [the Greek word for Messiah], the Son of David, the Son of Abraham."

After tracing the line down to "Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ," we are told "the birth of Jesus the Christ was as follows: when His mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.... An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the One who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son and you shall call His name Jesus [the Greek equivalent of Joshua, which means the Lord is salvation], for He will save His people from their sins.' Now all this took place that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: 'Behold, the virgin shall conceive and  bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,' which means, 'God with us' (Isaiah 7:14)." No man's seed was involved in this divine-human birth: the Holy Spirit of God Himself provided the seed in Mary for the promised Savior of the world to be born. Jesus would live up to His name by living a perfect life and offering it up as the Lamb of God, an atoning sacrifice for the sins of all His people—past, present, and future.

A virgin birth: impossible? No, unique. Dr. Luke, probably writing after Matthew because he adds details Matthew did not, records this event from Mary's point of view (Luke 1): God sent the angel Gabriel to tell Mary she was highly favored and had been chosen by God to conceive in her womb and bring forth a son whose name shall be Jesus, explaining, "He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give to Him the throne of His father, David. He shall rue over the house of Jacob forever, and of His Kingdom there shall be no end." Mary was obviously a faithful, believing Jew, but not above asking a down-to-earth, honest question: "How shall this happen since I am a virgin?" She was engaged to Joseph, but not yet married to him and sexually active.

Gabriel, realizing that was a fair, respectful question, told Mary just what she needed to know: that something very special would take place. The Holy Spirit would soon overshadow her with supernatural power to cause this unique pregnancy to take place, adding, "Mary, this seems impossible to you, but realize that with God, nothing is impossible." To prove that point, he gave her news both stunning and thrilling: "Your elderly, once-barren cousin Elizabeth is now six months pregnant!"

To back up to that true tale, the angel Gabriel first visited Elizabeth's husband, Zechariah, before visiting Mary. Zechariah, a priest, was ministering in the Jerusalem temple when Gabriel appeared to him there and told him, "Your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord ... and be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared." Zechariah, however, did not believe this message and requested proof. The proof he got was not being able to speak until John was born.

Mary did believe what that same angel told her, responding humbly and willingly, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word." She immediately went on a long journey south from Nazareth in Galilee to visit Elizabeth and Zechariah in the hill country of Judea. Imagine the help of having another human being to talk to—two, in fact—who were prepared to believe her and consider the wonder of it all! It reveals the understanding kindness of a loving Heavenly Father. God gave an additional, not-asked-for sign to Mary because Elizabeth was the one who began the conversation with a loud, enthusiastic greeting: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." Elizabeth, during her six months of pregnancy so far, had time to think. Being the wife and daughter of priests, she probably had a good understanding of Holy Scripture, including the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 about the virgin birth.

Elizabeth was the first person who knowingly beheld the virgin whom Isaiah prophesied about 700 years earlier. What a moment! Here stand two Jewish women, an old one married many years but never pregnant until recently and her young cousin, a virgin not yet married but with a life within her whom the elder joyfully acknowledges as "my Lord." Imagine how relieved Mary was when she later found out from Joseph that he had been informed about her unique pregnancy, and that he believed and embraced the message coming from God. This is about as far as you can get from a mystical, other worldly religion. This is history involving very real and relatable human beings through whom God is fulfilling promises with tangible proof.

Yes, Joseph was convinced and took Mary as his wife to protect and care for her during the months and years ahead. Matthew tells us specifically that Joseph kept her a virgin until after Jesus was born. The Messiah was not only conceived in a virgin supernaturally, but also actually born of a virgin so that the sign was literal and recognizable. Dr. Luke tells us more in Luke 2: "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.... All went to be registered, each to his own town. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn."

One wonders if Mary or Joseph knew themselves, or were informed by Zechariah and Elizabeth, about a Messianic prophecy around Isaiah's time 700 years ago that Matthew 2 makes clear was well known by the temple authorities: "You, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting" (Micah 5:2). That brings to mind Psalms like this one from Moses: "Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God" (Psalm 90). 

By God's design, the writers of the four Gospels presented the birth and life of the Messiah with four different emphases. Matthew was written especially to the Jews, focusing on the Messiah's lineage, fulfilled prophecies, and divine instructions. Mark wrote to show that Jesus came as the Suffering Servant to minister to man, and begins with His ministry and that of John the Baptizer preparing the way for Him. Luke wrote from a physician's viewpoint with a keen eye for recording relevant details, especially stressing the humanity of the One who is also divine. John, writing last and filling in what was yet unrecorded, focuses on the astonishing fact that Jesus really is God in human flesh, the Messiah who is from everlasting.

Where would this Messiah, the Son of God, the Everlasting One, and Lord of lords be born? Is it a mistake that Mary and Joseph that night could not find a suitable place for any human birth, let alone such a One? No, not when you have been following the lamb throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, as we have done. Where else would a lamb be born than in a stable? How appropriate for  the Good  Shepherd who will lay down His life for His sheep as the long-expected Lamb of God and once-for-all atonement for His people's sins past, present, and future!

To go one step further in the beauty of this picture, let's see to whom the birth of this Lamb was first announced: "There were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. The angel said to them, 'Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths lying in a manger.' Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!' When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that ... the Lord has made known to us.' They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger.... They made known the saying that had been told them concerning this Child. All who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.... The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen."

As for Mary, we are told that she "treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart." She had much to think about, and her life would not be easy. The reality of Jesus being truly man meant she had a truly baby on her hands who would be a truly little boy to care for! But His being the One who had always existed from everlasting to everlasting was going to be a puzzle to her and Joseph day by day. No finite person can ever really understand infiniteness perfectly. Thank God He has carefully let us know that He is also personal, so Mary could relate to the baby, the boy, and the man as a Person. Over time God would reveal to her and us more about His Personhood only hinted at in the Hebrew Scriptures.

As a Jewish baby boy, Jesus was circumcised when He was eight days old. Dr. Luke tells us that is when He "was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb." At the time of Mary's purification, when the baby was 40 days old according to the law of Moses (Leviticus 12), Joseph and Mary went to the temple with a pair of turtledoves as a sacrifice. Those two birds were the poor person's sacrifice, an accommodation for those who could not afford a lamb. The Messiah would be brought up in a poor family, experiencing all the little economies and sacrifices in every area of day-to-day life.

Something then happened that would have reassured Mary and Joseph again of what would be hard for them to feel as real as they cared for this unique baby. Dr. Luke tells of a devout elderly man named Simeon: "It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. So he came by the Spirit into the temple as the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law. Simeon took Him up in his arms and blessed God, saying, 'Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word, for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared before the face of all peoples: A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.'" That is a statement to stun anyone. This godly Jew who knew His Scriptures well is saying this baby will fulfill the Abrahamic promise to bless "all the families of the earth" (Genesis 12). 

Dr. Luke tells us further, "Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him. Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary, His mother, 'Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that will be spoken against—yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also—that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.'" There is going to be opposition against Him and His suffering will affect Mary too. It is an echo of what those who have believed God have suffered through the ages. The difference in the suffering of the Messiah is that He suffers at one time in history for everyone who will believe and accept His substitution for them.

Now a prophetess named Anna nearing 100 years old  shows up on the scene. Dr. Luke explains, "She did not depart from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayer night and day. Coming in that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem." Picture a spry old lady going around to all the people she knew who really believed God's Word. There were Jews looking for the coming of the Messiah and the fulfillment of Messianic prophecies in Jerusalem!

Those people living then were like Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, David, Daniel and his friends, Isaiah, and Micah, who were faithful to the God of the Bible. As Anna hurried around telling them, they would naturally talk to each other and encourage one another. People who are part of the family of faith so often know each other and build up one another in the faith. Imagine a current of excitement among them, as well as quiet waiting and prayer. No one was sure how it would all develop or what would happen next. A baby takes time to grow up. When the Messiah did grow up, what would He do? If you stopped one of them to ask, there would not have been a totally clear answer, but some of them were certain enough that this baby was the promised Messiah, and that redemption was near.

Chapter 12: 

John the Baptizer, Jesus, Nicodemus

John the Baptizer, Elizabeth and Zechariah's son, made a clear prophetic announcement for people gathered out in the open air to hear. Backing up, Mark 1 tells us "John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. All the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins." All those people coming out was no exaggeration since the last time a prophet was on the scene in Israel was over 400 years ago!

The leadership of Jerusalem, nevertheless, had questions for John since baptism before then was reserved for Gentile proselytes who wanted to become Jewish. John 1 informs us, "This is the testimony of John, when the Jews [the Jewish leaders] sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, 'Who are you?' He confessed ... 'I am not the Christ.' They asked him, 'What then? Are you Elijah? [Malachi 4]' He said, 'I am not.' 'Are you the Prophet? [Deuteronomy 18]' John answered, 'No.' So they said to him, 'Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?' He said, 'I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, "Make straight the way of the Lord," as the prophet Isaiah said. [Isaiah 40]'" When they asked John why he was baptizing, he answered, "I baptize with water, but among you stands One you do not know, even He who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie."

The next day after that interview, John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!... For this purpose I came baptizing with water, that He might be revealed to Israel." John further testified, "I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on Him.... I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God."

Matthew includes more details: "Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented Him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?' But Jesus answered him, 'Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.' Then John consented. After Jesus was baptized, immediately He went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, 'This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased'" (Matthew 3).

Have you ever heard someone ask, "If God is there, why doesn't He split the heavens and say something?" He has. At Jesus's baptism, the Personhood of God came into clearer focus. In the Hebrew Scriptures we learn that there is only one true and living God: "The Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Deuteronomy 6). We also read mysterious statements like these: 

• "God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness'" (Genesis 1:26).
• "Then the Lord [on earth] rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven" (Genesis 19:24).
• King David wrote, "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool'" (Psalm 110).
• "When He marked out the foundations of the earth, I was beside Him as a master craftsman, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in His inhabited world" (Proverbs 8:29-31).
• "Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name, if you know?" (Proverbs 30:4).

The mystery now becomes clearer as God reveals He still is one in essence, but unlike man where one man is one person, God actually exists in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. His nature is triune (not 1+1+1 but 1x1x1). At the baptism of Jesus, the Son stood before the people, the voice of the Father was heard, and the Holy Spirit came down from heaven in the form of a dove. A measure of new understanding was unfolded to Israel at that time and recorded for us that we too might know.

Moving past Jesus's baptism, just as Moses was on the mountain fasting for 40 days before he came to the important point of receiving God's law, so Jesus, the only person to live the law of God perfectly, was immediately led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, fasting for 40 days before the start of His 3-year public ministry (Mark 1, Matthew 4). He was tempted by Satan himself during that time. Matthew records three specific temptations:

1. That Jesus turn stones into bread to satisfy His hunger. If Jesus obeyed Satan, He no longer would be without blemish. But Jesus refused, countering with Scripture: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Deuteronomy 8:3).
2. That Jesus throw Himself down from a great height since Psalm 91:11-12 literally says, "He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone." Satan dares to use Scripture too, but he twists it, neglecting how that Psalm begins: "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust.'" Jesus affirms that He will trust God and not put Him to the test, citing Deuteronomy 6:16: "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test."
3. That Jesus bows down and worships Satan in exchange for all the kingdoms of the world. Jesus responds, "Go, Satan, for it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only'" (Deuteronomy 6:13; 10:20). Then the devil left Him.

In all those instances of temptation, Jesus did not rely on His infinite store of knowledge, but referred to the verbalized, recorded Word of God. That same Word is available to us. As His ministry begins, Jesus models how to use it faithfully and effectively. He soon begins teaching about the kingdom of God and doing many authenticating miracles, especially kindly ones like healing that demonstrate the loving heart of God.

In John 3 we have the account of Christ's first extended dialogue. It is with a prominent Jewish ruler and teacher named Nicodemus who approaches Jesus privately at night. This official confesses plainly, "Rabbi, we know You are a teacher who has come from God since no one can do the miracles You are doing unless God is with Him." Jesus responds by going to the heart of Nicodemus's own need: "Truly, truly I say to you, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus is a thinking man who has come with a question, or many questions, about who Jesus might be. Jesus answers by telling him there is a requirement for eternal life—for being in the kingdom of God—that is as definite and specific as birth. There is a time before one is born and then a time of birth. That, says Jesus is what has to happen to a person spiritually.

In answer to Nicodemus's further questions, Jesus goes back to a time when  the Israelites in the wilderness complained against God and Moses  to such a degree that God sent poisonous snakes or serpents to judge the people (Numbers 21). The people asked Moses to pray for them, which he did, and the Lord mercifully provided a remedy that required faith: He instructed Moses to fashion a serpent made of bronze and erect it on a pole. Anyone simply looking up at that serpent would be healed. It was one of those moments in history that was important at the time, but also a lesson for later, as Jesus now makes clear, saying, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." Jesus is giving a prophecy of His own death, which was still about three years away. He is making clear the purpose of those next three years as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus then famously explains His sacrificial death as a description of God's love: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." Jesus adds that "light has come into the world," which will do two things: expose sin and evil, but also make it possible for people to see the solution to it.

Can you see it? Follow the Lamb theme throughout Scripture: Abel's acceptable worship with the lamb, Abraham and Isaac receiving a substitute ram on Mount Moriah, Moses instructing the people about the Passover lambs and about the lambs providing temporary cover for sin every day and night in the tabernacle and temple, Isaiah's prophecy about the Servant who suffers as an atoning Lamb once for all, and now "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" proclaimed by John the Baptizer.

After Jesus's interview with Rabbi Nicodemus, we read that the Baptizer was asked questions about Jesus. This is what he said: "The person who has received Jesus the Messiah's testimony has certified that God is true. He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure to Him. The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." John is dividing the human race into two lines, but we have seen those lines before: the same as Cain and Abel, the unbelieving and the believing. The same two lines as worship of the golden calf and worship of the one true and living God. Before he is put in prison and then beheaded, John completes his ministry by making it clear that Jesus is the Lamb of God who will take away the sin of the world, providing the redemption necessary for eternal life.

Chapter 13: 

3-Year Ministry, 

Final Atonement at the Cross

So begins the time when the Lamb is being watched intently by angels and demons, seeking men and scoffers—in many ways the most intense three years of all time. What does He do for three years? As Lamb He demonstrates His perfection, flawlessness, and sinlessness. As man He encounters the reality of having emptied Himself of heavenly glory to live a day-by-day limited life of being in one place at one time and experiencing hunger, thirst, heat, cold, sorrow, grief, and also joy. As Shepherd He searches lovingly for lost sheep, mourning their foolish wandering and willingly laying down His life for His flock. As God He experiences what we can never expect to understand fully: identifying with those who were made in His image so that in their lostness and sin He, in His atoning act, temporarily becomes sin for them so they can return and be conformed to His image. This is the perfection of both love and justice, meeting in a point of history not fully comprehensible, yet it is in the realm of reality, not fantasy. We have been made with minds that can think about it and understand sufficiently to believe it; we have been given emotions so we can feel the wonder and awe of such a plan.

In the Holy Scriptures we learn that God's justice cannot be bribed and God's love cannot be paid for. God's love is free to all who will come to Him; His justice is totally fair and the penalty has been met completely. The plan of God to redeem man perfectly fulfills justice and perfectly expresses love.

It took centuries of preparation before the moment came, and now that it is here, three years seems short. Yet in that three years the Messiah did everything necessary to enable men and women, boys and girls to see God. He taught everything that needed to be taught at that time, both in parables and in explanations and answers to questions. He performed miracles and fulfilled prophecies, authenticating Scripture and His own ministry.

Listen to Jesus as He specifically points to Himself as the fulfillment of the Messiah in a variety of ways:

• Jesus says, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me" (John 5:39-47). He goes on with words that cut across the religious scene, then and now, with a sharp lash: "If you had believed Moses, you would have believed Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how shall you believe My words?" The religious leaders had added so much religiosity in additional lists of laws and ceremonies that they couldn't recognize truth when the Son of God spoke audibly to them. This generation is no better. Jesus affirms that the first five books of scripture—the books of Moses—are true and are to be believed. As we have seen in our bird's eye view of the Bible, they are the foundation of the promised Messiah as the atoning Lamb.
• Around the time of Passover, Jesus was miraculously healing the sick and then did a manna-like miracle by feeding a crowd of over 5,000 men and their families with loaves and fishes (John 6). Many search for Him intently afterwards and when they find Him, He tells them plainly, "You are seeking Me, not because you saw  miracles, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him God the Father has set His seal." The crowd then asks a sharp, clear question: "What shall we do to do the work of God?" Jesus answers just as clearly: "This is the work of God: that you believe Him whom He has sent." There is no  human work a person can do to be credited with or earn a place with God. The one way is always the same: believing His word. They are to believe in the Messiah, realizing He is the Lamb, already announced by John the Baptizer. Jesus goes on to say, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst." There was a murmuring against Him, but always some believed.
• What else did Jesus say about Himself? "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8). Speaking to Jews specifically, Jesus adds, "If you continue in My word, then are you My disciples indeed. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." There is no vagueness here but a promise of freedom from lies and false religions and philosophies, which are so binding and lead into dark rooms with no exits.
• Jesus says, "I am the door"  after telling a parable of how thieves try to get into the sheepfold by another way (John 10). He clarifies that there is only one door: "I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.... My sheep hear My voice and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall anything pluck them out of My hand [and] My Father's hand. I and My Father are one." Some religious leaders pick up stones to stone Him to death, but  He eludes their grasp since it is not yet time for Him to give His life for His sheep.

His ministry continues with miracle after miracle performed, question after question answered, teaching after teaching made plain, and a constantly unfolding explanation that He had come to do what the Scriptures said the Messiah would do: suffer and die for His people as the spotless sacrificial Lamb. In our bird's-eye-view, however, we can only skim past the dusty roads along which Jesus walks, now with 12 apostles, all of whom are Jewish, and other disciples following them, hearing such things as these: not laying up riches on earth, but in heaven instead, where they will be permanent. He talks about faithful servants, the good Samaritan, and seeking first the kingdom of God.

From our vantage point looking back, however, we are not apt to understand the humanness of the apostles as they listened and yet did not really expect Jesus to die and rise again. They go up into the borrowed upper room of a house in Jerusalem during Passover, easily falling into an argument about which ones of them will be most prominent in the kingdom without at all expecting the death of their Messiah as the next historical thing, and their own persecution for years ahead instead of sharing in an immediate and totally victorious kingdom. They saw everything Jesus said to them as covering a very short period of time rather than centuries.

The time is perfect for the Lamb. During Passover all Jews are celebrating when the first lambs died so the Angel of death would pass over each Israeli house in Egypt. During the Passover meal, Jesus explains to His apostles as He distributes the bread and wine that they are celebrating, in a sense, the last Passover feast and the first Communion. Think about it: Since the original Passover lambs were pointing toward what Messiah would do, why look back after He does it? Jesus says as He breaks the bread and blesses it, "Take, eat: this is My body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me." After giving thanks for the wine, He distributes it, saying, "This cup that is poured out is the New Covenant in My blood" (Luke 22:14-20). It is later written, "As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He returns" (1 Corinthians 11:26). The Lord has changed the Passover feast for Communion fellowship with bread and wine in remembrance that the Lamb did fulfill the promises of God. Communion or the Lord's Supper looks back on His death and forward to His future return. Here is the beautiful ending of the Old Covenant and the clear difference of the New.

Jesus points to His return in glory when He adds, "I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." One day we will be together in the whole family of the Lord's people, celebrating with Him what His death means for us all. We will be enjoying eternal life because of His death. The Son of God became a Lamb that the children of men might become sons of God, "for Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us" (1 Corinthians 5:7).

Now we go into the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus. All the apostles, except three, are left at a spot behind Him as He prays. Those three—Peter, James, and John—He tasks to keep watch with Him. Thus begins an honest, sincere struggle as Jesus, the Son of God and Son of man, faces the final decision of willingness to go to the cross. The separation He faces is not just of soul from body, but of the Second Person of the Trinity from the other two Persons. The agony of saying farewell at the most heartbreaking of moments is only a drop in the ocean of understanding needed to fathom what Christ faced in the Garden. He prays, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39). We are told He prayed this same prayer two more times. It was a real prayer request, and the answer was obviously negative. He understands each one of us when we receive a no answer  to our most frantic pleas. Jesus has suffered beyond anything we could suffer because of His infiniteness and perfection now bowing down before the Father, willing to become sin for us, and to suffer and die for us.

Each time Jesus prays, He checks to see whether His closest disciples are praying with Him, only to find them asleep. Dr. Luke adds sympathetically that  "He found them sleeping for sorrow" (Luke 22:45). Yet what a moment to sleep when there could have been a short time to share their Lord's prayer and suffering! But Jesus bears it alone, in the Garden as well as on the cross. He alone stood in our place. He was separated from the Father for a time that we might be together forever.

Jesus now bravely faces an arresting mob and a traitor's kiss. As He goes off to a long night of torment and ridicule, He is like a lamb silent before her slayers. When the Jewish religious leaders have Him taken before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, they malign Him mercilessly. Rather than argue, whine, plead, or make excuses, all of which Pilate was used to, Jesus remains calm and silent. Therefore Pilate asks Him, "Do You not hear how many things they testify against You?" We are told that Jesus "gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed" (Matthew 27:13-14).

Soon enough, He inevitably is led up the hill where no substitute will be found, as was found for Isaac, because Jesus Himself is the substitute; He is the Lamb. The time is right: Passover. The place is right: where Abraham and Isaac found their atoning lamb. Now He sets His face to endure to the very end. The Romans nail Him to a cross between two criminals (Isaiah 53) and cast lots for His clothing (Psalm 22), unwittingly fulfilling two Messianic prophecies. 

As Jesus hangs on that cross, still conscious, He cries out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" which David in Psalm 22 prophesied the Messiah would say. He is also forsaken by His friends, who have slipped away in sorrow and confusion. What they think is defeat will soon be the greatest victory of all time and space: the victory over sin and death. One of the crucified criminals next to Jesus joins others in taunting Him; the other criminal repents and believes Him. Jesus assures that man he will join Him that very day in Paradise. The two lines of Cain and Abel are drawn vividly by the two crosses on either side of Jesus. Still His cross divides the world.

From 12 noon until 3 PM we are told that the land was plunged into darkness as Jesus suffers on the cross (Matthew 27). Near 3 PM He cries out with a loud voice, declares triumphantly, "It is finished!" (John 19), and "yields up His Spirit"—dying by His own will. At that moment the earth shakes and rocks split, opening tombs out of which "saints who had fallen asleep were raised." The Roman centurion and others  keeping watch are filled with awe and say, "Truly this was the Son of God!"

Inside the temple, at the same time rocks split outside, the very thick curtain separating the holy of holies from the rest of the temple supernaturally splits from top to bottom. Inside the holy of holies the blood of a lamb was placed on the ark of the covenant once a year on the Day of Atonement. Now the Day of Atonement by the Lamb has finally come. God rips that veil in half to open up access to Him to any who come "with the blood of the Lamb": believing that Jesus is the Messiah, who died as the atoning sacrifice for sin to God for all who trust in Him. The Lord Jesus Christ is our great High Priest, which is the main subject of the New Testament book of Hebrews, especially chapters 8-10. Appropriately, there has not been a holy of holies or an offering of sacrificial lambs among the Jews since shortly after that time to the present.

Chapter 14: 

Burial, Resurrection, Ascension

As Jesus dies and the temple itself becomes a scene of proof that His death is that of the prophesied Lamb, more prophecies will now be fulfilled. As it was getting close to the start of the Jewish Sabbath at sundown, soldiers come to hasten the death of those still lingering on their crosses by breaking their legs, causing suffocation. They do not go through the trouble of breaking Jesus's legs since He is obviously dead, but just to make sure, one of them pierces His side, immediately releasing from His heart water and coagulated blood—a certain sign of death. The apostle John, a discrete eyewitness, writes, "He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe" (John 19). He goes on to explain, "These  things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: 'Not one of His bones will be broken' [Psalms 34:20; Exodus 12:46; Numbers 9:12].  And ... 'They will look on Him whom they have pierced' [Zechariah 12:10; Revelation 1:7]."

The men who tenderly carry Jesus's body away to bury it with the proper linen cloths and spices are both Jews who came to believe in Jesus: Rabbi Nicodemus, who visited Jesus secretly at night (John 3), and Joseph of Arimathea, a Sanhedrin council member who did not consent to their wicked deed of condemning Jesus. He courageously asked for and received permission from Pontius Pilate to bury Jesus's body (Luke 23). Matthew adds the important detail that Joseph is a rich man who lays Jesus "in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock" (Matthew 27). This tomb was close to the place of execution and sundown was rapidly approaching (John 19). Crucifixion victims were assigned "a grave with the wicked," but not Jesus, for Isaiah 53 tells us the Messiah would be "with the rich at His death." God would permit no further indignities on His Son. Joseph and Nicodemus perform what burial rites they can in the short time remaining and then seal the tomb by rolling down a large stone in a grooved channel over its entrance.

As Jesus Himself predicted on two separate occasions, the historic account of Jonah was a picture of how long the Messiah would remain in the grave: "As Jonah was three days ... in the belly of the great fish, so shall the Son of Man [a messianic title from Daniel 7] be three days ... in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here." That is why He said later to the wicked religious leaders, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah." 

It is not with a desire to see whether that sign will prove true, but with a desire to squash any resurrection rumors that those same religious leaders now demand from Pilate that he orders soldiers to seal the tomb and post a guard, which he does (Matthew 27). It is now impossible for anyone to steal Jesus's body.

Early Sunday morning, two women come to the tomb bearing specially prepared spices to finish the job the men could not do on Friday before sundown. Dr. Luke explains that on Friday before sunset, they followed Joseph and Nicodemus, seeing what little the men had time to do with laying out Jesus's body on the slab inside the cave tomb (Luke 23). A desperate desire to do something for the person who is no longer in his or her body drives loved ones to bring flowers or do something near the remains. In those days, arranging spices gave a satisfying fulfillment of this natural desire. After obeying the Sabbath command to rest on Saturday, these Jewish women will soon encounter Roman men who were working all that day and night guarding Jesus's tomb.

Matthew tells us what happened next around dawn on Sunday: "There was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, as He said. Come, see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead'" (Matthew 28). Then they remembered what Jesus told them, Dr. Luke informs us (Luke 24). Imagine the flood of ecstatic relief and joy that no one can know who has not experienced having a spouse or a child who has been reported dead now appear on the doorstep, back from war! Except this was way more than that, for they themselves had seen Jesus die.

Everything would not fall into place in their understanding immediately; it would take time, but this they were now sure of: Jesus really was the Messiah and the Son of God. He had done what He had told them He would do: die and rise again after three days. Imagine the excitement and awe these women felt as they ran to the apostles to tell them this fabulous news! Were their words greeted with shouts of joy? Dr. Luke tells us honestly  that these words seemed to the apostles "an idle tale, and they did not believe them" (Luke 24). The men also needed time to process this news, "but Peter rose and ran to the tomb." John adds that he went with Peter and actually outran him to the tomb, but was too scared to go in (John 20). Peter barged right in, according to John, which emboldened him to come inside as well and observe clear signs of resurrection, including linen wrappings and the face cloth that had been on Jesus's head not lying with the wrappings, but folded up in a place by itself.

Later that day nearby on the road to Emmaus, we learn from Dr. Luke that two disciples were walking dejectedly and talking about their disappointment. They had been so sure that Jesus was the Messiah, but now thought that was impossible since He was crucified, dead, and buried. Right then Jesus Himself approaches and starts walking with them, "but their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him" somehow. He asks why they are so sad. One of them, named Cleopas, says somewhat rudely, "Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things going on here?" Jesus, playing dumb, says, "What things?" They answer, "About Jesus the Nazarene, who was a mighty prophet in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death and crucified Him. But we were hoping He would redeem Israel. Indeed, it is the third day since these things happened." They then mention that some women earlier in the day told an astounding tale about an angelic message claiming Jesus is alive, but none of the men saw Him alive at the tomb.

This is too much for the risen Christ! He says to them, "O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?" Dr. Luke then tells us this glorious tidbit: "Beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He interpreted to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures" (Luke 24). That is like the bird's-eye view of the Bible we have been doing together. Jesus explained to them the fulfillment of all that had been promised for the redemption of God's people past, present, and future. This is not some new religion, but a fulfillment of the old. Christianity is Jewish. The New Covenant is an everlasting covenant powered by an indestructible life. As the risen Lord will later proclaim, "I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades" (Revelation 1).

Christ's resurrection body is a wonder to behold and something to look forward to, not only meeting Him face to face, but also having a body like His that is uniquely ours and delightfully suitable for eternity. A rich source of truth on this subject, 1 Corinthians 15, explains, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins ... but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. As by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." Christ's resurrection body is the prototype, so to speak, of what our resurrected bodies will be like someday. Dr. Luke informs us that Christ remained on earth for 40 days following His resurrection (Acts 1). Those days are important for a number of reasons, one being to unfold for us what this everlasting body will be like:

• Christ's body could appear in a room without needing to open doors and come through. The Lord Jesus suddenly showed up in the midst of His disciples when the doors were shut and said, "Peace be with you" (John 20). After speaking, He showed them His hands and His side so they knew the wounds were still there, and that it was the same body that had died, but was now vibrant and alive. His disciples were overjoyed when they realized by sight, sound, and touch that it was really Him. Thomas, however, was not there and when the others told him what happened. He said, "Unless I myself see the print of the nails in His hands and thrust my hand into His side, I will never believe." Eight days later, the scenario repeated itself with Thomas present this time. Jesus said straightaway to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see My hands; put out your hand, and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe." Awestruck, Thomas replied, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus responded, "Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
• Dr. Luke displays his trade by mentioning the senses of taste and smell in this appearance of the risen Christ: In a larger gathering of disciples, including the two who talked earlier with the Lord incognito on the road to Emmaus, Jesus suddenly appeared among them with the traditional greeting of peace, but they were terrified, thinking He was a ghost. So Jesus said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Touch me, and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." After He said that, He  showed them His hands and His feet. Dr. Luke honestly records, "While  they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, He asked, 'Have you anything here to eat?' They gave him a piece of broiled fish [some Greek manuscripts add that they also gave him a piece of honeycomb], so He  took it and ate before them. Then He said to them, 'Remember what I said to you earlier that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled?' He then opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said, 'Thus it is written: that the Messiah should suffer and on the third day rise from  the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things'" (Luke 24).
• Later, and a good distance north of Jerusalem in Galilee, several of the disciples were fishing on the large lake there. John tells us that he and his brother, James, along with Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, and two others fished all night but caught nothing (John 21). A solitary man walking on the shore early in the morning called out to them to ask if they caught any fish. When they said no, he told them to cast their net to the right side to find some. They did, but the net was suddenly so full, they were not able to haul it into their boat. Instantly they knew it was the Lord. By the time they all arrived with 153 choice, fat fish in tow, Jesus had breakfast ready for them, soon supplemented by some of the fish from their catch. This miraculous provision of fish relates to what He told them at the beginning of His ministry: "I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19). They would proclaim the truth about repentance from sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, for every person's greatest and most desperate need:  forgiveness of their sins. This work would begin in Jerusalem, and will continue spreading to all peoples and nations until He returns.

The risen Christ appeared on other occasions during those 40 special days, including to over 500 faithful believers at one time (1 Corinthians 15). His last resurrection appearance was in Jerusalem. Dr. Luke gives a short summary of it at the end of his Gospel and more details at the beginning of his book of Acts, which tells what God did through the apostles. Luke 24 concludes with Jesus telling HIs disciples, "'I am sending the promise of My Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.' Then He led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up His hands He blessed them. While He blessed them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. They worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God."

Dr. Luke begins Acts 1 like this: "The former account I wrote ...  of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day He was taken up. This was after He, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments to His apostles, to whom He presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during 40 days and speaking of things pertaining to the kingdom of God.... He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father," which He told them about during the upper room Passover meal before His crucifixion (John 14:15-26). Here in Acts that promise is summarized as their being "baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." The apostles, however, still cannot fathom life without Jesus in their midst so they naively ask Him, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" He rebukes their lack of understanding mildly, affirming,  'It is not for you to know the times or epochs that the Father has set by His own authority, but  you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.'"

As Jesus was saying these things, "He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. While they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He ascended, suddenly two men stood by them in white clothing, saying, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come down in a similar manner as you saw Him go into heaven.' Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which  is about a Sabbath day's journey from Jerusalem" (1 kilometer or 0.6 miles). When they entered the city, they went into the upper room, where they were staying: Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Nathanael, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Thaddaeus. We are told "these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, Mary the mother of Jesus, and the Lord's brothers [James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas]."

Difficult times were ahead for these believing Jews. The Roman Emperor Nero would soon be ruling, and persecution was going to come from all sides, but two things would give them the strength and courage to keep on: the promise that Jesus would return and the promise of the Spirit.

Chapter 15: 

Pentecost; Gentiles Included

Dr. Luke tells us what happened on the eventful day when the promised Spirit came: "When the Day of Pentecost arrived, they [the apostles+] were all together in one place. Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance.

"Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem devout Jews from every nation under heaven. At this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. They were astonished, saying, 'Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language ...  the mighty works of God?" (Acts 2).

"They were all filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:4).  That is how the Messiah's disciples would accomplish the worldwide commission He had given them to be His witnesses. When the Lord was with them, He knew they would be sad at His leaving, but He told them the counter-intuitive truth that it was better for them—and us—that He did. In His body He, like us, was in one place at one time, but in His Spirit He makes His home within each believer everywhere!  The day of the Holy Spirit's promised arrival was unequivocally clear to all, believers and unbelievers alike, for He came with wind, fire, and speech about the mighty works of God in the languages of everyone gathered for the Day of Pentecost in crowded Jerusalem.

Peter preached a powerful sermon that day that added about 3,000 souls to the growing church, a striking contrast to the first Pentecost, during which 3,000 people died after the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai 50 days after the Exodus from Egypt. The early church was simply a gathering of believers in Christ. Since the first participants in the early church were all Jewish, it certainly was not anti-Jewish. If anything it was anti-Gentile, but gradually people learned that God means for the message of salvation through the Messiah and everlasting life is to be given to any who will listen, regardless of their national, racial, religious, or philosophical background.

Acts 2 is one of the most important chapters in the Bible. It tells about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and how suddenly people from many different countries were hearing the Gospel in their own language and coming to a common faith in Christ the Messiah as Lord of all. 

The apostle Peter told the awestruck crowd on Pentecost that what they were seeing and hearing was a fulfillment of this prophecy from the prophet Joel:  "'In the last days it shall be,' God declares, 'that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.... And I will show wonders.... It shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved' [Joel 2]. 

"Men of Israel," Peter continues, "hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth,  a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it. David wrote concerning him, '... You will not leave My soul in Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption' [Psalm 16]....

"David, being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Messiah, that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out what you yourselves are seeing and hearing. David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool' [Psalm 110]. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." 

Dr. Luke writes,  "Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?' Peter said to them, 'Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, your children, and for all who are far off—everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.' With many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation.' So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls."

Does all this mean that people become suddenly perfect when they come on the basis of the Lamb who died to open the way to God and be indwelt by His Spirit? Are the lost lambs perfect as soon as the Shepherd brings them into His fold? The Bible teaches there are three aspects of salvation from sin and the results of sin:

1. Deliverance from the Penalty of Sin: this takes place instantly when a person understands what God has made clear and accepts the solution God paid so dearly to make available on that cross nearly 2,000 years ago. That person immediately is forgiven and cleansed from the guilt of all his or her sin, forever.
2. Deliverance from the Power of Sin: this is gradual. The theological term for this gradual process of increasing holiness is sanctification. There is growth and change, but no person becomes perfect in this life. When Jesus comes back or, before that momentous event, we go to be with Him immediately after death, then we will be perfect. Day-to-day life is a battle. As Peter writes, "Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). He will not be finally dealt with until Christ returns. But we have the indwelling Spirit within, who empowers us and produces fruit in us, specifically "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,  goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit" (Galatians 5). This is not automatic, but involves our willing, diligent participation.
3. Deliverance from the Presence of Sin: this is instantaneous when a believer dies. If that person's plane crashes, a truck hits his car, cancer suddenly strikes her down, the bombs fall, or whatever, the teaching "absent from the body is to be present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8) applies immediately. When Christ comes back, one's body is immediately raised from the dead. 

Back to the Day of Pentecost, 3,000 converted Jews is a large number to believe in one day at any period of history, but this was when it would be most unpopular and dangerous, yet those 3,000 were willing to make it known among friends and family by being baptized and counted among the believers. Dr. Luke tells us "they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer. Awe came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. All who believed were together and ... were selling their possessions and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. The Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved" (Acts 2).

Persecution came violently and swiftly. The Jewish leaders, who continued to prefer their kingdom to God's, arrested some of the apostles and beat them, but God thwarted their worst efforts by a combination of powerful preaching and a couple of divine jailbreaks. The first Christian martyr was a church deacon named Stephen, who was stoned to death by the council after preaching a masterful sermon on God's work through Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, and Isaiah (Acts 7). Looking on with approval was a violent young Pharisee named Saul, tasked with guarding the cloaks of his co-religionists as they crushed the life out of Stephen. Rabbi Saul would soon get the opportunity to crush the new church himself, but things would take a dramatic turn for him by divine intervention (Acts 9).

To appreciate what God was doing, we will first see how He startles the apostle Peter out of his prejudices and misconceptions to understand God's interest in saving Gentiles. Surely Peter must have remembered Jonah's commission to go to Nineveh, but Jonah wasn't the only Jew who has had a hard time fathoming the depth and reality of the Lord's love and compassion for all mankind. Acts 10 sets the scene: in Caesarea a Roman centurion and faithful Jewish convert named Cornelius was living close to where Peter was staying. In a vision an angel told Cornelius that his prayers had been heard and that God was aware of his earnestness in helping the poor. The angel told him where Peter was staying and ordered Cornelius to send for him.

Meanwhile, Peter received a vision of his own while hungry and waiting for a meal to be prepared: something like a large sheet descending from heaven by its four corners with all sorts of wild animals inside. He heard a voice commanding, "Rise, Peter: kill and eat!" Peter was shocked and instantly replied, "No, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean!" In other words he was saying, "I don't eat anything that is not kosher. I always eat kosher food. I am a good Jew and am not going to start eating non-kosher!" But the voice replied, "What God has made clean, do not call common." This vision took place three times. God made sure Peter understood this was not a mistake.

Just then the men Cornelius sent to find Peter arrived. Dr. Luke writes, "While Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, 'Three men are looking for you. Rise and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.'" When they went back to Caesarea, Cornelius rushed out to greet Peter and fell at his feet, worshiping him, but Peter said, "Get up, for I'm just a man like you are." Cornelius had been so excited that God was sending him someone to tell the details of truth and what he needed to do that he had gathered all his family, relatives, and friends. Quite a crowd was waiting inside with a tremor of excitement and air of expectancy. They were prepared to believe God's word because they evidently had already believed God's word to Cornelius.

Peter starts explaining to them, "Now you know it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me." Cornelius tells Peter about his vision and finishes by saying, "So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord."

So Peter tells this attentive crowd, "Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to Him. The word that God sent to Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ—He is Lord of all—that word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism that John preached: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. We are witnesses of all things He did both in the country and in Jerusalem. The rulers put Him to death there on a cross, but God raised Him up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins."

Even while Peter is still speaking, the Holy Spirit comes upon these now-believing Gentiles in the same visible way He came on the Jews who believed on the Day of Pentecost as an authenticating sign to Peter and the Jewish believers who came with him to Cornelius's house. When the apostles and other disciples who were in Judea "heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God," they at first were upset, but Peter patiently explained what happened step by step, concluding, "The Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' If then God gave the same gift to them as He gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?" Dr. Luke records, "When they heard these things they fell silent and then  glorified God, saying, 'Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life'" (Acts 11). Ultimately there are only two kinds of people: those who believe God's word and those who do not.

Chapter 16: 

Rabbi Saul/Apostle Paul

God chose an unlikely shepherd to nourish this new flock of Gentile sheep, and He laid the groundwork before Peter made his momentous journey to the Roman centurion's house. Acts 9 begins by telling us that Rabbi Saul, "breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord Jesus," went to the high priest and asked permission to go to Damascus in Syria so that if he found any who followed Him, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

As he came near Damascus, suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. He fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" Saul replied, "Who are You, Lord?" The Lord answered, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." So he, trembling and astonished, said, "Lord, what do You want me to do?" Then the Lord said, "Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do." The men who journeyed with Saul were speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. When Saul arose from the ground, he discovered he was blind, so the men led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

Saul spent three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Meanwhile, the Lord Jesus gave orders to a faithful disciple named Ananias in Damascus, saying to him in a vision, "Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for he is praying and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him so that he might receive his sight." Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem, and  here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name."

But the Lord said to him, "Go, for Saul is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel." Ananias obeyed, laying his hands on Saul and telling him, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and Saul received his sight at once. He arose and was baptized. After spending some days with the disciples at Damascus, "He immediately preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God." All who heard were amazed and said, "Is this not he who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem, and has come here for that purpose so that he might bring them bound to the chief priests?"

Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jewish leaders in Damascus, proving that Jesus is the Christ. After many days, the leaders planned to kill him, but the plot became known and Saul was able to escape from Damascus. When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples there, but Dr. Luke records honestly, "They were all afraid of him, and did not believe that he was a disciple." Just then Joseph, a fellow believing Jew with the well-earned nickname of Barnabas, Son of Encouragement, "took  Saul  and brought him to the apostles, telling them how Saul had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus." So the apostles accepted Saul and he stayed with them in Jerusalem for awhile, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus until another murder plot led the disciples to get Saul safely to his home city of Tarsus in Asia Minor (the Turkish coast).

As time went by slowly for Saul, perhaps wondering when Jesus would lead him to bear His name before Gentiles and kings, as Ananias told him the risen Lord said, God led Peter to bring the message of salvation to Gentiles, which soon was affirmed by the other apostles and disciples. Acts 11 tells us what happened next: Those who were scattered from Jerusalem because of the persecution that arose over Stephen's martyrdom "traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch in Syria, speaking the word to no one except Jews." But some of them, like Barnabas, were natives of Cyprus and started preaching the Lord Jesus to Gentiles when they came to Antioch. "The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose." As a result, "a great many people were added to the Lord."

But Barnabas needed help shepherding this growing congregation so he "went to Tarsus to look for Saul. When he found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. In Antioch the disciples were first called Christians," meaning followers of the Christ (Messiah). While Saul and Barnabas were ministering there, "the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them'" (Acts 13). That was the first of several missionary journeys that would lead Saul especially throughout the known world, chronicled in the rest of the book of Acts.

As an international traveler and scholar, Saul would go by his Greek name, Paul, for Greek in the Roman world was the common language of commerce and scholarship. On his second missionary journey he met Dr. Luke, a Gentile physician, scholar, and faithful Christian who became a lifelong traveling companion and chronicler of these important days. Rabbi Saul became primarily known as the apostle Paul because the risen Christ Himself appointed him to be an apostle to the Gentiles (Galatians 1). 

Paul was gifted in giving strong messages to fit the needs of both Jew and Gentile in the areas of their cultural background. In Pisidian Antioch (in the Turkish mountains), he was asked to speak in the large synagogue there on the Sabbath day. He gave a bird's-eye-view of the Hebrew Scriptures, beginning, "Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen: The God of this people Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm He brought them out of it" (Acts 13). Briefly summarizing history, he comes up to the time of David and says, "Of this man's seed God, according to His promise, has raised up for Israel a Savior, Jesus.... Men and brothers, children of the stock of Abraham and whomever among you fears God: to you is the word of this salvation sent." Paul tells of the life, death, and resurrection of this Jesus, the One through whom comes forgiveness of sins, "and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things you could not be justified from through  the law of Moses." As Paul and Barnabas were leaving, "the people kept pleading that these words might be spoken to them the next Sabbath."

That next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God. By this time, leading Jews became jealous of the popularity of Paul and his message, "and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, blaspheming. Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, 'It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first. Since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we are turning to the Gentiles, for so the Lord has commanded it: 'I have placed you as a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth' [Isaiah 42:6; 49:6]. When the Gentiles heard that, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many had been appointed to eternal life believed."

When Paul and Barnabas went to the next major town, Iconium, they again taught in the synagogue and many Jews and Greeks believed (Acts 14). When persecution broke out against those believers, the ones doing the stoning were both Gentiles and Jews. There was no division between Gentile and Jew that ticked off an assault. In the early church such differences were being wiped out; different people were being  drawn together.

That such differences were to be healed was an important topic at the church's first council, in Jerusalem (Acts 15). This was the main issue: some Pharisees who came to believe that Jesus is the Messiah were teaching that Gentile converts must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Therefore, "the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. When there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: 'Brothers, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel and believe. So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of these Gentile disciples that neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? Rather, we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.' Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles."

The point of Peter's explanation is that Gentiles can become Christians without first becoming circumcised Jews. It took time for people to understand that God had sent the Messiah, that He had died as the Lamb pointed forward to, and that now things would be different in that anyone who believes in Him will be redeemed without keeping ceremonial laws given to help the ancient Israelites express that they were waiting for the Messiah.

Not only did Jews and Gentiles forge a relationship together that broke down former lines of divisions, but also people of all walks of life believed in Christ, including sophisticated urban dwellers. In Athens Paul stood on Mars Hill to speak to Greek philosophers. Dr. Luke records Paul's brilliant speech in Acts 17: "Men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. Indeed, He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times so they should seek the Lord: that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. In Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said: 'For we are also His offspring.'

"Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that [He Himself] is like gold, silver, stone—something shaped by art and man's devising. These times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead." Dr. Luke tells us that when these Greeks "heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, 'We will hear you again on this matter.' Paul departed from among them,  but some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them."

Paul/Saul had an optimum upbringing for this kind of work. He  was born in a prominent city that granted him Roman citizenship from birth, had been trained from boyhood by Jewish parents, became a son of God's law at 13, and was brought to Jerusalem to be taught by Gamaliel, a famous and well-respected rabbi, said to be the grandson of the great Hillel. Part of Rabbi Saul's training was to learn about other cultures, which is why he was conversant in Greek philosophy. He knew the Hebrew Scriptures inside and out, and was a Pharisee and the son of Pharisees, which he described as "the strictest sect of our religion" (Acts 23:6; 26:5). 

Paul became the greatest of the apostles in intellect and influence among Jews and Gentiles. After the 4 Gospels and the book of Acts, the New Testament consists of 21 letters (some long, most short) and the book of Revelation. Paul wrote at least 12 of those letters, and most if not all of the long ones. He was a prisoner under house arrest in Rome for 2 years, during which he talked to many who came to him, as well as to his rotating series of guards. Wherever he was, people came to know something of truth because his explanations were so full and always based on the Scriptures he knew so well, which he masterfully demonstrated had been fulfilled in what Christ had done.

Chapter 17: 

Paul's and Peter's Letters

Think about the reasonableness of Christ's fulfilling the prophecies of the Messiah when a man as brilliant as the apostle Paul was so intellectually convinced and willing to defend to the very end of his life  the things he believed to be true. Paul was martyred in Rome by Emperor Nero. Roman historians record that Nero was partly or fully responsible for the terrible A.D. 64 fire in Rome, but used Christians as his scapegoats. Since Paul was a Roman citizen, he was not executed by crucifixion, but by beheading. The apostle Peter was also martyred around the same time, but his death was by crucifixion. Most of the other apostles were martyred as well. That fact alone does not prove that Christ rose from the dead, but it demonstrates the depth of their  convictions. The apostles were not liars: they truly believed in the resurrection of Christ and were willing to give their lives to proclaim it.

Let's now take a bird's-eye view of what the apostles wrote: the letters of Paul and Peter in this chapter, and the writings of John in the next. Paul's courage to stand before Jews, Greeks, and Romans is readily apparent in the first New Testament letter following Dr. Luke's book of Acts: the book (long letter, 16 chapters) of Romans. He writes, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek," a synonym for any Gentile person (Romans 1). In Romans Paul speaks to people with little to no background in the Hebrew Scriptures, but also to those who knew them well.

To the first group he boldly states in that introductory chapter, "The  wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what may be known about God is evident to them because God made it evident to them. His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, are clearly revealed by the things He made, so they are without excuse. Although they [in that sense] knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."

In the next two chapters it becomes clear that everyone is accountable to God and His law. By God's law, Paul explains, "comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it: the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus the Christ for all who believe. There is no distinction: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," but may be forgiven by Him through the atoning sacrifice of Christ to demonstrate both His patience and justice (Romans 3). In Romans 4 Paul gives David and Abraham as examples of that truth. He points out it was not circumcision that saved Abraham since circumcision (Genesis 17)  was simply a seal to show he had already believed, citing Genesis 15:6: Abraham "believed God, and He counted it to him as righteousness." Paul is saying, "Fellow Jews, all this was written not for Abraham's sake alone, but also for us because this same righteousness will be counted to us if we believe Him who raised up Messiah Jesus from the dead."

Paul went back to Adam in his bird's-eye view of the Bible, writing that just as one man's disobedience made all people  sinners, "so by the obedience of the One shall many be made righteous" (Romans 5). In Romans 9-11 Paul speaks of his love, and God's, for his own people, the Jews. That section concludes with the illustration I gave in my introduction when I was propelled onto a soapbox to speak to Orthodox Jews in New York City: Gentile grafts onto a Jewish olive tree with unbelieving Jewish branches cut off, but which will receive many Jewish grafts back in through faith in Jesus the Messiah.

In what was probably Paul's first letter, a relatively short 6-chapter one to the Galatians, Christians who lived in the region he covered during his first missionary journey, Paul had to confront these new believers in Christ for retreating back into Judaism. He writes, "A person is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.... I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose" (Galatians 2).

Paul continues with pointed questions: "O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?... Let me ask you this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Galatians 3). Paul explains that all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, citing Deuteronomy 27:26—"Cursed be everyone who does not conform to all the words of this law." Then he cites Habakkuk 2:4 to demonstrate that no one is justified before God by the law since "the righteous shall live by faith." He goes on to assert that "the law is not of faith, rather 'The one who does them shall live by them' [Leviticus 18:5]. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us." Paul concludes Galatians 3 with this astonishing statement: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise."

There is not meant to be any division between Jewish and Gentile people who have believed in the Messiah. One is not superior to the other. There is not to be any division economically or socially in Christ's church, for we are in the same family and born with the same new birth. Every Christian is a spiritual seed of Abraham, Jew and Gentile alike. We are all in the place of Isaac: children of promise, rightful children of God through the Messiah—the one and only way we could become His children.

The apostle Peter talks more about this in the first of two short letters he wrote: "If you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory so that your faith and hope are in God" (1 Peter 1). Then Peter gives a solemn reminder, quoting from Isaiah 40: "'All flesh is as grass, and its beauty as the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever.' This word is the good news that was preached to you." Anyone who believes God's word and accepts the provision He made for atonement is immediately born again—is now a spiritual seed of Abraham and has his or her feet firmly fixed on the line springing from Abel.

Peter goes on to say, "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession so you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2). Every believer in Jesus the Messiah can intercede for others before God because Jesus opened the way back into communication with Him that was broken when Eve and Adam sinned. Now day by day we can walk and talk with God.

Paul writes in his first letter to Timothy, his young Jewish-Greek protégé, "I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and the giving of thanks  be made for all people, for rulers and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2). That is both a great privilege and a serious responsibility. In the next chapters Paul talks about the qualifications for leaders in the church (1 Timothy 3) and special care for needy people in the assembly (1 Timothy 5).

The Sabbath command was not repeated in the New Covenant, and early churches began meeting on Sunday, commemorating the day Jesus rose from the dead. That points forward to when our last enemy, death, is conquered when Jesus returns, a topic for the last chapter. There is purpose now and a future coming in which there will be perfection. Paul writes, "Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive ... as the Lord forgave you. Over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts ... and be thankful" (Colossians 3). Peter adds that according to God's promise "we look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3).

Chapter 18: 

John and Revelation

The apostle John wrote 3 short letters and the book of Revelation. In his first letter he writes, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. All that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2). The book of Revelation describes that reality in detail. John, now an octogenarian, was exiled on the Roman penal colony of Patmos, where he received a glorious revelation from the risen, ascended Christ in heaven to encourage suffering believers then and now.

We still recognize that Christianity is Jewish  in our bird's eye view of this last biblical book:

• The genre of Revelation is apocalyptic literature. It uses vivid, memorable imagery to convey what Christ Himself told John He wants all believers to know about our future, starting with a preview of His return: "Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him" (Revelation 1). That is the ultimate fulfillment of this Messianic prophecy from Zechariah 12: "I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on Me, on Him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over Him, as one weeps over a firstborn."
• In Revelation 5 John, "in the Spirit," sees heaven looking like a throne room pulsating with divine energy and authority. In the right hand of the One sitting on the throne John sees a scroll. When an angelic attendant proclaims loudly, "Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?" the One coming forward to do it is described as "the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah" [Genesis 49:9-10], "the Root of David" [Isaiah 11], and "a Lamb standing, as if slain" [Isaiah 53]. Angels and glorified humanity alike sing together, "Worthy are You to take the scroll and open its seals, for You were slain and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe, language, people, and nation. You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth."
• The Lamb starts breaking open the seals on the scroll, which is like the title deed to the earth, in Revelation 6. The effects are cataclysmic, especially after the sixth seal: "There was a great earthquake; and the sun became black ... and the moon became like blood. The stars of heaven fell to the earth.... Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place.... The great ones ... the generals ... the rich ... the powerful, and everyone ... hid themselves ... and said to the mountains and rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?'" So much for "gentle Jesus, meek and mild," which is not a Bible verse! This is the wrath of God  seen in the Hebrew Scriptures, here in the New Testament because God is one and the same: loving, just, and holy simultaneously. The Lamb will act as Judge at His return.
• In Revelation 7 we see the 12 tribes of Israel mentioned, along with "a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, tribe,  people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb ... and crying out with a loud voice,  'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!'" Also mentioned in this chapter are elders, specifically enumerated as 24 elders in other chapters. They are not precisely identified, but because the 12 tribes of Israel are mentioned here and the 12 apostles (Judas was replaced) near the end of Revelation, it is reasonable to believe they represent all God's redeemed people before and after the Messiah's atoning sacrifice on the cross.
• Another joyful song among triumphant believers in heaven is this: "They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, 'Great and amazing are Your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. All nations will come and worship You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed'" (Revelation 15). That is like the song of Moses after the triumph of  the Red Sea crossing: "I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously.... The Lord is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.... In the greatness of Your majesty You overthrow Your adversaries; You send out Your fury.... Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?... The peoples have heard.... Terror and dread fall upon them because of the greatness of Your arm ... till the people pass by whom You have purchased. You will bring them in and plant them on Your own mountain.... The Lord will reign forever and ever" (Exodus 15).
• The victorious Lamb now appears as a Bridegroom to wed His redeemed people. A great heavenly chorus cries out, "'Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His Bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure'—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints" (Revelation 19). We were made righteous by the blood of the Lamb, and His Spirit works continuing holiness in us. "Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb." Jesus told His disciples during their last Passover meal that He would not be drinking wine again until they were gathered together in His Father's kingdom. Now that time has come, in celebration with all God's people.
• The final judgment will take place (Revelation 20) and then this Bride of the Lamb, the people of God, the sheep of His flock will leave behind the history of this world and step into a new home and life. John receives a vision of the city prepared by God where the Bride will live (Revelation 21): "I saw a new heaven and a new earth [like Isaiah 65 talks about], for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven ... and heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.'" 

This city is amazing and the symbolism is rich, including transparent gold and gates named after the 12 tribes of Israel and foundation stones named after the 12 apostles. Every one of those persons named in the heavenly city is a Jew. Christianity is Jewish. What about the Gentiles? Remember that every person in this city has been born again, which makes him or her a spiritual child of Abraham, as well as a child of the living God. We are one family, all represented by the 12 tribes and the 12 apostles. Every tribe, nation, and language have some representatives there. We all belong.

There is one more chapter in the Bible (Revelation 22). It opens with a beautiful picture of our new life, but it truly feels like the reality far outstrips the ability of language to give us anything beyond a glimpse in this life. John writes that he was shown "the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river, the tree of life bears 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will worship Him. They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever."

What a restoration! In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve walked in the cool of the day with God, Genesis 1-3 employing similar anthropomorphic language as these ending chapters of Revelation. The point is that real and satisfying communication between God and those made in His image has been fully restored and enhanced. The separating effects of the curse that came when sin entered our world are gone forever. God the Creator who made everything has promised He is preparing all this and more! Do we believe Him? Blessed are they, said Jesus, who have not seen and yet believe Him. His last words in this chapter are His promise that He is coming back soon.

Before He utters those words we find an invitation and a warning:

• "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely," completely fulfilling the famous prophecy from Isaiah 55. This is a gorgeous invitation to come to the Lord Jesus Christ and accept what He has done for His people, by that act becoming one of them!
• We dare not miss what the apostle John writes next under Christ's instructions from heaven's throne: "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this Book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this Book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the Book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city." Do not add requirements or ways of coming to Him that God has not given. To add to God's word is to set oneself above God. God's word is complete with the New Testament added to the Old Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures). We must not toss away any of it because it is what God Himself chose for us to know and obey.

Who is giving this invitation and warning? The last two verses of the Bible again identify the Speaker: "He who testifies to these things says, 'Surely I am coming soon.'" John concludes enthusiastically, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen." This is the Messiah speaking. He has given you an invitation. A reply is expected!

Related posts emphasizing that Christianity is Jewish:

• Illustrated Summaries of All The Chosen TV Series Episodes (Quotes, Links, and Photos)
  

• Illustrated Summary of Twelve Ordinary Men (the Apostles) by John MacArthur
  

• DANIEL+—An Illustrated Summary of Life Applications from Every Chapter of the Bible by G. Campbell Morgan
  

• Illustrated Summary of Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis
  

• Trusting the Bible: Illustrated Summary of Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell and Dr. Sean McDowell
  

• Some People Say the Silliest Things About Jesus—Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis