37th Post Jesus Relationship with His Father - Con't.

Mark 14:36; Matthew 26: 39; and Luke 22:42, continued from previous blog post. We have been looking at Jesus in the Garden and His struggle with the cup. Jesus as God, knows that He has no choice in this matter. He (Jesus) must prevail in order to satisfy His Father's wishes. Now the Father is asking Jesus to become sin on our behalf to accomplish this. God the Father is asking Jesus to become something He can not even bear to look at. That is a tall request to ask let alone your own Son. Jesus also being God and feeling the same way about sin as His Father, has to actually become what His Father can not even look at!! Think about that. Jesus' love for us, is what gave Him the will to obey His Father's wishes. If Jesus did not drink of this cup, we would not be saved, and would still live under the consequences of the Law. Grace does not give us the power to turn completely away from the Law. The purpose of the Law was to point out sin, it still has that purpose today. The difference between believers and nonbelievers is that believers are forgiven!
John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that He gave his only Son... That passage does not say only believers at the beginning, it says the world; in order to claim everlasting life you have to make a decision to believe or not. If you have been struggling with making a decision, or need further information on this, please leave me a comment and I will get back to you.

36th Post Jesus Relationship with His Father -Mark 14:36

Mark 14:36, Matthew 26:39; and Luke 22:42; all deal with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane later in the evening of Maundy Thursday. This passage deals with Jesus asking His Father if it were possible to take "this cup" away from Me. This passage is written in simple language, but the meaning of what is happening here is far from simple. I will try to explain it here. First, you have to understand that Jesus had two natures; He was 100% God and 100% man, at the same time. The cup represents two different things also; to God the Father it represents justice (through the Law), and the consequences for breaking that Law. This has been called wrath, this is the justice due for breaking the Law. To Jesus (still God) and the man part of Him, the cup represents all the sins committed from the Garden of Eden, up to and including His Life on earth; including all of the sins committed by man (and woman) until He comes again. That is a lot of sin. God provided payment for this, one time and one time only. Jesus is in the Garden asking God if it were possible for Him not to complete this task. Earlier in this blog we have been looking at the passages that say I have not come here on my own but do the works of My Father that sent Me. If He doesn't complete this task, His earthly coming would have been in vane and the devil would win another round. God is more powerful than the devil, so this could not happen. And yet, here we have Jesus asking for the very reason He came to earth to be removed from Him. Jesus is struggling here with what to do. Just like us, Jesus had to confess the sins of others, others because He had no sin to confess. We on the other hand have much to confess or we will be held accountable for that sin unless we confess it and ask for forgiveness. It is easier for us to confess our sins, because we are the ones who committed them and for that reason we own our sin. In Jesus' case, He was sinless, and had to confess our sins as His Own, because He was sinless He had to become the sins on our behalf; in order to pay for our sins. The cup represents our sins and Jesus had to drink it in order to fully pay for our sins. I will have to continue this on next blog. Stay tuned....

35th Post Comments on this part of our study Jesus' Authority.

Our class meets for two hours each week, and you would think in that much time, we could finish our Bible passages we are to study, and thoroughly exhaust each discussion on the Bible passages.
This is far from the case, what we find is that the two hour time slot rushes by, and things come up that need explaining, I say I will put in the blog, but I can't seem to find a place to fit them in. These go without explanation, and people think I have forgotten about their questions. This is not always the case, I do confess that I suffer from short term memory loss, and this can be a problem.
In one of our meetings, the word Shechinah came up. Those who have had my class in the past or know me, spelling is not one of my strong suits. I told them that I would find the correct spelling of this word and put in my blog. Now I can't very well give you the correct spelling and not tell you what this word means. Shechinah comes from the Hebrew, and means visible presence of God. This was the word used in the Old Testament to describe the pilar of smoke and the pilar of fire that led the Israelites in the wilderness, this same word is used to describe the cloud on the Mount of Transfiguration. We have talked about this but have not studied it yet in this blog. I will have to write down words that I need to post in the future, and I will try to share them in this blog in a more timely fashion. Thanks to all of you who are reading this blog. I hope it is informative and helps you build a stronger relationship with God. God Bless You.

34th Post Jesus Authority Con't - John 13:20

This passage takes place on Maundy Thursday (the night of Jesus Last Supper with His disciples before Jesus was betrayed). The time period of this passage is after the washing of the disciples feet and before Jesus tells the disciples that one of their own would betray Him. It is fitting, that we should find this passage here, and in the upper room. Jesus' earthly ministry is coming to a close and He is passing the mantle or authority on to His disciples. Remember Jesus is 100% God and 100% man; during His many passages concerning His Authority, that we have looked at here, Jesus provided us with a chain of comand. His Godly comand starts with the Father, goes through Him, and He then sends the Holy Spirit. We have not discussed the Holy Spirit much yet, but we will do so as Jesus continues to tell us about Himself in this study based on the words of Jesus. Jesus had a chain of authority for His human side as well. If you look back you will find that Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist and not in the Temple (the Jews did not believe in baptising Jews, because they were part of the chosen people.) Like the Old Testament, when the Jews drifted away from God, God would raise up a prophet to redirect the people back to God. This was John the Baptist's job to redirect the the people not only back to God, but to announce that the Jewish Messiah had finally arrived and introduced Him to the World. Jesus has almost completed His earthly ministry and before He does, he also has to pass his authority on to His disciples. His disciples, which on this night prove not to be the powerful force for God, they were intended to be. They become that force through the help of the Holy Spirit, the third part of the Godhead, but not the least as we will find out through our further study of Jesus in His Words. This completes the study of Jesus Authority, we will be looking at Jesus relationship with His Father in our next segment.

33rd Post Jesus Authority Con't - John 12: 44 - 45

Jesus again in this passage, says "when you believe in Me, you believe not in Me but in the Father. And he who sees Me, sees the Father that sent Me." This goes along with the rest of the passages we have looked at so far. Jesus is telling the people again, that He is not here on His own but was sent by His Father to do the works of the Father. Jesus is establishing His power and authority are all linked to the Father God. The proof of this is in the fact Jesus performs miracles to show He is sent by God. The next time you are reading the Bible and come across Jesus performing a miracle, what does He do before He performs the miracle? He prays to His Father before He does the miracle and He prays thanking God for allowing Him to perform that miracle when He is done. Jesus is God in His own right, why would He do this? To confirm what Jesus has been saying that Jesus is here to do the will of His Father and not His own Will. It was very hard for the people living at the time of Jesus to believe and understand all the things Jesus Said. It seems that we also have those same questions and doubts. If you have doubts, I hope you will continue to read this blog along with your Bible; you need to keep reading your Bible in any case because it is the Word of God. God speaks through His Word, you need to learn more about God. God is a God of order, and Jesus is establishing that order through His Ministry. This is the same order that the Apostles will follow after Jesus leaves and goes back to Heaven.

32nd Post Jesus Authority Con't - John 10: 34-38.

This passage is typical of John, printed in simple language, but the concepts are anything but simple. This fact fools a lot of readers, they read the words but don't understand the concepts. By taking this passage apart and looking at the ideas, we get a better understanding of what Jesus was really trying to say. The Church leaders did not recognize Jesus as Lord (God). Jesus was trying to show them that the Law they received from Moses is the exact same teachings that He Himself is using. Both Laws are the same and came from God. Moses prophesied about a Redeemer coming to deliver them. For this reason, the Church leaders should accept Jesus and His words. This did not happen. Jesus was trying to tell them that He (Jesus) is that Redeemer, Moses talked about. This is what Jesus was alluding to when He used the word Sanctified. The word sanctified means set apart. The Father sent Him and sanctified Him and sent Him into the world. Jesus went on to say if you do not believe me, believe the works that I do; because they prove what I am telling you is true. I can not do these miracles without help from the Father. The fact that God the Father is allowing Jesus to perform the miracles shows that what Jesus is saying is true.

31st Post Jesus Authority Con't. - John 10: 34 - 38

Jesus by stating that they were gods was reminding them who gave them the Scriptures. God gave the Scriptures to Moses who in turn gave them to the people. This was a concept my Sunday night class had some trouble understanding. Not this part about God giving it (the Law) to Moses and then giving it to the people; but the part concerning the people to be gods. If you look at the passages I gave in my last post and then add Genesis Chapter Six and Job Chapter One, you will see the term sons of God used. In Genesis Chapter 6, "the sons of God and the daughters of men" is the passage in question. If you look at Genesis Chapter 6 with Genesis Chapter 3, you will remember that God made a distinction between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. If you keep that in mind, you will be able to unlock Genesis Chapter 6 quite easily. The sons of God would be the sons of the seed of the woman; and the daughters of men would be the daughters of the seed of the serpent. Now it gets a little more sticky when we look at the Job Chapter One account. If you pay attention to where this scene takes place, you will be able to unlock this passage as well. The sons of God are in the presence of God in the Throne Room of God. This can only be in Heaven. We learned from Moses that no man can see God the Father's face and live. If these were men, they would have to be dead, if they were dead they would have been in Sheol, not Heaven. Explaining Sheol took some time, in class. If you think about Jesus' parable about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). You will realize that Sheol housed both the good and the bad, with a large crevasse that separates the two groups. This is where the dead would have gone in the Old Testament, and not into the presence of God. So, if these sons of God were not men, then who are they?? They would have to be Angels. And that is exactly who they are.