Christ Gave Himself

By Jeff Curtis

When thinking about the mind of God, we need to realize our limitations (Isaiah 55:8-9); we shouldn’t allow ourselves to stray into areas of speculation. Still, we are encouraged by the Scriptures to meditate on the Word, and God will reward those who humbly and honestly seek to understand His will (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:1-3; 119:15, 46-48).

We should attempt to visualize the great drops of sweat that fell from our Lord’s face as He prayed in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44). We should also study on the fact that His Spirit was One with the Father’s, and yet Peter says “He… bore our sins in His body on the cross” (1Peter 2:24). By doing so, maybe we will get some insight into what is at the heart of the meaning of the term “sacrifice” and also the mystery of God. By His nature, Jesus, in perfect holiness, hated the sin. And in His perfect spiritual harmony with God, He desired to do God’s will and was nourished by doing the will of God (John 4L34).

Everything God asked of Him, He could willingly do, and He even desired to do. He must have known even before His coming to this world that He, the holy Prince of Life, was to be delivered over to the realm of Satan, the prince of death and the unholiest being that ever existed. It was surely here, struggling in prayer, that our Lord fully learned obedience, doing the Father’s will and submitting to something that was utterly contrary to the spiritual fiber of His Being. We should learn such obedience, such hatred of sin, such loving sacrifice – to be partakers of so great a measure of His holiness.

All men “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Contingent upon this realization, fallen man must take the first step in accepting the salvation that Jesus offers us through His redemptive death. The writer of Hebrews wrote, “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10). The agony that Jesus suffered in Gethsemane was, in the will of God, the only way to achieve the purpose for which He was sent on His earthly mission (1Timothy 1:15). He, the Redeemer, paid the full price for our sins (1Peter 1:17-21). He was the Lamb of God who bore our sins (John 1:29). God made Him “to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2Corinthians 5:21). “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2Corinthians 5:19). Our justification comes as “a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).

Ever Tempted to Forsake Your Faith?

by Russ Bowman

Psalm73 - Asaph acknowledges at the outset of this psalm that he had been seriously tempted to forsake his faith. He witnessed the injustices of life, and particularly the truth that wicked people often prosper. “They are not in trouble like other men, nor are they plagued like other men...their eyes bulge with abundance; they have more than heart could wish...these are the ungodly who are always at ease...” He goes so far as to question whether or not he had been serving God in vain (v.13-14).

Notice, however, that his frame of reference is changed when he “went into the sanctuary of God” and “understood their end” (v.17). Worship helps us to keep our head on straight. As we focus upon what is divine, holy, righteous, eternal, and just, the injustices and temporality of this world are put in their proper perspective. Yes, sinful and rebellious men often prosper in this life. They revel in their pride and abundance; often abuse and oppress others; seem at times to be above judgment and secure from retribution. But my regular presence in the “sanctuary of God” serves to remind me that our holy, righteous, and all-knowing Lord sits upon the throne of God and that every man will bow before Him and give account for his actions. It is this consideration that keeps us grounded, keeps us balanced, keeps us focused on things of true eternal value. And when tempted to think poorly of our conviction and service, it is often worship that becomes our way of escape.

Isn’t it a shame that we so very often neglect that which is so crucial to our continued trust in God.

Paul’s Appeal to the Old Testament

Jeff Curtis

Paul’s reference to “strange tongues” in 1Corinthians 14:21, examined in the context of Isaiah 28:11-12, could seem strange to readers of the Bible today. Isaiah’s message to his contemporaries about a ‘foreign tongue’ concerned God’s speaking to Israel through a foreign people. It had nothing to do with those people at Corinth who had been gifted by the Holy Spirit in the church at Corinth. If the passage in Isaiah wasn’t predicting the New Testament events, what was Paul’s purpose in citing it?

Christians should realize that not every quotation of the Old Testament in the New Testament is a prediction of some event in the life of Christ or some aspect of the church He built. (1) Sometimes New Testament writers used the Old Testament to support godly ethical imperatives. When Paul wrote, “He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8), and then named several to the Ten Commandments, he wasn’t saying that these words were about Jesus or His people. Rather, he was drawing lines of continuity between the Old and New Testament. He was asserting that the message of Christ requires the same kind of moral living that the Old Testament required.

(2) At times an event in the history of Israel was described in language that was suitable for a similar event described in the New Testament. When Matthew cited Hisea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called My son” (Matthew 2:15), he wasn’t noting the similarity of events when the people of Israel, God’s son in a spiritual sense, came out of Egypt and the time when Joseph brought Jesus out of Egypt to live in Canaan. The two events were in some were similar, but Matthew had no need to do an exegesis of the Old Testament text to modern standards in order to justify his citation of the prophet Hosea.

The taking if words from their original context because of their appropriateness to a new situation is a common practice, both inside and outside the Bible. An illustration of this might help. One of the world’s most famous buildings is St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Among others buried there in the crypt of the cathedral is its architect, Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723). His tomb is marked by a small plaque with Latin inscription that was written by his son. It is translated, “If you seek monuments, look around you.” When one lifts his eyes above the crypt, he sees the spires and grandeur of the cathedral, no mere statue was suitable for such a builder.

These words might be applied to the life of a person today. Suppose an elderly man lost his faithful Christian wife to death. At the memorial service, he might see people who she had counseled through crises, poor children she had fed, and women she had taught and encouraged to obey the Lord in baptism. Looking at these people whose lives his wife had blessed, he could say, “If you seek monuments, look around you.” By citing Wren’s epitaph, the husband would be claiming that the words had been written for his wife; yet they would be applicable, for the woman’s monument would be etched into the lives of living souls. New Testament writers used the Old Testament in a similar way, and that is the way Paul cited Isaiah 28:11-12 in 1Corinthians 14:21.