Category: Lenten meditations

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God’s Love on Display

On this Good Friday, I invite you to think with me about how Jesus, the Son of God, gave his life to rescue sinners and reconcile them to God. This was God’s love on display. “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6).

“Powerless” means helpless. After the terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995, scores of injured people lay amid the rubble of concrete slabs, steel rebar and rising water. Helpless. Awaiting rescue. Romans 5 says that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was for those who were helpless to save themselves.

Paul’s text is an unflattering description of humanity. “Ungodly” means irreverent, people without serious thoughts of God. “Sinners” are those who by nature and by choice violate God’s law. “Enemies” means that Jesus died for those who were alienated and rebellious against God’s rule in their lives. According to the New Testament, that is us, all of us.

How did God respond? He responded with love. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God put his love on display on Good Friday. As you read in the gospels the gory descriptions of the Lord’s sufferings: the mock trial, the false accusations, the beatings, the thorns, the nails, the spear, remember that it was love that carried him through it.

The message of Holy Week is not just a sentimental story. It tells us how we may experience God’s love. Romans 5:9-10 expresses this in three weighty theological words. Through faith in Christ we may be (1) “justified by his blood.” That means to be declared right with God, and secure in that position.

(2) Then, believers are declared to be “reconciled to God through the death of his Son.” This assures a peaceful, harmonious relationship with God.

(3) The third word is “saved.” It means to be rescued, delivered from the wrath of God’s final judgment. “While we were still sinners Christ died for us.” He died so that we could be justified before God, reconciled to God, and saved from the wrath of God.

If you are asking, “How may I know it was for me that he died?” I can tell you. If you are willing to admit that you are helpless before God, indifferent toward God, alienated from God, and in God’s eyes, a sinner, then I have good news. It was for people just like you that Christ died.

This may be hard to admit to yourself and to God, but it is a necessary first step. Confess your sin to God and express your faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Ask him to be your savior and begin to follow him as your Lord. Then Romans 5:1 will be true of you: “Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Good Friday was God’s love on display.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

 

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A King’s Reception

On Sunday Christians will begin the observance of the final week before Jesus’ death and resurrection. Palm Sunday recalls his formal entry into the city of Jerusalem as Messiah. All four of the gospels say that crowds welcomed Jesus with worship, singing psalms of praise in his honor.

Thousands of pilgrims were entering the city for the festival of Passover. Many of them recognized Jesus as the miracle worker of Galilee. Others had heard how he had raised Lazarus from death. Their hopes were centered on the promised kingdom, and they praised Jesus as Messiah, the Son of David.

Jesus was riding a young donkey, not a war horse or chariot, a sign of humility and peace. This was Jesus’ deliberate choice in order to fulfill a prophecy of scripture (Zechariah 9:9). Some of the people spread their cloaks on the ground before him and waved palm branches, shouting “Hosanna!” quoting Psalm 118:25-26.

This commotion did not seem to arouse the interest of the Roman officials. They apparently thought this activity was just another part of the Jews’ Passover celebration.

The national leaders of Israel had already been conspiring to have Jesus killed. “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:48). The Pharisees told Jesus to make the people stop their shouting and singing. Jesus’ reply was that if he silenced the crowd the stones would cry out in his praise! He seemed to be deliberately provoking the hostility that would lead to his death.

Jesus knew that the time had come for him to die. That is why he was now allowing the people to publicly praise him as Messiah. Heretofore he had suppressed talk of his kingship. He knew the people then did not understand the spiritual nature of his kingdom.

But now he is hurrying toward the cross and this public display would only hasten his death and resurrection. Not many days later the crowds would be shouting, “Crucify him!”

His disciples did not yet understand the significance of these events. It was not until the Lord’s resurrection  had occurred and the Holy Spirit had descended that they were able to discern the meaning of the prophesies. Then they understood that his death and resurrection were necessary as a sacrifice for sinners.

They would come to understand and accept as their mission to proclaim this message. Their attitude would be meekness, the fruit of the Spirit. Their method would be loving persuasion, not military conquest. Their Master was the One who fulfilled the prophecy: “See your king comes to you righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding upon a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).

Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Why Jesus Died

This season of the year is traditionally a time when Christians contemplate the message of the cross. That is what Jesus wanted his disciples to do. As he and his men made their way to Jerusalem, he gave them a prophecy of what would happen to him there. In fact, he repeatedly told them he was going to die and then be raised from the dead. And he told them why.

“‘We are going up to Jerusalem,’ he said, ‘and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise'” (Mark 10:33-34). This is the third preview of his death which Jesus gave his disciples which is recorded in Mark’s gospel.

One cannot help but notice the explicit detail: Jerusalem, religious leaders, Gentiles (Roman government and army), mocking, flogging, spitting, killing. These details are intended to drive home, to a group of men who were in a state of denial, the reality of what was about to happen.. Mark says they were astonished and afraid (v. 32).

Mark had introduced Jesus as the Son of God (Mark 1:1). But the title Jesus used most often was Son of Man. Why is this? Jesus’ hearers knew what he meant: he was claiming to be the Messiah, God’s anointed king.

The Lord Jesus was referring to the prophecy of Daniel 7:13-14 and applying it, without hesitation, to himself. According to the prophecy, the Son of Man will receive reverence belonging only to God. He will reign as a universal king, and all nations, peoples and languages will worship him.

In using this title for himself, Jesus was also identifying with the human race. Son of Man was a Hebrew idiom for humanity (Numbers 23:19). He is THE Son of Man, the representative man, the ideal human being. He identified himself with us in every way, except for sin.

Instead of asking for clarification or showing any interest at all in these momentous announcements, Jesus’ disciples persisted in denial and unbelief. They tried to change the subject to the power and prestige they associated with the kingdom (Mark10:35-41). In answer, the Lord Jesus contrasted their appetite for honor, security, and earthly power with his humble servanthood. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45).

He expected his disciples to follow him in humble service, not in ostentatious displays of power. “Whoever wants to be greatest among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mark 10:43-44).

D.L. Moody once said that the measure of a man is not how many servants he has, but how many people he serves. The word “servant” Jesus used for himself and his disciples, was the common word for a household slave. How many of Jesus’ 21st century  followers see themselves in this way? Someone has said that the test of whether a Christian has the attitude of a servant is how he acts if he is treated like one.

Then the Lord returned to the theme of death. His dying would be the payment of a ransom. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). This is a further expansion of his predictions of his death and resurrection. It tells us the purpose for which he would die and rise from the dead.

“‘Ransom’ was a familiar idea in Jewish, Roman, and Greek cultures,” wrote Donald English. “It was the price paid to liberate a slave, a prisoner of war, or a condemned person. The paying of the price cleaned the slate. To set a person free like this was known as ‘redemption.'”

The rest of the New Testament develops this theme. In their letters, Peter and Paul, and other apostles use this terminology of the marketplace to describe the great redemption payment that was made as Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins (Titus 2:14, 1 Peter 1:18-19, Hebrews 9:12). The ransom was the price paid to secure freedom for the captive or the slave. Jesus’ ransom secures forgiveness and freedom from sin’s penalty for all those who believe in him.

During this season, as we prepare for Holy Week and Easter, let’s remember that Jesus paid the ransom so that we could be set free. He was judged so that we might be acquitted. He was forsaken, so that we might be accepted. He refused to save himself, so that we might be saved. He died so that we might live.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Jesus Prophesied His Death

Jesus was a prophet. In fact he was the “prophet like me” whom Moses said would arise from among the people of Israel. God would put his words in the prophet’s mouth and the people were to listen to him. He would speak with the authority of God (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). Many who heard Jesus applied Moses’ words to him (John 5:46, 6:14, 7:40, Acts 3:22-24, 7:37).

As a prophet, Jesus foretold his own death and resurrection. This is one of the evidences for his divine nature. Mark’s gospel records three instances in which the Lord Jesus spoke plainly about what was going to happen when he went to Jerusalem. The second of these accounts reads as follows: “He was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days, he will rise'” (Mark 9:30-32 ESV).

Jesus had been in seclusion, outside of the borders of Israel (Mark 7:24, 8:27), trying not to draw a crowd. This was so he could spend time with his disciples in intense preparation for what was to come. Travelling incognito, they were now passing through Galilee on the way to Jerusalem (Mark 9:30, Luke 9:51). He was a peripatetic teacher, instructing the disciples continuously as they went along.

He was radically revising their preconceived understanding of what Messiah should be and do. Yes, the title “Son of Man” was indeed a reference to the messianic king they envisioned (Daniel 7:13-14). But what they did not yet understand was that before he would rule as messianic king, he must die for the sins of the world. The double reference to being killed implies a violent death at the hands of men.

He told the disciples he would be “delivered up” to be killed. This could refer to the betrayal by Judas, (reflected in the NIV translation). Or it could be interpreted as a reference to the Jewish officials handing him over to Pilate. Or of Pilate delivering him into the hands of the Roman soldiers for them to carry out the crucifixion.

We must not overlook the fact that the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Peter later to preach that it was God himself who delivered up Jesus to die for sinners on the cross. He said that Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23 ESV). The apostle Paul agreed, writing that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25 ESV). 

The disciples did not yet understand. The idea that Messiah could be killed in this way was unthinkable and repugnant. In fact they were overcome with grief (Matthew 17:22). They certainly did not comprehend the resurrection. As the prophet spoken of by Moses, Jesus predicted these events and he was preparing his disciples. This was divine foreknowledge.

There are skeptics who deny this. They say that Jesus the man could not possibly have foreseen the future. But to deny his ability to prophesy coming events is to deny the portrait we have of Jesus throughout the gospels. If he was the divine Son of God this would be consistent with his nature.

There are skeptics who call attention to the fact that Jesus never claimed to be divine in Mark’s gospel. They say that Mark emphasized Jesus’ humanity. True enough, on both counts. Even without an explicit claim to deity such as we find in the gospel of John, Mark seems to be saying, “Look at the evidence and draw your own conclusion.”

Jesus forgave people’s sins. His enemies spoke the truth when, shocked by this they said, “He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:5-7). He declared himself to be Lord of the Jewish sabbath (Mark 2:23-28). He raised the dead (Mark 5:35-41). Over and over he demonstrated his power over demons, diseases, and over the forces of nature. He accepted the worship of people. If he was not divine, this would indeed be blasphemy (Mark 11:9-10).

When the officials of Israel asked him directly, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” he answered, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61-62). So upon reading the description of Jesus in Mark, it it no great surprise to hear him foretelling the future in detail (Mark 13:1-36). He was indeed the prophet.

Mark’s purpose is evangelistic. He magnifies the message of the cross. His style is direct, unadorned, and vivid. His gospel is a witness, an invitation to his readers to believe in Jesus, the Son of God who died on the cross, knowing he was accomplishing God’s plan of salvation.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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What if I Had Been There?

What if I had been there? What if you had been there? What if we had heard his words? Would our response have been any different? Would we have understood? Would we have believed him?

“There” was an area about 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee, near the city of Caesarea Philippi, at the base of Mount Hermon. Since the time of the ancient Canaanites the region had been  known as a center for pagan idolatry. Both the Greeks and the Romans had developed it as a center for the worship of their gods.

I have visited the ruins of this ancient site. I have seen the cave which housed a shrine dedicated to the worship of Baal, a Canaanite fertility god. I have  seen the niches carved in the rocky cliffside which once held statues of Greek and Roman deities.

Jesus was there with his disciples because he wanted to instruct them and prepare them more fully for what was coming. This was the training of the twelve for their further mission. They had withdrawn from the crowds in Galilee to have time together for this purpose.

It was in this milieu of spiritual darkness, that the apostle Peter made his great declaration that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. This is a shining witness in contrast to the dark superstition of the place. The Lord Jesus did not deny this statement of Peter’s. Rather he commended him for speaking the truth as it was revealed to him by God above (Matthew 16:16-17).

What happened next is what prompted my original question. Jesus startled his men by talking about his impending death. He told his disciples that, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31).

Jesus was specific and clear about how all this would occur. “He spoke plainly about this” (Mark 8:32). He said he would suffer. He foresaw the physical sufferings that were ahead. Then there were the emotional sufferings of his agonized prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, hearing his countrymen screaming “crucify him,” the denial of Peter, the betrayal by Judas, and his own cry of ultimate dereliction: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”

He told them that the officials of the Jewish religion would officially and categorically reject their Messiah (the Son of Man, Daniel 7:13-14). He said that he would be subjected to a violent death. This would be followed by his resurrection after three days.

His words were a shocking disruption to their thinking. They had no categories by which to process what the Lord was saying to them. They simply didn’t understand. Peter filled the awkward silence with words of his own. He spoke for the other disciples and himself when he began to protest. The whole idea was inconceivable.

If Jesus was the Messiah, as Peter had just declared him to be, such an ignominious death did not match their ideas about what Messiah would be. The image of Messiahship Peter had in mind was more in line with Jewish nationalism and political power.

Jesus wheeled around and rebuked Peter sharply. “You do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men” (Mark 8:33). To understand how seriously wrong Peter was to contradict what Jesus had been saying, we have only to meditate on his words to Peter, “Get behind me Satan!”

Jesus wanted to revise the disciples’ understanding of what his Messiahship really meant: “The Son of Man must suffer . . . and be killed . . . and rise again.” This was inevitable  and necessary because it was God’s will and Jesus was determined to fulfill his Father’s will.

What if we had been there? Would our response have been any different than that of the disciples? Would we have understood? Would we have believed him?

The question is moot because from our historical perspective we have three advantages those disciples did not have at that time. We have the completed New Testament (which they wrote) to give us the full story. We have the church, the assembly of God’s people, to be a repository and declarer of the gospel. We have the Holy Spirit who has now been sent to every believer as an instructor and guide in the truth (John 7:39, 14:26).

By these means of grace we are now able to understand that this was the first of three previews of his coming death which are recorded in the gospel of Mark. Jesus was preparing his disciples for what was coming. In doing so he was giving them the gospel and laying the foundation for their future ministry to us.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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His Hour Had Come

Embedded in the text of John’s gospel is a statement that is repeated to move the narrative forward to the culmination of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Sometimes it is spoken by Jesus, and sometimes by the apostle as he writes about Jesus. Several times the phrase “his hour had not yet come” (John 8:30) appears, until the time of his death, when he prayed, “Father, the hour has come” (John 17:1).

When, at a wedding feast, his mother hinted strongly that he do something when the wine ran out, Jesus replied, “Woman, why do you involve me?” His relationship to her had now changed. He had been publicly anointed for the work the Father had commissioned him to do and the hour of this death and glorification had “not yet come” (John 2:4). When he did respond to her request, it was because her appeal was less as a mother than as a believer. His answer showed her that their natural human relationship was subordinate to the will of God for him.

The same thing governed his answer to his brothers who suggested that he “leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret” (John 7:4). He refused to go as they suggested, seeking notoriety, because “My time is not yet here” (John 7:6, 8). When he did go to Jerusalem for the festival, it was for different reasons, and it was according to God’s timetable

When his religious detractors wanted to seize him by force and have him arrested for blasphemy, “no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come” (John 7:30, 8:20). They were powerless against him until the time came for him to give up his life.

When he went up to Jerusalem for the Passover at the beginning of the week he died, he predicted his death by saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds” (John 12:23-24). This brings us to the final stage of John’s gospel and the mission of Jesus. “The hour” is filled with significance: Jesus’ death will lead to his glorification (Philippians 2:6-11)!

Then we hear the Lord Jesus praying with a troubled heart, reminding us of his prayers in the garden of Gethsemane. John  recalls the Lord asking, “What shall I say? Father save me from this hour? No, it was for this very reason that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name”  (John 12:27-28). What was it that prompted this prayer? No doubt it had to do with the weight of the world’s sin which would be laid upon him at Calvary (2 Corinthians 5:21).

When the Lord gathered his disciples in the upper room just before the observance of Passover festival, “Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father” (John 13:1). The repetition of this theme in John’s gospel has been building to this climactic moment. Jesus now will prepare his disciples for life after he is gone from them. In John 13-16 he teaches them to serve one another, to love one another, and to rely on the coming Holy Spirit.

In the gospels there are twenty-one recorded prayers of Jesus. There is none more precious and beautiful  than the prayer he prayed for his disciples in John 17. In all of them but one (Matthew 27:46), he addresses God as his “Father” and he does so here: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that your Son may glorify you” (John 17:1-2). His deepest concern is for the Father’s will to be done and that God may be glorified (“hallowed be thy name”). In saying “the hour has come” he is yielding to the will of the Father by dying on the cross for the sins of the world.

This key phrase, repeated in the gospel of John, is a foretelling of the purpose for which Jesus came: to fulfill the Father’s plan of salvation by dying and rising from the dead. Paul’s words prove true: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6).

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

 

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Pierced for Our Transgressions

During these weeks before Good Friday and Easter I am asking readers to ponder the fulfillment of biblical prophecies related to the death of Jesus on the cross. John the apostle draws our attention to several Old Testament scriptures as he describes the crucifixion.

In John 19:34 he wrote, “One of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.” In verse 37, John says this was a fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah which said, “They will look on the one they have pierced.” (John also referenced this prophecy when he described his vision of the risen and victorious Jesus in Revelation 1:7.)

If you study Zechariah 12:10 closely, you learn that the prophet foresaw Israel’s national deliverance in the last days. The physical restoration of his nation is dependent upon their spiritual renewal. He depicts the nation mourning in repentance over their sins. This is accompanied by a spiritual cleansing from sin (Zechariah 13:1).

In this remarkable prophecy the Messiah says, “They will look on me, the one they have pierced.” Messiah has been speaking throughout Zechariah’s prophecy. The New Testament teaches us that this is none other than the Lord Jesus. He is the one who will accomplish Israel’s final restoration as he ushers in his glorious earthly kingdom.

Charles Ryrie wrote, “At the second coming of Christ, Israel will recognize Jesus as her Messiah, acknowledging with deep contrition that He is the One whom their forefathers pierced.” This is what John had in mind when he recognized the partial fulfillment of Zechariah’s words in the sufferings of Jesus.

Jesus’ body was also pieced by nails. This too was prophesied. Psalm 22:16 says “They pierce my hands and my feet.” This graphic depiction of what happened at a crucifixion was written hundreds of years before crucifixion was invented as an instrument of execution.

Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of the Roman practice of crucifixion. In 1968 they discovered a heel bone pierced with an iron spike. It is the bone of a crucified man found in a Jerusalem ossuary, dating from the first century. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that the Romans executed thousands of victims. It was an agonizing, torturous way to die.

One of the Lord’s disciples, Thomas, did not at first believe in Jesus’ resurrection. He said to the other disciples, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand in his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). A week later the Lord came among the disciples and gave Thomas an opportunity to do that very thing. When the skeptical Thomas saw the risen Lord he bowed in worship exclaiming, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). This is how it will be at the second coming when Israel recognizes and worships King Jesus.

It is doubtful that Zechariah the prophet grasped the full significance of his words, or the use that a disciple of Messiah would make of them 500 years later (1 Peter 1:10-11). But he knew that he was being motivated and guided by a burden from God as he wrote.  He was prophesying the death of Jesus as Isaiah had done years before.

Isaiah’s words provoke reverence and gratitude. “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). It was for our sins that Jesus died. He took our place and suffered the penalty we deserved to have to pay. We can only worship and love him for that.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Not a Bone Was Broken

“These things happened so that scripture would be fulfilled” (John 19:36).

Recently I was reading the story of a young astronomer, David Block, who was drawn to the idea of a personal Creator by the elegance, beauty and immensity of the universe. He became a Christian through the influence of friends who encouraged him to read the New Testament. He was intrigued by the fact that “Jesus had fulfilled all the messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures (where the Messiah would be born, how he was to die, and much else besides). . . . I knew that I had found him and that all I had to do was respond to his free offer of grace.”

Fulfilled prophecy is one of the convincing evidences that the Bible is God’s word. The predictions about Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, are remarkably precise. The New Testament frequently refers to prophecies written five hundred to a thousand years before the time of Jesus. He fulfilled them in detail.

Paul Little wrote, “One cannot deny the force of fulfilled prophecy as evidence of divine guidance. Furthermore, there are prophecies which could not possibly have been schemed and written after the events predicted.”

The apostle John was an eyewitness to fulfilled prophecy. He knew his Bible and he knew what was taking place before his eyes (John 19:35). He brought the two together when he wrote his gospel. In his account of our Lord’s crucifixion, he called attention to four details which he says were predicted in the Hebrew Bible: the soldiers gambling for Jesus’ clothes, the wine vinegar they gave him, the fact that his bones were not broken, and the fact that his body was pierced by nails and a spear.

In John 19:31-34 we may read how the executioners wanted to hasten the deaths of those who were being crucified with Jesus. They broke their legs so that they could not put their weight on them as they hung dying. In Jesus’ case, however, they found him already dead. To make sure, one of the soldiers thrust his spear into Jesus’ side, from which flowed blood and water. They did not break the bones in his legs! This fulfilled a prophecy found in Psalm 34:20, “He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.” John quotes this in John 19:36.

This is significant because the lamb in the Hebrew Passover ritual was to be roasted, eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and the people were commanded not to break any of its bones (Numbers 9:12, Exodus 12:46). John the Baptist had declared that Jesus is the Lamb of God (John 1:29). Paul wrote that Jesus Christ is our Passover Lamb who has been sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7). In his death on the cross, Jesus fulfilled the deeper meaning of the Jewish Passover sacrifice in exquisite detail.

John said he was writing these details of prophecy and fulfillment to help us believe in Jesus (John 19:35). These facts of history and scripture support and validate the claims of the Christian gospel. Read the gospel of John as if for the first time. John wrote, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

 

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Another Prophecy Fulfilled

“Fulfilled” is a key word in John chapter 19. John the apostle repeats it several times to show his belief that the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) pointed forward to the sacrificial death of Jesus. In John 19 we have John’s eyewitness report of our Lord’s crucifixion. He takes pains to show that it fulfilled prophesies written hundreds of years before.

The Christian message is that the death of the Son of God removed the barrier of sin that separates us from a holy God. This makes possible our reconciliation with our Creator. Paul wrote, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Peter wrote, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).

John had in mind the writings of the ancient prophets as he reported the death and resurrection of Jesus. For example, Psalm 69:21 says, “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.” John recalled this text when he wrote, “A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips” (John 19:29). He said this happened “so that scripture would be fulfilled” (John 19:28).

This was in response to Jesus’ plaintive cry, “I am thirsty.” The soldiers who had crucified the Lord gave him some of the cheap sour wine they had been drinking. Some historians believe this may have had an astringent effect that could contract the throat of the victim. Luke 23:36-37 indicates this drink was offered in mockery.

His intense thirst was predicted in the prophecies of the Bible. His anguished suffering is described in Psalm 22:15, “My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.”

“When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). “Finished” was a word used in biblical times to refer to the paying of a debt. The phrase “It is finished” means “paid in full.” The debt we owe to God for our sins has been fully paid by his beloved Son on behalf of those who believe in him.

The fact that Jesus “gave up his spirit” is consistent with his earlier word that he, as the Good Shepherd, would lay down his life for his sheep. “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again,” Jesus said (John 10:18).

This should elicit a response of reverent awe. Even if the prophets did not fully grasp the implications of all that they wrote (1 Peter 1:10-12), their prophesies came true in minute detail, as we see here. God planned the sacrifice of his Son who loved us and gave himself for us (Galatians 2:20). Fulfilled prophecy means God keeps his word.

This should elicit a response of faith in Jesus as Savior, and obedience to him as Lord and Master. He suffered and died that we might live with him eternally. Shall we not live for him now? The One who said, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink” (John 7:37) suffered thirst on the cross as he died for our sins.

This should elicit a response of thankfulness. How long has it been since you thanked the Lord Jesus for what he endured in death so that you might receive the gracious gift of life eternal?

Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Gambling for a Seamless Tunic

During these weeks leading up to Good Friday, I am writing about the apostle John’s references to fulfilled prophecy. John points to several details about our Lord’s crucifixion which were prophesied in the Old Testament.

Of course anti-Christian antagonists deny this. I remember the publication of a controversial book by Hugh Schonfield in the mid-1960s. In The Passover Plot the author claimed that Jesus was a fanatical genius who thought himself to be the Jews’ Messiah. He brilliantly and subtly organized his ministry to make it appear that everything he did was a fulfillment of biblical prophecies.

According to Schonfield, this involved a plot to fake his own death. He included his disciples in this audacious strategy. They conspired with him to try to make it appear that he had died on the cross and to contrive an artificial “resurrection.” According to Schonfield, Jesus did not claim to be the divine Son of God, and he did not rise from the dead. He was merely a mortal man who believed himself to be the Messiah. His supposed death and resurrection were to bring about the launch of his reign as king of the Jews.

There are too many problems with this far-fetched theory to answer them all. One of the most obvious is how a group of uneducated Galileans could have persuaded Jesus’ enemies to go along with such an elaborate scheme. The powerful religious leaders of Israel were the very ones who wanted him dead and who turned him over to the Roman authorities!

John, in fact, was writing as an eyewitness to the events he described in his gospel. He was present at the crucifixion of Jesus, along with the Lord’s mother and a few other faithful women. What he wrote has the ring of truth. He recognized that these events fulfilled what the ancient Hebrew scriptures had prophesied.

He personally witnessed what he described in John 19:23-24: “When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. ‘Let’s not tear it,’ they said to one another. ‘Let’s decide by lot who will get it.'”

Then John adds this telling word: “This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said, ‘They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.’ So this is what the soldiers did.”

Are we to believe that the dying Jesus would have contrived in advance for his Roman torturers to gamble for his clothing? These were people who had no knowledge of the prediction of this event in Psalm 22:18. They had no idea they were fulfilling a prophecy written hundreds of years before. Their actions showed contempt for the dying prisoner, not cooperation with his followers.

Psalm 22 is one of several Messianic psalms. It is the psalm which is quoted the most in the New Testament. It’s author is probably King David who was a prophet as well as a poet. The psalm begins with words Jesus spoke from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (v. 1, Matthew 27:46). Surely one cannot read the opening words of Psalm 22 without thinking of Jesus.

This psalm, in verses 14-16, prophetically describes crucifixion. This was unknown as a method of execution at the time it was written. It graphically pictures a dying man who is being shamed by mocking, tortured by thirst and asphyxiation, an object of horror to all who look on his emaciated frame and nail-pierced hands and feet. Yet unlike other psalms, this one contains no prayer for retribution or confession of sins by its speaker, facts which align with the Lord’s righteous character and forgiving spirit.

Three spiritual lessons have been advanced based upon John’s citation of Psalm 22:18. First, fulfilled prophecy is evidence for the truth-claims of Christianity. No false pretender could have devised a plot which involved controlling other people’s reactions. The betrayal, false accusations, torture, and crucifixion of Jesus were all prophesied in scripture and were carried out by hostile actors, not co-conspirators. This includes the precise detail about his clothing being taken by the executioners. This happened as prophesied in Psalm 22:18, according to the apostle John.

Second, in dying on the cross for the salvation of sinners, Jesus endured public humiliation. E.A. Blum has written, “That Jesus died naked was part of the shame which he bore for our sins. At the same time He is the last Adam who provides clothes of righteousness for sinners.”

Third, The seamless tunic which the soldiers valued may have been the type of garment worn by the high priests of Israel. If this is true it suggests the priestly ministry of our Lord on behalf of his people as he now prays for us continually as our defender, advocate and friend at the Father’s right hand (1 John 2:1-2; John 17:20).

Pastor Randy Faulkner