Why Are There So Many Denominations – Part 2

Acts 20:28-32
Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood.  For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.  Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them.  Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.  And now, brothers, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.

As we continue our study and consider why there are so many denominations and sects in Christianity, it is beneficial to consider the local assembly of believers in Ephesus.  In the last post we considered the Corinthians and specifically how some of them were lifting up certain of the apostles and divisions were forming.  Though the apostle Paul was given a definite commission from the risen ascended Lord Jesus Christ to be the “apostle to the Gentiles” we see him temporarily set this distinction aside as he exhorts the Corinthians to first and foremost focus on the Lord Jesus Christ and realize that the apostles are the servants of Christ and “stewards of the mysteries of God”.  As we further read the Corinthian epistles we find that the evidence of these divisions among other issues in the Corinthian assembly showed that they were minding earthly things, being carnal, and walking rather by sight instead of by faith.  The spiritual condition of the Corinthian assembly at the moment he penned the letter prevented the apostle from expounding further on the riches of Christ Jesus which were given to all believers and the “meat” or solid spiritual food of the revelation of the mystery which he was given by the Lord Jesus Christ.  We see this evidenced in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3

And I brothers, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.  I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are you able.

As we shift our focus to the assembly at Ephesus, we see a much different scenario for it is in the letter to the Ephesians where find some of the heaviest “meat” for the church, the body of Christ.  In the epistle to the Ephesians we find the heavenly calling, scope and hope for the Gentile members of the body of Christ.  It is evident that at the time the apostle Paul penned this letter, the Ephesians were ready for some spiritual “meat”.  How interesting then to note our introductory verses above.  As we read them we note that these were some of Paul’s last words to the Ephesians in person before his final departure from them. Notice how he commends the Ephesians to God, and to the Word of God’s grace.  Once again we see the apostle Paul laying out whom needs to always be first, God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  As we also read these verses we notice that Paul admonishes them that there will be “grievous wolves” entering in trying to destroy the assembly, and in addition to this he also states that of those present with him at that time, some of them also would end up seeking to lead astray some of the assembly.  So let’s consider this, the Ephesian assembly was given some of the heaviest spiritual meat of God’s Word and we see them in a much more sound spiritual state than we see the Corinthian assembly in. Yet when we turn to the last letter that the apostle Paul penned before his death, we see that the Ephesians had already turned away from the gospel of grace which Paul preached.  Realizing that Ephesus was a city in Asia let’s read 2nd Timothy 1:15

This you know, that all they which are in Asia are turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

So as we remember the apostle’s words in Acts that there would be some of the Ephesians who would speak perverse things and draw away disciples after them, we see that two of those fellows were Phygellus and Hermogenes.  So let’s contemplate that the Ephesian assembly was mostly Gentile Christians, and the apostle Paul was given the specific commission as the apostle to the Gentiles to share the mystery and the gospel of the grace of God and all that Christ provided for the church through His death, burial, and resurrection.  We find that all those in Asia, which included the Ephesians had turned away from the apostle Paul’s message of grace.  This brings up an important point, when discussing this age of grace in which live, and God’s heavenly plan for the Gentile members of Christ, and the true church, the body of Christ, when discussing these things to Christians who are unfamiliar with them, but familiar with prevailing Christian doctrines and dogma you will encounter the argument that if all these things were important they would be more well known.  What usually follows this line of reasoning is a brief review of the lack of these subjects mentioned by the “church fathers” (referring to the Christian leaders in the first few centuries after the Bible was complete) or any other major Christian pillar since then such as Calvin or Luther.  To explain our position we would point to the scriptures and suggest that this fact does not suprise us since before the apostle Paul’s death, most of his fellow laborers in the gospel of grace had deserted him.  Let’s hear what the Holy Spirit had inspired Paul to write near the end of his final letter before his death.  2 Timothy 4:9-11

Do thy diligence to come to me shortly:  For Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica:  Crescens to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.  Only Luke is with me.  Take Mark, and bring him with you, for he is profitable to me for the ministry.

2 Timothy 4:16
At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me:  I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.  Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

So as we look towards the end of Paul’s life, we don’t necessarily see Christianity abandoned, but we do see the apostleship of Paul and the Word of grace which God gave him to preach, being shunned and ignored by almost all those he ministered to and with.  Is it any wonder then when we search the vast 2000 years of “church history” we find little mention of those things spoken by the “apostle to the Gentiles”.  Is it any wonder we do not find the pillars of “church history” writing on the revelation of the mystery, of the heavenly calling of the church, of the believer being already seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, of the churches hope of the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, when He shall come and the church shall be “caught up” to be with Him?  Is it any wonder there is such a profound silence about all who have put their faith in the shed blood of Christ alone, being members of the body of Christ, with the Lord Jesus Christ being the Head of the body?  So much of the confusion that exists today amongst the various denominations and sects would be cleared up immediately if the preachers and teachers of God’s Word would first abandon the traditions of men, and commend themselves to God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then to the Word of grace which He gave the apostle Paul to preach.  Then would be found the riches of grace our God graciously gives us through the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Then the falsely supposed contradictions and divisions in the Bible, would be eliminated as the Lord Jesus Christ was recognized as the foundation, with the various apostles, prophets, and men and women of God seen correctly as servants to our Lord Jesus Christ which exhibit the manifold grace of God throughout the ages.

As we again return to the question that this post seeks to answer, we would be remiss if we didn’t point out an awesome type found in the book of Acts, which can be seen in a generalized way to reflect the things we’ve considered today.  I would ask the reader to turn to Acts 27 and 28 and read these chapters prior to continuing on. Please allow me to summarize some of the events depicted in chapter 27.  After the apostle Paul had appealed to be tried in front of Caeser he is put as a prisoner on a ship ultimately headed to Italy and after some sailing they near a place on the Island of Crete called the fair havens.  It is here where Paul advises the Centurion in charge of the prisoners that they should not  continue their journey but should stay for the winter in the fair havens, because he perceives much damage and loss of lives, if they continue on.  But the Centurion does not listen to Paul’s advice and they continue sailing.  During the voyage they encounter a fierce wind and storm and it looks like the ship will be torn to pieces, but Paul gets word from the angel of God that though the ship will be destroyed, all 276 of the passengers will be saved.  When the ship ran aground and was broken up, all the prisoners grabbed on to whatever they could, whether it was boards or pieces of the ship floating on the sea and made their way to land, on the small Isle of Melita.  At this point I would ask the reader to consider this chapter as a generalized history of the church in it’s earthy manifestation, and that just as Paul is aboard this ship as a prisoner, in his epistles we find him refer to himself as the “prisoner of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles”.  When we see Paul giving word to the Centurion on wintering the ship in the fair havens to avoid unnecessary damage and loss of life, we can also contemplate Paul’s many exhortations in his epistles by which he commends us to the Word of God’s grace and our heavenly calling as members of the body of Christ to save us from unnecessary harm.  When we see the Centurion ignore Paul’s words and proceed with the sailing of the ship, can we not see how near the end of Paul’s life, his apostleship and the specific message of the mystery and God’s grace was ignored as the second century church leaders forged on ahead, neglecting the specific words of Paul?  Can we not in a type see the ship full of prisoners as a type of the early professing church headed by Rome.  When we consider in verse 20 the many days when neither sun nor stars were visible, can we not consider the many hundreds of years, where the truth of the heavenly calling, stand, and hope of the church was not seen.  When we see that after 14 days of fasting, those on board the ship were urged to eat and did, can we not consider that after roughly 14 centuries of limited and some times no access to the Word of God for the common man, the Word of God became available to the common man through the Lord’s use of the various reformers?  As we see the ship run aground and the prisoners floating on various boards and pieces of the ship, can we not see the explosion of the protestant reformation and as we view the prisoners floating on various boards and pieces of the ship, can we not after the reformation, view the numerous denominations and sects which men are attached to, floating on the sea of humanity, tossed with every wind of doctrine, some of which are distinct from and others which are pieces of or derived from the ship which so long held control of the prisoners.  And folks it is my opinion that this is where we are at today, and this is the reason for all the denominations.  Obviously hind sight is twenty-twenty, but all this would have been avoided, if like Lydia in Acts 16:14, those that steered the ship would have attended to the words which our Lord Jesus Christ gave Paul to speak.

As we overlook the vast sea of humanity today and professing christian world,  we see many believers clinging to the various sects, denominations, and traditions of men in a sea that tosses and turns, all trying to get to the shore.  Now every believer, who has put their trust soley in the Lord Jesus Christ, and His death, burial, and resurrection for salvation is saved and sealed for eternity by the Grace of God through faith in Christ.  Though they may be clinging to various things in the sea, if they have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ they are saved, period.  But while one may be saved and secure in the Lord Jesus Christ for eternity, often our earthly walk during this life doesn’t reflect our eternal state.  We stumble, we fail, we deny our Lord, we cling to boards in the sea, sometimes we may swim from one board to another board, but we’re tossed around, struggling to make it to shore.  We may put our confidence in the wisdom of this world, whether that so-called wisdom be found inside our out of a church.  We feed ourselves with things the world offers, entertainment and other things packaged to seem nourishing and bring joy, but really no different than if we were eating pig slop.  Some may concur with this analogy and proudly say that they feast on the Christian things of this world, movies, books, tv programs and the such geared for believers.  But the truth be told, many of these things are are inter-weaved with accompanying worldly philosophy and traditions of men, and found not to be much more nourishing than the pig slop. What can be done, what is the remedy for the sad condition of the professing church today, if you dear reader find the words of these last few lines to be true in your own life, what can be done?  Oh may we hear what the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to write in Colossians 2:6-10

As you have therefore received Christ Jesus Lord, so walk in Him:  Rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.  Beware of any man spoiling you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ.  For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.  And you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

As we again consider the remedy we seek for the question posed in the title of this post, we would commend the reader to God and the Word of His grace.  We would commend the reader to the love of the Lord Jesus Christ first and foremost.  As it is written, God demonstrated His love to us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.  When we learn of God’s grace and love towards us and all He provided for us in the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, when we comprehend this more, we will be appropriately anchored to the Author and Finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ. And as we read God’s Word more and more and as we attend to the words Paul spoke, which explain all that Christ provided for us and all that we are in Him, we will be able to see God’s grace and working and plan running through all the ages and all the books of God’s Holy Word.  As we see His plan for the earth and His plan for the heavens, and as we see our heavenly calling and eternal standing in our Lord Jesus Christ, as we see the unity of the Spirit and the fellowship we have through the mystery which our Lord Jesus Christ would have us know, we will see denominational walls fall, we will see names of men fall, and we will see the name of the Lord Jesus Christ exalted more and more, with thanksgivings being offered up continually to God for His grace and his unspeakable gift.  All glory, honor, praise and thanksgiving to God our Father through Christ Jesus our Lord forever and ever!

Grace and Peace in our Lord,
DW

Why Are There So Many Denominations?

1 Corinthians 1:12-13
Now this I say, that every one of you says, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos: and I of Cephas (Peter); and I of Christ.  Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

The book of Romans is in one a sense like a road map and timeline of the transition concerning the Jewish and Gentile programs of God, the Holy Spirit supplying the apostle Paul with the purpose for the temporary diminishing (Romans 11:12) of the Jewish national program at that time and rise of the unprophesied age of grace and heavenly calling of the Gentiles.  It could be said that the book of Romans is instructive in describing the transition period which the mystery unfolds.  If Romans is instructive, then the two Corinthian epistles could also in a sense be called illustrative of this same truth.  In the book of Acts and the two Corinthian Epistles we learn that the church of Corinth had a number of Jewish Christians as well as a number of Gentile Christians.  As we learn in Galatians 2, Peter and the disciples had agreed to direct their ministry to the Jews, while Paul had agreed to direct his ministry to the Gentiles.  Yet it is in Corinth, we find both Jews and Gentiles, some having been saved under Paul’s preaching and some having been saved under Peter and the other disciples preaching (1 Corinthians 15:11).  In the book of 1st Corinthians we have much instruction regarding signs such as speaking in tongues, yet in 2 Corinthians we find very little if any instruction regarding sign gifts.  So again in the two epistles to the Corinthians we have a real illustrative description of the transition that is described in an instructive way in the book of Romans.

As we read the two Corinthian epistles we find that there was much disputing there and many matters that the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to pen his letters to set straight.  As we begin to examine the introductory verses above, we find that there were certain groups or sects within the Corinthian church which were trying to identify themselves as solely following a specific person’s words, whether it was an apostle or our Lord Jesus, and thereby not acknowledging the words of the others.  In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul immediately speaks to this division and seeks to identify what the real heart of the problem is.  Almost two thousand years ago, Paul asked this question, “Is Christ divided?”  The answer then is the same as now, no Christ isn’t divided, the body of Christ is one church whose head is the Lord Jesus Christ.  Yet as we look on the earth at the mass of those professing the name of Christ, do we see division?  Sadly we have to answer yes, much division, many denominations, and many sects.  So then is not the body of Christ divided?  Spiritually speaking, no, for every person on this earth who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and His death, burial and resurrection for them is saved and a member of the body of Christ.  True it is that there are many different earthly organizations which profess to be Christian, yet have divisive views regarding each other, and in some cases even deny opposing organizations claims to be Christian.  Yet God’s Word triumphantly declares that every believer who simply trusts in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ is saved and is a member of the one true church, the body of Christ.  While there may be many churches or individuals who profess to know Christ, but are not truly saved, praise the Lord that God knows those who do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.  And praise the Lord, admittance into the body of Christ is not dictated by men here on earth but by grace through faith in the shed blood of Christ, with the Holy Spirit sealing the believer for eternity.

So if we ask ourselves, why for two thousand years have those professing the name of Christ seemed so divided here on earth, and we contemplate this subject in the first Corinthian epistle.  We will see that not much has changed, men are really professing and exalting other men and not the Lord Jesus Christ.  Whether it is a Calvin, a Luther, a pope, or some current Christian preacher or evangelist, men are really aligning themselves with other men and not with Christ.  Instead of having the Lord Jesus Christ and God’s Word as the focus and authority in everything, men set up systems, really traditions of men, and make names for themselves, or for the ones they derived their systems from.  If I seem as one as one who exaggerates, let me ask you to drive through any city in this country and tell me how many churches have the name “the local assembly of the Body of Christ”.  Unfortunately, I don’t think you will see one, but what will you see on the churches you view, usually a name of a person or a group that agrees on a systematic way to interpret the Bible.*  You see, it is absolutely terrible to say, but most saved believers regardless of whether they belong to a church or don’t go to church, do not even know they are members of the body of Christ.  They do not know what the church, the body of Christ is.  They do not know that they were placed into that church by the Holy Spirit himself upon belief in the Lord Jesus Christ.  They do not know that every believer is a member, and a different part of that body, and that God gave specific gifts to minister to the rest of the members of the body with.

Returning to the introductory verses at the beginning of this post, it is interesting to note that many times in Paul’s epistles, he points out his apostleship and the special revelation of the mystery and gospel of the grace of God which he was given to preach.  Many times we see him defend his God ordained appointment as the apostle of the Gentiles.  The Holy Spirit through Paul’s pen definitely wants us to recognize the unique commission and message given to Paul, yet as we read the introductory verses it seems like he is saying just the opposite in this instance, what can account for this?  The heart.  The Holy Spirit signifying through the pen of Paul that first and foremost the heart has to be fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and then through the love and grace of our our Savior we will correctly appropriate God’s teachers and preachers.  You see the heart that is not fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ, will fixate on something, this may even be spiritual things, remember the flesh lusts against the Spirit, to lust is to envy or covet.  So apparently some of the Corinthians weren’t exalting the Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts first and then hearing the words of the apostles, but rather sects had formed which were lifting certain apostles above others.  The focus and hearts being on the apostles themselves and exalting certain of them, resulting in divisions and infighting.  If their hearts were fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ, they would realize that all the apostles were servants of God, while having differing ministry’s or commissions.  With the heart and mind fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ, all things fall into place, as the believer walks in the Spirit and is given spiritual wisdom and discernment.  The Corinthian could then discern the apostle Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles, while also recognizing Peter and Apollos and their ministries, though they differed from that of Paul’s, they were all fellow laborers in the gospel of Christ.

Forgive me if I overemphasize this, but it is really important to note how frequently in the apostle Paul’s epistles, that he had to defend his apostleship and the fact that Christ was speaking through him (2 Corinthians 13:3).  This brings the heart to feel the force of the words of the introductory verses that much more.  For though he had the specific apostleship to the Gentiles and to preach the mystery and the gospel of the grace of God, yet we see him in these verses temporarily ignore his specific apostleship to show what is of first importance, a heart established and anchored in the Lord Jesus Christ.  When when we really contemplate this we see Paul totally confident that if the Corinthians hearts were thus set on Christ, the Holy Spirit would lead them and give them discernment concerning himself and the rest of the Lord’s laborers.  How sorely this type of trusting in the Lord is needed today, and has been needed for the past couple millenia.  Not only have we Christians, like the Corinthians, fallen short in this regard and given undo prominence to certain men and theological systems, but indeed even the preachers and teachers themselves have many times promoted themselves, or their creeds or systems of biblical interpretation instead of pointing directly to Christ and His Word as the supreme authority in all matters of faith. As it is written, Let God be true and every man a liar.  It may be reasoned that while a certain theology may not be perfect, it is better to direct men to it, else they may fall into the snares of a grievously false theological system that denies and perverts the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  While we agree that biblical error and heresy must be identified and corrected, we also agree that commending the believer to God’s Word and not a theological system is the best way to do this.  But many a preacher or teacher has a problem doing this because they places total faith in the Holy Spirit to teach and lead. Oh if we would only have preachers and teachers that trembled before God’s Word, whose biggest fear was that they might be teaching God’s Word incorrectly and thus would always exhort their congregations to focus on the Lord Jesus Christ and prayerfully study God’s Word for themselves.  We need preachers and teachers who readily admit that they themselves are fallible and God’s Word is the truth and the authority, not themselves.  We need men that would always point to the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness, and would admit that they have no righteousness except as they are found in Christ.  Men who would say along with Paul, “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake”.

In closing, we would like to quote some verses that touch on the introductory verses above for your consideration and edification concerning what we have contemplated in this post, but we heartily suggest that you read the whole of 1 Corinthians so you get the verses in the correct context and not just from my point of view.

1 Corinthians 3:4-7
For while one says, I am of Paul; and another I am of Apollos; are you not carnal?  Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by who you believed, even as the Lord gave to every man.  I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that plants anything, neither he that waters; but God that gives the increase.

1 Corinthians 3:21-23, 4:1
Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.  Let a man so account of us, as the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.

1 Corinthians 4:6
And these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes: that you might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.

Grace and Peace in our Lord Jesus Christ,
DW

*  Authors note:  It is our firm conviction that just as one may drive through a city and see numerous churches with names denoting men or men’s theological systems, if you peruse the various churches doctrinal statements which attempt to identify the common beliefs and unity of that church, you will many times see them reflecting a theological system.  It is our conviction that when one is pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ and God’s Word as the authority, the truth of the age of grace in which we live will be seen, and our being members of the true church, the Body of Christ.  A church not formed by hands, but by God through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose members are spiritually placed there by the Holy Spirit at the moment of belief in Christ Jesus.  We also believe that then the true unifying “doctrinal statement” for today will be seen which the Holy Spirit through the pen of the apostle Paul gave us in Ephesians 4:3-7, called the, “Unity of the Spirit”, which we outline below.

1. One body
2. One Spirit
3. One hope of our calling
4. One Lord
5. One faith
6. One baptism
7. One God and Father

Types in Scripture – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – Part 2

Psalms 27:14
Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.

In the last post we looked at how Abraham typifies God the Father, and Isaac typifies God the Son, when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac.  In this current post it was my intent to focus on Sarah and how she in an aspect typifies Jerusalem.  My plan after this was to continue with more posts each exploring somewhat in depth, how Rebekah, Jacob, Leah, and Rachel were types.  Well, as it so happens I really had trouble with this post regarding Sarah, and I think I am going to abandon trying to spend a single post for each person as a type.  My fear is that I will try to make verses fit a mold that just isn’t there, and I would never want to handle God’s Word in such a fashion.  I still think we can see some interesting types in the individuals mentioned above, but I think some of the specific correlations I saw were perhaps incorrect.  So instead of proceeding as I planned, instead I will present to you a basic outline of the types in one post, and then if you dear reader felt led to prayerfully study it out, I pray that it would be a blessing for you as it was and is for me.

As we start out by considering the birth of Isaac, we are immediately struck with the shadowing forth of the virgin birth of Christ.  Abraham and Sarah were well past the time when they could naturally have children, but we read in Genesis 18:10 that the Lord told Abraham that He would visit him according to the “time of life” and Sarah would have a son.  This son whom Abraham would name Isaac was the “child of promise” and had many promises attached to him, of which were to the seed of Abraham and all of which would be literally fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ.  So once again, we see Isaac shadowing forth Christ Jesus.  So as we consider the birth of Isaac as a foreshadowing of the virgin birth of Christ, I think when considering how Isaac was the child of promise, we can also see his birth as foreshadowing in a sense the Lord Jesus Christ’s resurrection, when He was the “Firstborn from the dead”.  It is interesting then to consider Galatians 4:21-31 and see Sarah as a type of Jerusalem.  Realizing that Jerusalem signifies in type the leadership of the nation of Israel, whether it was kings in the Old Testament or the Pharisees and Saduccees in the New Testament. We find that Isaac was born when Sarah was 90 years old, and then Sarah died 37 years later at the age of 127.  Interestingly enough, the year 33AD is generally believed to be the year that the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and resurrected, and 37 years later in 70AD, is when Jerusalem was destroyed.  So when we return to Genesis, we see the next thing we read about after the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22, is the death of Sarah.  So if we consider that the sacrifice of Isaac pointed forward to the cross in type, and then consider Sarah as a type of Jerusalem and correlate Sarah’s death with the destruction of Jerusalem, we start to see a parallel with the New Testament.

As we continue in Genesis we see Abraham and Isaac in Canaan, which would later become Israel, and we see Abraham send a servant to Mesopotamia to find a bride for Isaac.  I would just ask to the reader to consider the parallel of the apostle Paul and how he was called to lay out the truth of the church, the Body of Christ.  When looking at Rebekah, it is at once interesting to consider her as dual aspect of being related to Abraham and Isaac, yet also being apart from them geographically in Mesopotamia.  We know that the body of Christ is composed of Jew and Gentile in one body.  It is also neat to see how that the servant upon meeting Rebekah, bestows riches upon her and tells her of Abraham and Isaac’s riches and how God blessed them.  When we turn to the epistle’s of the apostle Paul we find him explaining the riches of God’s grace that has been given to the church.  Next, as we see Rebekah, journey to meet Isaac, we see her immediately put on a veil before meeting with him.  A veil signifies mystery or secret as to what the face looks like.  As we know the apostle Paul was given to explain the mystery of the body of Christ.  Finally we found recorded in Scripture how Rebekah was a comfort to Isaac in the loss of his mother.  Again, as we consider how the leadership of Jerusalem, and Israel on national level rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, we see a parallel.  The prophecies in the Old Testament always pointed to the Messiah reigning in Jerusalem and all Israel being saved and having circumcised hearts, and Israel being a nation of priests which would bring the Gentiles back to God.  Well, obviously this didn’t happen as Israel on a national level rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, and forfeited the blessing of the firstborn.  But God knew this would happen all along, and had a secret purpose not known about, how the believing Gentiles would made partakers and fellow heirs in Christ, inspite of Israel’s rejection.  So though we see that Israel as a nation has temporarily been laid in the tomb so to speak, we see the church, the Body of Christ is being called out and formed today.  And we all eagerly await the day, when the fullness of the Gentiles comes in and then all Israel will be saved!

So far we’ve looked at how Abraham has typified God the Father, and Isaac has typified God the Son, so next we need to look at Jacob.  For those who enjoy studying God’s Word, some may have strong opinions on who the “bride of Christ” is.  Some may immediately say it is future Israel, and some may immediately say it is the church, the Body of Christ.  When considering Jacob as a type this subject get’s very interesting.  If Abraham in some instances recorded in Scripture pointed to God the Father, and Isaac pointed to God the Son, then it would correlate that there might be an instance in the life of Jacob, that points to God the Holy Spirit.  Let’s turn to Genesis 28.  Here we find in a very similar fashion to when Abraham sent a servant to Mesopotamia to find Isaac a wife, we now see Isaac send Jacob to Padan-Aram to Rebekah’s brother Laban to find a wife.  Well we find out that Jacob fell in love with Rachel and agreed to work 7 years for Laban, and at the end of that 7 years, he would be able to marry Rachel.  As we read Jacob’s love for Rachel was so great that the seven years seemed but a few days to him.  But alas at the end of the 7 years, his bride wore a veil, and after he was married and took his bride into the tent he found out that it wasn’t Rachel, but it was her younger sister Leah.  So if we consider Jacob as a type pointing to the Holy Spirit in this instance, we think of when the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost.  This was before the stoning of Stephen, when the leaders of Israel finally rejected the kingdom by their rejecting of Stephen’s testimony being full of the Holy Spirit.  This was also prior to the conversion of Saul who would become the apostle Paul.  So when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples at Pentecost this is fully in Israel’s program with the Israel’s national acceptance in view.  But what happened?  Israel rejected the Holy Spirit and the offer of the kingdom, and the mystery was unveiled by our risen, ascended Lord Jesus Christ to the apostle Paul and then to all the apostles.  Well when we consider Leah, how interesting to consider that she wears a veil, something signifying a mystery of secret, and what is the event that happens prior to the seven year tribulation?  The rapture of the church, the body of Christ.  So returning to Genesis, we see that while the first seven years seemed like days, because Jacob was anticipating marrying Rachel, we see that Laban offered him Rachel as a wife if he would work seven more years.  It is interesting to note this 14 year period of Jacob’s work for Leah and Rachel, and then overlay it with the 7 years of plenty, and the 7 years of famine described in Genesis concerning Joseph.  For though time forbids to describe in detail, many instances in Joseph’s life typify him as pointing forward to the Lord Jesus Christ.  How interesting then to note that during the seven years of plenty, when Joseph was still estranged from his father’s house, he married a Gentile woman, and had two sons.  And then we see in the seven years of famine, he is reunited with his brethren and father, especially awesome is when we see him unveil himself to his brethren.  His brethren saw him in Egyptian clothing, you might say Gentile garb, and they didn’t realize it was their brother until he unveiled himself.  How interesting to consider that perhaps many Jews right now, may hold the view of Jesus as belonging to the Gentiles, as the Gentiles savior but not theirs, how awesome it will be when the Jews realize their God and Savior the Lord Jesus Christ!!!!  So as you may tell my opinion is that the last 7 years that Jacob worked for Rachel, and the 7 years of famine, point forward in type to the time known as Jacob’s trouble, also known as the 70th week of Daniel, also known as the tribulation.

Ok, at this point I am going to conclude this post and this little two post series.  I fear that this post is not clear and rather a scattered collection on my thoughts on this subject.  After the first post when I started on this one, as I said above, it became very difficult, and I must be truthful that I was hesitant to continue it.  I guess sometimes when your reading God’s Word, you may see some things that are really awesome and just make propel you to praise the Lord for how amazing His Word is.  Then, when trying to write those things or trying to dig deeper and write, it may be very difficult and then there may be confusion, and then you may question whether this is something you really see or something you really want to see that may not be there.  So my hope for this post is that it may spur you and me to prayerfully study God’s Word more.  Seeing types in God’s Word is really awesome, because you see how God had it planned all along.  God’s Word is so awesome, and seeing types in God’s Word is too, but I also want to emphasize that for doctrine concerning the body of Christ, we go to the apostle Paul’s epistles.  There are so many times when reading God’s Word when you read a verse or passage and you know you see something deep, but you can’t quite see it all the way yet, because the Holy Spirit hasn’t given you understanding.  At this point we are faced with a choice.  We can either connect dots that we think are there, or we can wait on the Lord to give us understanding.  We should definitely wait on the Lord to give us understanding, and I speak this to myself.  I guess part of me doesn’t want to publish this post on the website, because as you can probably tell, I am a bit unsure, but if anything I know one of the things the Lord taught me while writing this was to wait on Him, and to admit if I don’t understand something in His Word and not to just try and fit Scripture to make my point or opinion.  I also hope that in some way the Lord may use this post to give you some blessing in studying His Word, whether considering the types I’ve listed, or whether to be more careful when handling God’s Word, like I’ve learned.  I would appreciate it if you would pray for me, and ask God to increase my hunger and understanding in His Word, and if it be His will, give me utterance to write commentary on His Word.  Thank you brothers and sisters.

Grace and Peace in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
DW

Types in Scripture – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

Hebrews 11:9
By faith he (Abraham) sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.

It has been remarked that one aspect of the book of Genesis is that it is like an index of the Bible in types and shadows which point forward.  We heartily agree with this thought.  The book of Genesis abounds with admonitions, examples and types which serve as spiritual food for those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.  In prior posts we have looked briefly at some of these instances, such as how Adam is the anti-type to Christ, the first man Adam being “earthly” and the second man being “the Lord from heaven”.  We have also seen how in Ephesians, how the apostle Paul likened the church as being the wife of Christ, and pointed back to a verse concerning Adam and Eve when comparing our union to Christ.  We now consider Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  While the Holy Spirit gives us many examples and types in the lives and experiences of these men of God, it is our object in the following posts, to consider instances in their lives which shadow forth the way that God has interacted with Israel as a nation, and with the church.  There may be some who immediately reply that the church, the body of Christ, was a mystery and you will not find anything about it in the Old Testament, because as it is written the mystery was “hid in God” until revealed to the apostle Paul and later the rest of the apostles.  We would heartily affirm that the mystery was “hid in God” and you will find no direct description of the body of Christ in the Old Testament Scriptures, but we do believe after the mystery was revealed, the church is able to be seen in types.  Indeed we believe that the mystery was hid in God and hid in His Word.  We ask any that may not agree to prayerfully read and consider John 1:1.

As we pray for God to give us understanding as we undertake this study, we will consider how some instances of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s lives show forth the specific way in which God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have interacted with Israel and then the church and ultimately Israel again.  While the work of all three Persons of the God-Head have been evidenced throughout all the ages, in certain ages we see a specific member of the God-head taking the prominent role.  As we study this out, it is my hope and desire that you may comforted and strengthened as I was and am when meditating about these Scriptures.  We know that God’s Word is perfect and the whole of God’s Word is inspired, and our joy is increased as we study God’s Word and see even more how the riches of His grace in Christ Jesus our Lord to us, were in His mind all along and evidenced in the Old Testament Scriptures.  I again want to remind anyone reading this, not to automatically believe me, but to prayerfully read God’s Word for themselves and see if these things may be so.

So let’s start out at the beginning of everything for us, let’s start out at the cross.  The cross is the center of history, everything happening before the cross looks forward to it, everything happening after the cross looks back at it.  It is there at the cross, where our Lord Jesus Christ voluntarily allowed himself to be crucified, to endure the wrath of God the father towards sin, that we deserved.  To shed His blood and die for our sins and then be buried and on the third day to arise from the dead.  Through His death and resurrection, providing eternal life for all who will believe into Him.  And as we contemplate the wrath of God which we deserved, being poured on our Savior, and as we contemplate how it was the Father’s will that the Lord Jesus Christ should die on the cross for our sins, and as we contemplate how the Lord Jesus Christ always perfectly obeyed the will of the Father, and as we contemplate how God gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life, let us now turn to Genesis 22 and consider Abraham and Isaac and how they shadow forth God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The son is offered up
As with all the Scripture references in my posts. I would ask that you would please read the 22nd Chapter of Genesis prior to continuing reading this.  When we begin reading this chapter, we immediately read of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac.  Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born.  Abraham and Sarah were well past the time of life, when it was possible for them to have a baby.  But as we read in Genesis 18:10, the Lord would visit Abraham “according to the time of life” and Sarah would have a son, which is in itself a foreshadowing of the virgin birth of Christ.  Isaac was the son of promise and Abraham had been promised to be the father of many nations and kings through his seed.  As we read Genesis 22 and see Abraham and Isaac traveling to the place that God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac we read in verses 7 and 8:

And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here I am son.  And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?  And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

“God will provide himself a lamb for burnt offering”.  May we also rejoice that God provided Himself a sacrifice for our sins.  No merit of our own, no amount of our work or our attempt to make ourselves right with God will avail, but God provided in the Lord Jesus Christ the sacrifice for sins once for all, for those who will believe in Him.  And as we view Abraham and Isaac journeying to the place of Isaac’s sacrifice, knowing that God’s promise to Abraham was that out of his seed would issue forth nations and kings.  We naturally may say, but how can Isaac be sacrificed, the promises were made to Abraham, how can they be fulfilled if Isaac is about to die?.  In the same manner let us consider Israel when the Lord Jesus Christ was on earth during his earthly ministry, many were looking for the Messiah and they were also looking for the promises made about the Messiah and His eternal kingdom that He will set up.  They did not understand that He came to die that man might live.  They were looking for the promises that will be realized when Christ’s millenial kingdom will be set up, not realizing that first the eternal offering for sin had be accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

Looking again to Abraham and Isaac, we see in verses 9 & 10 that after Abraham came to the place God showed him, he built an altar, laid the wood and bound his son.  Then he laid him on the altar upon the wood.  Immediately we think of the wooden cross, which Christ was nailed to.  Then we see Abraham stretch forth his hand, taking the knife to slay his son.  What a picture of God the Father sacrificing the Lord Jesus Christ for us.  What a picture of love, both the love of God the Father, and the love of God the Son.  Think about it, the Creator sacrificing for the creature. We, who apart from God, could only sin and only succeed in working sin and death.  God the Father loved us so much that He sacrificed His only Son for us.  Think of the love that you have for your son or daughter, then think how much more God the Father loved the Lord Jesus Christ.  And to think, that God loved us so much, that He sacrificed His only Son for us!  All praise be to Him forever and ever!  And think of the love of God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ loved us so much, that He left the glory of Heaven to come down to earth and take on our human form and die for us, we who deserved to burn in the lake of fire forever.  Lord God, please help us to comprehend more what you have done for us, and may we ever be rejoicing and praising your Holy name.

As we continue reading, we notice that the angel of the Lord calls Abraham from out of heaven, and tells Abraham to not sacrifice Isaac.  The angel of the Lord also says that He knows that Abraham fears the Lord because he did not withhold his only son from the Lord.  What’s also interesting is in Hebrews 11:19, we learn that when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, he did it because he believed that the Lord would raise Isaac from the dead.  Continuing on, in verse 13 we read of Abraham then looking and noticing behind him a ram that was caught in a thicket by his horns, and Abraham then takes that ram and offers him as the burnt offering instead of Isaac.  What is neat to consider is that Abraham notices the ram behind him.  And when we contemplate the cross of Christ and that all the sacrifices under the law that happened before the cross, or in a sense behind the cross, we see that those sacrifices were temporarily in the place of and pointing to the true sacrifice of God the Son that would happen at the cross.  As we leave our view of Abraham and Isaac we see that the place where all this happened was named Jehovah-Jireh, which is also translated the Lord will see or provide.  After this, the angel of the Lord calls to Abraham a second time out of heaven and tells Abraham the following in verses 16-18

And said, By myself I have sworn, saith the Lord, for because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son.  That in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.  And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because you have obeyed my voice.

Knowing the heavenly calling of the church and the earthly inheritance of Israel, the Lord’s reference to heaven and the seashore which is on the earth is particularly interesting.

So in closing as we consider the things in Scripture we have looked at we notice that in Genesis 22, Abraham shows forth God the Father in type and Isaac shows forth God the Son in type and what happened at the cross.  Using this as a foundation in type regarding Abraham and Isaac, and in time regarding the cross, we can go forward and backward and notice some really awesome things.  Lord willing, this is what we will do in the next post, as we again look at Abraham showing forth God the Father in type and also looking into Sarah as a type.  May the Lord increase our hunger for and understanding in His Word, and if we hold any of His Word in error, we pray that He would give us eye salve to see clearly.

Grace and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ,
DW

Types in Scripture – Preface

1 Corinthians 9:9-10
For it is written in the law of Moses, You shall not muzzle the mouth of an ox that treads out the corn.  Does God take care of oxen?  Or does He say this altogether for our sakes?  For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that plows should plow in hope; and he that threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.

The context in which these verses are written concerns those who are involved in the ministry of the Lord having the right not to have a job, but having their congregation or those whom they are ministering to provide their living for them.  Also particularly interesting is the way the Holy Spirit inspires the apostle Paul to write how an aspect of the law recorded in Deuteronomy 25:4 points forward to the principle he is discussing, and Paul says it was actually written for the apostles and Corinthians (and our) sakes.  When we read the twenty-fifth chapter of Deuteronomy we will find the verse talking about the oxen in between two verses that seem unrelated to verse 25 and almost make it seem a bit out of place, though we know that nothing in the Word of God is out of place.  We can’t help but wonder though, what those Old Testament saints thought when they read of this verse with it’s placement.  The fact that this verse would be used as a type by the apostle Paul for members of the body of Christ, was a complete mystery to them.  For we know that this time period in which we live and the spiritual organization called the body of Christ was not prophesied or mentioned in any of the Old Testament Scriptures.  We read in Romans 16:25, 1 Corinthians 2:7, Ephesians 3:5,9 , and Colossians 1:26 how the mystery which explains all the Christ accomplished for us by the cross, and God’s plan for the Gentile members of the body of Christ, we read in those verses how the mystery was hid in God until revealed to the apostle Paul and then the rest of the apostles.  But though you will find no mention of the body of Christ (aka the church) or how God has a specific heavenly plan for the church which is distinct from Israel’s earthly plan, what you will find though are types.  And just like the introductory verses above where the Old Testament saints would not be able to know what those verses pointed to, so to with some types in the Old Testament which point to God’s plan for the church.  They would not be able to see that foreshadowing because it was a mystery hid in God until the time for it to be revealed came.

As we have looked at before the Old Testament abounds with examples, admonitions, and types for us today.  Lord willing, in the next couple of posts we are going to look at some types in the Old Testament.  Specifically we are going to look at Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  When we begin to develop a hunger for God’s Word, and start to digest it, when we see types in the Old Testament that point forward to the New Testament and examples for our own lives it is so comforting.  It is sad to say that many Christian’s view the Old Testament as boring and not relevant for them today.  This is absolutely untrue.  One may say, but we see Israel fighting all these battles and at war with other nations what does that have to do with us?  We would respond that we have the exact same type of warfare, yet ours is a spiritual one, but you will find a parallel when considering Israel’s victorys and defeats and ours.  Many today would shake the head at the reading of Israel’s constant falling into idolatry as if they would never do such a thing.  Yet, we learn in the New Testament, an idol is anything the heart places more important than the Lord.  The truth be told both corporately and individually our idolatry has matched Israel’s history outlined in the Old Testament.  Oh beloved, when ever we see a king of Israel in Scripture, yield and seek God’s Word and will before a battle, we see God literally fighting for Israel, and those chosen men whom he used as vessels by which He fought, whether many or few.  So too with us, if we would just yield more to God and seek His Word and His will, we would find He will fight our battles for us as the Lord Jesus Christ works in our heart and His life and love works through us.  I say this not only to you but to myself as with all the other things I write, how I pray this would be so.

So my original intent when beginning this post was to look at Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and an example of them as types, but as so often happens I think I’ll have to wait and I’m actually going to paste a post below which I typed at another web site I used to post at occasionally.  I just feel led to do this in light of the previous paragraph.  To give you the context of the post, it was shortly after the Super Bowl aired with it’s half time show and the Grammy’s which both had heavily occult symbolism and meaning.  I was addressing the rise in occult symbolism that is being manifested with greater ferocity and what the Christian’s response should be to all these things.  Here is the post:

Well first my opinion as to one of the reasons these occult beliefs are being unveiled in such an overt fashion, is to try and create a fear in Christians.  They are flexing their muscles so to speak and showing the size of their army.  They would rather have us dwelling on the size of their army and their activities, in much the same way that Goliath and the Philistines were parading forth and taunting the Israelite’s, as the Israelite’s shivered and shook prior to David taking that giant out and sending the enemy scattering away.  So what was the difference between David and the Israelite army that was frozen with fear?  Faith.  The Israelite army at that time was focusing on the army they saw and the giant they were terrified of.  David was focusing on God, realizing that God could defeat the Philistines whether He chose to use the Israelite army or a young boy named David to do it.

So first off, we have to identify who the enemy really is.  The vast army that we see in the various entertainment, social, religious, and political agencies are not really our enemy for they consist of flesh and blood, and we know what Ephesians 6:12 says:
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
So we see that those we battle with are really the devil and his fallen angels, who manipulate the flesh and blood “children of disobedience” to carry out their doctrine here on earth.  So we know who the enemy is, but just as in the Scripture we looked at concerning David we do not need to focus on the size of the enemy army or fear the enemy’s activity.  But rather as it written…”He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord” (Psalm 112:7).  So we need to focus on trusting in the Lord, but how, how do we increase our trust in the Lord?  As we see the enemy approaching and not sparing anyone in it’s path, how do we increase our trust in the Lord so we can say as the Psalmist…”The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” (Psalm 118:6).  The answer is to yield to God.  We yield two ways, through prayer and through reading His Word, and these two should be done together.

We see an excellent example for us, when we look at an instance in the lives of Elisha and his servant, which is recorded in Scripture in 2 Kings 8:23.  We first need to point out that both Elisha and his servant believed in God, but when we read these verses we will see that while Elisha trusted in God and was not fearful of an approaching army, his servant was fearful of an approaching army.  And really before we continue looking at this Scripture we need to point out, that these two individuals represent in type the two types of Christians that exist today.  Elisha was a prophet, so he was given the Word of the Lord.  He had confidence in God and His Word.  Elisha’s servant on the other hand, while believing in God, did not have the same level of confidence in the Lord, as he saw the armies of Syria approaching, for he was fearful.  So in the same fashion, there are two types of Christian’s today, there are those who read God’s Word, and God’s Word is the authority in their life, and their trust is great in the Lord, because their consumption of His Word is great.  And then there is another type of Christian, who maybe doesn’t read God’s Word as much, they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, just as the first type of Christian we discussed does, but when it comes to really reading God’s Word, maybe just as Elisha’s servant depended on Elisha for God’s Word, so too they depend on their pastor, or teachers for God’s Word, and they rely on men for their instruction.  Now please don’t get me wrong, God gives the gift of preaching and teaching for the edification of fellow Christian’s, but our trusting, our confidence really comes when we prayerfully read God’s Word for ourselves.  There is no doubt that we need preaching and teaching, but no man is to have dominion over our faith, and what unspeakable joy is found when we meet the Lord in His Word and He gives us understanding to a particular truth that He would have us learn.  There are many things hard to be understood in God’s Word, but He is faithful that if we read His Word and ask Him for understanding, He will give us our spiritual food that is needful for today, and growth tomorrow.

So with these thoughts in mind, let’s look at the context of the Scripture that describes when Elisha and his servant were about to encounter the approaching army and let us also contemplate ourselves in this day and age as we see an approaching army.  Well, when reading in the eighth chapter of 2nd Kings, we learn that a vast Syrian army is rapidly approaching Elisha and his servant with the intent to capture Elisha.  Elisha’s servant rises early in the morning, and sees this vast army and immediately points this out to Elisha and asks “what shall we do?”.  Let’s read Elisha’s response to his servant in verses 16 and 17:
And he (Elisha) answered,  Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.  And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see.  And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
Elisha was not concerned about the vast Syrian army that was approaching, because he had eyes to see the spiritual reality of the situation.  This reality was that God was in control and had stationed the host of heaven around Elisha.  Just like David, Elisha had no fear of what man could do to him, because he trusted in God and saw the situation as it really was, not as it physically appeared to be.  Also, note that both David and Elisha had no confidence in themselves, but rather direct confidence in God.  So too for us today, when we really start reading God’s Word and walking with Him in the Word, there is a confidence and trusting in God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that renders the enemy’s scare tactics useless for we know that God is in control, and He works all things for good to those that love Him and are called according to His purpose.  Now does that mean that we won’t endure some hard times or bad things?  No, but it means that through everything God will provide and strengthen us to endure whatever comes our way.  When faced with potential armies or attacks, while we can’t say that we know the outcome of every individual situation will be pleasing, we can say the same thing as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did, when faced with the ultimatum to bow down to the idol or face the fiery furnace: “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand O king.  But if He doesn’t, be it known unto you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, nor worship the golden image which you have set up.“
As we know those young men did have to go into the fiery furnace, but not a hair on them was singed, and what more, the Lord was walking in the midst with them during their fiery trial.  So to us today, no matter what happens our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is with us.

In closing, as we again contemplate Elisha, we see that he had discernment to differentiate between what the situation appeared to be, and what the spiritual reality of that situation was.  There was no fear of men, but great trust in the Lord.  When we prayerfully read God’s Word and ask Him for understanding, He will give us what we need, and over the course of time, He will grow us.  We will see the various situations and approaching armies for what they really are, and no matter how heated the battle gets, we will rest confidently in our Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that God is in control, and while He doesn’t cause the afflictions that may come, He may allow some of them to come our way, but He will strengthen us according to His Word and His might and His working.  All glory, honor, and praise to God the Father, through Christ Jesus our Lord forever and ever!

Grace and Peace in our Lord,
DW

Having the Scriptures Opened – Part 6

Romans 15:4
For whatsoever things were written aforetime (before), were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

1 Corinthians 10:11
Now all these things happened to them for examples and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come.

To be established in the Word, we need to know our hope and our heavenly calling as members of the body of Christ. We do this by rightly dividing the Word of God and realizing all the riches of grace which God has given to us through Christ Jesus our Lord, which the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to write about in his epistles.  Once we realize that our foundation is the Lord Jesus Christ and His faithfulness, then it is also important to realize that all Scriptures are for our learning, growth, and instruction, and if we neglect the other Scriptures, we are depriving ourselves of vital nutrients meant for our spiritual consumption. While the apostle Paul’s epistles lay out the hope, scope, and calling for us as members of the body of Christ, and the gospels and remaining New Testament Scriptures also nourish us to run the race that lies before us, so too the Old Testament provides us a wealth of spiritual food when the Holy Spirit applies the Word to our hearts. To many people, the Old Testament Scriptures are just that, old.  In the hidden counsels of the heart, they may be viewed as rather stale and not having much practical or cultural application for today.  Folks, this is absolutely false, and the adversary would like nothing better than for us to buy that lie.  He would have us either avoiding them all together and have us in our minds relegating those Scriptures as just beneficial for Sunday School kids lessons.  Or he would have us misinterpret those Scriptures and either seek righteousness by keeping the law or pointing out the failure of Israel as something we would never do.

As we consider the two verses at the beginning of this post, we see that the Old Testament Scriptures provide us patience, comfort, and hope.  We also learn that they were written for our admonition and for examples, also known as types.  So let’s just briefly look at one example of an admonition for us in the Old Testament Scriptures, but let’s start off with a verse in the New Testament in Galatians 6:1

Brothers, if a man is overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering yourself, lest you also be tempted.  Bear you one anothers burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

So as we meditate on the verse inspired by the Holy Spirit through the pen of the apostle Paul, we gather that if someone we know falls into a sin, if we are spiritual and minding the things of the Spirit, we should try to help that person, not in a prideful condemning way, but in meekness, realizing that we ourselves could just as easily fall into something similar if we are minding the things of our flesh.  And then in the second verse we see we are to help each other and bear each others burdens or weaknesses and fulfill the law of Christ.  We may immediately consider how Christ died for us, and covered our sinfulness, our nakedness, with His righteousness.  And knowing all that the Lord Jesus Christ graciously did for us, we might seek to cover other believer’s failings. Not condone or condemn, but to cover.  How interesting then to go back to the Old Testament and consider Noah and his sons. Let’s read what happened after Noah and his family got off the ark in Genesis 9:20-23

And Noah began to be a husbandmen (farmer), and he planted a vineyard:  And he drank of the wine, and was drunk and was uncovered within his tent.  And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers without.  And Shem and Japeth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they didn’t see their father’s nakedness.

When we read this as other Scriptures where we see the failing of a man who fears God, or even the nation of Israel during their varied history, there is always the temptation to condemn and justify ourselves as if we would never do such a thing.  Thus the flesh will ever do, but as we consider this further we must note that Noah was a man greatly used by the Lord.  Just think of this, a whole world of people were destroyed in the flood, and yet God chose one man and his family, the only man who feared God, to save and continue the seed of man and creature in the world after the flood.  So when we see Noah drunk and lying naked in his tent, we should not condemn, but rather fear, if such a man mightily used by God is seen later faltering, surely we must walk circumspectly in this life and be not highminded, but lean that much more on the everlasting arms of God, lest we ourselves prove the weakness of the flesh, which we no doubt have already proved.  But how much sorrow and confusion can come from a man who is in a highly visible position in the ministry, if he should falter and his nakedness be known.  We are not ignorant of the adversary’s devices, and we know that he uses these occasions to cause blaspheming of our God.  So whether we have a ministry to thousands, or a ministry to just one, we pray that God would graciously guide our footsteps in this world and teach us to yield to Him.

So as we consider Noah drunk and sleeping naked in his tent, may we not also consider the Christian who falls into sin?  In the apostle Paul’s epistles we find him writing to assemblies of saved believers, so he is writing to saved members of the body of Christ, and we see him sometimes urging some of them to awake (Romans 13:11, 1 Corinthians 15:34, Ephesians 5:14).  So as we consider Noah sleeping in his tent, we can also consider ourselves or other believers when getting tangled into sin.  Now when we consider Noah’s nakedness, we have seen in prior posts, that nakedness in the Bible alludes to man’s sinfulness, and/or internal reasoning’s of the heart.  We know that when we believed in our Lord Jesus Christ, our nakedness was eternally covered, as we are now found in Him.  But so often here on earth, our current state does not reflect our heavenly standing in Christ.  If we mind the things of our flesh, and neglect God’s Word and prayer, sin lays at the door.  So when a brother or sister in Christ is involved in sin, and is asleep at the wheel so to speak, and when we find out about it, we are immediately confronted with a choice.  If we are not walking uprightly in Christ, we may like Ham did, go about publishing and gossiping about the nakedness to other brothers or sisters.  But if we are spiritual and minding the things of the Spirit, we like Shem and Japeth will seek to cover our brother or sister’s nakedness.  And when we read of how they did this, we believe it is very beneficial to contemplate the verses in Galatians 6, which we listed above.

Returning to Shem and Japeth, notice how they walked backwards not looking at their father’s nakedness.  When we are made aware of a fellow Christian’s sin, we can be tempted on at least two fronts, the first is to run and tell everybody like Ham did, and the other to look directly at the sin, and it may be a sin that is a weakness for us as well, and if we look at it too long or think about the sin itself too long, we may find ourselves falling right into it also.  So the best way to deal with this situation is to walk backwards without looking directly at the sin.  Sin is sin regardless of what shape or form it may take, and it is better to judge it in a general way than to look on and think of all it’s specific manifestations at that time.  Next we notice that Shem and Japeth are walking backwards in unison with the intent to cover Noah’s nakedness.  When we were saved, the Lord Jesus Christ eternally clothed and covered our nakedness with His righteousness.  During this life as we walk here on earth, many times we do not reflect this reality, but rather appear as if we were uncovered and naked.  We may try to cover this temporary nakedness with our own reasoning’s, justifications, or workings, but it will be to no avail.  Just as we in salvation needed Christ to cover us, so also as we are sanctified in this life, we need the covering of Christ’s righteousness.  We need to “put off the old man and put on Christ”.  As it is written, “whosoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved”.  While this verse speaks of our eternal salvation, it also speaks of sanctification while here on earth.  So returning to Shem and Japeth, and considering our restoring a fellow Christian in a spirit of meekness, it would do us well to note the relationship dynamic between the two brothers walking backwards, in unison, with the intent to cover their father and indeed with the covering itself being the center and object with which they might accomplish the task.  So too as we learn of a brother or sister’s nakedness and we work together with another brother or sister in the Lord to help restore the sleeping member of Christ’s body, we must be united in step and purpose, focused on our Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness, and realizing that the same covering which saved and keeps and sanctifies us, is the same covering with which the sleeping member eternally possesses, but situationally needs reapplied and to be reminded of.

At this point it may be asked, “but what about those times in Paul’s epistle’s where we read of banning a believer from the local assembly because he is involved in sin? This example of Noah and his sons doesn’t address this situation does it?”  Well, in a sense yes it does.  For when we look at Noah and his son Ham together, we see two different types of situations.  In Noah’s case we see him, naked in his tent, the results of his desire to feed the flesh with drink.  We also notice that he is sleeping and alone.  With his son Ham on the other hand, we see him active, and telling his brothers about Noah’s nakedness.  Ham’s sin is directly involved with others, now thank the Lord that Shem and Japeth were wiser than Ham and sought to cover Noah’s nakedness, but had they not been concerned with covering their father, they could have fallen into Ham’s folly and went and published Noah’s situation to their mother and wives.  So we see in Noah’s case, a situation where he is asleep, not directly or intently affecting others, but in Ham’s case, we see someone who is actively and directly affecting his brethren.  And such it is with those brothers or sisters who fall into sin and continue to abide in that sin, but also by doing so can give cause to negatively affect other brothers or sisters in the assembly.  As it was written to the Corinthians, “a little leaven, leavens the whole lump”.  So the offending brother or sister must be removed from the assembly for the protection of others, but if and when he or she returns to the Lord, they can be restored.  In essence, here is a little analogy:  if I have a fellow Christian who falls into drug use, I will pray for him and seek to make myself available to talk to that brother as much as he will receive me.  I will provide help and be there for him.  But if that brother starts showing up at my house and he is under the influence of drugs, I will have to ban him from my house, for the safety of my family, both physical safety and spiritual safety.  If after time he stopped doing drugs and this was verified, he would be welcome at my house again.

So there are times, when direct disciplinary actions are need if a believer’s sin could put at risk, physically or spiritually, other members of the body of Christ.  But in instances where this is not the case, we would do well to hear the verses we’ve looked at in this post, and rather desire to cover our brother’s and sister’s and seek for their restoration.  We close this thought as we contemplate Proverbs 11:13

A talebearer reveals secrets, but he that is of a faithful spirit conceals the matter

In conclusion, we have looked at one example of a few verses from Old Testament Scripture and the wealth of admonition and information these verses hold for us today.  There are untold more examples and admonitions from the Old Testament, that when we have been established on the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness, we can apply as we prayerfully read God’s Word and the Holy Spirit opens the Scriptures to us.  We pray that God would increase our hunger for His Word, increase our understanding of His Word, and apply His Word to our hearts.

Grace and Peace in our Lord Jesus Christ,
DW

Having the Scriptures Opened – Part 5

Matthew 16:24-25
Then Jesus said to His disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

When hearing of the mystery which was committed to the apostle Paul and made known to the rest of the apostles, many Christians may dismiss the necessity of knowing the finer points of Paul’s epistles.  It may be said by some that they feel Jesus words in the gospel are all they need to know, and the rest is for the theologians.  Folks, in order to understand Jesus words in the gospels, we need to understand all that Jesus provided for us in His death, burial, and resurrection.  Our Lord and Savior committed this knowledge to the apostle Paul and when the Holy Spirit gives us understanding to attend to the words which Paul preached, the Scriptures are opened to us, and we will be more prepared as vessels purged and ready for God’s use.

When reading the two verses at the top of this post, many Christians interpret these verses to mean that if anyone is to be a follower of Christ, they must of their own might and determination deny themselves, their desires, and the worldly things, and walk like Jesus walked during His earthly ministry.  When they hear the admonition to take up their cross they may very well think of it as walking through life with a burden on their backs of living like Jesus.  When it comes to the “doing” of this, many think of something they have to do by their might and willpower, much like those who tried to adhere to the many commandments contained in the law.  In fact throughout the ages recorded in God’s Word, we see commandments given by God to man, even in Paul’s epistles.  But what we also see in Paul’s epistles is the grace of God in the finished work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We see how man of his own working could never obey the commandments of God, but once man realizes his depravity and need for God’s grace and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, he can do all things through Christ Jesus our Lord by the working of the Holy Spirit.  So let’s again revisit the two verses above and consider them in light of the mystery. Let’s specifically look at these three admonitions by our Lord: 1. Let him deny himself   2. take up his cross   3. follow me

Let him deny himself
When thinking of this phrase we may immediately think of denying ourselves of our wants, desires, or ambitions in this life.  We may think of our living to God’s Holy standard.  In fact if we think this way it is very similar to God’s commands to the Israelites, which we read of in Exodus 19.  What is interesting to note is the Israelites response to the charge by Moses to obey God’s commands which is recorded in verse 8, “And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord.”  Well the Israelites didn’t keep their word to the Lord, for not too long after this they were dancing naked around a golden calf.  Furthermore let’s consider the time period shortly after Christ issued this admonition for those who would follow Him to deny themselves.  For after Jesus was arrested by the Jewish leaders, we see Peter not denying himself, but rather he denied that he knew the Lord three times.  Do we think that we should fare better at keeping the commandments of God then did the Israelites or the apostle Peter did in those instances?  Of our own accord absolutely not!  So in light of the mystery, we think a fitting description of what denying oneself means is recorded in Romans 7:18  “For I know that in me, (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.”  So you see to deny oneself, is to accurately assess the depravity and unprofability of the flesh.  Our “old man” or “flesh” or “sin nature” is totally depraved, we can do nothing of ourselves to earn salvation or make ourselves right with God.  He is holy and we in our natural state are sinful.  Before a person can realize they need the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, they need to realize they are a sinner.  And before a member of the body of Christ can be a vessel purged and ready for the Lord’s use, we need to realize that we have no strength of our own, no amount of our own fleshy will or might will equip us for the Lord’s service, rather it is yielding to the Lord as those who are alive from the dead, which leads us in to the next admonition.

Take up his cross
As we touched on in the last post, we see both death and life in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.  By Christ dying on the cross for our sins, He provided life for all who will believe in Him.  When we think of the phrase we are now looking at we may immediately think of us going through life carrying a proverbial cross or responsibility to walk like Jesus did.  Once again, this makes us think of following a commandment.  In light of the mystery though, we think these words of the Lord Jesus point forward to His cross and our identification with it.  We recommend reading the whole chapter of Romans 6 for this subject.  Here are a couple of verses from Roman 6 and other Scriptures which touch on these things:

Romans 6:6-8
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.  For he that is dead is freed from sin.  Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.

Colossians 2:13-14
And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.  Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.

Galatians 2:20
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 5:24
And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affection’s and lusts.

Galatians 6:14
But God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

Romans 6:11
Likewise reckon you yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God through Christ Jesus our Lord

The second we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and were saved, we were made alive in Him and sealed with the Holy Spirit.  We were freed from the bondage of sin.  When we look at the cross we see the Lord Jesus Christ dying for our sins, His blood that He shed as He died is the same blood that washed away our sins and made us alive.  To be equipped to walk in the good works which He created for us, we have to remember and realize that our “old man” or “flesh” was crucified with Him, and we were made new creatures in Christ.  But what happens when we sin after we are saved?  If my old man was crucified with Christ how can I still sin?  Well our standing before God is in the Lord Jesus Christ, God see’s us in Christ and His righteousness.  But our state here on earth often times does not reflect our standing.  When we were saved our dead spirit was made alive by the Holy Spirit, but we are still in bodies that are dying.  When we were saved, we were saved for eternity, sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption, we can never lose our salvation.  But if we mind the things of the flesh, we will walk in the deadness of the flesh, and only produce dead works.  That is why we constantly see the admonition to “put off” the old man, and to “put on” Christ.  We ever need to take up our cross, and reckon ourselves dead indeed to sin, and alive to God through Christ Jesus our Lord.  When we do this we are vessels purged and ready for the Master’s use, we are ready to follow Him.

Follow Me
When we think of how the Lord Jesus Christ lived and walked when we He was here on earth, we immediately think of how He testified to always speaking the words that God the Father gave Him to speak.  We also notice how much time our Lord spent in prayer with God the Father.  For us, once we realize our depravity and God’s holiness and then realize what Christ accomplished for us on the cross and how while our old man was crucified, we were made alive in the Spirit.  And when we realize these things and reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, then we need to be strengthened to walk in the Spirit and follow our Lord.  Just as Jesus always spoke the words the Father gave Him, so too we need to read God’s Word, to eat our spiritual food, so we might have the words God would give us to speak.  We also need to spend time in prayer with God, to be refreshed, to cast all of our cares upon Him, to thank Him for all He has done.  When these things are so, when we accurately assess ourselves, when we realize that our old man has been crucified with Christ, and that just as the Lord Jesus Christ arose from the dead, we have been raised in Him to walk in newness of life.  And when we reckon our old man dead, and ourselves alive to God through Christ Jesus, we then yield to God and our vessels are purged and ready for His use.  Then we can walk in the good works which were created for us to walk in, and we can follow our Lord, all the while praising the Lord for His grace and mercy and working in our lives.  We can follow Him and walk as He walked according to His working in our hearts, and His faithfulness.

Another amazing thing to think on when contemplating this admonition to follow our Lord, is to think about where He went when He ascended.  The Lord Jesus Christ ascended to the right hand of God the Father and what is amazing is in Paul’s epistles we learn that we are spiritually already in heaven, and seated at the right hand of God in Christ Jesus.  Spiritually we are already with Christ and are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places as we find out in Ephesians.  This is amazing to think about and we praise the Lord!!  If we are already in Christ Jesus, and God see’s us in the righteousness of Christ, what more could we ask for?!!  We already spiritually occupy our eternal standing in the Lord Jesus Christ, having been made joint-heirs with Him by God the Father.  Nothing can separate us from His love!  What assurance, what comfort, what cause for thanksgiving and what a motivation to live godly in Christ Jesus while here on earth.  Oh that we would comprehend more all that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for us and provided us, so we might yield to Him more and avoid the snares and pitfalls that we so often set up for ourselves!

In Summary
Please allow me to share something personal. For years I thought that being able to live a godly life, involved me determining to follow specific commands from God’s Word, and for years, I ran from the Lord because of this and hid in the bushes like Adam and Eve because I was scared to be found naked.  I think there are a lot of people who feel this same way in the world today, and because of this they are scared of reading the Bible.  On the other hand I think there are also people out there who read various commandments in God’s Word and say, “I can do this” in the same manner as the Israelites when they received the law or the Pharisees did, and they are essentially sewing fig leaves together, like Adam and Eve did.  When we learn of the mystery and the gospel of the grace of God, we find accurately find out that of ourselves, we can’t live up to God’s holy standard, and we find out that the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly lived up to God’s holy standard, and by the cross provides His righteousness for all who will believe in Him.  As the apostle of the Gentiles, the apostle Paul issued some God given admonitions for us the members of the body of Christ, and it is in his epistles where we learn how we can live godly in Christ Jesus.  In essence we could say, we realize that we can’t live godly of ourselves, but we can live godly in our Lord Jesus Christ by His working.  What’s our part then, what’s our responsibility?!  Simply yielding to God.  How do we yield to God?  Well we accurately assess our inability according to the flesh, and then prayerfully read God’s Word and pray to Him.  He will grow us in the Lord Jesus Christ, He will equip us, He will send us out, He will guide our way.  We will see the life and love of our Lord Jesus Christ working out of us.  But if we neglect His Word which is our spiritual food, and neglect our refreshment, which is prayer with Him.  We will see the flesh rear it’s ugly head and only dead works will be produced.

Concerning this topic, another thing that is so awesome is that when we realize these things, when we realize that the law was never given to justify a man, but rather to break him so he see’s himself as he really is, we can go back in the Old Testament and see these things.  We can see godly men in the Old Testament and how when the various commandments came, they were broken, and then ready for the Lord’s use.  In closing, let’s look at one brief example of this in the life of Abraham.  In Genesis 17:1&2 we read of God saying to Abraham, “I am the almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly“.  Wow, now think about these words, “walk before me, and be thou perfect”  Could Abraham do this, could any of us walk before the Lord and be perfect?  I think we would agree the answer is no.  So let’s see Abraham’s response to these words in verse 3, “And Abram fell on his face“.  Wow, what a picture of what the commands of God throughout the ages were intended to evoke from man.  Abram, doesn’t say a word, but we feel his action speaks louder than words.  As the command to be perfect is issued from the mouth of God, all Abraham can do is to fall on his face, as if he is dead.  We believe we have a picture here of the spiritual reality of reckoning ourselves dead, the accurate view of one’s self in light of the holiness of God.  And after Abraham took this position of faith, let’s read the rest of verse 3,  “And God talked with him, saying“.  For the third time, wow!  Oh may we yield to God as those that are alive from the dead through Christ Jesus our Lord!

Grace and Peace in our Lord,
DW

Having the Scriptures Opened – Part 4

1 Corinthians 3:9-11
For we are laborers together with God: you are God’s husbandry, you are God’s building.  According to the grace of God which is given to me, as a wise masterbuilder.  I have laid the foundation, and another builds thereon.  But let every man take heed how he builds.  For no other foundation can a man lay that that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

When we learn of the gospel of grace of God that Paul preached, we learn that the Lord Jesus Christ is our foundation.  Once God begins to give us understanding to all that Christ accomplished for us by His death, burial, and resurrection, we start to realize all of the riches of grace, God has graciously poured on us through the Lord Jesus Christ.  We deserved the wrath of God to be poured on us for our sins, but because of the Lord Jesus’ faithfulness, He richly pours His grace upon us instead.  As we comprehend further how Christ and His finished work is the foundation for our salvation, we also learn how He is the foundation for our living godly in Him, according to His faithfulness and working.  No other foundation can be laid, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only foundation for righteousness to those who believe.  When we begin to see these things more and more and then we revisit the Old Testament Scriptures, the Scriptures open up as we see the whole Word of God bear witness to our Lord and Savior.  Let’s pray that God might give us more of a glimpse of our Lord Jesus as we revisit the garden of Eden and notice in particular two tree’s, one a tree bearing death, and one a tree bearing life, and let us see how Adam’s failure pointed forward to the Lord Jesus Christ’s victory.  In the garden of Eden, Adam’s sin brought a curse and death.  At the cross of Calvary, Christ’s faithfulness bought life and victory!

When we read Genesis and survey the garden of Eden we see that God planted two particular trees among many.  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil produced a fruit that when eaten brought a curse and resulted in sin and death.  The tree of life produced a fruit that when eaten brought eternal life.  Adam was permitted to eat from the tree of life, but he was forbidden from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for if he did, God promised that “dying thou shalt die”.  As we saw from a verse in one of our last posts, in a sense there has been only two men in history.  The “first Adam” who was of the earth, and the “second Adam” who is the Lord from heaven.  When the first Adam partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and sinned, he died and brought the curse of sin and death on the whole earth and future inhabitants.  He immediately realized he was naked and tried to cover his nakedness with fig leaves.  The fig leaves availed nothing and when Adam heard God walking in the cool of the day, he hid himself for fear of his nakedness being discovered.  After God pronounced the punishment, results of Adam’s sin, and promise of the Savior,  He graciously covered Adam and Eve’s nakedness with coats of skins.  Then God banned Adam and Eve from the garden, for in their sinful state they could not be permitted to eat of the tree of life. Death was their sentence and from dust they came and to dust they would return.  And so every single man and woman born on earth, except our Lord Jesus, shared in the results and sentence given to Adam and Eve, and let us remember, had we been there we would have done the same thing as they did.  So to summarize we see two trees, one with the promise of death and one with the promise of life, now let’s look to the tree of Calvary for there we find one tree that speaks both of death and life from the dead.

Like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the cross had a curse associated with it. As it is written in Galatians 3:13  Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.  As Adam ate the fruit from the forbidden tree and released the curse on all creation,  the Lord Jesus Christ through whom all things were created, hung on the tree of Calvary and was made a curse for us.  He who knew no sin, was made sin for us, so we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.  Christ shed His blood for our sins, He endured God’s wrath against sin for us, He died our death for us.  Adam tasted the fruit of the tree and plunged mankind into sin and death, but Christ did the opposite as it is written in Hebrews 2:9  But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor: that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man.  The first Adam tasted death because of his sin, the second Adam tasted death to put away forever the sin of those who believe in Him.  So we see in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ a curse and death associated with it which He in love endured for us.

We read concerning Christ in 1 Peter 2:24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes we are healed.  Praise the Lord!  In the garden of Eden we saw two trees, one for death and one for life, but in the cross of Christ, we see both death and life as evidenced by the Holy Spirit through the pen of the apostle Peter.  When we look and remember how the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins, we see the tree and think of death, the death that we deserved for our sins, but Christ so graciously endured for us.  But when we look at the cross after contemplating our Lord’s resurrection, we see eternal life in that tree, full and free to all who will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.  After Adam tasted of the tree of knowledge of good and evil he realized he was naked and he tried to clothe himself with fig leaves.  The reason that the cross is so offensive to the world is because it exposes our sin and nakedness before God.  It shows us incapable of saving ourselves, any attempt at clothing our nakedness by ourselves or our working is akin to fig leaves.  As it is written all our works are as filthy rags before God.  But just as the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ shows our sinfulness and need of a Savior, it also shows His righteousness that He gives to all those who believe in Him.  Just as God graciously clothed Adam and Eve with coats of skins, so also the moment we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, God clothed us with the righteousness of Christ.  We are accepted by God in His beloved Son.  The cross by which the Lord Jesus Christ died for us, is the same cross by which He secured eternal life for us, and freed us from sin.  All glory, honor, and praise to Him forever!

So in light of all these things, what application can we gain?  Well, as we again consider the two trees in the garden of Eden, and the one tree of Calvary, and consider our daily walk here on earth, much application can be made.  I think there is the temptation for us to walk as if we are still in Eden.  If our focus is on the two trees in Eden, with one producing the forbidden fruit that results in death and the other being the tree of life, we can easily falter in our walk. We may choose to eat from the tree of life on Sunday, but during the week we may eat the forbidden fruit.  While we can never lose our salvation, when we eat of the forbidden fruit, we must realize that God is not mocked and what a man sows that shall he reap.  The course and results of our choice will be fully vetted.  When we do this, when we keep going back and forth between the two trees, we stunt our growth in Christ, and we may find ourselves hiding from God in the bushes, or worse yet sowing fig leaves with a seared conscious.  We totally lose sight of the fact that our Lord has already graciously covered us with His righteousness.  When we focus on the two trees in Eden, it is the same as if trying to achieve righteousness by the law, it depends on our doing something, on our making the correct choice.  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil beckons us to taste it.  When we focus on Christ and the cross, we see sin as it really is, something that needs to be judged by God, and then we see God the Son taking the penalty of that judgement for us, so we see His working and love and we are thankful to Him for all He has done for us.  So instead of focusing on the two trees in the garden, we need to focus on the one tree of Calvary.  When our eye is single and focused on the cross of Christ, we can properly reckon our “old man” or flesh, as dead as we thank the Lord for dying for us and providing total payment and forgiveness for our sins.  We can realize that we have been freed from the bondage of sin, and made alive by our Lord Jesus Christ.  Just as we are identified in His death, as we acknowledge that it was our death He was dying and He endured the wrath that was due to us, we also can glory in the fact that as the Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, so we were raised in Him to walk in newness of life!  So may the Lord help us to ever more comprehend and experience the love of Christ evidenced in His faithfulness and finished work at the cross.  May we ever endeavor to taste of the fruits of the Spirit that God graciously gives us because of the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace and Peace in Christ Jesus our Lord,
DW

Having the Scriptures Opened – Part 3

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

When we think about what having the Scriptures opened really means, we could think of it like a door being opened to a house.  Prior to the door being opened, we can see the outside of the house, and maybe even look into the windows to see what the inside looks like.  At this point we might garner a superficial knowledge of the house, but to truly know the house and to truly function within the house, the door would have to be opened to us and we would have to walk inside.  As the disciples walked in the way on the road to Emmaus and Christ opened the Scriptures to them, so also we walk in the way during our lives here on earth, Christ will open the Scriptures to us if we yield to Him and prayerfully read God’s Word.  Just as God opened Lydia’s heart to attend to the words spoken of by Paul, so also God will open our heart’s to attend to the gospel of His grace, if we yield to Him and prayerfully read His Word.  When we look at the Holy Spirit inspired words of the apostle Paul to his son in the faith,  Timothy, we see some instructions that benefit us greatly concerning the study and application of God’s Word.

2 Timothy 2:15
Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

As we consider this verse in light of the whole Word of God, it benefits us greatly to rightly divide and
contemplate the differences that exist in Scripture and that Paul’s epistles point to.  We see the difference between Jew and Gentile, the difference between the heavenly and earthly, the difference between the Old and New Testament, the difference between the nation of Israel and the church.  To ignore these distinctions and then try to apply the Word of God to our hearts and lives, results in a confusion to which the hundreds of Christian denominations and sects testify to, with the random adherence to certain ordinances and commandments not meant for members of the body of Christ in this age of grace in which we live.  Even more than this though, when we learn of the mystery, we learn also to rightly divide ourselves.  We first learn of the difference between depraved sinful man in his natural state, and the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect and holy righteouseness.  Then we also learn of the difference between the flesh and the Spirit, the deadness of our flesh, and the life that we have in Christ which by the Holy Spirit we have in our inward man.  As Christians if we mind the things of our flesh, we will wallow in death and only dead works will result, but if we mind the things of the Spirit and yield to God through prayer and the reading of His Word, we will walk in the good works which were created in our Lord Jesus Christ for us to walk in.

2 Timothy 3:15-17
And that from a child you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:  That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Just as important as rightly dividing the Word of truth and discerning differences is to have the whole Word of God applied to our hearts as we discern through the Holy Spirit the similarities for all of God’s people throughout the ages.  When God opens our hearts to attend to the words spoken of by the apostle Paul concerning the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being members of the body of Christ, we will notice that throughout Paul’s epistles as he by the Holy Spirit gives word to God’s grace and applications for us today, he continually points to the rest of Scripture to do so.  We shall not fully comprehend being saved by grace through faith, unless we follow where the Holy Spirit by Paul’s pen points to when talking about Abraham being justified by faith.  We shall not fully understand being children of the promise, unless we follow the Holy Spirit’s by Paul’s pen leading and read of Isaac and Ishmael.  When we follow the Spirit’s leading the Scriptures open up to us.  For we see the Lord Jesus Christ and God’s grace testified to and applications for us throughout God’s Word from Genesis to Revelations.

As we contemplate the two sets of verses in Timothy which we looked at today, we must realize that they go together and are equally important.  The adversary would like to position these two Biblical instructions as two seperate choices, when studying the Bible.  If we just adhere to 2 Timothy 3:15-17 without rightly dividing God’s Word, it can result in picking and choosing things to apply or follow from all the various ages without rhyme or reason.  Worse than this as members of the body of the Christ, we can fail to understand our heavenly calling and purpose the Lord has called us to, and how we can live godly in Christ Jesus.  We see this evident today with the multitude of sects and denominations, most of which know nothing about the mystery or God’s purpose for Israel and God’s purpose for the church.  Because of this, many today are still trying to keep the law for righteousness, instead of realizing the glorious truth of God’s grace to us in the Lord Jesus Christ and our being made righteous in Christ through His death, burial and resurrection.  Secondly, we must avoid just adhering to 2 Timothy 2:15 without applying the whole Word of God.  When we rightly divide God’s Word and find out about the special commission the Lord gave to Paul making him the apostle to the Gentiles, and we learn of the mystery which was committed to him to give, we praise the Lord for His grace and mercy.  As Gentile members of the body of Christ, we find what our heavenly calling and purpose is in Paul’s epistles, but we must refrain from thinking that the rest of Scripture only contains applications for Israel and Paul’s epistles are the only Scriptures that we need for application today.  While it is true, that Paul’s epistles contain many admonitions specifically for the Gentiles, we must realize that as the Holy Spirit gives those instructions through the pen of Paul, He points to the other Scriptures to show those principles in action for examples, admonition and comfort.  The man of God is not thoroughly equipped until he realizes that the whole Word of God is for application, and this in conjunction with rightly dividing, the Lord will give us discernment and apply truth to our hearts from every age recorded in His Holy Word. We pray that it may it ever be so.

Grace and Peace in our Lord Jesus Christ,
DW

Having the Scriptures Opened – Part 2

Ephesians 1:17-20
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.  The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.  And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power.  Which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places.

We ended the last post quoting a verse which described the Lord opening the heart of a woman named Lydia, so she might understand the words spoken by the apostle Paul.  In prior posts we also looked at the mystery which the risen ascended Lord Jesus Christ committed to the apostle Paul and we saw how the preaching of the mystery is the preaching of the cross.  That is to say, that in Paul’s epistles we learn of the riches of grace that the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross provided us.  We learn both the purpose and destiny of the church, the body of Christ as a whole, and we learn how we as individual members can live godly in Christ Jesus, as we walk in this life.  You will search the Old Testament in vain to try and find any specific mention of this age of grace we live in, which has lasted nearly 2000 years.  You will also search the Old Testament in vain to try and find any specific mention of the Gentiles receiving salvation before Israel accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as King and His millenial kingdom is set up.  As it is written this mystery was “hid in God” until it was revealed to the apostle Paul, and then after that to the rest of the apostles.  One thing to remember though, is while this mystery was hid in God, and no one knew about it, that does not mean we can’t see traces of the mystery in types in the Old Testament.  While these types were hidden to those who lived during Old Testament times, after the mystery was revealed, the types were able to be seen.  Lord willing, in this post we are going to look at an example of how looking at an aspect of the mystery opens up the Scriptures, as we pray that the Lord would open our understanding.

When we read Ephesians 5, verses 21-33, we see the Holy Spirit inspiring the apostle Paul to give application for husbands and wives and we also see how the body of Christ, also known as the church, is likened to a wife and the Lord Jesus Christ is likened to the Husband of the church.  Throughout the apostle Paul’s epistles we see the Holy Spirit bear witness to the formation of the spiritual organization to which every person who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ belongs, named in some places the “body of Christ” and in other places “the church”.  We also see how each member of the body of Christ, has differing gifts, and is likened to different parts of the body, but all members, though differing in ability or gift are tempered together by the Lord, and should work together for the edification of all the body members.  So as we again consider the church as the wife of Christ, let’s read Ephesians 5:25 – 29

Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.  That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.  That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.  So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.  He that loveth his wife loveth himself.  For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord the church.

So as husbands we see application the Lord has for us on how to treat our wives, which we will only be able to do, if we are walking in the Spirit, yielding to Him.  We also see an awesome picture of how the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for us, and how we are eternally secure in Him, and how He sanctifies us.  We also see how our Lord and Savior loves us and nourishes us and cherishes us.  Let’s continue reading in verses 30 – 32.

For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.  For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.  This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Now here we see another aspect of the mystery, and we also see in verse 31, that the Holy Spirit inspires the apostle Paul to quote Genesis 2:24 to open our understanding further.  So let’s follow where the Holy Spirit points to and consider a couple verses in Genesis as we also consider our being members of Christ body.  Genesis 20:24

And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help mate for him.  And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof.  And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.  And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman because she was taken from Man.  Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

So let’s meditate on what we just read,  God made a help mate for Adam, first He caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, then He opened up Adam’s side and took a rib, from this rib, he made the woman, and then brought her to the man.  Now let’s consider the church,  God made a help mate for Christ, first He caused a deep sleep to fall on the Lord Jesus Christ, when He died on the cross, then after the soldiers saw that Christ was dead, God allowed them to open Christ’s side with a spear, and His precious blood and water flowed out.  The precious blood of Christ shed for our sins, and the water which signifies the Word of God and the Holy Spirit is the basis for our salvation and how God made the church, when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back for us, we shall be caught up to be with Him in the air when God shall bring the woman to the Man, and so shall we ever be with the Lord!  We again quote Ephesians 5:30-32

For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.  For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.  This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

1 Corinthians 15:45
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul;  the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.  Howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.  The first man is of the earth, earthy:  the second man is the Lord from heaven.

All glory, honor, and praise to God the Father through Christ Jesus our Lord forever!  Wow, God and His Word are amazing!  Let’s pray that the Lord would increase our hunger for His Word, and increase our understanding in His Word, and that He might open our hearts to the see how the whole of Scripture testifies of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  What we have looked at today is one drop in an endless ocean of the riches of God’s grace found throughout His Word!

Grace and Peace in our Lord Jesus Christ,
DW