Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
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The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
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The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
We have a situation where Jesus was doing
his ministry, being hated by the religious elite who wanted to destroy him, and
moving along to continue sharing the gospel of the kingdom with all the lost
sheep of Israel. As Matthew is carried along by the Holy Spirit to write down
the words God is breathing out, he adds this commentary on what is going on.
This is one of the many examples where we see Matthew treating “the Scriptures”
as God’s word, the authority on how to understand what Jesus was doing in his
ministry.
HOWEVER!!!
Look at what Matthew is led to call Isaiah: “the prophet”!
Here’s what that means:
1. Matthew was writing in terms
that were understood at the time. This means that referring to Isaiah was in
the context of what the people of Israel believed. The Book of Isaiah was in
the part of the Scriptures called “the prophets”. It was understood to be
Scripture. It was included in every reference to “the Scriptures”.
2. When Matthew presents Isaiah as “the
prophet”, this also meant what the people of Israel understood it to mean. Everything
in Scripture that defines what a prophet was, including how to determine
someone was a false prophet, applies to Isaiah. If Matthew said Isaiah was a
prophet, it meant he was not a false prophet. And that meant there was not one
part of Isaiah’s prophecy that was thought to be erroneous, in need of
correction, or an example of BJ’s claim that the human writers often messed up
what God “really” said with their own limits of understanding, preference,
bias, or purpose. Isaiah was a prophet. Period. And everything it meant in the
Scriptures that someone was a prophet applied.
3. When we look back to when BJ
tried so hard to misrepresent Isaiah 53 because he has a vendetta against the “penal
substitutionary atonement”, and we realize that Isaiah 53 both proved BJ false
and exalted the salvation plans of God for God’s genius in making such a clear
prophecy of what and why Jesus would die for our sins, we must then acknowledge
that the Scripture of Matthew’s Gospel confirms the Scripture of Isaiah’s
prophecy as the gift of a prophet of God, and that BJ is a false prophet for
misrepresenting what this prophet of God had written.
Here
is the prophecy Isaiah presented that Matthew declared to be the word of a
prophet of God, and fulfilled in what Jesus was doing:
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
He will not quarrel or cry aloud,
nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory;
and in his name the Gentiles will hope” (Matthew 12:18-21).
A few
things:
1. The prophecy begins with Yahweh
declaring HIS place in the picture. Applying the prophecy to Jesus, Jesus is “my
(Yahweh’s) servant”. Everyone would understand a servant of Yahweh to mean one
who was expressly doing Yahweh’s will.
2. This servant is one “whom I have
chosen”, meaning that Jesus was chosen by God for what he was doing. This meant
that what Jesus was doing was to be received as Yahweh’s will.
3. Jesus is “my beloved”, indicating
his special place in Yahweh’s heart. We, of course, hear God’s words at Jesus’
baptism, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”, and at his
transfiguration, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen
to him.”
4. Which segues very nicely into the
next phrase, “with whom my soul is well pleased”. The people would have
understood that, if Yahweh was well pleased with someone, it would be because
that someone was doing Yahweh’s will as well as Yahweh wanted it done.
5. “I will put my Spirit upon him” was
also fulfilled at Jesus’ baptism as the Spirit appeared like a dove coming to
rest on him. This is one more very clear picture of God’s complete approval of
what Jesus was doing in his ministry, a clear declaration that Jesus of Nazareth
was set apart from all the other Messiah-wannabes by the fact that Yahweh’s
Spirit would rest on him.
6. The rest of what is said here comes
as Yahweh’s stamp of approval on Jesus. What Jesus would do is clearly what
Yahweh sent him to do.
7. The central focus of what Jesus would
do as authorized, approved, and attached to by Yahweh revolves around “justice”.
Jesus would “proclaim justice”. He would not “quarrel or cry aloud” about it,
but would be ever so gentle with the lost sheep of Israel, “UNTIL… he brings
JUSTICE to victory”. The emphasis is that Jesus will bring about justice. It is
interesting that when I typed “justice” into www.biblegateway.com, Isaiah has 28 references to it!
Yes, that’s more than any other book in the Bible! And Yahweh is telling us
that what Jesus was doing in his ministry was proclaiming and administering justice
until he brought justice to victory, and that victory of justice was his “It is
finished!” on the cross when Jesus propitiated the wrath of God against our sin
so that “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God” (II Corinthians 5:21).
8. The reason that “in HIS name the
Gentiles will hope” is twofold. First, that “there is salvation in no one else,
for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be
saved” (Acts 4:12). From all the Gentile nations, it is the name of Jesus Christ
as Lord that will save people, and there is no other, including no “another Jesus”
with a “different spirit” and a “different gospel” like BJ is peddling. Second,
the reason this will give Gentiles “hope” is that Jesus will have brought
justice to victory on the cross so that now “everyone who has been born of God
overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our
faith” (I John 5:4). Faith overcomes the world because “Out of the anguish of
his (Jesus’) soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the
righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall
bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11). Jesus would bear our iniquities in order
that we could be “accounted righteous”. And that is why this Gentile has hope
in Jesus Christ my Lord!
Now,
since Yahweh through his Word, his word, and his Spirit gave me this wonderful
gift this morning, and it is like the signpost that will interpret the next stage
of BJ’s garden path, I am eager to find out how it will be applied to whatever
comes up next! And, although I’m not enjoying the heartache of watching how BJ
has deceived so many people, and I have much better paths to travel than a book
saturated with deception and false teaching, there is a way that the path of
God leads straight and narrow through every twisted curve that BJ sets before
his readers.
After
this, as I was posting my sharing online, I saw that someone from our home
church had posted Proverbs 29:16, “When the wicked are in authority, sin
flourishes; but the godly will live to see their downfall” (not sure the translation).
This is another Scripture that shows the necessity of God judging sin and evil
in our world in order to save the righteous. We are seeing this very thing,
that the authorities in so many countries (Canada and the USA included) are
wicked, and so sin is flourishing. If even our God, Yahweh, Jesus Christ the
Lord, was either unwilling or unable to bring justice against the wicked, there
would be no hope for the righteous who are persecuted and hated by these evil
people and also need a redemption that includes a just dealing of OUR sins that
deserve judgment!
And then, when I was going to email my personal sharing to my home church, I found that one of our members had already shared from Ezekiel 38. It describes the judgment God was about to bring upon his people for their wickedness and rebellion against him. What stands out in direct reference to BJ’s dissing of the Scriptures (claiming they are faulty and his “another Jesus” has to correct them) is what Yahweh said to “Gog”, clearly an enemy nation he would bring against his people in judgment. Yahweh said,
“Thus says the Lord GOD (Lord Yahweh): Are you he of whom I spoke in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel, who in those days prophesied for years that I would bring you against them?”
It
stood out to me how the Scriptures are woven together so that we have one
prophet (Ezekiel) recording what God had to say about previous prophets (which
would have included Isaiah), as an affirmation that what they had proclaimed
was indeed the “word of the LORD (Yahweh)”, while Ezekiel himself is proclaiming
the “word of Yahweh” to the people at that time.
And
then we have the true Lord Jesus Christ affirming “the prophets” of the
Scriptures without ever once correcting anything they said or taught (BJ was
dishonest in his one attempt to prove otherwise), and we have the gospel
writers declaring how Jesus was fulfilling the words of the prophets, clearly
meaning that these were true prophets, not the ones who should have been stoned
to death for lying (Deuteronomy 18:20). Here is a short article by the “Got
Questions” ministry that shows how seriously God takes false prophets, including
the modern-day twisters and peddlers of God’s word.[1]
Oh,
one more thing, when Yahweh says In Ezekiel 38, “my wrath will be roused in my
anger” (vs 18), and “in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath I declare” (vs 19),
and concludes this description of his judgment with, “So I will show my
greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations.
Then they will know that I am the LORD (Yahweh)” (vs 23), it is clear that God
expressing his wrath in judgment is a real thing, a just thing, and a good
thing.
And when Jesus affirms that “whoever does not
believe is condemned already” (John 3:18), meaning, already condemned the way
the Jews understood from the Scriptures, and, “whoever does not obey the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36), meaning,
the wrath already spoken of in the Scriptures, Jesus himself is affirming
Yahweh his Father as written in the prophets, not correcting him.
Note:
isn’t it strange how we keep finding Jesus affirming the Scriptures, the
prophets, and even Yahweh his Father, while BJ keeps claiming he corrected them
without giving us one text that says he did so!
And then the apostle John wrote (BJ is
nothing close to an apostle, don’t forget),
Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Revelation 6: 15-16)
This shows that the wrath of God is not only a
legitimate expression of God’s holiness, righteousness, and justice, but that
it is why us Gentiles have hope in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.
Look what
is written:
For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Romans 3:22-25)
God’s choice of the word “propitiation” is
deliberate. We must know that all his justice and wrath against our sins is
gone because of Jesus Christ our Lord.
So the
biblical writer of Hebrews declared,
Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17)
Notice
the connection between Jesus making “propitiation” (satisfying the wrath of God
against sin) and this making him “a merciful and faithful high priest in the
service of God” (you know, like God’s servant as God said earlier).
And
look what our beloved apostle John adds to this: “He is the propitiation for
our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world (all
the Gentile nations)” (I John 2:2), and “In this is love, not that we have
loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our
sins” (I John 4:10). Yes, sending Jesus to propitiate God’s wrath against our
sins is the ultimate expression of the love of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit!
Oh my,
look at how much ground we have covered down the straight-and-narrow-way
without even setting foot on BJ’s garden path! Oh well, maybe we all needed a
good drink of the “truth in love” to refresh our hearts with wonder that Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners, and that,
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:13-14).
I know I certainly did!
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible
Systems
[1]
What does the Bible say about false prophets?
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