On This Day: A Bloody Rejection of a Bloody Jesus

So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.” And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. (Matthew 27:24-26)

 

   To call on ourselves the blood of an innocent person about to be murdered is to curse ourselves with the guilt of the crime. To add our children to the mix is to expose how evil-hearted we are to want our children to share in the guilt.

   Horrified?!

   This is what is happening all around us. When people curse themselves by utterly rejecting everything to do with Jesus, they not only show that the blood of their sins is on their own heads, but they deny their children any knowledge of the Savior who sets people free from sin, death, and hell.

   For the rest of this, let me share God’s word because “faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). As Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:26-28)

   The importance of Jesus’ willingly pouring out his blood is because, “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22). The positive is equally true, that WITH the shedding of blood there IS forgiveness of sins!

   Because Jesus did this, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). The “in him” means this applies only to those who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and have been “delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).

   And here is one expression of the wonderful consequence of being washed clean in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:19-22).

   We are either remaining in that designation of people who curse themselves and their children with the utter rejection of Jesus as Creator, Savior and Lord, or we are receiving Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and drawing near to our Father in heaven with absolute confidence that all our sins have been propitiated (paid for by Christ) and God now receives us as righteous in his sight.

   Folks, as our world invents ways of killing people, death is closer to us all than we would wish. THEREFORE…

“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 10:27-28).

 

© 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.)

 

 

On This Day: The Savior Who Lived Our Stories

Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.” Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” And he said, “Why? What evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!”(Matthew 27:14-23)

 

   In the early 90’s I was given three mentors who taught me how to watch out for the curse of self-protection in church-folk, how to live a life of seeking to both know and do the will of God, and how to apply freedom ministry to people who are stuck in their walk with God because of unresolved “stuff”.

   Since that time, I have been amazed at how these three dimensions of life have worked together. I have seen positive things happen when people want freedom from self-protection so they can know and do the will of God with freedom in Jesus Christ their Lord. And I have seen what I was warned about where more people in churches are committed to self-protection than to knowing and doing the will of God and would prefer NOT having freedom in Christ to walk in the “obedience of faith”.

   And today I stood at the Scripture above absolutely gobsmacked (overwhelmed with wonder, surprise, or shock: astounded ~ Miram Webster) that I was experiencing all three of those ministries coming together like a blessing of God’s healing grace.

   First, it was the realization that I was witnessing people living out of “self-protection” in Jesus’ day exactly as I have experienced it in my lifetime. But I was also feeling the “knowing and doing the will of God” part of meditating on Scripture because I could see how God was leading me to meet him in what David called my “secret heart” and experience him in a real and personal way. And I could see how this was a freedom-experience because my tears told me that God was freeing me from things people had done to me by showing me my Savior going through the same things.

   For a very long time, I have attached to Jesus as what Isaiah called, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”. I would never suggest I know this like he did, but those words describe so many things I have gone through, and I have often found comfort that this is the way God wanted us to think of his Son before he ever came as our Messiah.

   But today is the first time I saw Jesus living out such a familiar scene in my life in his mock trial. I have known he was my substitute for ages. And my recent journey through a book of false teachings has made this front-and-center for me as the author has tried to prove Jesus was not my substitute who propitiated God’s wrath against my sin. But I have never seen it in this particular passage that Jesus was going through things that so many of us could say, “I’ve been treated like that!”

   It is Sunday morning, and I have time before home church to go for a prayer drive on a lonely backroad. I am blessed beyond words to have this in my heart, and to know it was and is my heavenly Father’s special gift of grace for me today.

   So, self-protection be gone! Experiencing God, here I come! Father, lead me to freedom in Christ more than I have ever known it, I pray in Jesus’ name!

 

© 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.)

 

 

On This Day: When the Right Answer is No Answer

Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You have said so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. (Matthew 27:11-14)

 

   One of the Scriptures that has most shaped how I try to live is when Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise” (John 5:19).

   No, I do not think I can be as good as Jesus at this. But Jesus told us how this applies to his disciples when he said to them (and us), “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

   When I apply this to Jesus not answering his accusers, the issue isn’t that we can reduce what Jesus did into a rule, or a principle to live by. We can’t simply make it a rule that we don’t answer our accusers. During Jesus’ public ministry he constantly replied to his accusers. He was always responding to their trick questions and hypocritical attempts to expose him.

   But this time was different. From the Garden of Eden to the prophet Malachi (the whole Old Testament) God’s plan was for a Messiah to crush the serpent’s head (authority) while the serpent would bruise his heal (Jesus would suffer to secure our salvation). Jesus had concluded his public ministry by declaring woes on the religious leaders, lamenting Jerusalem’s coming destruction because the people refused their Messiah, and telling the disciples that the temple itself would be destroyed. Everything was settled.

   So when Jesus stood before the Roman Governor, Pilate, the only thing left to do was to “lay down his life for his friends”. He didn’t answer anything because he had no intention of stopping or even slowing down the proceedings. He had repeatedly told his disciples he was going to be crucified at the Passover. He was letting the plan unfold so everyone could see how evil and sinful they were, and how sinless, blameless and spotless he was as the sacrificial lamb.

   Today, I feel the wonder of Jesus being able to be silent when accused. This included the reminder that it fulfilled prophecy! “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

   But it also was another clear picture of Jesus doing what us sinners could not do. And even his silence before his accusers proved that he was the Messiah who was then and there giving “his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). 

   The only question is whether you are included in the “many” Jesus came to save. And to that question, everyone will give an answer.  

 

© 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.)

On This Day: When ‘Son of Man’ Means ‘Son of God’

Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. And Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end. Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’” And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 26:57-64)

   It was as I was videoing my vlog about this passage this morning that I realized that Jesus matched the two false witnesses with two witnesses from Scripture. In one sentence he referred to two prophecies that his religious interrogators would immediately know answered the question, “Are you the Christ, the Son of God?!”

   I find it so fascinating to see all the different ways prophecy is first declared and then fulfilled and affirmed. It also stands out that there are prophecies about Jesus “coming” that applied to his first coming, and others that apply to his second (and final) coming.

   In today’s time in the word, there was another contrast as I recalled something that would happen just hours after this debacle of a trial.

   First we are shown the utter hypocrisy of the religious elite who would care nothing that all their witnesses were false as long as two of them agreed. Why is that important? Because the law required that “On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness” (Deuteronomy 17:6).

   Isn’t that amazing? It didn’t matter that all the witnesses were false, and that when they finally had two agree on something it wasn’t anything worthy of a death sentence. What mattered to them is simply that they had two witnesses! That was enough for them to demand Jesus’ crucifixion.

   However, when we look ahead to Jesus suffering on the cross along with two thieves, we get this amazing picture of one of the thieves coming to believe in Jesus. He asked, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). So the high priest and the other religious elite had no understanding that Jesus fulfilled all the Scriptures about the Messiah’s first coming, but a thief who was dying along with Jesus believed Jesus had a kingdom, and believed that Jesus would “come into” this kingdom later even though he was dying. So amazing!

   When Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43), he was affirming that he had an everlasting kingdom just as the prophets foretold, and he would be ready to receive this new disciple into paradise “in spirit” that very day.

   I hope this encourages everyone that both “Son of Man” and “Son of God” speak of Jesus as “the Word who became flesh” to dwell among us. And, as he dwelt among us then, he is coming again to gather all his disciples to be with him forever. So let that dying thief’s example of faith help you settled your eternal standing with God today.

 

© 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 Journal Journey with Brad Jersak’s “Different” Jesus – Day 99 (Conclusion 4: Saving Salvation)

 

Examining "A More Christlike Word" by Brad Jersak

Day 99

“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)

The False Filter	The Biblical Filter
The word OR the Word	The Word THROUGH the word

   I admit it: I do not know what Brad Jersak’s “different gospel” is. I don’t know what my friends who steered me to this book think the gospel is. I know that it is the “different gospel” Paul warned about only because of how much in this book is against the gospel, but I do not know what they believe about how people are “saved”.

   I say this because my focus is not so much on what the BJs teach as the “good news of great joy” (since I do not know what that is), but on the things they claim it is not. As I stated in my previous post, Satan’s second expression in the garden of Eden (after beginning with, “Did God actually say…?”) was an outright lie of, “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Adam should have jumped in and declared what God said that refuted Satan’s lie, but he did not. Others should have jumped in and declared what God’s word says to refute Brad Jersak’s lies (it sounds to me from Jersak’s book that people tried), but I haven’t heard where these refutations are, hence my journey of “truth in love” along the garden path of lies and deceit.

   One thing that is very clear is that the author does not believe in the salvation that is summarized as “penal substitutionary atonement”. I have stated all through my writing that I am not pushing any specific doctrinal wordings, or any denominational distinctives about the gospel of our salvation. What I am focusing on is testing whether or not Scripture teaches the three components of what is called the “penal substitutionary atonement” because those are the ones the Did-God-actually-sayers challenge “Did God actually say…?”!

   The Bible is the “word” of God!

   I am no longer debating with the BJ’s about their claim that the Bible is some God/man hybrid that has no authority because God’s boys messed with it too much for us to know what God was really trying to say. That is, until Brad Jersak came along to make it so clear that we should now follow him instead of Scripture.

   Instead, I am continuing with the belief that the Bible is the word of God. It is Jesus’ instruction manual for his church while we operate as the church he is building. He is not here with us in the physical way he was with the disciples, so we cannot directly ask him what to do about everything that comes up. Instead, he has given us his word and his Spirit to guide us, and we are honor-bound to be filled with the Spirit and to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly so we know God’s will about everything.

   Fact is, God has made everything relational. We must unite as God’s people to seek God in his word and prayer by his Spirit. We must live by faith. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing comes from the “word of Christ” which we now have in the Scriptures, and the Scriptures we now have in the Bible.

   With that in mind, I unashamedly trust the Bible as the word of God, and if you will at least give me the kindness of hearing me out on the “good news” you will see how wonderfully Scripture makes clear what the gospel is, what it does, and how necessary it is that we proclaim this “good news of great joy” throughout our lifetimes. Along the way, we must guard the gospel’s integrity so that every generation may hear that there is “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord”!

   The Good News of the Good News

   In my previous post, I focused on clarifying the “bad news” part of the good news simply because Brad Jersak has tried to erase it from the gospel message. In this post I want to highlight the good news part of the bad news, that “the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned” (Matthew 4:16 – quoting in fulfillment of Isaiah 9:2). Note that the bad news is “dwelling in darkness” and “dwelling in the region of the shadow of death” (the thoughts rhyme), and the good news is “have seen a great light” and “on them a light has dawned” (also rhyme in thought). This is why the good news is the good news, it replaces what makes the bad news such bad news!

   When Satan lied “You will not surely die”, Adam bought what the devil was peddling and brought death into the world. Satan filled the world with his darkness, and when the second Adam came, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-6).

   This is how the good news of the good news (gospel) ministers to us. It shines light into the darkness. It speaks truth into Satan’s cesspool of lies. It brings us the life of our Creator-made-man to raise from the dead creatures of sin into the newness of life as new creations in Christ.

   The Gospel of the Kingdom

   My favorite summary phrase of the gospel the Bible teaches is “the gospel of the kingdom”. “Gospel” means “good news”. This is why the angels announced Jesus’ birth with, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). Every time we read “gospel” in our English translations, we must understand this nuance of “good news” being proclaimed.

   But this good news is “of the kingdom”, so what makes God’s kingdom of such significance that we would want to know the good news about his kingdom?

   The answer is in the first time Jesus is quoted as proclaiming this gospel. At the very beginning of his ministry, right after defeating the devil with Scripture at the end of his 40 days in the wilderness, this is how Mark introduces his ministry:

“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (Mark 1:14-15).

   The first thing to note is that Mark calls what Jesus was “proclaiming” as “the gospel of God”, or, “the good news of God”. This means that the message was “good news”, and it means that what Jesus was preaching was “of God”, which is why Jesus was known for sounding so authoritative!

   The “good news” and why it is “of God” is captured in probably the most famous verse of the Bible, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The good news is that there is a plan of salvation that saves us from perishing and grants us eternal life. It is of God because it begins with God’s love for the world (not just Israel), it is expressed in him giving us his only Son, and it is given to people who will believe in Jesus Christ rather than earn their way to heaven through an impossible list of good works that must be done.

   Let us also note that when Jesus spoke those words, and when John wrote them down, Jewish people knew who “God” was. He was Yahweh. He was the God of the Scriptures. He was the one they all believed was exactly as we find him in the Scriptures. No one back then believed that the Hebrew Scriptures were a God/man hybrid that could not be trusted because how could anyone know anything for sure about God?!

   And, by the time Nicodemus came to ask Jesus his questions, he knew that Jesus was constantly affirming their Scriptures, and using those Scriptures to tell everyone about himself as the Messiah Yahweh had sent. There was no disparity in anything, not within the Scriptures, not between the Scriptures and the Jews, and certainly not between the Scriptures and Jesus!

   So, when Jesus said that his Father loved the world and sent his Son to be our Savior, everything the Hebrew Scriptures said about God and his Son was included. Never has there been a correction of those Scriptures anywhere in the Scriptures, including by Jesus himself.

   With that as the general introduction, let’s break this “good news of God” down into its four components to see why it is such “good news” and why it is only “of God” that it could be good news. The four components are:

     1.     “The time is fulfilled”
2.    “and the kingdom of God is at hand”
3.    “repent”
4.    “and believe in the gospel”

   Let’s consider these one at a time.

1.     “The time is fulfilled”

   Jesus’ choice of words denies Brad Jersak’s claims that the “word” of the Hebrew Scriptures is not Christlike enough.

   “How?” you ask.

   Because the “time” Jesus is talking about is mentioned all the way from Genesis chapter 3 to the end of Malachi. The “time” is what God promised about a coming Savior, the Messiah, the Christ.

   Compare Jesus beginning his ministry by referencing “the time is fulfilled”, and a few years later telling the two men on the Emmaus Road, 

“‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:25-27). 

From beginning to end of Jesus’ ministry, he was explaining how the time spoken of by the Scriptures was now fulfilled because he had come.

   Hours later, when he appeared to the others, 

“Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled’” (Luke 24:44). 

Moses, the Prophets, the Psalms, all spoke of Jesus’ coming, and Jesus reiterated that everything had to be fulfilled as promised.

   One of the most significant of these revelations was when Jesus was in his hometown sharing the good news of the kingdom with everyone. He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and was given “the scroll of the prophet Isaiah”.

   Now, note that. Isaiah was considered a prophet. If Jesus believed anything in the book of Isaiah needed correcting, this is where he would have done it. If Isaiah was wrong in anything in his prophecy, Jesus would have condemned him as a false prophet. It’s right in the Scriptures that this is required!

   Instead,

He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:16-21).

   Jesus was stating that what he read was Scripture. It was from the prophet Isaiah that was Scripture from beginning to end. That Scripture was breathed out by God through a man who was carried along by the Holy Spirit to write down God’s words without messing it up with his own will. And Jesus said that “this Scripture has been fulfilled” right then and there. And he made that specific point because that was the whole point, that “the time was fulfilled” for the Messiah to come and do everything prophesied about him in relation to his first coming.

   We could write a whole book on what is written in the Old Testament that was included in “the time is fulfilled” declaration of our Savior, but I will end this first point with one more, this from the apostle Paul in Galatians 4:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God (Galatians 4:4-7).

   In one way, this is so self-explanatory that it barely needs mention. In another way, how I wish I could pour out my heart with praise for each phrase. The point is that “the fullness of time had come” when Jesus appeared. Jesus began his ministry with “the time is fulfilled”. It had reached its fullness. As a pregnant woman suddenly finds her body going into labor, it was time for the Christ to be born. God’s promise to Satan in the Garden of Eden, “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15) would now be played out exactly as written. And all the rest of what Paul says here is the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of great joy that a Savior has come, who is Christ the Lord.

2.    “and the kingdom of God is at hand”

   This phrase “rhymes” in thought with the previous one. The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has reached its time. It is at hand. The time for God’s kingdom to change lives and bring salvation has arrived.

   We know from the Old Testament Scriptures that history is replete with examples of people rejecting God’s kingly authority. He is King of creation for he made all things. He is King of humanity for he made us in his image. He is King of Israel for he promised Abraham a nation that would be under his blessing.

   I am presently listening to the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles during my morning exercise times. After following the history of King Saul followed by King David, the cycle of people respecting Yahweh as King, and then turning to self-dependence as king, as grievous. I just heard this morning how King Solomon began in submission to Yahweh, but then turned his heart to idols because of his love of foreign women. Following that seems to be one king after another who was evil, interspersed with an exception here and there who was righteous in his dealing with God and his people.

   I know this will continue through II Kings and the Chronicles with the same old story of God’s people resisting and rebelling against God’s right to be king over his kingdom. And that leads to God’s lament in Malachi that no matter what good he did for his people, they complained against him, criticized his dealings with them, and did nothing more than the external observance of the sacrifices with the most inferior of their animals.

   Through Malachi, God describes how faithless his people are, how faithless the priests are, and yet how the people complain against Yahweh as if he is the unfaithful one. And so the prophet writes,

“You have wearied the LORD with your words. But you say, ‘How have we wearied him?’ By saying, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them.’ Or by asking, ‘Where is the God of justice?’” (2:17).

   Wow, does that ever sound like Brad Jersak! He tells us that all the people the Old Testament describes as so evil that God had to judge them were not evil, and that a “more Christlike” Yahweh would see them as good!

   But God tells the people through the last of his prophets,

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts” (3:1).

   So part of Jesus saying that “the time is fulfilled” included John the Baptist coming to fulfill this prophecy! And now we have the ultimate expression of God coming as King, that in Jesus Christ God’s kingdom is at hand. It is near in time. For us, it has already come. And the way to enter it is clearly revealed.

   Now here is how the kingdom of God affected the status quo of the nation of Israel over the course of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus told the religious elite,

“Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him” (Matthew 21:31-32).

   Clearly this meant that the kingdom of God was at hand and sinners were entering it. People who claim that Jesus was “the friend of sinners” because he hung around with sinful people while they did sinful things are totally mistaken. Jesus was nicknamed “the friend of sinners” by these very religious elite who saw sinners entering the kingdom of God because of Jesus and couldn’t believe the real Messiah would expect them, the religious leaders, to stoop to such a requirement. They could not imagine that they were not already in God’s kingdom, and Jesus declared that it was the sinners who believed in him who were entering the kingdom while the religious hypocrites were totally missing out.

   Matthew tells us that Jesus began his ministry “proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom” (4:23). At the end of Jesus’ ministry, he said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (24:14).

   This is serious business. People are in the kingdom or they are not. They either receive the gospel of the kingdom or they reject it. The good news is that it is here for all to enter. The bad news is that everyone outside the kingdom of God is condemned in their sins (Jesus said so).

   What then is the key to experiencing the work of Jesus Christ that brings us into the kingdom of God?

3.    “repent”

   The word “repent” means “to reconsider (repent) v. — to have a change of self (heart and mind) that abandons former dispositions and results in a new self, new behavior, and regret over former behavior and dispositions” (BSL). People often think of repentance as feeling sorry for sinning. But that isn’t enough. We can feel sorry for something we did for all kinds of self-serving reasons. We didn’t realize it would cost us so much. We hadn’t thought about the consequences, or the regrets.

   But to “repent” means to actually change. We change our minds in the sense of our whole mindsets. In other words, it isn’t just that we changed our mind and decided we really shouldn’t have done that bad thing after all. Rather, “repent” means that we change from loving sin to hating sin, and from hating God to loving God. We change from thinking we have no need of Jesus Christ to being so aware we literally cannot live without him.

   And if we do not repent, if we do not have that change of mind about God and sin, we will never enter the kingdom. We won’t think we need to. We are so insatiably in love with our self-interest that we cannot make ourselves want to want God. That is what the history of the Old Testament shows so clearly, that left to ourselves, people have no inclination to seek after God. We simply love darkness because our deeds are evil.

    Another way Jesus prepared his disciples for his departure and the arrival of the Holy Spirit was,

“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:46-48).

   We can only experience the forgiveness of our sins if we repent. As long as we love sin, our sins cannot be forgiven. Sadly, while the religious elite sinned differently than the prostitutes and tax collectors, they had no desire to be forgiven. At the same time, the prostitutes and sinners who did experience forgiveness did so because they repented. They did not keep living in sin.

   On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit first came on the church, Peter had opportunity to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom to the Jewish worshipers. As he concluded his message and realized that they were responsible for the crucifixion of God’s Son, this is what we read:

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (Acts 2:37-39).

   Again, “repent” is required to enter the kingdom, and “be baptized” is what declares our confession of faith in Jesus Christ that we are his disciples for the rest of our lives. It is this complete turning FROM sin and turning TO Christ that is the whole-hearted conversion that gives us eternal life.

   In fact, this complete turnaround is pictured in this declaration:

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14).

   Notice that we are delivered FROM the domain of darkness and transferred TO God’s kingdom. That corresponds to repentance (turning away) and faith (turning to). We repent and believe and we are saved from and transferred to. All one work of God, and it is all or nothing. As we can only be dead or alive, so we can only be lost or saved. Nothing between.

   One of the most fascinating descriptions of someone repenting and trusting in Jesus is the account of one of the thieves who was crucified along with our Savior. At the beginning of their suffering, both the thieves were mocking Jesus and jeering him to prove he was the Messiah by coming down from his cross and rescuing him as well. But later one of the two showed a change of mind. Luke presents the account like this:

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:39-43).

   How amazing that this man could see that Jesus was dying, and yet he believed that he had a kingdom, he believed Jesus would “come into” his kingdom, and that Jesus had the authority to let him in. Jesus heard in this one agonized expression both repentance and faith. And he assured the man that he would be received into paradise because his sins were forgiven and he had been granted eternal life.

   One of the great failures of evangelism in North America (I can’t speak for anywhere else) is that we tell people “the gospel”, but we do not tell them it is “the gospel of the kingdom”. We make salvation about whether someone wants a one-on-one relationship with Jesus Christ, but we don’t tell them that receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior means entering his kingdom where we live as his disciples, his sheep, his servants, his followers.

   In the gospel of the kingdom we can tell people all that Jesus has done to save all who will believe in him, and we can then call them to join God’s people in the kingdom of God to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” while trusting that “all these things” regarding our earthly needs “will be added to you” as well (Matthew 6:33).

4.    “and believe in the gospel”

   To “believe” is the other-side-of-the-coin of to “repent”. In repentance, we change our minds about loving sin to hating it. In faith, we change our minds from hating God to loving him. Together they are a complete change of mind that results in a complete change of life.

   “Believe” means “to believe (trust) v. — to have faith; put one’s trust in something” (BSL). It cannot be watered down to mere intellectual agreement with facts. It is a faith issue. It is to trust in someone or something. It is an action that can be measured.

   With this expression, Jesus calls people to believe in the whole “good news”. All of it. All that was written about it, all that was fulfilled in Christ, all that is promised to those who believe, all that is described of the kind of life we will live in a world that hates us. Everything. We believe everything about the good news.

   Which clearly brings us to the next part of our look at “saving salvation”, since Brad Jersak has done his best to destroy people’s faith in what the Bible teaches as the good news of the kingdom.

   Three Dimensions of Salvation

   As we return to looking at what is commonly known as Penal Substitutionary Atonement (from now on referred to as PSA), it is a good time to make this reminder:

The purpose of the BJs’ writings is to demoralize people’s faith in the authority of Scripture as the breathed-out words of God. They continue the serpent’s question in the garden, “Did God actually say…?” to replace what God said with what the “evil people and imposters” are peddling for unjust gain.

   What is so fascinating is that, as I have started a new day looking at Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and then Judas coming with a crowd to arrest Jesus, what is it that Jesus spoke of so highly? “But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?... But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled” (Matthew 26:54,56). Jesus kept showing how the Hebrew Scriptures of our Old Testament were the word of God and the BJs keep trying to show that they are not the breathed-out words of God with authority over every generation of God’s people.

   As I have said, Brad Jersak has tried to make himself the authority over what we believe about the Scriptures, and about God’s gift of salvation, so let’s turn this issue into three simple questions:

1. Does Scripture teach that Jesus was punished (penal)?
2. Does Scripture teach that Jesus was punished as a substitute for sinners who should have been punished (substitutionary)?
3. Does Scripture teach that Jesus achieved the atonement of the people for which he was punished (atonement)?

   I contend that these questions are simple to answer if we receive the Bible as God’s word, the Scriptures that Jesus constantly affirmed, and that were given to us through prophets and apostles who were authorized and “carried along” by the Spirit to write these things down. Let’s use the very Scripture Brad Jersak twisted into utter deception, Isaiah 53, and see if it answers these questions more clearly than the author wants us to believe.

1. Does Scripture teach that Jesus was punished (penal)?

   The focus here is on whether God carries out justice on sinners. So the question isn’t confined to the word “punished”, but to the full sense of judgment, of a criminal bearing the judgment of the law against sin. In other words, did Jesus bear the judgment of God that should have come to us. Was he condemned the way we would have been condemned if he had not stood in our place?

   Isaiah writes, “upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace” (53:5). Chastisement means, “discipline n. — the imposition of painful consequences or other disadvantages upon someone for their disobedience as part of a process of improving someone’s character or actions” (BSL). Both the NIV and NASB use “punishment” where the ESV, KJV, and NKJV have “chastisement”. The point being that whatever “painful consequences” God had promised to sinners as the just condemnation of their sins was put on Christ.

   This is so clear in Paul’s statement, “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). Again, contrary to Brad Jersak’s claim that the Father had no will involved in Jesus going to the cross, Scripture says that it is God who gave us his Son, and it is God who “made him to be sin”. The Father presented his Son as the sacrifice for sin, the one who would bear the full punishment our sins deserve so that we could be forgiven and set free.

   I won’t elaborate on what I have already shared about “propitiation”, but that word itself declares that Jesus bore the punishment, the wrath of God against our sin. His “It is finished!” from the cross declared that he had drunk the cup of God’s wrath (condemnation, punishment) to the dregs and there would never be another drop of wrath for any of the children of God.

2. Does Scripture teach that Jesus was punished as a substitute for sinners who should have been punished (substitutionary)?

   Beginning with Isaiah 53 again, it is clear that Jesus was given as a substitute for the sinners God was intent on saving. I will highlight how many times these three verses of prophecy show that Jesus was suffering in our place, or as our substitute.

Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.
(Isaiah 53:4-6)

   Again, this is not to endorse any particular wording of a doctrine, but to show from Scripture that Jesus did indeed die in our place (the “our” meaning believers now just as “us all” was referring to Israel as God’s people). He was punished/condemned for our sins.

   Peter made this clear as well: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (I Peter 2:24). Jesus was condemned for “our sins”, making him the substitute who died in our place. And, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (I Peter 3:18). The “righteous” one suffered FOR the “unrighteous” ones.

3. Does Scripture teach that Jesus achieved the atonement of the people for which he was punished (atonement)?

   Atonement speaks of what it means to be made right with God. The Day of Atonement for the Jewish people was a prophetic picture of what Jesus would do. One goat had the sins of the people confessed over it and then it was sent out into the wilderness as a picture of God taking our sins away through atonement. The other goat was killed as a sacrifice for sin, showing that the shedding of blood brought about the forgiveness of those sins. Both parts of the Day of Atonement showed what Jesus would do. He would die for our sins, and he would take our sins away.

   The focus of atonement is that we are made right with God. Our relationship with God that has been ruined by sin is restored. We are forgiven and reconciled. It is only through Jesus’ sacrificial work for us that this could take place.

   This comes through very clearly in the part of Isaiah 53 Brad Jersak most tried to discredit, but only to his shame. Pay attention to what was prophesied. Again, I will highlight the parts that speak directly to atonement, or restoring our relationship with God through the propitiation of our sins.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
    he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
    he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his 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.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
    and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
    and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
    and makes intercession for the transgressors.
(Isaiah 53:10-12)

   All of that describes Jesus atoning for the sins of his people.

   Paul added to this when he clarified, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). Note both that Jesus died “for our sins”, and this was “in accordance with the Scriptures”, meaning that the Old Testament clearly spoke of this, which we see that it did.

   Paul addresses this again in Galatians 1:4, stating that Jesus “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father”. I know this fits all three aspects of this, that Jesus gave himself for our sins in order to bear our condemnation, to give himself as our substitute, and to atone for our sins against God.

   The Salvation That Does Not Need Saving

   Although my heading for this conclusion has been “Saving Salvation”, the Salvation in the Bible does not need saving, at least not objectively. It is only when the false teachers join Satan’s “Did God actually say…?” and then start discrediting Jesus for what he did for us that we need to save people from losing this gift.

   I also need to say as I conclude that I really don’t know what Brad Jersak believes God means when he says that he gave us a Savior, who is his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. What does it mean in the Jersak head to be saved, and to deal with people not being saved? I simply don’t know what his kin believe it means to be saved.

   Let me close with this paragraph from Hebrews 2 that not only glorifies God for his “great salvation”, but also weaves together so many of the themes we have spoken about in this conclusion.

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:1-4)

  Yes, with people like Brad Jersak pushing the devil’s agenda of “you shall not surely die” just because you reject “such a great salvation”, we must warn people to “pay much closer attention to what we have heard” in the Scriptures. If Brad Jersak can use so little Scripture, and twist every Scripture he does use, and that is enough to pull people away from the salvation we have heard in the word, we must challenge people to take another look, to look closely, “much closer” than ever before.

   For those who have bought into what Brad Jersak is peddling, be warned that he is leading people to “neglect” such a great salvation. He is watering it down to something that isn’t even in the Bible, and somehow includes people who don’t even need to believe in Jesus to be “saved”.

   However, as the writer of Hebrews describes, this “such a great salvation” is taught all through the gospels by Jesus Christ our Lord. All the apostles bear witness to what they had seen and heard and we now have their contributions in the Scriptures as well. We have the history of the Spirit working through signs and wonders to show that this message of the gospel was from God. It is all established in the Scriptures, the word of God, as now collected into the Bible.

   So, while Brad Jersak disses our Savior claiming he did not do what the prophets said he would do, what the gospel writers said he did do, and what the apostles taught in great detail, let us use these beautiful expressions of praise to thank God for our Savior and his death on our behalf:

And they sang a new song, saying, 

“Worthy are you to take the scroll
    and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
    from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
    and they shall reign on the earth.” 

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, 

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, 

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” 

And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.
(Revelation 5:9-14)

 

 

© 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

 

On This Day: When What I See Is Not What I Heard

 

Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. And Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end. (Matthew 26:57-58)

 

   One of the biggest examples of me discovering how God’s people heard what he said but believed what they saw was in one of my early journeys through Exodus after I was learning to read God’s word like Father was speaking to me.

   First, I saw the clarity of how God spoke to Moses, how he responded so patiently to his arguing, and the way he kept interacting until it was settled that Moses clearly heard what he said and would go do as he was told.

   Then I saw how Israel responded to the good news with “And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped” (Exodus 4:31).

   So, what happened when Moses went to Pharaoh and demanded the release of God’s people, but Pharaoh defied God and increased the burden of their slavery? They found Moses and said, “The LORD look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us” (5:21).

   And what was Moses’ response after hearing all God said to him? “Then Moses turned to the LORD and said, ‘O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all’” (4:22-23).

   Sound familiar? We go have our time with God in his word and prayer. Something stands out that blesses and encourages us about the way God works. But all it takes is a few obstacles of contrary circumstances and suddenly we find ourselves believing what we see instead of trusting what we heard.

   I am as guilty of this as I have ever been. I have been weighed down by some heartbreaking circumstances (it’s always the “attachment pain” that gets me!) and completely forgetting that God’s word has a far different story for me to “hear” than my circumstances are lying to me about because of what I “see”.

   On Monday (2 days before writing this), God reminded me of something he spoke to me about in his word 26 years ago. Then he added something he spoke to me about 24 years ago. And then he wove “a cord of three strands” with what was standing out just then from listening to the Scriptures being read to me during my exercise time, the prophet Elijah raising a widow’s son from the dead (I Kings 17).

   In all three instances, there was a great disparity between what people heard and what they saw. And God’s point was to do the impossible according to his word, not the possibilities allowed by what people could see.

   I share this because what the disciples were facing on the night of Jesus’ arrest was horrendous, but it was made all the worse by them believing what their eyes were telling them instead of what they had heard Jesus say. And I am quite suspicious that I’m not the only one who needs to feel God using his words to take our little chins in his hands and turn our childish faces to “fix our eyes on Jesus” and remember what he says in his word.

   And the conclusion is that our faith MUST attach to what we “hear” from “the word of Christ”, the Scriptures, now collected into the Bible, the “living and active” word of God, for "the righteous shall live by faith".

 

© 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.)