Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
Day 100
“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 |
I have
to admit it: after dissecting “A More Christlike Word” for four months, I was
left appalled that a man could write a trilogy of books dissing the God of the
Bible, the Scriptures of the Bible, and the Way of the Bible, and people are
gobbling it up like they can’t taste the poo in the brownies (or the poison in
the pudding, if you will).
In
this conclusion, I challenge Brad Jersak’s claims that God, his word, or his
Way need to be edited for improvements by the author. I will focus on how he
failed to show what “Christlike” looks like in the Scriptures, hence having no
“measure” by which to tell us that Yahweh, the Bible, or the Way of Christ are
lacking in any way whatsoever.
If we
had time, I would survey what are the qualities that make “the Word” who
“became flesh” Christlike. To do this, we would need to consider what the
prophets said the Christ would be like, what the gospel writers showed he was
like, and what the apostles clarified of these things with the addition of what
he will look like at his return. However, that was the author’s job, he failed,
and I’m a workin’ man and don’t have time to do his work!
However, since the essence of Brad’s Bogus Boisterings is the claim that
Jesus is so much more loving than the Yahweh portrayed in the Hebrew
Scriptures, and the Yahweh portrayed in the Hebrew Scriptures is so much more
wrathful, violent, and angry than Jesus in the New Testament Scriptures, in
this conclusion #5 I will focus on what we see in the Bible comparing Yahweh’s
love and Yasous’ (Jesus’) love.
Now, I
already know the love of the Father is the same as the love of the Son, and I
already know that the Hebrew Scriptures of our Old Testament portray Yahweh as
just as loving as the New Testament reveals Yasous, but let’s take our time to
go through the gallery and look at some of the clear evidences that this is so.
I won’t share every verse about the love of the Triune God, but enough that the
picture is clear.
I do
so knowing that Brad Jersak rarely uses Scripture to make his points, and when
he does he totally misrepresents them all (yes, 100% of the time). So, I wasn’t
impressed when I began the book, and I am thoroughly intent on exposing the
author now that I’m done the book.
Reading
the Prefaces of the Other “More Christlike” Volumes
I
found a free trial for “A More Christlike Way” and gave the preface a read. As
highly praised as it is, I can see from the wording that it continues the
misrepresentations of Scripture that necessitated convincing people that we
needed “A More Christlike Word”. I can also see that, if people bought what
Brad Jersak is peddling in this current volume (the one I have been rebutting),
they will be easy prey for the poison-in-the-pudding of the other two volumes.
However, the further I read in the preface, the angrier I got at such
blatant misrepresentations that I must leave that one alone and complete what I
started on the garden path of “A More Christlike Word”. It is enough for me to affirm
that we need to look at what “Christlike” means in the Scriptures, and then we
will see that Brad Jersak is not even close to knowing (or being) what
Christlike means.
I also
mentioned at the beginning of my journey down the garden path that I
accidentally purchased “A More Christlike God” because it was the cheapest
option I found at the time, not realizing it was not the volume my friends had
asked me to read. However, it was enough for me to shake my head at a preface
that admitted the way so many people try to find in the Scriptures the god they
want to find rather than the God who is there. I knew that this is what Brad
Jersak had done, to peddle a picture of God, his word, and his Son that is what the author wants to find in the Bible, but it certainly has become even
clearer now that I have completed the book.
I put
this out there as a prelude of my own, that the “Christ” Brad Jersak promotes
is the one he wanted to find in Scripture, not the one who is there. This is
why we must take our time to see what Christlike means before measuring God,
the Bible, or the Savior, by manmade parameters. Along the way, we will discover
that Yahweh, Jesus, and the Scriptures, are all quite Christlike enough, and
that it is the BJ’s (Brad Jersak and his kin) who have turned down the garden
path away from what is truly Christlike.
Duped
by the Wrong-way Image
One
thing that stands out in this “More Christlike” deception is the amazing
switcheroo of changing who is in the image of whom. Jersak cleverly turns
things around so his readers buy into his idea that Yahweh is supposed to be in
the image of Yasous, rather than that Yasous is the image of Yahweh.
What I
mean is that Jesus did not come on the scene to change what we thought of his
Father (as revealed in Scripture). Jersak’s failure to produce one Scripture
that shows Jesus correcting the Hebrew Scriptures bears this out. Rather, Jesus
came to show us what his Father, the Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures, looks
like up close and personal. Jesus did not state one thing to contradict
anything about Yahweh in the Scriptures. Instead, he showed us his attributes
in things he did and said, making clear what it looked like for God to be in
the flesh.
My
point is that when we consider the centuries over which Yahweh is revealed to
us in the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament, and then we find the ways Jesus
is revealed in the New Testament, there is no room whatsoever to suggest that
we need to change the Old Testament to fit the New. We don’t need Brad Jersak’s
version of Jesus (which is not the one in the Bible) to change how we perceive
Yahweh. Scripture tells us what Yahweh is like in the Old Testament, and then
how Jesus reveals him in person in the New Testament.
I
absolutely reject Jersak’s claim of needing a “more Christlike” Bible, or a
“more Christlike” Yahweh, or even a “more Christlike” Christ (Way)! Instead, we
see Jesus come into the world as “the Word” who became flesh and receive him as
the witness of what the Yahweh of the Scriptures looks like in real life, so to
speak. Or “up close and personal” as they say. The Yahweh who “Long ago, at
many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets… in these
last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all
things, through whom also he created the world” (Hebrews 1:1-2). The Bible is
clear on this, that the same God everyone had read about in the Hebrew
Scriptures as speaking to the Jewish people by the prophets, had (by the time
of writing Hebrews) also spoken to everyone by his Son. Notice the wonderful
opportunity to clarify whether “his Son” had to correct God on anything. But
not one word of it in the New Testament, not even by the Word, and nowhere
recorded in the “word”!
The
writer of Hebrews continues to show this relationship of “the Word” making God
known to us as revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures, “He is the radiance of the
glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”. Instead of believing the BJs
in their adding to and subtracting from the Jesus of the Bible, we should be
praising the Triune God for showing us what God is like in the Old Testament,
and then giving us an “in the flesh” visitation from God that was exactly the
God already revealed. We see in Jesus the “exact imprint” of the nature of God
revealed in the Old Testament (not the mutilated strawman of the BJs!).
Paul
makes another reference to this relationship between Father and Son when he
writes, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things
were created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:15-16). The “image of God”
who created everything rhymes in thought with “the Word” of John 1 who created
everything. It all shows us a Son of God who makes the Father known. Not in the
faulty way Brad Jersak has described where Yahweh needs to be corrected by his
Son, but in the perfect way in which everything about the God we see in the Old
Testament is presented “in the flesh” in the New Testament so that we gain a
better visual of what God is doing to have a people in his own image and
likeness.
The
Big Mistake of the “One Coming” Jesus
One of
the big problems the author never addressed is the descriptions of Jesus in
relation to his two comings and how this comprehensive picture matches Yahweh
in the Old Testament Scriptures. While this book idolized Brad Jersak’s
corruption of the Jesus of the gospels and blasphemed the Yahweh of the Old
Testament by claiming he was in need of improvement, everything about the way
Jesus is revealed in his second coming was left out (along with anything in the
gospels that didn’t match Jersak’s “another Jesus”).
I
already spoke of these things, but I present this as a reminder in case anyone
is not yet convinced of the deceptive nature of Jersak’s trilogy of
poison-in-the-pudding. In the gospels, he left out (or explained away) Jesus’
references to hell, condemnation, wrath, and parables where people are cast
into some description of suffering. In the second coming he left out what
Revelation shows of a Savior coming in judgment with such fury that people will
call on the rocks and hills to cover them and hide them from his face.
When
we put together everything Jesus said and taught throughout the whole of the
New Testament, with everything said about him by the men through whom God
breathed out his words, it is the same as what we see of Yahweh throughout the
whole Old Testament. The Son is the revelation of the Father. He did not change
the Scriptural view of Yahweh, but revealed how he did and how he will relate
to everyone through his Son’s two comings.
Beginning
with a Christlike Enough Christ
As I
said, Brad Jersak utterly failed to give us a picture of what Christlike means.
There was no exhaustive list of Yasous’ qualities by which we could measure
Yahweh. He said that Yahweh was not Christlike enough and claimed we needed him
(the author) to explain how to fix him. However, he also tells us the
Scriptures are not Christlike enough, so we need him to fix them as well. Oh,
and then Jesus himself isn’t Christlike enough either, so Jersak gets to sell
more books for profit on that topic while he would have been stoned as a false
prophet back in the day! Ok… I guess that would make his income “false profit”?
Paul did say that one of the qualifications for deacons was that they were “not
greedy for dishonest gain” (I Timothy 3:8), and Yahweh condemned leaders who
were “destroying lives to get dishonest gain” (Ezekiel 22:27), the very thing
the BJs are doing with their lies about God.
For
the sake of some semblance of brevity, instead of tackling every attribute of
Jesus Christ as both God and man (that was the author’s job description), I
will focus on what Brad Jersak has presented in his book about Jesus being more
loving and less judgmental than Yahweh. To help with this, let’s break this
down into two questions. In this conclusion, I will first address “Is Yahweh
less loving than Jesus?” In my next conclusion, I will ask and answer, “Is
Yahweh more judgmental than Jesus?” And, of course, these questions must be
answered by the Scriptures since that is where Brad Jersak claims there is so
much disparity because God’s boys couldn’t remember what Yahweh really told
them!
Question
1: Is Yahweh in the Scriptures less loving than Yasous (Jesus) in the
Scriptures?
To
begin with, what are some Scriptures that give us the measure of how loving
Jesus is that will also serve to measure how loving Yahweh is? For brevity's
sake, I will acknowledge that Jesus taught us to love, but what I want are
specific references to Jesus loving us. And when I look at that, something
stands out very brightly: we cannot separate Yasous (Jesus) loving us from
Yahweh loving us! Here are some examples,
·
“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). This is the Triune God
loving the world (people of all nations, not just Israel). How does he (or how
do they) show his love? By sending his Son to lay down his life for his lost
sheep. This is a horrendous indictment against Brad Jersak for claiming that
Jesus corrected his Father when the Gospel writers show that it is the God of
the Hebrew Scriptures who is spoken of here (don’t forget Jesus was talking to
Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader). He is the one who loved the world; Jesus
came as God in the flesh to show us what that looked like. There is absolutely
no disparity between Yahweh and Jesus!
·
“for
the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that
I came from God” (John 16:27). Jesus takes hold of the evidence that the
disciples love Jesus to explain in the “we love because God first loved us” way
that they can be assured of “the Father” loving them. That would mean that
Jesus is saying that the way they have experienced him to the point that they
love him is evidence that Yahweh loves them. Again, no distinction between
Yahweh or Yasous.
·
“I
in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world
may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:23).
Jesus is speaking to his Father (Yahweh) in prayer. He seeks a unity amongst
the generations of believers that emulates the relationship of the Father and
the Son. But here’s the thing Jesus testifies about Yahweh of the Hebrew
Scriptures. He says that Yahweh loved the disciples even as he loved his Son.
There is no discrepancy between Yahweh’s love and Yasous’ love, and Brad Jersak
is lying when he claims Jesus would have corrected the Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures
when Jesus’ own words show him declaring that Yahweh’s love for us is the same
as his love for his Son.
·
“But
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us” (Romans 5:8). Here again we cannot escape the attachment between God’s love
and Jesus’ love. God, clearly being understood as the Yahweh of the Hebrew
Scriptures, showed his love in Jesus’ coming to die for us. Jesus’ death is the
proof of Yahweh’s love. That is exactly what John was talking about when he
said, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he
has made him known” (John 1:18). The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was “the Word”
telling us the Father’s love, “the image” showing the invisible God’s love, the
“radiance” revealing the glory of God’s love, the “imprint” imprinting God’s
love into the eye-witnessed experiences of history. Jesus’ love is exactly what
Yahweh’s love looks like! AND… this was WHILE we were sinners!
·
“But
God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ”
(Ephesians 2:4-5). Notice again that this is talking about Yahweh of the Hebrew
Scriptures. Contrary to Jersak’s claim that Jesus of the New Testament
corrected the Scriptures about Yahweh, they do in fact affirm what those
Scriptures told us about Yahweh’s “unfailing” and “steadfast” love. Yahweh is
“rich in mercy”. Yahweh’s love for Jesus’ disciples was “the great love with
which he loved us”. This love wanted us to be alive “together with” his Son.
There is a unity in this love, not Jesus ever correcting the Yahweh of the
Scriptures as not loving enough.
·
“In
this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son
into the world, so that we might live through him” (I John 4:9). Here John is
presenting a rhyming thought to what he wrote in his gospel in 3:16. God so
loved the world that he gave us his one and only Son so that whoever believes in
him shall not perish but have eternal life, and so John writes that what we see
in God sending his only Son into the world was the manifest evidence of the
love of God. Or, again, “the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made
him known.”
All
these Scriptures show the unity between the Father and the Son in loving his
children. There is no disparity in the love of the members of the Triune. We
know the Father loves us by the way Jesus loves us. And that is nothing new if
Brad Jersak had read the Old Testament and its many references to God’s love
for his people!
Now we
want to look at references to Jesus loving us:
·
In
relation to Lazarus being sick, “So the sisters sent to him, saying, ‘Lord, he
whom you love is ill’” (John 11:3). Then we are told, “Now Jesus loved Martha
and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5). And when Jesus wept at Lazarus’s
graveside, “So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’” (John 11:36). These
references show how Jesus’ love for people was evident, so they knew it for
themselves, they knew it for one another, and even onlookers knew it was there.
·
“Now
before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to
depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the
world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). We are now at Jesus’ last night
with his disciples before the cross. He would soon depart in his ascension,
something the disciples would never have been able to grasp. This is a
commentary telling us to review everything already written in this gospel and
make sure we “get it” that Jesus had already “loved his own who were in the
world”. This means that Jesus loves his people the way Yahweh does in the
Hebrew Scriptures. And now John is directed to put the spotlight on what is
happening in that next 24 hours as “he loved them to the end”, or to the
completion of the divine plan. And since it is the Father who sent his Son to
do this, we can say that Yahweh is always loving his people, and loved his
people through the whole plan of redemption.
·
“One
of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus' side” (John
13:23). This is an endearing theme in John’s gospel, to speak of himself as one
of the disciples “whom Jesus loved”. There is no indication that this meant he
was superior or different from the other disciples. But it does indicate that
John was fully aware of Jesus loving him, something we should let ourselves
hunger and thirst to feel as well.
·
“A
new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved
you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). When Jesus said this, he
had already “loved” his disciples and they already knew it. However, he said
this so that it would be secured into Scripture, and we would know that the
same is true of us. The cross is the way Jesus has loved us. That love is
permanently demonstrated to us. We are to love in the same way.
·
“Whoever
has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me
will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (John
14:21). This is one of those Scriptures that picks up the story midstream, so
to speak. We already have the part about God loving his people. We already know
that Jesus was sent into the world out of Yahweh’s love (the Triune Yahweh).
Jesus has already loved his own so they know they are loved. Now Jesus speaks
about the “from here on” side of things. How do we know we love Jesus because
“he first loved us”? By “having” and “keeping” his commandments. When people
walk in that kind of love-relationship with the Savior, what will our lives be
like? We will continue being “loved by my Father”, and Jesus himself will “love
him and manifest myself to him”. This CANNOT be taken out of the big picture to
suggest that God and Jesus only love us if we keep their commandments. It is
clarifying what it looks like to walk in love-relationship with God. It is not
one-sided. If we know we have been loved by God, we will love God, and God will
keep showing his love to us. It is a way of life that should be longed for
without reservation.
·
Part
1: This section from John 15 is a bit longer. Even though I need to separate
the points for emphasis, I hope we will see how it all weaves together. “As the
Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” (vs 9). This tells
us that Jesus’ love for us is the same as his Father’s love for him. And that
means that Yahweh’s love in the Old Testament is the same as Jesus’ love in the
New Testament! Brad Jersak is wrong!
·
Part
2: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept
my Father's commandments and abide in his love” (vs 10). Not only is Jesus’
love the same as Yahweh’s, but Jesus expects us to abide in his love the same
way he abides in the Father’s love. Again, ZERO suggestion that there is
ANYTHING about Yahweh that is less loving than Jesus!
·
Part
3: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your
joy may be full” (vs 11). Everything Jesus is saying here about the unity of
love in the Triune and his people is so that we can share the joy the Triune
God has in loving us and each other! If we will walk in love as the Triune does
(Yahweh as loving as Yasous), we will know the joy of doing so like they do!
·
Part
4: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (vs
12). Again, Jesus has already loved his disciples and expects them to love one
another accordingly. But Jesus saying how he has loved us is the same as what
he said about the Father loving us. No disparity!
·
Part
5: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his
friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:13-14).
Jesus now clarifies that the love he has for them includes laying down his life
for them as his friends. But friends do what their divine Friend commands. And
that is how love SHOULD BE the distinctive mark of Jesus’ disciples! Please
also note the parallel between God giving us his Son for this, and Jesus laying
down his life for us. No discrepancies in the love of the Father and the Son,
and Jersak is 100% wrong that Yahweh needs to be “more Christlike”!!!
·
In
what is referred to as Jesus’ High Priestly prayer of John 17, he prays to the
Father, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known,
that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John
17:26). Again, Jesus equates the love of Yahweh the Father with the love he
wants to “be in them” from him, the Son of God. And Jewish-minded believers
would “get it” that this means Yahweh of their Scriptures is as loving as both
Testaments reveal.
·
“I
have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who
lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of
God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Paul gives a
personal testimony to what Jesus just described in the point above. We have a
Savior who loved us and gave himself for us. We have now been crucified with
him so that we can’t possibly think of living our lives independent of him, but
always in “the obedience of faith” that wants to be with him all the time
always doing what he is doing.
·
Part
1: “that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to
comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and
depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be
filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19). Folks, this is such a
rebuke to Brad Jersak that it should leave everyone who follows him running to
the throne of grace for mercy! How have we been “rooted and grounded in love”?
Answer: all the ways we just looked at! The Father and Jesus love us equally
the same. The Father is Yahweh revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures. We are
rooted and grounded (two rhyming metaphors) in love itself because God is love.
Yes, the Yahweh revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures IS love. That’s
exactly who John was referring to when he wrote that (“God is love”). But now
Paul is taking the way believers are already rooted and grounded in the love of
Christ (in our salvation, justification, conversion), and praying that we would
both “comprehend” the love of Christ in every possible way, and to “know” by
personal experience what it is to be loved with “the love of Christ”, but
knowing that the “love of Christ” is the “love of Yahweh”. Which is why Paul
encourages us with “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God”. When
we comprehend and know the love of Christ, we experience the love of the
invisible God through the image of love in the visible Son. We experience the
glory of the love of Yahweh through the radiance of Jesus’ love which is
exactly the same. We see the nature of God’s eternal and infinite love by
looking at the “exact imprint” of his love expressed to us in Jesus Christ. We
hear the Father speaking his love to us by “the Word” who speaks God’s love to
us!!! No, Brad Jersak is not even remotely close to giving any evidence
whatsoever that anyone in the Scriptures, Jesus included, ever suggested that
God, Yahweh, needed to be more like his Son. The Son was showing us what Yahweh
his Father was like, never ONCE changing anything about him in the Scriptures.
·
Part
2: I’m continuing with the previous point but need to start a new one just for
clarity! With that in mind, that Paul was praying that we who are already
rooted and grounded in the love of Christ would both comprehend and know that
love, look at what Paul had already written: “In love he (Yahweh) predestined
us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the
purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has
blessed us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:4-6). THIS… IS… TALKING… ABOUT… YAHWEH…
FROM… THE… HEBREW… SCRIPTURES!!!!!!! Yes, Yahweh “in love” did what Paul is
talking about. Yahweh “in love predestined us for adoption” because Yahweh
wanted us as his sons. Yahweh predestined us for this adoption “to himself”
because it was his desire for us to be his. This adoption was to himself “as
sons” because he wanted all who believed in him (male and female, Jew and
Gentile, slave and free) to have the same status as his Son so that Jesus would
be “the firstborn over many brothers” (Romans 8:28-30). This would be “through
Jesus Christ” because Yahweh and Yasous are in perfect agreement on all of
this, not only what they are like in love, but what they want in love. All we
have in Christ is “according to the purpose of his (Yahweh’s!) will”. We can’t
look at Jesus the BJs’ way as if Jesus wants things for us different from the
Yahweh we see in the Old Testament. It was according to Yahweh’s will that we
have everything in Jesus Christ our Lord. All this is “to the praise of his
(Yahweh’s!) glorious grace”. Yes, the Yahweh we see in the Old Testament is
glorious in his grace, and the grace he has expressed in saving us is worthy of
praise! And this “glorious grace” is what he expressed so we are “blessed in
the Beloved”, the heirs of the gracious gift of salvation. And “the Beloved” is
the beautiful crown of glory reminding us that Yahweh loves us as he loves his
Son! NOTHING about this fits Brad Jersak’s poison-in-the-pudding trilogy that
deceives people into thinking Yahweh needs a makeover by the BJs “another Jesus”.
And if we do not see how beautiful this all is in the breathed-out words of
God, we certainly need Jesus to give sight to the blind and release the
oppressed from their imprisonment in the BJs’ false teachings.
·
Part
3: A second way Paul referred to God’s love before that beautiful prayer that
we would both comprehend and know the love of Christ was, “But God, being rich
in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were
dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-5). We
have no doubt of the “great love with which Jesus loved us”, but this says the
great love with which YAHWEH loved us. God is the agent of loving CPR here.
Yahweh God is the one who “made us alive together with Christ”. Yahweh is the
one who is “rich in mercy” towards his children. God is the one who loved us
while we were “dead in our trespasses” (sinners, as Paul said in Romans 5).
Folks, if anyone is “alive together with Christ”, it is because YAHWEH wanted
it that way in mercy and love and so made it happen. And that’s why when Paul
prayed that we would comprehend and know the love of Christ, it was so we would
be “filled with all the fullness of God”! And again, “Anametha!” to the BJs who
are peddling “another Jesus”, “a different spirit”, and “a different gospel”,
because, “As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to
you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Galatians
1:9). The love of Yahweh and Yasous cannot be separated. Anyone who claims the
Yasous (Jesus) of the New Testament is more loving than the Yahweh of the Old
Testament is lying.
·
“By
this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down
our lives for the brothers” (I John 3:16). John did not know this on the night
described in John 13-17. But now it is the application, that Jesus laid down
his life for us on the cross to show Yahweh’s love, the love for his people
very clearly revealed in the Old Testament, and we are to lay down our lives
for one another in the same love.
·
“And
from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the
ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by
his blood” (Revelation 1:5). This glorious expression of praise says that it is
Jesus who “loves us” now and has freed us from our sins by the blood of the new
covenant so we can walk in that love. Of course, John meant that the way Jesus
is also revealed in Revelation as the God of wrath who comes to execute
judgment on the earth is equally true. Jesus is the same as Yahweh his Father
in both love and justice. You know, like they expect us to “do justice, and to
love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).
Conclusion: by looking in the New Testament for a “measure” of the love
of Christ by which we look at Yahweh of the Old Testament, we already see that
the measure is identical. Brad Jersak’s claim that Jesus showed that Yahweh
needed correction in any area, particularly in this area of love, is exposed as
a lie. There is not one place this happens in the Scriptures, our only
authority on how to understand Jesus Christ our Lord.
The
Revelation of Yahweh’s Love for His People
Now,
with all that in place, an actual measure of how Jesus as the image of God
shows the love of Yahweh to us, is this what is revealed of Yahweh’s love in
the Hebrew Scriptures?
ANSWER: ABSOLUTELY YES!!! There are, in fact, more direct references to
Yahweh’s love in the Old Testament than there are to Jesus’ love in the New
Testament. However, this makes perfect sense since the Old Testament revolves
around Yahweh the Father doing his work of weaving history into the fulfillment
of his promise to Abraham, and the New Testament revolves around Jesus as the
image of Yahweh making Yahweh known in “the Word became flesh” kind of way. The
Old Testament will have more direct references to Yahweh, while the New
Testament continually weaves together the relationships of the Triune God so we
see how Jesus through the Spirit makes the Father known to us all.
In the
Old Testament, God’s “hesed” love is mentioned repeatedly. There are more than
200 verses where this word is used, but some of them speak of love between
people. The word has no direct counterpart in English so it is consistently
translated with two words like “steadfast love” and “unfailing love” (depending
on translation). It has a sense of the specific love God has for his covenantal
people. Or, the love he has for the people who walk with him in covenant
relationship. It does NOT refer to him loving everybody, but to loving the
people who are his by choice and by covenant.
Let’s
look at a few verses of God’s “hesed” love simply to get the sense that he is
as loving as Jesus is, what we have already seen in “the word” in the words of
“the Word”! I’m summarizing an article on “Love” from the Lexham Bible
Dictionary, focusing on the section explaining God’s love in the Old Testament
since this is distinctly about Yahweh and how the Jewish people understood him
at the time of Jesus’ ministry (Note: the first line in quotes is from the
article, and the rest is my sharing). Using their outline simply saves
me time![1]
·
“God’s
‘loyal love’ (חֶסֶד, chesed) protects and
sustains life”. From Psalm 94:17-18, “If the LORD (Yahweh) had not been my
help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence. When I thought, ‘My
foot slips,’ your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up.” And Psalm 119:149, “Hear
my voice according to your steadfast love; O LORD, according to your justice
give me life.” The Psalmists expected God’s help based on his hesed, his
steadfast covenantal love. Please notice that “hear my voice according to your
hesed” rhymes with “according to your justice give me life.” We cannot escape
that God’s hesed/love and his justice are totally compatible and we could not
have one without the other.
·
“at times offering protection from enemies”. Psalm
143:12 says, “And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies, and you
will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant.” Again,
hesed/love for his people means justice against their enemies. If God is going
to hesed/love his child when he/she is attacked by “the adversaries of his/her
soul”, the adversaries must be stopped for the child to be delivered.
·
“God’s ‘loyal love’ also stands in contrast with
His wrath.” Note that this does not mean that his hesed/love “trumps” his
wrath, but that it is the contrasting way God relates to people. Micah 7:18
says, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because
he delights in steadfast love.” God does “retain his anger” (express his wrath),
but he doesn’t do it “forever” towards his children because of his hesed/love
for them. This, of course, is opposite to his enemies who WILL see him “retain
his anger forever” against their sins.
·
“The Old Testament frequently calls God ‘slow to
anger and great in His love (חֶסֶד, chesed)’”.
Exodus 34:6-7 shows this, “The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The
LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in
steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear
the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the
children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.’” We must note the
wonderfully loving descriptions of God towards his people along with the
justice towards the guilty that is equally to his glory. Numbers 14:18 also
makes this very clear, “‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast
love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the
guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and
the fourth generation.’” God’s love cannot “clear the guilty”, meaning, cannot
let unrepentant people be “cleared” of their crimes. We know full well that he
would “clear the guilt” of repentant people (like Rahab). But he will not clear
the guilty who are continuing to stand against his holiness, righteousness, and
justice. Joel 2:12-13 applies this to when his people needed to repent, “Yet
even now,” declares the LORD, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting,
with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.’ Return
to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and
abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” We would certainly
think from Brad Jersak’s claims about Yahweh needing to be corrected by Yasous
that he wasn’t a very nice God. But the opposite is clearly revealed. Jersak
just doesn’t like it that God is “just” as well as “love”.
·
“Human loyalty to God is described as weak, but
divine love is enduring and eternal.” Isaiah 54:10 says, “‘For the mountains
may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart
from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says the LORD, who
has compassion on you.” No matter what may go wrong in an earthly way, God’s
hesed/love will never fail his people. Psalm 103:17-18 shows that “the
steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear
him, and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his
covenant and remember to do his commandments.” Just as Jesus described, God’s
love is distinctly attached to those who love God by keeping his commandments.
When Jesus claimed this for himself, he was making an absolutely remarkable
declaration of who he was as the divine Son of God who was just like his
Father.
·
“The phrase ‘[God’s] love (חֶסֶד,
chesed) endures forever’ occurs throughout the
Hebrew Bible.” 1 Chronicles 16:34 says, “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is
good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” And Ezra 3:11 adds, “And they
sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD, ‘For he is good, for
his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.’ And all the people shouted
with a great shout when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the
house of the LORD was laid.” Even within this glorious picture the distinction
of “toward Israel”, or toward his people, is repeated time and again.
It is easy to look up these articles on the
topic of God’s love throughout the Bible. For anyone who does so, it will
become apparent that there is no distinction between the love of Yahweh in the
Hebrew Scriptures of our Old Testament and the love of Yasous in the Scriptures
of the New Testament. Yahweh the Father is clearly not less loving than Yasous
his Son.
I will conclude with this reminder because
the more we look at Scripture, the more we see it is true:
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.
We are
invited to join Paul’s prayer, asking that we ourselves, and everyone in our
churches, would both “comprehend” the full dimensions of the love of God in Jesus
Christ our Lord, and would “know” this love by personal experience, honoring
the Father for making his love known through his Son, and honoring the Son for
showing us the love of Yahweh in the way God had promised Abraham so many
centuries earlier. The triune God “is love”. Let us strive to be like them in
the way they (all three) have loved us.
© 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]
Simpson, B. I. (2016). Love. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R.
Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, L. Wentz, E. Ritzema, & W.
Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Lexham Press.
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