Jesus died and suffered…so that Jesus could achieve His own resurrection from the dead.

Last Thursday, I did a study on the resurrection of Jesus with my international students small group.  This morning, I read the 4th reason for why Jesus had to die, and I regret not printing it out for my group last Thursday!  Piper’s explanation is so clear, and it reminded me of how proud I am of Jesus’ resurrection!  How much we, as Christians, can boast in it!

Piper points out that the resurrection isn’t merely something that happened after Jesus’ death.  For the death of Jesus was meant to be the blood of the covenant (Matthew 26:28).  This means that the Promised Messiah’s shedding of blood (which represents death) and subsequently what Jesus said about His own death are meant to pay for sin and satisfy the holy curse for sin, which symbolises the new covenant of God.  And how can we know that Jesus’ death indeed did that and wasn’t in vain?  It is only by God somehow giving public declaration of His endorsement of what Jesus did on the cross as indeed paying for sin and satisfying the curse for sin, that we would know that Jesus’ death indeed was the blood of the new eternal covenant.  (I apologise for al the ‘indeed’s!)

This public declaration of God’s is the resurrection.  It was also a reward and vindication of Christ’s achievement in death.  God raises Jesus from the death to say ‘Yes, this man is the Christ, the Messiah, and His death did achieve what He said it would achieve.’  As it says in 1 Corinthians 15:17, ‘If Christ had not been raised, your faith is futile ad you are still in your sins.’  The point is not that the resurrection is the price paid for our sins.  The point is that the resurrection proves that the death of Jesus is an all-sufficient price!  What a humdinger!

Again, if you would like to read John Piper’s Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die, you can download it for free from Piper’s website: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/OnlineBooks/ByTitle/2289_Fifty_Reasons_Why_Jesus_Came_to_Die/

Were the Gospels telling ‘the truth’ about Jesus?

I had an interesting conversation with my mum today.  She’s a headstrong atheist, and she has been reading a book called ‘The Case For Christ’, which I gave her a while ago.  (I do recommend!  If you’d like a read, don’t hesitate to ask me…I will definitely have  a copy for you.)  Anyway, when I asked her how she’s going with it, she said that they’re just interviews with so-called ‘experts’ on certain issues concerning the historical Jesus.  ‘We can’t just trust what “the experts” say’, she said.  For her, a virgin birth is simply out-of-the-question ridiculous.  It’s all an elaborate story.  Well, we (kind of unfortunately) headed in the direction of miracles with the conversation, and I tried to point out that a virgin birth is indeed impossible unless there exists a force outside of natural science.  And this prophesised virgin birth as that being of the Son of God certainly posits that assumption.

But it got me thinking.  My mum was right about the experts thing.  We can’t just take expert accounts for granted.  Just because they have a ‘Dr.’ before their name, doesn’t mean that everything they say is ‘the truth’, as my mum said.    How do the Gospels themselves match up to this scrutiny?  You could potentially call Matthew, Mark, Luke and John ‘experts’, since they saw, touched, heard, walked with, talked to Jesus himself in the flesh (1 John 1:1)!  (Haha, I guess that answers that question!)  But not taking that as an assumption, could you show that the Gospels were telling ‘the truth’?  That is, are they consistent, or rather, are extra-biblical sources consistent with the Gospels?  My answer is a resounding ‘yes’ and hopefully over the next few weeks I can look at some of the many, many extra-biblical sources that confirm the accuracy of the accounts given by the Gospels in a bit more detail.  (And hopefully and prayerfully share some with my mum!)

50 Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die

I just started reading this great book (as titled) by John Piper.  It’s free to download (as well as many of his other books!!) from http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/OnlineBooks/ByTitle/.  Do check it out because he’s a great writer, and I thank God for that 🙂

I’m up to Reason #3 (Christ suffered and died to learn obedience and to be perfected), which is one that I’ve only really heard and thought about more recently.  At first it seems a strange thing to say about what Jesus’ death accomplished, but Scripture says it!

Piper points to two verse from the book of Hebrews:

‘Although he was a son he learned obedience through what he suffered.’ – 5:8

‘For it was fitting that he [the Father], for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation [Jesus] perfect through suffering.’ – 2:10

How could this be when Jesus was and is sinless?  Piper says that Jesus learning obedience through suffering doesn’t mean that he learned to stop disobeying, but it actually means that Jesus had to learn in practice as a human being (that is, in pain) what it means to obey.  And being made perfect through suffering doesn’t mean that God the Father was refining Him the way He does to us through suffering; it means that he was gradually fulfilling the perfect righteousness that He had to have in order to save us (‘For it was fitting…’ – Hebrews 2:10).

And this bit really blew my small brain away: Jesus’ suffering didn’t only absorb God’s wrath but it also fulfilled His true humanity and made Him able to call us brothers and sisters (Hebrews 2:17).

I thought to myself, ‘who would be crazy enough to do that?!…who would want to give their son over willingly to suffer for another, and not just any ‘another’, but people who hated you for demanding their loyalty and submission, and ultimately wanted nothing to do with you?  what would he have to gain by this?’

Well, obviously God is crazy enough to do this.  He poured his anger out on his own son, the one whose perfect submission to him made him infinitely unworthy to receive this anger.  It would be an understatement to say that God was unfair to His own son.  It is a terrible yet wonderful picture of God’s justice (in demanding punishment for rejecting Him as God) being met by God’s love (His willingness to sacrifice even His son to meet the demands of this punishment).

And for what?  So that Jesus could make himself nothing, being found in appearance as a man (the perfect man) and call us brothers and sisters.

Crazy.

The Wine Vinegar, the Sponge, and the Stick

The Death of Jesus (Matthew 27:45-50; similarly reported in Mark 15):

⁴⁵From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. ⁴⁶About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ⁴⁷When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.” ⁴⁸Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. ⁴⁹The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.” ⁵⁰And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

Luke’s description of a similar moment just before the sixth hour (Luke 23:36-37):

³⁶The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar ³⁷and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

John’s description of that moment described by Matthew and Mark (John 19:28-30):

²⁸Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”²⁹A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. ³⁰When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

We know that the Gospels (the four biographical accounts of Jesus found in the New Testament) are very similar, but also very different, which strengthens their historical authenticity (because three of the five criteria of authenticity of historical documents are: the existence of multiple independent attestations, i.e., different sources that point to the same event (that’s one), the dissimilarity between them (that’s two, because it allows us a more complex picture of the event, not necessarily contradictory alternatives), and the similarity between them (that’s three).).  So while the account in John concerning the wine vinegar, the sponge, and the stick is very different (in that John relates it to the fulfilment of a prophecy which Jesus understood to be fulfilled by him, and that is why he asks for the drink), it does not disqualify the accounts of the other Gospels.  But anyway, this was just something I thought I’d mention in case it seemed like the different accounts are contradictory.

What I found incredible was what Mark Driscoll ‘discovered’ concerning this moment.  And I presume he is referring the the account that Luke gives, where the Roman soldiers give Jesus a drink from the sponge.  Luke is the only one out of the four who describes this moment in a somewhat negative tone.  The other accounts seem to present it as a positive moment of almost compassion for the onlookers of Jesus’ crucifixion.  But I only felt this way after listening to the talk.  I REALLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO LISTEN TO THE LAST SEVEN MINUTES WHERE DRISCOLL EXPLAINS THIS MOMENT.  Though it’s still worthwhile listening to the whole talk, especially if you’re someone sceptical of how the Gospels were written!

The talk is located at: http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/luke/eyewitness-to-jesus.  It’s the one taking up the screen space!

I’d very much love to hear what you think of it!  You might not agree with his understanding of that moment (and I have my doubts), but it really humbled me and reminded me of how sinful we are, but how patient and forgiving and all-together merciful God is…