SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/23/2016
10:08 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-1The
Answer for Unbelief
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 3:13-17
Message of
the verses: “13
"No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven:
the Son of Man. 14 "As Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
15 so that whoever believes will in Him
have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal
life. 17 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but
that the world might be saved through Him.”
This section will probably take three days to look
at as we are looking at what is probably the most famous verse in all of the
Scriptures in this section.
“Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has
gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who
has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name or His son’s name?
Surely you know! (Proverbs 30:4).” As we
begin to look at these verses the first then we see is that Jesus states a
fact, and that fact is that “no one has ascended into heaven, but He who
descended from heaven: the Son of Man.” The only way that a human being can ascended
into heaven is by way of death. Now let
me talk first about a couple of men found in the OT who ascended into heaven
without dying. “Enoch walked with God; and
he was not, for God took him (Genesis 5:24).”
Next we will look at Elijah “2Ki 2:11 As they were going along and
talking, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire which
separated the two of them. And
Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.” In the New Testament we read of the Apostle
Paul going up into heaven and then returning to earth as seen in 2 Corinthians
12:2 Paul writes “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago-whether in the
body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows-such a man was
caught up to the third heaven.” The
third heaven is the dwelling place of God.
Now when I look at this verse what I see is that Jesus Christ, the
second person of the Godhead came down from heaven born of a woman without
losing any of His attributes of being God, for Jesus told Philip that if you
have seen me you have seen the Father.
Others that I have talked about here were born on earth, but Jesus has
always been alive for He is eternal, so I believe He is telling Nicodemus that
He is God and that He came to earth from heaven. Jesus is also telling Nicodemus that He is
the only One who possesses true knowledge of heavenly reality, for that is
where He came from. To the Corinthians
Paul wrote “The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from
heaven (1 Cor. 15:47).” Paul is referring
to Adam as the first man, who is earthly and the second man, Jesus is from
heaven. There are other places where
Jesus declares that He came down from heaven. John 6:38 “For I have come down
from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” “John 6:33
"For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and
gives life to the world John 6:41 “Therefore
the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, "I am the bread that
came down out of heaven."
John 6:42 “They were saying, "Is not this
Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say,
’I have come down out of heaven’?"
John 6:50 “This is the bread which comes down out of
heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
John 6:51
"I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats
of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for
the life of the world is My flesh."
John 6:58 “This is the bread which came down out of
heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live
forever."
Jesus refers to the OT book of Numbers in verse
fourteen to show Nicodemus that this was a type of His sacrificial death seen
in Numbers 21:5-9 “5 The people spoke against God and Moses, "Why have you
brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and
no water, and we loathe this miserable food." 6 The LORD sent fiery
serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of
Israel died. 7 So the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned,
because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that
He may remove the serpents from us." And Moses interceded for the people. 8
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a
standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live."
9 And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came
about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he
lived.”
John MacArthur explains about the analogy that is
seen here in Numbers 21:5-9: “The term ‘must’
emphasizes that Christ’s death was a necessary part of God’s plan of salvation
(cf. Matt. 16:21; Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22; 17:25; 24:7, 26; Acts 2:23; 4:27-28;
17:3). He had to die as a substitute for
sinners, because ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Rom. 6:23), and ‘without the
shedding of blood there is no forgiveness’ (Heb. 9:22). Therefore God, ‘being rich in mercy, because
of His great love with which He loves us’ (Eph. 2:4), ‘sent His only begotten
Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but
that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ (1 John
4:9-10). The stricken Israelites were
cured by obediently looking apart from any works or righteousness of their own
in hope and dependence of God’s word at the elevated bronze serpent. In the same way ‘whoever’ looks in faith
alone to the crucified Christ will be cured from sin’s deadly bite and ‘will in
Him have eternal life.’”
Fifteen times in his gospel John speaks of this very
important subject, in fact the most important subject is having eternal life, “which
is the believer’s participation in the blessed, everlasting life of Christ through
his or her union with Him,” writes John MacArthur.
We will begin to look at the important sixteenth
verse in our next SD.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: At this point Nicodemus has not understood
the power that he can receive by accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior
which was the answer to his unbelief, however later on in his life He will
understand the things that Jesus is telling him during this conversation He is
having with him.
My Steps of Faith
for Today: Trust the leading of the Lord to do something that I need to do today.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “He broke them” (Exodus 32:19).
Today’s Bible question: “Who shall rise first when
Christ returns?”
Answer to in our next SD.
1/23/2016 10:57 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment