SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/21/2016 10:34 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 The Faithful Writings
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 5:39-47
Message of the verses: “39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in
them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; 40 and you are
unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. 41 “I do not receive glory from men; 42 but I
know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. 43 “I have come
in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own
name, you will receive him. 44 “How can you believe, when you receive glory
from one another and you
do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? 45 “Do not
think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is
Moses, in whom you have set your hope. 46 “For if you believed Moses, you would
believe Me, for he wrote about Me. 47 “But if you do not believe his writings,
how will you believe My words?"”
We have
been looking at these verses for a little while and in our Spiritual Diary for
today I want to lean on some of the comments that John MacArthur has to say
about these verses, for after all I see things from his commentary on these
three verses, and he also has four different sermons on these verses. I have mentioned that this section of
Scripture has the heart of the truth that shows that Jesus Christ is truly God,
and the Son of God of the very essence of God and this is an essential truth
for one to believe and be saved. One of
the major differences between a cult and true Christianity is what does a
person believe about Jesus, is He truly God, or in some of the cults they see
Him as “a god,” and not The God.
John MacArthur
begins his commentary on this section by writing “Merely knowing the facts of
Scripture, without fully embracing them in the heart (Jos. 1:8; Pss. 1:2;
119:11, 15, 97) and acting on them, will not bring the blessings of salvation. In the words of Aelfric, a tenth-century
English theologian, ‘Happy is he, then, who reads the Scriptures, if he convert
the words into actions.’”
Jesus tells
His listeners that “you search” the Scriptures and the reason is that in them
they think that they can receive eternal life, and when one looks at the way
the Greek verb is from “you search” Jesus is saying to them that they do this
all of the time, they continue to search the Scriptures. They had a problem, and the problem is in all
of their searching they fail to understand that in those Scriptures they are
searching they should see the Lord Jesus Christ in them, but they don’t. Remember Luke chapter 24 when Jesus taught
some of His followers the OT Scriptures that contained much about Him. That is one walk that I would have loved to
have been on.
One of the
problems or should I say the major problem is that unbelievers read the
Scripture and unbelievers do not have the illumination of Scripture that comes
from the Holy Spirit. It is kind of like
reading someone else’s mail even in a different language. After we have become a true believer in Jesus
Christ we are given the Holy Spirit to live in our life while we are here on
earth and He will guide us in our reading of the Word of God. We can determine that the listeners of Jesus
at this time were determined not to find Jesus in the Scriptures as they cared
more about themselves than the truth that is found in Scripture. MacArthur writes “The religious leaders
refused to acknowledge their utter unrighteousness and inability to do anything
about it, and to cry out for God’s mercy and grace revealed through the Lord
Jesus. They clung tightly to their
deception about what was required to enter God’s kingdom or salvation. Furthermore, because Jesus did not conform to
their messianic expectations, the Jewish leaders turned their backs on
Him. The Lord understood their hearts
perfectly; His declaration, ‘I do not receive glory from men’ is yeat another
illustration of His omniscient knowledge of men’s thoughts and motives (cf.
2:25; 21:17). He did not want public
praise and hypocritical honor from those who privately repudiate Him (cf. Mat.
22:16). The Lord knew that any respect
from them was worthless because they did ‘not have the love of God’ in
themselves. Quoting Isaiah’s prophecy,
Jesus expressed God’s utter loathing for such counterfeit spirituality: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but
their heart is far away from Me. But in vain
do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men’ (Matt. 15:8-9).”
3/21/2016 11:02 AM 3/21/2016
2:23 PM
Next we
want to look at verse 43 where we find that Jesus tells them that He has come
in the Father’s name and they still did not believe them, nor receive what He
was telling them, and then goes on to tell them that if another one came in his
own name that they would believe that one.
I have to say that the reason that I believe this is true is because we
all are born spiritually dead and therefore the things that come from different
people who also are spiritually dead would appeal to us, and that is why that
it takes a genuine miracle from the Holy Spirit as He gives us an effectual call,
a call we cannot say no to in order for us to become a believer in Jesus
Christ. MacArthur adds to this that “over
the centuries there had been many false messiahs
(as many as sixty-four according to some Jewish historians [Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, The New
International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 333 n. 122]). The first-century Jewish historian Josephus
noted an increase in false messiahs in the years leading up to the Jewish
revolt against Rome (AD 66-70). Sixty
years later another messianic pretender,
Simon Bar Kochba, appeared.” You can see
from this evidence that what Jesus was saying is certainly true as all things
He says are true.
Next we
look at the statement “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one
another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” This offers a very important reason for their
rejection of Jesus. What Jesus was
saying to them that He could not receive glory from them when all they wanted
to do was seek their own glory and as we look at the Pharisees from the time
when Jesus was on earth you can see that the wanted to seek their own
glory. It takes humility to realize that
you are a sinner in need of repentance and then live your life to bring glory to
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not
something that is easy to do because of still having an old self or
nature. By seeking to give Jesus Christ
glory shows that you are not trying to receive glory for yourself. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 “4 in
whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so
that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is
the image of God. 5 For we
do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants
for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of
darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” MacArthur adds “The glory that is from God
shines in the face of Jesus Christ. This
is the ‘gospel of the glory of Christ.’”
Lastly we
want to look at what Jesus has to say about how the Pharisees stated that they
believe Moses, when Moses speaks of Jesus.
In the other gospels we see that Moses along with Elijah came to meet
Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration so this in and of itself shows that Moses
knew Jesus. Now we see that the
opponents of Jesus ignored the clear evidence from the Old Testament showing
that He was indeed the Messiah.
MacArthur adds “But at a deeper level, they also misunderstood the
purpose of the Mosaic Law.” Paul writes that
the Law was our schoolmaster who would bring us to the Lord. The Law shows the holiness of God and was
never intended for us to perfectly keep it, for we cannot, but the Law shows us
we cannot keep us and therefore we need a Savior who perfectly kept the Law in
our place.
Those that
did not believe the writings of Moses will not believe the Words of
Christ. Leon Morris writes “If these
people, who professed to be Moses’ disciples, who honored Moses’ writings as
sacred Scripture, who gave an almost superstitious reverence to the letter of
the law, if these men did not really believe the things that Moses had written,
and which were the constant objects of their study, then how could they
possibly believe…the spoken words of Jesus?”
MacArthur adds “The sobering reality is that those who reject Moses’
teaching about Jesus will face eternal judgment—a truth taught in the story of
the rich man and Lazarus. Desperate to
spare his brothers the torment he was enduring, the rich man pleaded with
Abraham ‘27 "And he said, ’Then I
beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house- 28 for I have five brothers-in order that he may
warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ 29 "But Abraham *said, ’They have Moses and
the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30
"But he said, ’No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from
the dead, they will repent!’ 31
"But he said to him, ’If they do not listen to Moses and the
Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the
dead.’"”
As we
continue to look at the book of John we will see that the Jewish leaders will
use their perverted understand of the Law and of Moses’ teaching to bring our
Lord to a trial that if you look at it from a human understanding should have
never happened, but as Peter says it was the divine plan of God for Jesus to
die.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is easy to talk about how the Pharisees
had such a high opinion of themselves and wanted to bring glory to themselves,
but I have to remember that without the grace of God I would be in the same
fix.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Trust the Lord to cause me to
only bring glory to the name of Jesus Christ.
Answer to our last Bible question: “Damascus” (Acts 9:2).
Today’s Bible question:
“Who had a thousand and five songs?”
Hint: he must have written a song
for each of his wives and concubines with five left over.
Answer in our next SD.
3/21/2016 2:58 PM
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