SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/17/2017
10:01 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 Intro to John 17:1b-5
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 17:1b-5
Message of the
verses: “"Father, the hour has
come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, 2 even as You gave Him
authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give
eternal life. 3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 “I glorified You on the earth, having
accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 “Now, Father, glorify Me
together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world
was.”
John MacArthur entitles this chapter that coverers these
verses “Jesus’ Prayer and the Eternal Plan of God.” I know that this seems hard for us to believe
that the death of the Messiah, God’s only Son was planned before the word was
even created, but that is the truth as we will see. Luke 22:22 states “"For indeed, the Son
of Man is going [up to Jerusalem to be killed] as it has been determined; but woe to that man by
whom He is betrayed!"” Mark 9:32 “But
they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask Him.” We see here that His disciples did not
understand this, “But they did not understand this statement, and it was
concealed from them so that they would not perceive it; and they were afraid to
ask Him about this statement (Luke 9:45).”
Not only did they reject this even though they did not understand it,
but even called Him out on this. Now we
have mentioned before that all of His disciples were looking for a conquering Messiah
would overthrow the Romans and set up the promised kingdom and when they first
heard that Jesus was going to die as the plan of God they were upset. Matthews writes the following in Matthew
16:21-23:
21 From that time Jesus began to
show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from
the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on
the third day. 22 Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You."
23 But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a
stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests,
but man’s."”
I wonder how many times I have argued with the Lord about
things that I thought that He should do differently in my life or the lives of
those around me.
We have been looking recently at the promise of the Holy
Spirit to be given to the disciples, and also to all believers, and it was not
until this happened did His disciples fully understand all that had to happen
to Jesus, and understand it they did.
The book of Acts has much to say about this right from the beginning of
chapter two when Peter gave the first sermon of the church age. The Old Testament is full of prophecies
stating that the Messiah must die, in places like the 53rd chapter
of Isaiah, the 22nd Psalm, and also the 9th chapter of
Daniel even tells the very day when Jesus would come into Jerusalem and offer
Himself as King, but would be rejected and Daniel goes on to record that the
Messiah would be “cut off” which speaks of His death.
John MacArthur writes:
“The salvation plan of God was formed in eternity past,
before the beginning of time, when He purposed to save a remnant of the human
race He would yet create and whom He knew would rebel against Him (Eph. 1:4-5;
Cf. Matt. 25:34). The plan itself was
guaranteed by the promise of God as Paul explains in Titus 1:2, salvation is ‘the
hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago.’ The phrase ‘long ages ago’ literally means, ‘before
time began,’ indicating that redemption has always been part of God’s sovereign
plan (cf. Heb. 13:20). In eternity past,
He made a promise to save those whom He had chosen; the fulfillment of which is
absolutely certain since ‘it is impossible for God to lie’ (Heb. 6:18; Num.
23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; John 14:6, 17; 15:26).
But to whom was that promise made, since there was no one but God before
time began?
“The answer to that question introduced in 2 Timothy 1:9,
which states that God ‘has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not
according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was
granted to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.’ (The phrase ‘from all eternity’ is identical
in Greek to the phrase translated ‘long ages ago’ in Titus 1:2. In both cases, the literal rendering is ‘from
before time began.’) God’s promise to
save His own was made in eternity past ‘according to His own purpose and grace,’
independent of any outside influence.
Because there was no one beside the triune God, it was a promise He necessarily
made to Himself.”
Since this section is needed for us to understand this
subject of Christ’s death resulting in our salvation that was promised in
eternity past we will continue looking at this in our next SD.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “A coat of many colors”
(Genesis 37:3).
Today’s Bible
question: “Which is the first
commandment with a promise?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/17/2017 10:33 AM
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