SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/27/2022 9:39 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The
Tie With The Forerunner”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
17:10-13
Message of the verses: “10 And His
disciples asked Him, saying, "Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must
come first?" 11 And He answered and said, "Elijah is coming and will
restore all things; 12 but I say to you, that Elijah already came, and they did
not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man
is going to suffer at their hands." 13 Then the disciples understood that
He had spoken to them about John the Baptist.”
We begin today looking at the fifth and final
confirmation of Jesus’ deity as it is seen in His messianic relationship to
John the Baptist.
The
disciples of Jesus had just seen Elijah on the mountain, and I am sure that
they knew that Elijah was to come first as this was the question that they were
asking Jesus. They knew for sure by now
that Jesus was the Messiah, but they did not know why Elijah had not come
before and so Jesus will set this straight in their minds as we move on through
these verses.
This
part of the teaching of the scribes was not just based simply on rabbinical
tradition but on Scriptural teaching.
Let us look where this comes from at this time: “5 “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the
prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. 6 “He will
restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of
the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with
a curse." In our Bible the next
verse that follows this verse is Matthew 1:1, and so these are the last two
verses in the book of Malachi.
John
MacArthur writes “The prediction that the actual Old Testament person of Elijah
would be the forerunner of the Messiah and His judgment was well-known to Jews
of Jesus’ day. Therefore, as Peter, James,
and John came down the mountainside with the Lord, they could not have helped
wondering how the appearance of Elijah they had just witnessed fit in with
Malachi’s prophecy.”
The
Jewish leaders probably were using the same argument that Peter, James, and
John were using when they ask the Lord about why Elijah had not come before He
came.
We
conclude this SD with another quote from John MacArthur’s commentary: “That misunderstanding was made easier by the
many embellishments that Bible interpreters throughout the ages, including many
in our own day, they liked to ‘fill in the blanks,’ as it were, where a Bible prediction
was not as clear and detailed as they would have liked. Consequently, they taught that Elijah would
come again as a mighty miracle-working reformer who would bring order out of
chaos and holiness out of Unholiness.
They maintained that when the Messiah arrived, the world, or at least
Israel, would be morally and spiritually prepared for Him, and He would execute
swift judgment and establish the kingdom for Israel.”
I
have to say that this previous paragraph has got me thinking about Elijah’s
coming before the Lord Jesus comes back to earth. I believe that John the Baptist was also seen
in the Old Testament Scriptures and hopefully we will get to the bottom of this
in our next SD.
10/27/2022 10:04 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment