PT-3 “ARE YOU THE COMING ONE? (Luke 7:18-23)

 

MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/18/2026 9:41 AM

PT-3 “ARE YOU THE COMING ONE?

I will continue quoting from John MacArthur’s sermon on this section (Luke 7:18-23).

“Everybody knew the Old Testament prophesied a Coming One.  Everybody who knew the Old Testament knew that.  The only question was, is it Jesus?  Is it Jesus?

If you were to look at the Old Testament, you could paint a picture of the Coming One, the Expected One, and you would see that it would be Jesus.  It would be sort of like...Did you ever paint by numbers?  You could have the whole scene of the life of Jesus without the color and as you began to apply the color it would take form, unmistakably it would become Him.  In fact, Jesus said that.  He said, "Abraham rejoiced to see My day." What did He mean by that?  Abraham was expecting Me. I am the One Abraham rejoiced ultimately to see.  He also said, "Moses wrote about Me." And He said, "David called Me Lord."  So Jesus picked the triumvirate of Israel's history — Abraham, Moses, David, you don't get any higher than those three — and said they were all talking about Me.  And He said, "If you believed Moses, you would have believed Me for he wrote about Me."  Jesus all along said He was the long Expected One, He was the Coming One.  He made that point.  It was on the day of His resurrection. He was on the road to Emmaus that day after He had come out of the grave. Two of His disciples were with Him.  And the Bible says that He said this to them, "Oh foolish men, slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken."  See they were moaning and groaning because Jesus had been crucified.  And they thought that was the end of their dream and that obviously Jesus was not the long Expected One, He was not the Coming One, He was not the Promised One, He was not the Messiah. And Jesus says, "Your problem is, you didn't believe what's clearly indicated in the Old Testament." And then it says, "And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures."  "Search the scriptures," He said on another occasion, "for they are such as speak of Me."  It was forty days after that resurrection day, the day of His ascension back into heaven, and He had another occasion to be with His apostles and this is what He said, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.  And then He opened their minds to understand the Scripture."

When you study the Old Testament, you get this picture of the Coming One, the Redeemer, the Messiah, the King, the Savior of the world.  When you read the New Testament you get the color to fill it in.  It is unmistakably Jesus. It is unmistakably Jesus.  All you have to do is compare the Old Testament to the New.

Well, in John's defense, he didn't have the New yet.  He was putting together some of the pieces all the way through his life but there were some things missing that made him ask the question, "Are You the Coming One?"  Even though he called Him that, Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:7, Luke 3:16 and John 1:27. He called Him the Coming One.  On Palm Sunday the crowd in Jerusalem cried, "Blessed is the Coming One, the Expected One who comes in the name of the Lord," Mark 11:9.  And Jesus referred to Himself as the blessed Coming One, the blessed Expected One, Luke 13:35, and in the 19th chapter of Luke the people called Him the Coming One.  The writer of Hebrews, chapter 10 verse 37, calls Him the Coming One.  That's a technical title for the Messiah, Redeemer.  And those people knew the Old Testament and should never have been mistaken, never.  All you have to do, He said to those disciples on the road to Emmaus, is recognize that you are foolish and slow of heart to believe.  It isn't that you can't understand. It is that you refuse to believe.  Not an intellectual issue, an issue of faith, submission.

So let me just proclaim a little from the Old Testament about the Coming One and help you to see that it couldn't be anybody but Jesus.  The Old Testament begins, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  The gospel of John begins, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  And everything that was made was made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made."

The first time you meet the Coming One is in creation when God says, "Let us make man."  And now you know it's not just God the Father, but somebody else, it's the Coming One, the Word who became flesh, of whom John says, He is the Creator.  The work of redemption is not going to be done by many. It's to be done by one, one, the long Expected One.  He was first promised in the Garden after Adam and Eve had sinned, been devastated by satanic deception, after curses had been pronounced upon man, God then said this, "There will come One, a seed of a woman who will crush the head of Satan." That in Genesis chapter 3 is the first actual prophecy of the Coming One and the first thing He is said to do is to crush the destroyer's head.  That is to overturn the kingdom of evil.  He's also pictured in that same chapter. When Adam and Eve are sin sensitive, aware of their shame and guilt, they feel their nakedness and God wanting to cover their nakedness kills an animal; first death in history. God Himself kills an innocent animal, takes the hide and covers sinners.  There is a picture of the Coming One there whose death as an innocent sacrifice and substitute provides a covering for sinners, preview of the Lamb slain for sinners.

Then we find the Messiah is to come through the line of Abraham, through his son Isaac, through the tribe of Judah and He will be the one who will take the scepter and be a King, the one who is Creator, the one who will be born of a woman, the seed of a woman. Everybody knows a woman doesn't have a seed. That's in the man. And that's an implication of the virgin birth. He will come and He will offer His life as a sacrifice to cover sinners.  He will also take a scepter and reign as King and the picture of the Coming One begins to fill out.  He is even pictured in an Old Testament priest by the name of Melchizedek.  Melchizedek appears in the 14th chapter of Genesis and Melchizedek was an ancient king of righteousness, king of peace and he was also a priest of the true God.  So here was an amazing man, a king of righteousness, a king of peace, as well as a priest to God.

He had no genealogy, no beginning and no end, so He pictures a perpetual priesthood, a priest king who intercedes and mediates between man and God.  And Jesus Himself was a priest after the order of Melchizedek. So says the New Testament.  So He's pictured there.

He is also pictured and symbolized in that incredible story of Abraham going up to Mount Moriah to sacrifice Isaac.  He puts Isaac on the altar because God has told him to, and certainly Isaac deserved to die, as does every sinner.  And in this case Abraham was going to be the agent of judgment upon that sinful Isaac and when he was ready to drive the dagger into the heart of his own beloved son, God stopped his hand and provided an animal in the bush, didn't He?  And the Coming One, the Promised One is pictured as that animal in the bush; that innocent sacrifice laid on the altar that gives its life in the place of sinners.

Joseph, rejected by his brothers, sold into slavery, hated and despised. For all his brothers cared, he could be dead.  He goes to Egypt as a prisoner but God makes him a prince and a savior and the tables turn.  Famine comes to Israel, later his brothers come down there and Joseph is their deliverer.  Joseph is their savior.  He forgives them, provides their necessary deliverance, the food they need to survive.  Rejected, scorned, he becomes the savior.  You see the shadow of the Coming One who came unto His own. His own received Him not. But He came to the cross. They put Him there to become the Savior of the very ones that rejected Him.

The Coming One is pictured in Noah's ark, a place of safety through the midst of divine judgment to drown the entire planet.  The Coming One is the true lifeboat.  The Coming One is the true ark of safety, the hiding place, the protector in whom believers ride above the waves of divine judgment.

The Coming One is seen in the dramatic account in Genesis 28 of Jacob's dream and he sees a ladder from earth to heaven and angels going up and down on that ladder.  And he realizes that here is a picture of a bridge that is being built to God.  That's a picture of the Coming One. Jesus is the Coming One who bridges the chasm between God and man. So confesses Nathaniel in the New Testament.

The Coming One even appears in the Old Testament as the Angel of the Lord in a pre-incarnate appearance, visiting Abraham and wrestling with Jacob.  The Coming One is seen in every Passover lamb that was slaughtered, a spotless lamb without blemish that was used as a sacrifice for sin and the blood of that animal splattered all over the door prevented the angel of death from slaughtering the firstborn.  And this was a great depiction of the fact that an innocent sacrifice could provide the blood atonement which could save sinners from divine judgment, and that was a picture of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God whose blood would forever perfect those who believe in Him, delivering all believe from the death angel.

The Coming One is pictured in the manna in the wilderness.  He Himself said that He was the true bread, pictured by the manna in the wilderness.  God gave manna to feed a hungry nation.  God gave the true bread, His Son, to feed the souls of men.  It was in the wanderings in the wilderness in the book of Exodus that water flowed out of a smitten rock into the wilderness and gave life to thirsty Jews.  But that only pointed forward to the Coming One who was the living water and whoever drinks of Him, He says, shall never thirst again.”

8/18/2026 9:44 AM