Blog Archives - WELCOME TO THE JOY OF TROY

January 11, 2021

1/11/2021

An Earthly Beginning

        The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matt. 1:1, NASB.

    What a way to begin a book. For a twentieth-century author to start a biography with a long list of names would guarantee the manuscript ending up in the editor's scrap heap.

    To a Jew, however, commencing the story of a person's life with his or her genealogy was the most natural and interesting way. When Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, wrote his autobiography, he began it with his genealogy, which he most likely found in the public records kept by the Sanhedrin.

    The Jews placed great store on the purity of one's lineage. A priest who could not demonstrate his pedigree back to Aaron could not function in the priesthood (see Ezra 2:62).

    A first-century Jew would not only find a genealogy at the beginning of a biography to be natural and interesting, but would consider it essential. That would especially be true for a book claiming that its subject was the Christ (the Greek word for the Hebrew "Messiah"). And Matthew makes that claim in his first verse: "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham." If Matthew could not prove the purity of Jesus' ancestry, he might as well not write the rest of his Gospel, because no Jew would read it.

    Matthew's task was not only to demonstrate Jesus' racial purity, but also that He had particular ancestors. First, the Messiah would have to come from the line of David. "Your house and your kingdom," God had told David through Nathan the prophet, "will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever" (2 Sam. 7:16, NIV). The Jews widely held that promise to be pointing to the coming Messiah. As a result, the New Testament repeatedly asserts that Jesus was a descendant of David.

    It is also important to Matthew that he prove that Jesus was a son of Abraham. Not only is Abraham the father of the Jewish race, but God promised that He would bless all the people of the earth through him (Gen. 12:1-3).

    Because Jesus is of the lineage of both David and Abraham, He qualifies for the role of Messiah.

    One lesson of Matthew's genealogy is that God meets people where they are. When the divine Christ became the incarnate Jesus, He did so in a particular time and place. And just as He met the first-century Jews in their context, so He ministers to us today in our time and place.

January 10, 2021

1/10/2021

January 10                                Parting Thoughts on the Divine Christ

        He [Jesus Christ] is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Col. 1:17, NIV.

    Our passage for today makes two astounding claims about Jesus. The first is that He existed "before all things." He existed as far back in time as we can possibly imagine. There was never a time on which He did not exist. His existence is coextensive with that of the Father and the Spirit. Jesus may have lived only 33 years as a human being, but that short period is hardly a blip on the timeline of His eternal being.

    The second claim is equally amazing. Jesus not only existed "before all things," but "in him all things hold together." We must read that thought in the context of the previous verse, which states that "in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities---all things were created through him and for him" (Col. 1:16, RSV).

    Note the forceful alls in verse 16 and 17.
        1. "In him all things were created."
        2. Jesus existed "before all things."
        3. "All things were created through him and for him."
        4. "In him all things hold together."

    The implication of that fourth point is that Christ is not merely the Creator of all that exists, but also its sustainer. Not only did He bring everything into being, but He maintains it each moment.

    Paul couldn't have painted a picture of the divine Christ in more forceful words. "But," some might be asking, "What about verse 15, which distinctly and clearly claims that Christ is "the first-born of all creation" (RSV)?

    That is an excellent question, especially since many throughout Christian history have used that verse in an attempt to demonstrate that Christ was a created being and not fully divine, thereby undercutting the doctrine of the Trinity.

    Here we need to examine the biblical concept of firstborn. While it can refer to line of birth, that is obviously not its meaning in the context of verse 17, John 1:1, and many other passages speaking to the divinity of Christ. Rather, firstborn throughout the Bible means first in rank. We see it illustrated repeatedly by the dignity and office held by the firstborn in both regular and royal families. Thus it is that Paul is claiming for Christ the highest position. He then goes on to illustrate that primacy in Colossians 1:16 and 17.

January 9, 2021

1/9/2021

BOTH DIVINE AND HUMAN

        Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death on a cross. Phil. 2:5-8, RSV.

    Mysteries of all mysteries. God becoming a human being. God giving up the power that created the universe to become a lowly person on a sin-sick planet of little significance in galactic terms. God abandoning the glory of heaven to come to the dingy little village of Nazareth. Here is something that the human mind cannot even begin to grasp, let alone understand. And Paul doesn't even attempt to explain it. He merely states the bold and brutal facts of the case.

    William Barclay writes that "in many ways this is the greatest and the most moving passage that Paul wrote about Jesus." In 2 Corinthians 8:9 the apostle noted that though Jesus "was rich, yet for our sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich" (RSV). But in Philippians 2 he expands upon that idea and fills out its meaning.

    We should note several things about today's passage. The first is that nothing was forced upon Christ. It was all His initiative: "he humbled himself," "he emptied himself." He consciously and willfully chose to leave His heavenly place for me.

    A second thing that we should recognize is that when Paul says Christ was in the "form" of God, he does not mean to imply that He was kind of like God. The word the apostle uses (morphe) means not merely outward appearance but an essential characteristic that never alters. Thus the New International Version renders the phrase as "being in very nature God." That idea verse 6 reinforces later when it points out that Christ had "equality with God." "Form" also appears when Paul discusses Christ's humanity. He truly became human.

    The key thought in the passage is that Christ "emptied himself" to become human. It does not mean that He exchanged His divinity for humanity, but rather that He displayed the nature (or form) of God in the nature (or form) of a servant.

    The divine Christ not only became human for us, He became obedient unto death, the ultimate extension of obedience. But His was not merely a death, but death on a cross--one reserved for criminals and society's lowest.

    Father, help me in my own feeble thoughts to begin to grasp what Christ did for me. And help me to have His sacrificial mind-set.

January 8, 2021

1/8/2021

Christ's Ministry No Afterthought

        You were set free by Christ's precious blood, blood like that of a lamb without mark or blemish. He was predestined before the foundation of the world, but in this last period of time he has been revealed for your sake. 1 Peter 1:19, 20, REB.

    God the Son's earthly ministry was not an afterthought--something that caught God the Father off guard and forced Him into a last-minute decision to send Christ to head off our unexpected disaster. To the contrary, "He was predestined before the foundation of the world" to become the Lamb of God.

    The Message paraphrase puts the issue graphically in context: "It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ's sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately--at the end of the ages--become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. It's because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God" (1 Peter 1:18-21, Message).

    We serve a God who knows the end from the beginning. He knew that sin and death would enter the universe through the rebellion of Lucifer and He realized that it would spread to earth through the fall of Adam and Eve. The Lord understood the destructiveness of sin and that it would bring about eternal death (Rom. 6:23).

    But God also knew that He would not stand idly by as His earthly children suffered and died. As a result, the heavenly Trinity "predestined" one of its own members "before the foundation of the world" to descend to earth and become altogether human to solve the sin problem and its results.

    The Lord provided a glimpse of that predestined role to the shattered Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15. Speaking to the devil, God proclaimed that He would "put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel" (RSV).

    The repeated slaying of sacrificial lambs foreshadowed that promise all through Jewish history, but it was not put into effect until the incarnation, ministry, and death of Jesus, "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).

    The message of that life is that the Godhead cares. They are never caught off guard, and They predestined one of Their own number for my salvation.

January 7, 2021

1/7/2021

One Sent From Heaven

        No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man. John 3:13, RSV.

        For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. John 6:38, RSV.

    What kind of man is this? What kind of person would boldly state that He came down from heaven? No wonder the Jews had a difficult time with Him.

    And we should too. The hard fact of the situation is that Jesus was either who He claimed to be or some kind of delusional nut of the most dangerous kind.

    C.S. Lewis caught that point when he rejected those who claimed " 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral leader, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' "

    "That," Lewis retorted, "is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make the choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit on Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord or God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to" (Mere Christianity, p. 56).

    Such is the Jesus of the Bible. His claim demands a hearing and a decision from you and me today and every day.

    And what claims He made! He came down from heaven as the Son of man. Here He picks up a title from Daniel 7:13 of a heavenly being who receives from God the father dominion of His eternal kingdom (verse 14). "Son of Man" became Jesus' favorite title for Himself. One of the last uses of it in the Bible is Revelation 14:14, in which the Son of man comes a second time out of heaven to rescue His people and set up His heavenly kingdom.

    In the meantime, John tells us that Jesus not only left heaven for His earthly sojourn, but that He did so with a mission--to do God's will (John 6:38). And the central feature of that will was for Him to be lifted up on the cross so that "whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:15, RSV).

    What kind of man is this? Our answer to that question is the most important decision of our lives. And it is one we need to face this very moment.

January 6, 2021

1/6/2021

Jesus the Divine One

        And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. John 17:5, NIV.

    The earthly Jesus was acutely aware of the fact of His eternal deity. No one knew more than He what had to be given up when He became human. Here we find Him praying to God the Father that He might be restored to His former glory. Paul later describes the fulfillment of this prayer, noting that after Christ's life and death on the cross God "highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that is at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil 2:9-11, RSV).

    But meanwhile in John 17 Jesus is still facing the cross, still confronted with His final excruciating act as a human being. He recognizes His weakness and inability as one of us. Yet at the same time He is consciously aware of His divine nature and past glory in the courts of heaven.

    Such a mental tension is beyond the experience of the rest of us mortals. We know that we possess one short life that began at birth and will end with the decay of our minds and bodies. But only the deluded have thoughts of personal divinity. The earthly Jesus faced issues and had thoughts about realities that are totally beyond our comprehension.

    Yet those very thoughts reveal His earthly understanding of His part in the divine Trinity. The reality of His place in the Trinity was revealed to Him at His baptism when "the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him" and heard a voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:16, 17).

    The fact that He was "the Son" as "the fullness of the Godhead manifested" in human flesh (Evangelism, p. 614) was a conscious part of His life. He knew without doubt that "there are three living persons of the heavenly trio...--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" (ibid., p. 615). And Jesus reflected that trinitarian understanding in Matthew's portrayal of His last command to the disciples: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28:18, 19).

    What a Jesus we serve. We can understand Him--yet we can't. He became one of us, yet He was divine (and knew it). Such is the mystery of godliness.

January 5, 2021

1/5/2021

The Prophetic Child

                        For unto us a child is born,
                                To us a son is given;
                        And the government will be upon his shoulders,
                                and his name will be called
                        "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
                                Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
                        Of the increase of his government and of peace
                                there will be no end. Isa. 9:6, 7, RSV.

    The "I AM" is not only the eternal "out there" but one who would enter human history in the person of Jesus Nazareth, the central focus of the New Testament and the subject of prophecy in the Old.

    Harking back to Isaiah 7:14 and the young woman who would bear a son called "Immanuel" or "God with us," Isiah 9:6 picks up on the word "son" and begins to fill out the profile of the person of the Godhead who would become flesh and dwell among us. The Jewish Targum (a paraphrase of the biblical Hebrew into the commonly used Aramaic of Jesus' day) helps bring out the meaning of the passage: "And there was called His name from of old, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, He who lives for ever, the Messiah, in whose days peace shall increase upon us." That Messianic interpretation by the ancient Jews reflects the description of the individual being spoken of in verses 6 and 7 and cannot belong to any mere earthly ruler.

    He is the "Wonderful Counselor," one who is Himself a wonder in His wisdom and kindness. The root of the word "wonder" is used in Psalm 78:12 of God who did "marvelous things...in the land of Egypt." The same verbal root describes the miracles God performed in Egypt, including the dividing of the sea, the leading by pillar of cloud and fire, and the cleaving of the desert rocks to provide water. The wonder of prophetic wonders is the fact that such an individual would be born a child to become the source of wisdom for God's people.

    The coming Messiah would not be merely another child, but the "Mighty God." Here we have foreshadowed the miracle of incarnation and the dual nature of the coming Christ--a unique individual who would be fully human yet fully divine.

    His third name is "Everlasting Father." Here we need to realize that the prophet is not confounding the divine Father with the divine Son, but rather the fact that one role of Christ was to provide the loving care of a father to His children. Finally, "Prince of Peace" of whose "government...of peace there will be no end" reflects upon both the nature of the eternal kingdom of God and the great prophecy of Daniel 2:44, which will bring an end to all earthly kingdoms. That kingdom "shall stand for ever" (cf. Luke 1:33).

January 4, 2021

1/4/2021

Jesus the Eternal "I AM"

        Jesus said to [the Jews], "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." So they took up stones to throw at him. John 8:58, 59, RSV.

    What a strange passage, I thought to myself when first reading John's Gospel. Why did Jewish leaders want to stone Jesus to death because He had claimed to be "I am"? And what is the significance of that claim?

    Those questions take us back to Exodus 3:13, in which Moses wanted to know God's name in case his fellow Hebrews in Egypt asked him to identify the Deity that he claimed had sent him to them. In reply, "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM'; and he said, 'Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, "I AM has sent me to you." God, furthermore, said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'The Lord [Yahweh in Hebrew], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is My name forever' " (verses 14, 15, NASB).

    With those verses in mind it is easy to see why the Jews sought to kill Jesus when He identified Himself as the "I AM." He was identifying Himself as no less than the God of the covenant with the Jewish People. He was pronouncing Himself to be Yahweh ("Jehovah" in the Kings James Version), the eternal I AM, the God of the Old Testament. The word "Yahweh" means "to be," reflecting the constant being or existence of God not only for eternity in the past and future but also the present God who leads His people and supplies their needs throughout Jewish history.

    Thus is was the "I AM" who met with Moses on Sinai, saying "I am the Lord [Yahweh] your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Ex. 20:2, RSV). That act of divine grace called for a response in verses 3-17--the Ten Commandments. Thus even in the Old Testament, law keeping is a response to God's redemptive grace through Christ.

    How important it is to realize that the Babe of Bethlehem was not just another child. He was and is the "I AM," the God who gave the law, the God who led His people in past ages of earthly history.

    But more than that, the eternal "I AM" is still guiding His people today and will do so throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity in the future. We serve a magnificent Lord who not only had power to create but has the ability to save each of us to the uttermost (Heb. 7:25).

January 3, 2021

1/3/2021

Jesus and the Other Beginning

        All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life. John 1:3, 4, ESV.

    The first beginning in John's Gospel is one without a beginning, reflecting on the eternal preexistence of the divine Christ.

    But John portrays a second beginning in verses 3 and 4--the beginning of Creation. Paul comments upon that one when he writes "in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,...all things were created through him and for him" (Col. 1:16, RSV). And the book of Hebrews states that it was through Christ that God "created the world" (Heb. 1:2, RSV).

    Thus it is that the Babe of Bethlehem was much more than just one more person in the tired history of this world. The Bible sets Him forth as the Creator God, who has "life" in Himself in the same way that "the Father has life in himself" (John 5:26, RSV). The Desire of Ages captures that truth when it claims that "in Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived" (P. 530).

    It is that life in Himself that positioned the Word to act in Creation. And it is no accident that John describes the creative Christ as the Word. After all, it is the act of speaking that ushers in each day of Creation Week. "And God said" reflects on the meaning of the creative Word in John 1:1-5 (see Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 14, 20, 24).

    As a result, it was also that eternal Word who kept the Sabbath at the end of Creation week. "Thus," we read, "the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation" (Gen. 2:1-3, RSV). With that in mind, there is little wonder that Jesus noted that "the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath" (Mark 2:28).

    John's Gospel doesn't fool around when it comes to introducing Jesus. He is not merely that child born in Bethlehem.

    No! He is eternal God. He is the Creator of all that is. He has life in Himself.

    As we turn our eyes upon Jesus our minds are challenged and astounded regarding the true identity of our Savior.

January 2, 2021

1/2/2021

Jesus' Real Beginning

        In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1.

    Here is the real beginning of the Jesus story. Whereas Matthew and Luke commence their Gospel with Jesus' miraculous birth and Mark with the inauguration of His ministry, John takes his readers back to the beginning of beginnings.

    And what was that? A first thought is to go to Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." But that is not where John 1:1 starts. After all according to verse 3 Jesus already existed before the Genesis creation, being an active agent in it (cf. Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2).

    As a result, with a stroke of his pen John draws our minds not back to the Creation story of Genesis 1, but to the vast eternity before Creation and the place of Christ the Word within that boundless infinity of time. Ellen White captures the depths of that eternity when she writes that Christ "was equal with God, infinite and omnipotent....He is the eternal, self-existent Son" (Evangelism, p. 615). When John says "beginning," he means the real beginning before the creation of anything.

    The apostle goes on to make two other statements about the Word. The first is that He was "with God." The flow of the fourth Gospel helps us understand that "withness." It pictures Jesus as being at the Father's side (John 1:18), the Father placing everything in His hands (John 3:35), He and the Father being one (John 10:30), and so forth throughout the gospel story. Thus John's second declaration about the Word, when combined with the first, presents Christ as the Word who from all eternity has enjoyed a profound intimacy with the Father.

    The last declaration about the Word equates Him with God. Here it is important to note that John is not saying that Jesus is the Father. After all, his Gospel presents the two as distinct individuals capable of talking to and about each other. Thus both the Father and the Son are identified in Scripture as "God" (cf. Heb. 1:18.). We might say that They share the same family name (God) but with different functions.

    Father, as we bow before You in prayer our minds are profoundly affected by the fact that the Baby born as Jesus of Nazareth is none less than eternal God. Thank You for the Gift of all gifts. As we continue our study, help us to begin to grasp the meaning of that gift for our world and our lives.