NOTE
I have written two books that are not yet published. They are: The Life of Christ in Five Phases Revised (6”x9”, 448 pp.) and The Life of Christ in Five Phases Revised Teaching Aid (8 ½”x11”, 135 pp). The first book is a revision of an earlier book of the same title. It is a textbook and the second book is a handy teaching guide that is suitable only for the textbook it supplements (except in this present use). I hope to publish both books soon, perhaps in a matter of two or three months.
The post below is an excerpt from Lesson Seven of the Teaching Aid. The “Text References” in the excerpt refer the reader to Text References in the textbook and are usable only with the textbook; therefore you may disregard all Text References, but please read the Text Reference comments. They are vital to the post.
Lesson Seven
Early Judean Ministry
A Foresight of Suffering
Text Ref. 1
“The Passover lamb was a symbol of the Savior of the world who would be slain as the Ultimate Sacrifice, doing away with the need for any further sacrifices. Therefore, what Jesus was now going to Jerusalem to celebrate was His own coming death! As we look at this tableau now it is deeply moving, but little did the people among whom He moved know that the Lamb of God was right there in their midst. They did not realize that He saw, reenacted many times, His own coming demise. As He watched the Lamb of sacrifice being slain in the bloody sacrificial ritual, Jesus foresaw the ghastly manner in which He would die.” (Txtbk. Lesson Seven)
Comment (a) on Text Ref. 16
Although it is the belief here that Jesus in His humanity did not always know what would happen in the future, I am firmly convinced He knew in intimate detail what would happen to Him in His atonement for sinners. He told His closest followers what they could expect in persecutions and martyrdom; in like manner I believe the Father revealed to Jesus the depths of suffering and humiliation to which He would plunge.
On the face of it, it is not logical to tell new believers in full detail what to expect in the way of persecutions as Jesus did, but He knew exactly what He was doing and the reasons for being so explicit with them. Considering the horror of what Jesus would go through, it would not seem logical to give Him such excruciatingly clear foreknowledge of it, but Jesus was in a class by Himself and the Father knew what to do with Him and how and when to do it.
Extreme suffering and an ignominious death were in the game plan and Jesus was privy to the plan; He had to know and be perfectly aligned with the will of the Father. Jesus was not caught by surprise and forcibly ground between the upper and the nether millstones of His hour of Passion. He had to be a willing candidate to redeem mankind otherwise He would not have qualified to be their redeemer.
Comment (b) on Text Ref. 16
Of course the symbol of Jesus that most deeply touches the heart of God is that of the Lamb of Sacrifice. But there are many other figures portraying Jesus in His role as mediator between God and man. One is found in Gen. 28.10-17.
You must read that passage, in which Jacob the unregenerate grandson of Abraham had a vision of a ladder reaching from heaven to earth. The angels of God were ascending and descending on this ladder. They represented the intercourse between the two widely divergent parties: heaven and earth.
There are many types of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament and surely Jacob’s vision of the ladder descending to earth from heaven is one of them. How else can mankind interact with divinity? There must be a mediator between God and men; there has to be a point of contact between that which is earthly and that which is heavenly. Something or someone has to touch both parties and it cannot be so earthly that heaven will smite it with a thunderbolt nor can it be so distant and removed from earth that it cannot feel and reach the sensibilities of earth. Nothing other than Deity clothed in a human body – One who is both human and divine – can suffice.
We have already touched on the reasons that Jesus had to be both fully human and fully divine. The Mosaic Law, promulgated by God – in fact, the Law was God Himself presented to the Israelites in codified form – was a just and demanding law containing the principles of righteousness and justice and even love and mercy, all of which were inherent in the great Creator God. God showed mankind they could not live up to His expectations of them. To rectify the situation God, in an unparalleled display of love and tender concern, became the Lamb of sacrificed demanded by His own Law and He writhed in an agony that the same (His own) Law extorted from Him.
I have to repeat what I have said many times before (it must not have left its mark on you otherwise I would not have to repeat it these many times): We cannot fathom the depth of the love and total selflessness God wrung from His own innermost being in order to save us from the horrible fate that awaited us for breaking His Law. And integral with that innermost being of God was (is) the Word or the Logos of John 1.1, the same Logos that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Think on this paragraph for a while and it will speak for itself. You will need no teacher to unearth its mighty truth.
Our minds are finite: they are too circumscribed to catch more than an occasional spark of insight into this awesome commitment and this horrifying sacrifice that Love demanded of itself.
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