The 'thirds' of scripture... (part 2)

Welcome to the third part of our thoughts concerning these fascinating 'thirds' found in the gospels. I hope you have enjoyed the thoughts so far and found them productive and stimulating. If you have, then please leave a comment for me so I know you have!

The third day - Matt 16:21

Praise God we can move on from talking about the third hour and think about the third day when Jesus rose from the dead! We do not remember a dead Saviour today but one who rose mightily from the dead and ascended and is alive at God's right hand today. Of course in his resurrection we see the divine plan of salvation and the sovereign will of God being revealed and worked out. The resurrection showed that God was well pleased with the work of his Son, the price for sin had been paid, and it showed he had triumphed over death, 'sheol' and the grave! The resurrection glorified God and proved to all that his was a victorious death and that he had fully completed perfectly all that he had set out to do. He had prophesied regarding his death, burial and resurrection and all had come to pass as he had said.

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus also has further implications for the believer;

1. It speaks of our new life in Christ - Romans 6

"like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life"

A fellow believer reminded me recently; "we easily accept and remember the truth that Christ died for us, but it's very easy to forget that we also died with Christ!" How true - Our "old man", that is to say all that we were in Adam was crucified with Christ on that cross. When we got saved we were born again, we were made a new creature, these are all scriptural terms to describe what happened when we repented and trusted Christ as Saviour! We who were once dead in trespasses and sins were given a new life, a spiritual life that we never had before. Of course baptism is a picture of this - Our old man was crucified with Christ and buried, and we 'arose' with new life, ready to serve God!

I wonder if we were to take assessment of our Christian testimony, could we say that we were walking in " newness of life"?

2. It speaks of our future life with Christ - 1 Cor 15

This passage makes clear that if Christ is not risen, then our faith is vain or empty and we are of all men most miserable! The truth of the resurrection is vital to our faith! I like the words of assurance in this passage however:

"but now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept"

"Christ the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming"

These verses tell us that because Christ has risen, we can be certain that our bodies too will be raised from the dead when he returns to the air in the event that we call 'the rapture'. Death is certainly not the end of the story for the believer!

"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout... and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words"

So we can see that there is a wonderful future for the believer, whether we die or not and it is all founded upon the resurrection of Christ, so we can have assurance when we talk about these things!

I hope these thoughts have been an encouragement to us. Next time we will look at the final 'third' that I want to consider, can you guess what it might be? If you feel like chancing your arm, leave a comment!

Yours in Christ, Mark

 

"This man"

We gather every Lord's Day morning to remember the Lord Jesus and we realise that we are able to do this because he came into this world as an actual and real man. He was a physical man, one whose pathway we can trace, one whose words could be heard, his actions could be witnessed, and his impact and presence could be felt by the men of the day around him.

With this in mind we love what the scriptures have to tell us about "this man"...

"this man was the Son of God"

Although we delight in remembering the perfect humanity of the Lord Jesus, it is with fresh wonder that we remember that the man who stood before those people of the day, the one who walked amongst them and could be heard, touched and felt was the very Son of God! This is a truth that is often challenged in the world, but we must stand for the truth, that the man Jesus Christ is the Son of God!

"never man spake like this man"

Of course our Saviour was so different from all other people. He was unique, people had never met anyone like him before or since! We recall his words, and remark how they must have differentiated him from all other men. Even as we ourselves go about our daily lives, we can surely appreciate how wicked and filthy the conversation of this world is! How refreshing it must have been to hear the lovely words of the Saviour as he spoke! Words of grace, truth, wisdom, power, authority, compassion and love. His words bore all the characteristics of heaven and the Godhead.

"whence hath this man this wisdom or these mighty works?"

Our reference reminds us that not only were his words unique, but so were his deeds. He was characterised by wisdom and mighty works! Works that brought glory and pleasure to his father God, and that were motivated by mercy, grace and compassion. Man can often display mighty works of power, but rarely are they aligned with wisdom, and very rarely motivated by mercy, grace and compassion but often by self, greed or anger.

"I find no fault in this man... this man hath done nothing amiss"

We earlier commented on the perfect humanity of our Lord Jesus and we do well to reiterate that the Saviour was perfect! He was sinless, spotless, holy before God for he was God. We remember once again that he could not sin, neither could he be marred or tainted by it as he moved amongst the wickedness of this world. As his life came under constant scrutiny, there were those were caused to remark on his sinlessness.

"Morning by morning
Thou didst wake,
Amidst this poisoned air;
Yet no contagion touched Thy soul,
No sin disturbed Thy prayer"

"we will not have this man..."

But even as they witnessed this blessed one as he lived amongst them, a perfect man who lived a righteous and just life and who brought blessing to others, the verdict in the final analysis was "we will not have this man...". They rejected him! We remember that the prophets would speak of him saying that he would be despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. John would record that he came unto his own and his own received him not. How incredible that the very Son of God, he who was God manifest in flesh should ever taste rejection, hatred and cruelty at the hands of his creatures!

"but this man, having offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God"

We come to the cross, the place where he would give his life for us, the place of death. We thank God that we as believers are called to appreciate the tremendous truth of the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus at that cross, we have come into the good of that once and forever work! As the Saviour hung on that cross the world saw this as failure, they had defeated him, they were putting him to death on that cross. Of course this was not defeat though, this was victory, as the Lord completed the work that had been given him to do, to pay the price for sin and make a way of salvation. That work of his at Calvary is perfect and complete, it was a priestly work as he offered up a sinless spotless sacrifice that day, a sacrifice that fully dealt with sin, not just for a while but once and for all! The priest was not permitted to sit whilst he served, but the Lord Jesus had finished that work forever, so he sits now at the right hand of God.

We have such a wonderful Saviour that we should rejoice to praise and worship him! "This man" is our Saviour, and "this man" is our Lord. We trust these simple thoughts today will be  blessing to us all.

Yours in Christ,

Mark