The 'thirds' of scripture... (part 1)

Greetings once again fellow believers, and thanks for visiting the blog! Recently I have been thinking about a series of references to 'third things' in the scriptures, in particular in reference to the Lord Jesus.

A third time - Matt 26:44

We read this verse and the preceding portion and it surely reveals something of the depth of suffering of the Saviour as he endured that agony in the garden of Gethsemane. "his soul was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death"

We read that he took with him into the garden Peter, James and John and he charged them to "watch and pray with me". There was a desire for fellowship and companionship with his disciples! Yes there were times when he would be alone and there were things that they could not possibly share in, but the fact that the Lord wanted them with him teaches me this. The Saviour has always desired fellowship with his believing people, whether in the past while he was here, or in the present when he assured us of his presence with us in the gatherings "...there am I in the midst of them" A joyful thing to consider is that he wants us to be with him in a future day as well! "I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory" What a wonderful prospect, that we shall be in heaven with him!

Unfortunately the disciples prove that men are far better at sleeping than they are praying, and the Lord returns 3 times to find them asleep. How true this is of us, we are far better at taking our leisure than concentrating our hearts and minds upon the Lord! On the third time, the Lord tells them that the time and opportunity for watching and praying with him was over for the time had come that he was going to be betrayed. This is solemn, the disciples had a unique and privileged opportunity to watch and pray with their Lord, yet they had missed out and now the opportunity was gone! We should be careful of this, as we too have a limited opportunity to watch and pray whilst we serve him down here, the day of grace will soon draw to a close and our earthly testimony will soon be over! The Lord takes delight in the simple things ("could ye not watch with me one hour?") can we do simple things faithfully for him down here? Let us challenge our own hearts.

The third hour - Mark 15:25

As we read this short yet solemn verse we marvel once again at the gospel writer's economy of words. Just 10 words are used to summarise the death of the Lord Jesus Christ! We remember with interest that John could tell us that limitless volumes could be written about the person and work of the Lord Jesus, but the death of the Saviour is here summarised in just 10 brief, simple words; "And it was the third hour, and they crucified him" The most significant event in man's history, when man took the very Son of God, the one who was God manifest in flesh and nailed him to a cross and put him to death!

Only Mark records the time that they crucified the Saviour, the third hour (9am). I find this poignant that the gospel writer most concerned with the movement and activity of the Saviour records the time of his final movement, his final act in going to the cross of Calvary.

We would remind ourselves afresh of the personal application of that third hour, when the Saviour gave himself for us, each individual that have trusted him and that read this blog now!

"Calvary, O Calvary,

Mercy's vast unfathomed sea!

Love eternal, love to me,

Jesus we adore thee"

 

Next time we will consider the final two 'thirds' that I have been considering, and we trust that this little study will profit us all, and cause us to praise God afresh and lift our hearts in exhortation and encouragement.

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

Jesus of Nazareth (part 1)

In our last post we looked at the word 'wonderful' in relation to the Lord Jesus and I hope this was beneficial to us all. Today we are going to look at that more familiar title of the Lord Jesus as referred to in the New Testament - "Jesus of Nazareth". I first looked at this about two and a half years ago and found it to be a lovely train of thought. Let us take a look at a few scriptures together.

"And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject unto them" Luke 2:51

We start here, at the beginning! This verse describes the Lord Jesus as a young boy going down with his parents to Nazareth, the place where he would live until the commencement of his public ministry when he would move to Capernaum (Matt 4:13). The verse struck me as it states that the Lord Jesus was "subject unto them", that is his parents. What a marvel that the Lord Jesus should be subject to anybody! Here was the very Lord of Earth and Heaven, the one who had created all things, and who upholds all things by the word of his power and here he is being subject to the creatures of his hand! The word means "to obey" and carries with it a sense of humility and meekness. What a lovely thought that the Lord Jesus should come into this world and be found as a young boy being obedient to his parents! How this must have stood out to the world, that here was a young boy who was perfectly obedient to his parents - how unusual! Of course we know that it was evidence of his sinless, perfect humanity - he could not sin, but it is lovely that the Word of God records that he was willing to take that lowly place there in that town of Nazareth.

"We saw thee not when thou didst come
to this poor world of sin and death,
nor e'er beheld thy cottage home
in that despised Nazareth;
but we believe thy footsteps trod
its streets and plains, thou Son of God!"

"can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" John 1:46

Of course Nazareth did not have a god reputation amongst the people of the

[caption id="attachment_108" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A view over Nazareth today"][/caption]

day, particularly devout Jews such as Nathaniel! Remember that Nazareth was a town that was in the district of  "Galilee of the Gentiles" (Matt 4:15 or "Galilee of the nations" in Isaiah ch 9), so-called as there was a high mix of Gentiles with Jews in that area, and of course this caused it to be despised by the Jews. You can almost hear the scorn and disgust in Nathaniel's voice, but just moments later he was going to declare the one from Nazareth to be the very Son of God! Nathaniel had questioned whether "any good" could come come out of Nazareth, and he was to learn that the very best had come out of Nazareth, the greatest person that had ever walked the earth had come out of that despised place called Nazareth! Of course we believe that the Lord Jesus had ultimately come from the Fathers side, but nevertheless he faced opposition because of the earthly place was associated with. Also remember the fierce criticism that Nicodaemus faced when he dared to defend the Lord Jesus? "Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet." Such disdain! This would remind us that he was despised and rejected of men, he would come unto his own and his own would not receive him.

"And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth..." Mark 10:47

Of course this reference is from the account of Blind Bartimaeus as he met the Saviour that day in Jericho. The scripture records that Bartimaeus reacted when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth who passed by. The one who the Jews despised because of his claims, his power, his authority and because of his humble background (in earthly terms) - it was this man that brought hope and cheer to the heart of Bartimaeus! It was in Jesus from Nazareth that he saw salvation and a solution - this man could heal him, and he was going to stop at nothing in order to meet him and seize his opportunity! We remember the faith that he showed that day, he believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of David, therefore proclaiming him to be the Messiah that should come from the line of David. Of course we remember that the Lord Jesus blessed him with sight that day, and this would remind us of our own experience with the Lord Jesus. We thank God afresh for the day that we met the Saviour! We praise him for that day when we made that step of faith and the man Jesus of Nazareth became so much more than that - he became our Lord and Saviour!

We trust these first few thoughts on this subject will have been of blessing and encouragement to us, and we will look at the last couple another time. Please feel free to make comments or suggestions on this subject or indeed any other, I will be pleased to hear from you.

Yours in Christ, Mark

The Lord Jesus as the "Son of..."

Welcome fellow believers! I think it is time for a mid-week pick-me-up perhaps! Let's look at some thoughts concerning the Lord Jesus together.

As we read through the scriptures, we can see many different titles and pictures of the Lord Jesus, and in this little study we will look at those titles where he is referred to as the "Son of..." I looked at this last year and found that these titles each bring out a different facet of the Saviour's character, so I hope these simple thoughts are of benefit to us and once again cause us to glorify God for His Son.

The Son of God

What a tremendous place to start by thinking once again of the Lord Jesus as the Son of God! This truth is often refuted by the world (as it was by the Jews in His day) so we do well to remind our hearts of this and encourage ourselves in the enjoyment of this truth. The Gospel of Mark would commence with that bold proclamation - "The Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God" and of course this is something that John is particularly concerned about in his Gospel, in fact it closes - "but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Son of God". He was God manifest in flesh, he was co-equal with God, the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person - he was the very Son of God. We remember that God would proclaim from heaven:

"this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased"

Here was God's estimation of his Son, despite what men would say and do to him, God was well pleased with his Son!

The Son of Man

But equally, we see the Lord referred to many times as the Son of Man. If we were to write down all the references to this title we would see that almost all of the references are in connection to one of two ideas:

• His Coming ("the Son of Man is come...")


• His Sufferings and death on the cross ("the Son of Man must suffer...")

In either case it draws attention to the meekness and humility of the manhood of the Lord Jesus and his saving work in coming into this scene to die on the cross. We should rejoice in the fact that we have a Saviour who not only is the Son of God, but was willing to humble himself and condescend to coming into this sinful world, and here to suffer and to die on the cross! We remind ourselves of the words of the apostle:

"But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. " Philippians 2:7-8

The Son of David

There are fewer references to this title but they are certainly beautiful in that they are used to illustrate the grace and compassion of the Saviour in his dealings with poor and needy souls. Remember that Bartimaeus would cry out in faith  "thou Son of David, have mercy on me!" Also the Canaanite woman would appeal to him on behalf of her demon-possessed daughter using this title, and again there was another occasion with two blind men and they once again appealed to him as the Son of David. This was faith on their part for they were recognising him as the Messiah that should come from the line of David, and the Lord would take time to deal with them and bless them in such a miraculous and tender way. We love to think on the compassionate nature of the Saviour who took the time to bless those who were needy, and how he has blessed us as sinners saved by grace!

The Son of Mary

Surely this title would remind us of the rejection of the Lord Jesus, and the disgust and indignation of the Jews as they would recall that he was merely the son of Mary, the carpenters son, the man from Galilee of the Gentiles! We recall the words of Nathaniel; "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Of course the scriptures would prophesy of him that he would be "despised and rejected of men" and that he would come unto his own but his own would not receive him. How sad that here was one who came from the mansions of glory, and they were privileged to come into contact with him, and they could have known him, the very Lord of heaven! But how sad that the Lord Jesus would say "and ye will not come to me that ye might have life".

He would be rejected and crucified at the hands of wicked men, but we know that this was not defeat but victory, as he would offer himself as a willing and perfect sacrifice for our sin, and accomplish the work that God the father had given him to do.

We started our thoughts by thinking of the title "the Son of God" and we close by remembering that the scriptures would say that "he spared not his own Son..." How lovely to think that God would give his very own son to die in our stead!

As we journey through another week, let us keep these thoughts in our hearts and offer praise and worship to God for his lovely Son.

Yours in Christ - Mark