http://youtu.be/NK8VWcw8BOM “The Science is in!”
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(The views expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
Basic Facts
When you first study theology there are three basic facts that you learn about God: He is omnipotent, that is, He can do everything, He is omniscient, that is, He knows everything, and He is omnipresent, that is, He is everywhere. There are some problems with this. The first issue is found in Titus 1:2, “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;” God cannot lie and, in fact, He cannot be inconsistent. The second issue is found in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” The Lord Jesus Christ is a risen, glorified man in heaven but He has never known what it is to sin and He never will. These facts do not diminish God in any way and allow us to have complete confidence in everything He says and does. We can look at the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and be at rest. When the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the grave, the disciples saw Him and they were glad, see John 20: 20-25.
“And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
What does it mean to be gad? We can start considering this by looking at the context first.
A good place to start is in Matt 16:21-23: at that stage, the Lord Jesus Christ started to explain to His disciples that He was going to Jerusalem and ultimately die and rise again. Peter, rebuked the Master and told Him that it wasn’t going to happen. Our Saviour said, “Get behind me Satan.” He wasn’t calling Peter Satan but He knew that the Father of Lies was trying to use Peter, at that stage, to discourage Him. Even though the Lord Jesus Christ didn’t ever think one sinful thought, He also knew that self indulgence saps a person’s commitment and He refused to let Satan have the opportunity to reduce His determination to save others. The Holy Ghost had not yet come to the disciples. We can see from this that the Lord’s disciples didn’t understand that He was born to die, to be the Lamb of God, Who took away the sin of the world.
Even after the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the grave, the disciples had not changed their world view. Just before the Master returned to heaven, the disciples still asked Him if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. (Acts 1:6)
Sometimes we go through an experience that is so profound and painful that we can’t really understand it. An experience that completely destroys our world view. It may be the unexpected death of a loved one or a serious betrayal. We cannot believe that it has happened. Experiences like this permanently change our lives and, often, we don’t completely recover from.
The Lord’s disciples had been through one of those experience; their world view was completely destroyed. They had been brought up on the belief that the Messiah was going to come and restore the kingdom to Israel. By this, they believed that there would be a restored physical kingdom with the Lord Jesus Christ sitting on the throne and ruling instead of the Romans. Our Saviour tried to teach them that He had come as the Suffering Servant but this was so foreign to their world view that they could not believe Him.
Suddenly they were confronted with a cataclysmic experience. Everything they believed in was turned upside down. All their hopes were destroyed when the Lord Jesus Christ was taken away from them and crucified by the Romans.
After the Master was taken away, nine of the disciples ran away. The other two tried to see what was happening. John knew some people in the High Priests family and went there so that he could see the outcome of the arrest while Peter went with the crowd and, eventually went inside. (John 18: 15, 16)
They were all deeply scarred and grieving and tried to hide away. By the Sunday evening most of them were together in secure hiding place because they were scared. I’m sure they were together to comfort each other as they tried to come to terms with the trauma.
At that stage they saw the Lord Jesus Christ, resurrected, glorified and clothed in the fine white linen garments of His own righteousness. They were glad. Suddenly they felt a strong sense of peace and security.
The Lord Jesus Christ took the time to make sure that all those who believed in Him and loved Him had the same opportunity to be sure that He was alive during the forty days before He went back to heaven. (See 1 Cor 15: 5-7) This was another act of grace on His part and prepared them for the Day of Pentecost. (Compare verse 22)
Aaron
After Moses met the Lord at the burning bush the Lord sent him back to Egypt to set Israel free. The Lord told Moses that his brother would be glad in His heart to see him.
Aaron was three years older than Moses so he knew the story of Moses’s miraculous birth. Obviously, Aaron was born before Pharaoh commanded that all the Hebrew babies be killed at birth (Ex 1: 16)
He would have spent forty years wondering what happened to Moses during those years after he ran away from Pharaoh and lived in Midian. Aaron was glad when he found out that Moses was alive, that he survived even though he was missing and they didn’t know what happened to him.
In Zechariah 10:5–12, the Lord looks forward to a time when Israel, again, has God’s favour. In that day, when the Lord is with them, who can be against them? The Lord will have mercy on them and they will rejoice and be glad. Not because of anything that they have done but purely because the Lord is with them.
When the Lord gave the Sermon an the Mount He said, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven:” (Matt 5: 11, 12)
At the Lord’s second coming to the earth a voice will call from heaven and say, “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come.” (Rev 18: 7)
The prophecy of the resurrection in Psalm 1118: 26 tells us, “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Being glad is often associated with rejoicing but is different. When we rejoice we have a wonderful feeling swelling up inside us that fulfils our greatest desires. On the other hand, being glad is a secure feeling of contentment and hope that makes us sure that we cannot be moved from our place of safety. For the Christian both these feeling are firmly based on the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ both died for our sin and rose again. His resurrection gives us a immoveable basis for taking advantage of the power that comes from the Holy Ghost.
Rest
The Lord Jesus Christ said, “Come unto me… and I will give you rest.” (Matt 111:28) When we are secure in the eternal truth that our Saviour died and rose again we will be glad and have rest for our souls.
When the Lord God created the heavens and the earth, on the seventh day He saw that they were finished and He rested (Gen 2:1-3) It is interesting to note that God sanctified the seventh day. This the first time that God set something apart for a special purpose in creation.
Towards the end of time, during the tribulation period, an angel cries out and says, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours;” (Rev 14:13)
We can see, from these, that rest comes after God has finished something and when God takes the time to deliver people from their labours. So, rest is a natural consequence of being glad.
We Have Forsaken All
Peter raised a very important point when he said, “we have forsaken all, and followed thee;” (See Matt 19: 27-30) How can we be glad, and at rest, when we are called to deny ourselves to follow Christ?
The Lord Jesus Christ promised Peter, and all who believe in Him, “every one that hath forsaken … shall receive an hundredfold …” Does that mean that if we leave the things that the world has to offer in order to follow the Lord Jesus Christ we will receive, in return, the things that the world has to offer?
When our Saviour was being tried by Pilate, He said, “My kingdom is not of this world…” (John 18: 36) We also know that, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Cor 4: 18) We have been called to a heavenly kingdom and we are blessed in heavenly places with every spiritual blessing. (Eph 1: 3)
Everyone on earth longs for security and to feel significant so they try to satisfy these longings be obtaining things like, “…houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands” or, perhaps, fame and fortune. However the Lord has promised us, the peace of God, (Phil 4: 7, Col 3: 15) the joy of our salvation, (Psalm 51: 12) every spiritual blessing in heavenly places (see Eph 1: 3) and we are loved with an everlasting love (Jer 31: 3)
We can be glad when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ because He satisfies us in every way: physically, emotionally and spiritually today and every day. (Compare Heb 3: 13)
