The Word of Truth Ministries
|
| |
|
Understanding Calvary's Cross Eli, Eli, la ma sabach thani? |
|
|
The mystery, the majesty, and the wisdom poured out on Calvary has always fascinated me since I began seeing things through the eyes of God. Whenever I begin to contemplate Calvary, I linger on the subject in amazement at the deep wisdom and love of God. Calvary is a familiar, even common theme on the lips of many, but because it is common does not mean it is understood by the many who hold it common. But when you understand it, it is so godly beautiful that it simply takes my breath away. And since I have just completed a long message that touched Calvary somewhat, and I am still awed by it, I will delve into it further, while God's spirit is still illuminating it in my heart. Jesus taught his disciples privately and publicly that he had to go Jerusalem and be tortured and killed at Calvary. One day while He was teaching this truth publicly, Peter, under the prompting of Satan, rebuked Christ of this future reality. His rebuke projected a human form of reasoning and wisdom; it also projected a sense of protection for his messiah. [Mat. 16:21-23; Mk. 8:31-33]. Hidden in Peter's human wisdom was Satan's subtle attempt to deny him the sight and wisdom of God. Through Peter's words Satan also attempted to blind Jesus to and divert Him from the very purpose for His coming to this world. But as quick as Satan was to work Peter's human blindness, Jesus was quicker to call him out and tell Peter and the other disciples that human sentimentality was at work, not godly wisdom. Peter had allowed Satan to move him into passion that clouded his understanding of what Jesus had taught him and the other disciples. This mistake is all too common among too many of us. It is clear that in rebuking Peter, Jesus was talking to all his disciples and us; noted in Mark's gospel is this comment: "But when he had turned about and looked at his disciples...." He looked at all of them, but rebuked Peter and called Satan out. [Mk. 8:33] The purpose of Christ coming into this world would have been useless if Satan could have, through human sentimentality or any other means, gotten Jesus to merely go about the countryside preaching, healing the sick, doing miracles, and then die a peaceful death in some soft bed after many years of his ministry. But such a life was not the reason God disrobed Himself of His eternal glory, veiled himself with the likeness of sinful flesh, and came to the earth. He could have had prophets to preach, teach, done miracles, etc. But only He could do what had to be done to bring salvation to His creation. And it was for purposes of Calvary that He came into this world. Calvary! [Psa.14:2-4; Isa.53:5; 59:16; Rev.5:5] The Garden of Eden: Man is a created being; we did not come into being or evolve autonomously of God. We were made by Him. Furthermore, everything that is made was made by Him. [John 1] Genesis 2, indicates that after God had made all things, he made the beast of the field and man in the sixth day. The Bible says He formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Thereafter, He placed the man in a garden He made for him. Man was made outside of Eden and placed inside of Eden thereafter. Eden was also made by God, especially for man. It was in Eden that God gave Adam, which means man, instructions and His command. In verses 16 and 17, God specifically instructed man and prohibited certain actions.
It was after Adam was put into the garden that God observed that it was not good that he should be alone. Then, out of the ground, God also created the beasts of the field and birds of the air and took them to man to be named and to see if they were suitable for him. They were not. But God gave Adam the command above: Don't eat of the tree and if you do, you will die in the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam in Context: God's command given to Adam was a command given to all of humanity and it was a command with consequences for all of humanity. God's largess to Adam was the largess to all of mankind. If Adam rose or fell, humanity rose or fell. Paul stated at Athens that of one blood made He all nations to dwell on the face of this earth. All of us have one earth origin: Adam; God made him and he multiplied to us. [Acts 17:26] The fate of Adam descended to his children. Indeed, there was a proverb that speaks to Adam's fate: "The fathers ate sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." [Jer. 31:29; Ezek.18:2-3] So we were tied to Adam's fate and his standing with God. Time was not a factor or barrier that prevented the extension of God's command to Adam upon us even today. Time did not exist as we now know it when Adam was formed and placed into Eden. God inhabits eternity, [Isa. 57:15] and that is a different time-space and frame of reference from our time. Peter said that a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day with God. [2 Pet.3:8] So the dimensions of time were not as we now know them. Indeed, God's ways and thoughts are not like man's. [Isa. 55:8-9] While in Eden, God walked among them, talked with them and had regular fellowship with God, but in Genesis 3, we see a change of man's relationship with God. Instead of the fellowship, an abrupt end came. In symbolic gesture, but real events, the Bible describes how man came to an abrupt end of fellowship with God. Even in Eden Satan came to intrude in the affairs of God. The Bible says, it was the serpent, representing Satan, who came to Eve, the mother of us all, questioned what God had said to Adam--Eve intuitively knew what God had commanded Adam; she was a part of Adam's very body when the command was given. Next, after the woman was in meaningful dialogue with the serpent, he contradicted God's word totally.(What and how Satan acted at his first appearance is how he acts even today. I made this observation 25 years ago in a small book I wrote entitled We Wrestle not Against Flesh and Blood: "Satan need not change his tactics because the old ones still work.") "You shall not surely die..." he said. After contradiction, he provided rationalization for his contradiction: For God knows that to eat, your eyes will come open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. It was that rationalization that brought the woman to Satan's reasoning and acceptance of God as a liar. After Satan had said God was a liar, and the woman had accepted God as Satan mischaracterized him, she viewed the tree differently. It became a tree good for food and pleasant to the eyes to make one wise; then she took of the fruit and ate and gave to her husband who, strangely, the scripture says was there with her but did not stop her, and he ate too. [Gen. 3:1-4] Yet Paul argued that Adam was not deceived. So the only way we can understand this complexity in his failure to act is to understand the eternal sovereignty of God and Adam understanding that sovereignty or his being kept closed, as some of Jesus' disciples were. [Mark 16; Lke. 24; 1 Tim. 2:14] Once Adam and Eve ate, their eyes were opened, but what did they see and know? Satan had said that they would be like God, knowing both good and evil, but they simply knew they were naked. They were already like God--they were made by him; they were His children. When Satan told them they would know good and evil, he did not define or make clear know; he simply said it, and they were not operating on informed knowledge but half truths and withheld definitions. The knowing of evil they received as a result of eating was God's curse; for they became the recipients of evil for their disobedience. Satan absconded with God's creation Further evidence of Satan's inability to create is that God created the angels that were in a confederation with him. And they were thrown out of heaven with him. Satan seems to have the ability to intice others to follow him, but he has no power to create or else he would have created his own man and his own angels. Notice the method of Satan's deception: questioning of God's word to tempt disobedience; contradiction and rationalization of that contradiction; finally, veiled lies, half truths, which are whole lies. After that process is implemented, and man accepts it, then Satan absconds with man. Second, notice man's offense: Adam, humanity's federal head, accepted Satan's mischaracterization of God, who cannot lie, as a liar. [Heb. 6:18] Adam and Eve rejected God's word and accepted Satan's lie about God and His word. In so doing, man rejected the special place God had for him to accept the lowly station of Satan. Little is often much God made temporary coats of skin as covering for their nakedness, but He was so angered by this affair of man with Satan who came through the serpent, He cursed the serpent above all animals, He promised enmity between the serpent's seed and the woman's seed--the serpent will bruise her seed's heel, but that seed shall bruise the serpent's head; and to the woman, He said her sorrows will be multiplied along with her conception, and when she has children from those conceptions, the birth will be in sorrow. She will also look to her husband, and he shall rule/have dominance over her. To Adam He said, because he had disobeyed His word, the earth/ground would be cursed and said that man shall eat of it in sorrow; the earth will be hard to man and through his hard work would he eat bread of the earth. Also, man would return back to the earth, since man was nothing more than dust without God--death. That was the curse that God gave man as a result of his sin. But more was to come still: because of man's sin, God drove man from the garden, a place where man once walked and talked with God, and God placed a cherubim (angel) and a flawing sword at the east side of the garden to keep all away from the tree of life. [Gen. 3:23-24] This represented a breach in man's relationship with his creator, his father, his God. That break was cemented with a cherubim and the sword being placed at the entrance to the garden. That break also represented man's death because the tree of life was inside the garden of Eden, and man was outside; God had said that in the day that man ate of the fruit they would die. They did not die instantly, but within God's day they died, which is evidence that God's time is different from our time. Man is continuing to die more rapidly the longer we lived. The Breach between God and Man: The Psalmist wrote that God looked down to see if there was any
righteous among man and found that they had all gone astray; there
was none righteous, no not one. [Psa.4;
2-4] Man has gone totally astray since being driven out
of the garden and evil men and seducers are waxing worse and worse.
And this state of man is wicked and he has stabilized himself in
that wicked state. Hence, God's back is turned away from man. Isaiah
said that man's iniquities have separated us from God and sins
have hidden His face far from us that He will not hear. Indeed,
the 59th Chapter of Isaiah depicts a total state of man that
is repulsive to God's dignity. Seeing the behavior of man, one would
have a problem believing that God is our maker because of how vile
our behavior has become. But that vileness is the direct result
of our separation from the face of God and our listening to Satan's
voice. [Isa.
59; Rom. 3:10-18] The Psalmist said that humankind, after Eden, was born in sin, we were shaped in iniquity. Indeed, Adam and Eve had no children in Eden, only after Eden were children born to them. Outside of Eden was a state of sin. David said in sin did my mother conceived me. [Psa. 51:5] This was the state and fate of all mankind. Furthermore, David attributed his birth state to his condition of sin. Whereas God desired truth in man's inward parts, David argued that he could not produce truth because of his birth condition; a condition of sin. [Psa. 51:6-7] Paul discussed that conflict of the old nature that David asked to be washed from: "....When I would do good, evil is present with me." So tormented was man, implied by David's Psalm 51 requested to be washed with hyssop, that Paul exclaimed in Romans 7, "Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" This human torment of having gone from God, having listened to the voice of Satan, and having had the gates of heaven closed to human contact continued for years, as the few prophets of God would get a word here and there from God to his people. This condition of man was much like a father who has cut off his son because of some horrible wrong that son has done. The father watches over his son from a distance, sending a word to his son every now and then through an intermediary, but seldom directly. Sometimes that father would make disguised visits, but always veiled and clouded in secrecy. As God's people distanced themselves from Him more and more, their longing, although abstract, grew more and more. The small group of people God called out to get His word to the world through them [Jews] was increasingly growing anxious and lonely. They traveled the dusty shores and baron lands, asking themselves, their prophets and wisdom, "When will Shiloh come? When will God turn his face back to his people? When will He hear us again? When will we be reconciled to our maker?" ________ |
|
|
The Word of Truth Ministries
|