Meditations

John 3:1-17

Reread verse 2, keeping in mind that this is one of Judaism’s rulers from Jerusalem addressing an ex-carpenter from Nazareth. What Nicodemus had to say about Jesus truly was remarkable. But notice that Nicodemus still didn’t declare Jesus to be God Himself. Though Nicodemus already knew and discerned a lot about Jesus, he still didn’t know Jesus, because he had been born only once.

If Nicodemus would have had the right acquaintance with the Old Testament, he would have understood what Jesus said to him.

Faith in Jesus delivers from eternal destruction and leads into possession of life. This is eternal life, a perpetual life of immeasurable quantity and quality. This is God’s kind of life, the kind enjoyed in eternity, rich and abundant. To not choose this through the Son is to choose death.

Jesus is the way of salvation and life; not the Law, not Jewish ethnicity. Whosoever means the scope of salvation is as broad as the human race. Gentile and Jew alike are the objects and recipients of God’s love. And that love now comes only through Christ. What a clash with Nicodemus’ understanding of God’s interaction with mankind! Read it all

Exodus 20:8-11, 31:12-16

Is Sunday the Sabbath?

The simplest answer I can think of is “No.” Various Scripture passages clearly identify the Sabbath as the seventh day of the week. A quick check of the calendar should verify that Sunday is the first day. So just in that sense, Sunday is not the Sabbath. However, we need to probe beyond the placement of days in the week.

A law. Some 2500 years after God gave man the gift of one-day-a-week rest, He codified the gift into law. He demanded that His people not do any work one day each week. He stipulated a severe penalty for violation of that law: death. The history of the children of Israel includes the sad account of a man who dared ignore the Sabbath law. Can you imagine facing your executioners knowing that if you’d just let those sticks lie till tomorrow you wouldn’t be here (Numbers 15:32-36)!

A day. God didn’t let His people decide on their own, neither as a group nor as individuals, which day of the week they would observe His laws regarding the rest day. He specified one specific day to be kept, generation after generation for centuries. God declared the last day of the week to be His day. So God sanctified the Sabbath. This would be their day of rest and a special day to delight in God. They were to keep it with total rest.

A sign. God chose the Israelites from all of Earth’s tribes and nations, calling them out, sanctifying them, making them holy. And they knew it. Each time the Sabbath cycled around, they remembered the covenant between them and God. No doubt they remembered the words Jehovah had spoken to Moses, “It is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you” (Exodus 31:13). They knew that they were what they were because of God’s work in them and among them. At least that was the Lord’s plan!

So why then is Sunday our special day?! Read it all

John 1:35-51

The interest in Jesus by John’s disciples surely blessed John, giving him a sense of satisfaction in seeing his mission beginning to be fulfilled. His ministry was bearing fruit, not losing it!

His mission was to prepare the way of the Lord, calling people to discipleship to Jesus. When some of John the Baptist’s disciples left him to follow Jesus, his mission was fulfilled, not diminished.

Nathanael objected to the idea of the Christ coming from Nazareth. Perhaps this was due to local biases. But perhaps John 7:41 and 52 give deeper reasons. First, the Christ wasn’t foretold as coming from Galilee. Second, they had no record of any Galilean prophets, past or future.

Whatever the case, Nathanael knew enough to reject the notion that anybody from Nazareth could be the Messiah. And yet, after meeting Jesus, he went from “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” to “You are the Son of God and the King of Israel!”

In this passage, God declared several facets of Jesus’ identity through the testimony of five different people.

• John the Baptist — “Behold the Lamb of God!”
• Andrew — “We have found the Messias.”
• Philip — “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
• Nathanael — “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.”
• Jesus — “Ye shall see…the Son of man.”

Acknowledging information regarding Jesus’ identity is crucial, but insufficient. Awakening faith in Jesus as the Messiah is one of the objectives of this Gospel (John 20:31).

Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of John: “What seek ye?” (John 1:38).

John 1:45 seems to indicate that Philip had been on a heart search for the Messiah, and found Him when he was found by Him.

I read this somewhere but cannot confirm its accuracy: Rabbis used the expression under the fig tree to describe meditating on the Scriptures.