The 7 Mile Bible Study

We’re currently in the 50 day period between the resurrection of the Lord, Jesus Christ, and Pentecost which is the birthday of the Church, the day the promised comforter, the Holy Spirit was given in Acts chapter 2.

Five minutes before the Holy Spirit came there was no such thing as the Church. Five minutes after, the Church was born. The Holy Spirit indwells each and every believer making us all part of one body, the Church of which Christ Jesus is the head.

Last week we tried to lay out the events surrounding the resurrection so that even the honest but natural mind can see that it’s actually harder to come up with alternatives than to believe the resurrection story as the Bible tells it.

Of course, this “evidence” appeals only to the natural mind. However, we simply can’t see the miracle of the resurrection through the natural mind, only through the eyes of faith. Human knowledge must be understood to be believed while Divine knowledge must be believed to be understood.

During the first forty days of the fifty-day journey to Pentecost, the resurrected Lord appeared in person to many people. Can we imagine the intense range of emotions that would have affected virtually every person living in Jerusalem during this period? The place would have been a hotbed of activity and there wouldn’t be a person who wasn’t affected by events.

Here we have a man claiming to be the promised Messiah, performing unprecedented miracles and speaking words that caused anger, hostility, hatred, fascination, excitement, expectation and love. Virtually no human emotion would have been excluded.

This man called Jesus of Nazareth has hundreds of dedicated followers along with many bitter enemies.

There must have been intense discussion around this Man who virtually turned the daily life of Jerusalem upside down. We can imagine that within the circles of family and friends there would have been those who were fierce defenders of Jesus and who accepted what He said and those who rejected His words and saw Him as a madman.

I caught a glimpse of this the other day when a friend was talking about his wife’s upcoming birthday. His main challenge was to take aside some particular relatives who were going to attend the party. These relatives were on opposite sides politically and were so opposed to each other’s positions that their hostility would spill over to the whole gathering whenever they got together as a family. We’ve all experienced a little of this during the last couple of years, haven’t we?

Because of the closeness and the intimate interaction of society in general in those days, this would have been much worse at this time.

Our music video last week gave some feeling about the range of emotions possibly experienced by the Apostle Peter. Like many others, Peter knew the prophecies foretelling the Messiah. How exciting it must have been to understand that finally after almost 3000 years, God’s Messiah was finally here, in our time, to overthrow once and for all the oppressors of the nation and set up the earthly Kingdom of God?

That excitement must have mixed with the hatred of those that saw the greatest blasphemy in history, a man claiming to be Almighty God in the flesh.

At the crucifixion of Christ, those emotions would have been reversed for both camps. The followers of Jesus would have seen all their hopes for the promised earthly Kingdom of God dashed to nothing, while the opposition would have rejoiced at their imagined victory over the blasphemer. There would have been great sorrow and despair at the dashed hopes and raucous delight and celebration that a madman was exterminated.

At the resurrection, these emotions would once again be reversed. The agonising despair of Jesus’ supporters would again be replaced with hope and excitement. The delight and celebration of His enemies would’ve turned to anger at the perceived grave robbery but with a good portion of doubt as to whether just maybe they had been wrong about this God-man. These emotions would have been heightened greatly by the constant reports that the resurrected Jesus was appearing to hundreds of people. He was talking with them, eating with them and teaching them.

This would have all climaxed 40 days after the resurrection, when, as we see in Luke 24:50-53, in sight of eyewitnesses the Lord ascended into heaven ending His earthy post-resurrection inhabitance of the earth until the yet future great event of His second coming.

This is the background to which the events around the trial, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ took place.

Talk about anxiety!

Now, let’s stand back a moment from the flurry and the intensity surrounding the Lord’s death, burial and resurrection.

Underneath everything that was happening and indeed everything that will happen in the future is an immovable foundation on which all these this rest.

It is the Word of God!

Every moment of Jesus’ earthly ministry, including His death, burial and resurrection was a fulfilment of ancient prophecies in God’s Word.

It is the Word that reveals that Jesus is Who He says He is.

Even Jesus’ chief accusers, the religious leaders of the day, knew the Word of God. They just didn’t recognise that it was being fulfilled in their time and they were participants exactly as prophecied.

One of the most fascinating occurrences after Christ’s resurrection was the bible study that Jesus Himself gave to two disciples on the seven mile walk on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24: 13-35.

In verses 25 to 27 we read, ”Then he said unto them (Jesus speaking), O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.“

Jesus showed them from the entire Old Testament the prophecies concerning Himself!

Now it’s unlikely that Jesus carried the many scrolls and books on His person but He didn’t need to. These disciples already knew the scriptures. However, just like Jesus’ enemies, these two disciples didn’t put it all together until the Lord Himself revealed it to them. And, that’s the only way you and I can have the Word made real to us, when the Lord Himself reveals it to us.

In Acts 1:15 the Apostle Peter announced to the one hundred and twenty or so disciples how scripture had been fulfilled. He obviously already knew the scripture as did those he was speaking to, but it was only now in light of the current events that it was starting to make sense to him.

So what were these scriptures that spoke so powerfully of all these things that happened in Jerusalem 2000 years ago? If we see their accuracy of them we can be sure that we can place our full faith and trust in the same scriptures that speak of the times that are yet to come. Times in fact that are unfolding right now.

Let’s go back to the good old Apostle Peter again. In 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 16 Peter says, “We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eyewitness of his majesty.”

What Peter is saying is, “We’re telling you what we saw! We were eyewitnesses”.  A few verses later,  in verse 19 he says, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy whereunto you do well that you take heed as unto a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts.” What did he mean?

Well, Peter is saying that even though he was an eyewitness to all these events there’s something even more certain! What could be more certain than an eyewitness? It’s the “more sure word of prophecy”! The “more sure word of prophecy” is the Word of God, the bible.

The Word of Prophecy is much more than a prediction of what may happen next week or in a year or two. The Word of Prophecy is the source through which we know Jesus really is Who He said He is, God with us.

What Jesus enlighted the disciples on the Emmaus road about and what underpinned the entire earthy ministry of Jesus Christ was The Old Testament of the Bible or the Tanakh as the Jews call it.

The Hebrew Scriptures that we call the Old Testament, the Tanakh, were translated into Greek by 270 BC. That’s important because it’s a matter of history and we have copies of that work that were around three centuries before the gospel period. So, all of the Old Testament was available in black and white and intangible form three centuries before Jesus was preaching.

Now, these Old Testament scriptures contain over 300 prophecies detailing the coming Messiah. Over 300 prophecies that were fulfilled during and immediately after Jesus’ earthly ministry. We don’t know exactly which scriptures Jesus showed the two disciples but since He showed them “all the scriptures the things concerning himself.“ He almost definitely showed them the ones that are quoted in the New Testament as being fulfilled. Let’s look at some of these.

• Jesus was to be born of David’s family you’ll find that in 2nd Samuel 7: 12-16, Psalms 89:3-4, Psalms 110:1 Psalms 132:11, Isaiah 9:6-7, Isaiah 11:1
• He would be born of a virgin that was hinted at in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:15 referring to the woman’s seed which would have to be planted supernaturally unlike the man’s seed as with every other human. It’s also confirmed in Isaiah 7:14
• He would be born in Bethlehem in Micah 5:2 Interestingly Micah 5:2 tells us not just that he’s born in Bethlehem but that he pre-existed from eternity past
• He would sojourn in Egypt in Hosea 11:1
• He would live in Galilee in Isaiah 9:1-2
• He would be announced in advance by an Elijah type Herald and Isaiah 40: 3-5, Malachi 3:1, Malachi 4:5
• He would be the reason for a massacre of Bethlehem’s children that are mentioned in Genesis 35:19-20 and Jeremiah 31:15
• He would proclaim a Jubilee to the world where slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven, and the mercies of God would be shown Isaiah 58:6, Isaiah 61:1
• His mission would include the Gentiles Isaiah 42:1-4
• His ministry would be one of healing Isaiah 53:4
• He would teach through the use of parables Isaiah 6:9-10, Psalms 78:2
• He would be disbelieved and rejected by the religious rulers of that period Psalms 69:4, Psalms 118:22, Isaiah 6:10, Isaiah 29:13, Isaiah 53:1
• He would make a triumphal entry into Jerusalem Zechariah 9:9, Psalms 118:26
• He’d be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver Zechariah 11:12-13, Psalms 41:9
• and He would be smitten like a shepherd as his sheep would be scattered Zechariah 13:7
• He would be given vinegar and gall Psalms 69:21
• They would cast lots for his garments Psalms 22:18
• His body would be pierced Zechariah 12:10, Psalms 22:16
• Yet not a bone would be broken. That was specified in the requirements for the Passover in Exodus 12:46, Numbers 9:12, Psalm 34:20
• He would die among the criminals Isaiah 53:9 and 12
• His dying words were foretold in Psalm 22:1, and Psalm 31:5. By the way, as we noticed in the article “View from the Cross” Psalm 22 reads as if it was dictated directly by Jesus as He hung on the cross even though it was written 800 years earlier. He says, “For the dogs have compassed me and the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me, they pierced my hands and my feet”. What’s remarkable is that this was written by King David 700 years before crucifixion was invented. In Israel, the form of capital punishment was stoning. The crucifixion was invented by the Persians in about 90 BC before being used heavily by the Romans.
• He would be buried by a rich man Isaiah 53:9
• He would rise from the dead on the third day that’s in Genesis 22:4, Psalms 16:10-11, Jonah 1:17 Hosea 6:2, and elsewhere
• His resurrection would be followed by the destruction of Jerusalem Daniel 9:26, Daniel 11:31, Daniel; 12:1 and 11. Jerusalem was indeed leveled and over 1,000,000 people were killed when the Roman army sacked Jerusalem in 70 AD.

As you can see these are just a few of the more than 300 prophecies regarding Jesus’ earthly ministry. Ask yourself what are the possibilities of these being fulfilled by chance? The chances of even one or two of them being fulfilled by chance is pretty remote but as each condition is added the possibility of chance is expanded way beyond any possibility.

This should display to any reasonable person that this message we know as the Bible comes from outside our time domain. God has placed this as His signature on the Word so that all who are honestly searching can be sure that God Himself has given us the message.

We can be sure that what 2^nd Corinthians 5:21 says is absolutely true, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

In other words, God made Jesus sin! What do we mean by He made Jesus sin? He treated him as if he had committed every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe, even though he committed none of them!

Hanging on the cross he was Holy, harmless and undefiled. Hanging on the cross he was a spotless lamb. He was never for a split second a sinner. He is the Holy Son of God on the cross but God is treating him as if he lived my life.

God punished Jesus for my sin then turns around and treats me as if I lived his life!

That’s the great doctrine of the church that was made possible by the cross. It’s the heart of the gospel.  What you and I get is complete forgiveness covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  When God looks at the cross he sees you and when he looks at you he sees Christ.