What Jesus could not be as the pre-Incarnate Christ was to be personal to every man. What Jesus could not be as the Incarnate Christ was everywhere at once. The Incarnation was therefore critical to God’s expanding rule. Both personal and everywhere at once!

Not as a geographical land conquering, but with Jesus as Lord of an expanding numbers of hearts.

It began with His teachings, but required His death in order to grow the Kingdom of God.

For that reason, the ongoing presence of God (the Holy Spirit) came at Pentecost, and empowered witnesses of the Gospel to the farthest reaches of the earth.

And now He’s counting on His followers, Jesus’ disciples throughout the ages, to faithfully share the Good News (which is Jesus’ Incarnation, yes! But also His Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension).

In two Messianic passages of Scripture, we see the Gospel outlined, revealing the identity of the Christ, the One whose birth we celebrate at Christmas as the birth of Jesus.

Isaiah 52:6 Therefore my people will know my name; therefore in that day they will know that it is I who foretold it. Yes, it is I.” 7 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” 8 Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they shout for joy. When the LORD returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. 9 Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. 10 The LORD will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. 11 Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the LORD. 12 But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the LORD will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard. 13 See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. 14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him–his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness– 15 so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.

Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. 11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Thought for the day: The death of the eternal One paved the way for an entire flock of the faithful to enter in through His sacrifice. It’s God’s expanding rule.

Questions for pondering:

1. What is your role in expanding the Kingdom? Have you given your life to Christ and asked Him to forgive you? If you’re in the Kingdom, that’s one more than without you.
2. What is your role in expanding the Kingdom to others?

====

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

In the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Kevin McCallister says to a New York City taxi driver, “Boy, it’s scary out there.” The scary-looking driver responds, “Ain’t much better in here, kid.”

It’s a scary world out there for all of us. There’s terrorism in Paris and San Bernardino. It’s a world of human trafficking and our culture passing off things as no big deal and a woman’s right when if it were done at Dachau, it would have been something so horrific, we couldn’t bear to see it. It would be worthy of a world war to stop it.

We’ve lost our moral compass as we’ve lost our devotion to God. Arguably, God has already turned His eye from blessing the United States of America. We’re like a biplane of human moral aimlessness flying in a sky of ethical uncertainty. Plus, we’re flying wounded and Americans are frightened.

What we need is peace, but not the kind the world gives. The kind that only God can give.

Before Jesus went to the Cross, He said, John 14:25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. 28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, 31 but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me. “Come now; let us leave.”

The whole reason Jesus came to earth, the entire reason behind the Incarnation, was to bring us an everlasting peace by His shed blood. Not a peace the world can give at all.

In Romans 5, it is stated this way: Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Today’s thought comes from the benediction in Hebrews 13:20 May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Question for pondering: There’s only one religion of peace and only one true God who offers it in His Incarnation. Do you know this God of peace?

====

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

Unlike technology where the second is called a beta version (often viewed as a product or service deemed unready for mainstream consumption) when Jesus came as the Second Adam, He was perfect. Beta products may not ready for prime time and people will wait for debugged items to hit the store shelves, but Jesus was simply second, not faulty in any way. And His return (the Second Coming) will be just as powerful as His first Advent, the Incarnation.

He had to come as the Second Adam because the first one didn’t obey God’s command.

Even after the first Adam’s descendants had it all spelled out for them in the law.

Romans 8:3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man.

Unlike the alpha Adam, the Second Adam was absolutely perfect.

Read Romans 5: 12-21 especially verses 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Indeed, this life is not just for earth but beyond it. 1 Corinthians 15:20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. …42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

Thought for the day: Perfection had to come in the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, in order for us to experience life through His death. The life He gives is eternal and the resurrection is a trail He blazed ahead of us.

Questions for pondering:

1. If Jesus hadn’t been the perfect Second Adam, would His death have mattered any more than yours or mine?
2. If we were all to behave perfectly can we be a god too? Let me answer that one. No! That is the stuff of heresies and false religions.
3. Why is Jesus’ death sufficient, and what is it about us that makes it impossible for our deaths to be sufficient no matter how well-behaved we are?

====

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

As we’ve begun to consider the Incarnation as the means through which God makes us acceptable to Him, we cannot forget that the scarlet cord running through it has always been sacrifice.

It was sacrifice when God supplied the ram so that Abraham’s faith would shine and the line of God’s promise would carry forth through Isaac, just as He said. And it was sacrifice too, when God supplied the perfect Lamb so that our faith might shine and God’s promise would be fulfilled … once and for all time.

We don’t like to think about sacrifice in our culture. Everything is designed for the easiest way out.

Take a pill and lose 10 pounds with no change in your diet or lifestyle required. “There’s no need to give up, cut back, or be responsible!” our political culture screams. “Just take on more debt. Easy-peasy. You can do it.  Kick the can down the road.”

There’s just one little problem: eventually one must pay the piper.

And in the case of sin and judgment, the cost is higher than any of us can pay.

So Jesus did it for us. 

It was sacrifice and cost His very life.

Hebrews 9:22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. 23 It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Thought for the day: Jesus’ Incarnation always had Good Friday as its earthly end. The gift of the Christ Child at Christmas was always meant as Easter’s Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice.

Questions for pondering:

1. How did God supplying the ram (Genesis 22) instead of Isaac serve to keep God’s promise alive?
2. We don’t do animal sacrifices anymore. Why?
3. In our aversion to blood, have we lost something of the understanding of sacrifice?
4. There is a widely known phenomenon on social media called the “Online Disinhibition Effect” in which people say awful things to each other that we would never say in-person or in front of a crowd of actual onlookers. We don’t see what damage, hurt, and harm we’re doing to people because they are not present, they’re virtual. How is the lack of “blood” if you will, as feedback on our behaviors missing, and contributing to such poor behavior?

====

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

The Incarnation was never the end game. It was always preparing the way. The way of peace. The way of reconciliation. The way of ongoing presence of God. And the way for the Holy Spirit to come.

In the Incarnation, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all had some skin in the game, even if Jesus was the only one who would ever have actual skin.

Up until now, we’ve primarily looked at the Incarnation as solving a problem. That problem is what to do when a holy God still wants to maintain relationship and preserve His Image … but when His Image bearers are a bunch of sinners.

Today, however, I’d like for us to look at the Incarnation as preparing the way. In John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Yes, the Incarnation paved the way and Jesus is the Only Way. Eternal life is the future awaiting believers in Him.  That is a forward look.

Between now and the afterlife with Christ, we see the Incarnation preparing another way. The way to an ongoing presence of God for today in His Holy Spirit. The Bible has always looked forward to this.

Jeremiah 31: 31 “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD

Read Joel 2:15-32, especially verses 27 Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the LORD your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed. 28 ‘And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. 29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. 30 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. 32 And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD calls.

Thought for the day: The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and is God’s ongoing presence in the hearts of believers.  Were it not for the Incarnation preparing that way, we’d be unable to know God and the blessing of having His Holy Spirit to guide us.

Questions for pondering:

1. Read John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  What preparation work is Jesus doing?  How is He preparing it and us?
2. Read John 16:4 I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you. 5 “Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. 7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10 in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. 12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.”  How does this describe the work of preparing and the ongoing presence of God in the lives of believers?

====

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

When opposing groups come to some sort of peace agreement, each side usually gives up something to reach a so-called happy middle ground. It’s all about compromise and getting to a place of relationship.

Not so with God.

Because God is holy and we are sinners, there is no middle ground.

It’s like pregnancy, you either are or you aren’t. You’re holy or you’re not. And God, being holy, can have nothing to do with sin or the result is that He compromises His holiness. There is nothing He can do with sin except to eradicate it, punish it, and conquer it.

Jesus is God’s peace accord and He did it in the Incarnation.

Read all of the vastly misused Romans 8. Especially verses Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. …31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all– how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died– more than that, who was raised to life– is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Thought for the day: Jesus is our peace accord. God did not compromise His holiness to make peace with a death sentence we deserved. Know Justice. Know Peace.

Questions to ponder:

1. Why is it that we can never be holy apart from being “born-again” through faith in Christ?
2. Why does humanity prefer the idea of compromise? Of earning heaven? Of self-determination?
3. How is Jesus God’s peace accord and able to turn our disposition away from following our sin nature which leads to only death…and toward life in the Spirit?

====

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

Do you ever wish you’d lived back in the days when Jesus walked the earth?

To touch His human hand, to know His human voice, to see His human face, to hear His human laugh, and to look deep into His human eye… knowing what we know now… on this side of the Ascension? That He is God revealing Himself and He did it in Jesus’ Incarnation.

Scripture tells us that Hebrews 1:1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Jesus answered Thomas and Philip saying, John 14:7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.

Thought for the day: There was a point when Jesus-the exact representation and perfect Image of God-walked this earth. It was the Incarnation. And it was a miraculous revealing of who God is.

Questions for pondering:

1. Read John 16:12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you. 16 “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.” How does the work of revealing continue in the Holy Spirit?
2. Why did Jesus have to do the work of revealing in the Incarnation before the work of revealing could continue in the ministry of the Holy Spirit?

====

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

Sometimes I wonder how God felt about that whole flooding-of-the-earth deal. How necessary! How awful! How terrible! How incredibly sad!

Genesis 6: 5 The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth– men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air– for I am grieved that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

God’s heart was filled with pain.

God’s heart was filled with pain.  That’s a pain we will never understand.  Why? Because His Image, resident even in these evildoers—a broken image because of sin—was still His Image. God ended up sacrificing something of Himself in the flood, and the only redemption was in a man named Noah and his family. The only salvation was because of the ark God told him to make.

And even then, God was not starting with a clean slate, but only one as righteous as existed at that time.  The shadow of Adam still loomed.  Noah was righteous but not perfect. He was not holy. But God still is.

How sad, that even the animals had to pay the price for Adam’s sin. Adam—our representative head of our race—was mortal and was a sinner. Left to man’s own ways, we’re all destroyed and God’s Image in us is lost.  Every single one.  Every last vestige of God’s Image in humanity, utterly lost!

Enter the Incarnation. Jesus is the Second Adam who lives perfectly.

He is righteous. He is perfect. He is holy. He is God’s exact Image because He is God. 

And yet in the Incarnation, He’s also fully man.  Our Second Adam.

Moreover, He is the pathway to divine judgment.

He came to be sin for us as Scripture says, 2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Thought for the day: Just as Adam represented us and made us sinners, in the Incarnation Jesus represented us and by being God’s pathway to divine judgment, He makes us righteous by His shed blood.  If we’ll only receive His righteousness by our faith in Him.

Questions for pondering:

1. How was Jesus a better solution than another flood? Read Romans 5:19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.
2. How is God’s Image preserved by Jesus’ crucifixion as the pathway to divine judgment…in a way another flood would not?
3. When Jesus returns, He returns as Judge. Read Acts 10: 37 You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached– 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him. 39 “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41 He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen– by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” How is Jesus God’s pathway to divine judgment without destroying God’s Image as He did in the flood?
4. How are those who refuse to believe (that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life) no different than those who died in the flood? 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

====

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

One of the more intriguing concepts in the Bible is that God kept His promise to us by being both the Good Shepherd and the Lamb of God sacrificed for us.

Frankly, God was thoroughly ticked off at us. Especially at ministry leaders. They didn’t really have a clue how mad God was.  They were too busy watching out for themselves. So focused on their own needs, desires, lusts, and the horizontal of their own lives, they completely lost track of how they were openly defying the God who created them and elevated them to ministry service. There’s a whole lot going wrong with those ministry leaders.  When someone might have cautioned them about a bad decision, their motto might have been “I’m all about bad decisions!”

So God comes to the rescue.

Read Ezekiel 34:10-30 especially verses

Ezekiel 34:22 I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another. 23 I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. 24 I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the LORD have spoken… 30 Then they will know that I, the LORD their God, am with them and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Sovereign LORD.

This is Messianic and “my servant David” was fulfilled in Jesus. He is not only the Good Shepherd who cares for the flock, but also He lays His life down for it.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus owns it!

John 10: 2 “The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. 3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them. 7 Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me– 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father– and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life– only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

Thought for the day: In the Incarnation, Jesus became not only the Good Shepherd but the perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God.

Questions for pondering:

1. How is Jesus the gate?
2. How is Jesus the shepherd?
3. How is He the Lamb of God?
4. Who are the other sheep not of this sheep pen (v. 16)?
5. What is it that will make us one flock and who is the one shepherd?

====

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><