Monday, February 13, 2012

Jesus fulfilled the Law & the Prophets - Part 8 - John 1-7

  • John 1:17 - "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

  • John 1:23 - Quoting from Is. 40:3

  • John 1:45 - "Philip found Nathanael and told him, 'We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote - Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.'"

  • John 2:17 - fulfillment of Psalm 69:9

  • John 2:22 - "After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken." - Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures, but they couldn't see it until after the fact. They then saw the Scriptures through the understanding of Jesus fulfilling them.

  • John 2:23 - Jesus observed the Passover (as required by law)

  • John 3:14-15 - "'Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.'" What Moses did was important to the Children of Israel and those that believed were healed. But it was just a shadow of the real thing - Jesus.

  • John 3:18 - "'Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.'" THAT is what we are judged on.

  • Confirmed in John 3:36 - "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

  • John 4:1-26 - Jesus compared the water from Jacob's well with the living water the He gives

  • John 5:1-15 - Jesus healed the paralytic on the Sabbath then told him to pick up his bed and walk, even though that was against the law to do on the Sabbath.

  • John 5:16-18 - "So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 'My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.' For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God." Let me point out that the laws God gave to the Children of Israel were good and had their purpose, but they served to point to Jesus. The Sabbath was the sign of the old covenant and was a shadow of the rest we have in Jesus. It isn't inherently moral or holy - Jesus had no problem breaking it by the very laws God had given through Moses. Remember, even picking up firewood, cooking, or gathering manna on the Sabbath was forbidden to the Israelites by God!

  • John 5:24 - "'I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." (Salvation - yes, this is off my original topic, but I still had to point these passages out since they are so powerful!)

  • John 5:39-40 - "'You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you posses eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.'"

  • John 5:45-47 - "'But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?'"

  • John 6:28-29 - "Then they asked him, 'What must we do to do the works God requires?' Jesus answered, 'The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.'" Wow! That is the work God calls us to do! To believe! Not to keep His law perfectly to show to the universe that He is just.

  • John 6:25-59 - Jesus tell us He is the Bread of Life and compares Himself to the manna that God sent the Israelites (again, a comparison of Jesus with Moses). He shows how He is superior to the manna that God sent. This just occurred to me. Verse 47 tells us - "'Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.'" God gave them manna which was just a shadow of the real thing - Jesus the Bread of Life. Jumping ahead to Hebrews 3 & 4, we are told that the Israelites kept the 7th day Sabbath (also a shadow - see Col. 2:16-17) but never entered God's rest. Heb. 4:10 tells us how to enter God's rest - by resting from our own works. Jesus tells us that HE will give us rest. I just thought thought the symmetry of these two passages was neat!

  • John 6:31 - Quotes from Ex. 16:4 & Neh. 9:15 & Psalm 78:24-25

  • John 6:40 - We are told what God's will is - "'For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.'" Verse 47 - "'I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.'" It's that simple!

  • John 6:45 - Fulfillment of Is. 54:13

  • John 7:1-13 - Jesus attends the Feast of Tabernacles

  • John 7:19 - "'Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law..."

  • John 7:22-23 - "Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a child on the Sabbath. Now if a child can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath?'" This is a very revealing passage. Some people consider the Sabbath to be sacred and part of God's eternal law, and yet the so-called ceremonial laws trumped the Sabbath - even in the law that God gave. Remember, God is the one who gave circumcision and said that it must be done when a child is 8 days old (Gen. 17:12). He also gave the whole Law through Moses. And yet circumcision could be done on the Sabbath so "that the law of Moses may not be broken." How could a "ceremonial" law (circumcision) trump a "moral" law (the Sabbath)?

  • John 7:38 - "'Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.'"

  • John 7:42 - "Does not the Scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?"
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