And all the people continue coming early in the morning to him in the temple, for to hear him; yet the feast of unleavened bread draws nigh, which is called the Passover, and the chief priests and scribes keep seeking how to kill him! (For they feared the people.)<\/p>\n
So, while the people <\/em>heard Jesus gladly, certain aggressive and ambitious leaders <\/em>of the people hated Jesus and wanted him dead. (Even Pilate realized they were envious.) In this sense of irony Luke dovetails\u00a0nicely with John\u2019s use of the Greek word \u201cde\u201d (also unfortunately translated \u201cnow\u201d) which opens up the beginning of John 13, which, when considered in relation to what John is contrasting it to (previously in chap. 12), shows that, despite <\/em>the people not believing in Jesus though he showed them many miracles (12:37), and despite <\/em>many among the chief rulers who did <\/em>believe in him but were unwilling to confess their belief for fear the Pharisees would put them out of the synagogue (12:42), nevertheless <\/em>Jesus loved his own <\/em>even unto the end. Note here that the identity of those called \u201chis own\u201d is given to us by John at the beginning of his gospel in 1:11, when John observes with irony that the Word [Jesus] \u201ccame unto his\u00a0own, and they received him not.\u201d Thus John bookends all of his gospel prior to the Last Supper and the\u00a0momentous, final events which follow it, by showing that, though Jesus came unto his own who received him not (Jn. 1:11), he nevertheless loved them unto the end, even when he knew the hour of his death\u00a0was at hand (Jn. 13:1). The point in all this, insofar as the gospels of Luke and John, and the current point\u00a0under consideration in this book are concerned, is that \u201cNow,\u201d when rendered from the Greek de<\/em>, does not mean now<\/em>, nor does it act as a temporal locative. Rather, it means \u201cyet,\u201d and, like the other gospels, at times emphasizes the paradox of Israelite response which was divided in its opinion about Jesus.<\/p>\n Having examined, then, the critics\u2019 charge that there are contradictions in the timelines of the gospels, we find this accusation without substance. Of course we cannot stop people from disbelieving the gospels if they are determined to disbelieve. But from the evidence seen, we can say with sufficient confidence that the gospels are in fact reliably consistent in presenting Christ to be the Lamb of God, the Savior of the world, and the perfect fulfillment of the Old Testament symbolism of the lamb sacrifice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (g) F<\/strong>URTHER <\/strong>S<\/strong>IG<\/strong>N<\/strong>I<\/strong>FICANCE OF THE <\/strong>10<\/strong>T<\/strong>H <\/strong>O<\/strong>F <\/strong>N<\/strong>I<\/strong>S<\/strong>AN<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finally, concerning the 10th of Nisan, note that Jesus utters a remarkable statement on this day as he nears Jerusalem while riding on a donkey:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Luke 19:41-42<\/p>\n \u00a0And when he was come near, he beheld the City, and wept over it, saying, \u201cIf you had known, even you, at least in this your day<\/strong>, the things which belong unto your peace! yet now are they hid from your eyes\u201d (NASB).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thus Jesus refers to this day of his Triumphal Entry\u2014which he calls their <\/em>day, i.e., the Jews\u2019 day\u2014as the time when they should have recognized the Messiah\u2019s coming. This is because if they had they been counting off 69 weeks (483 years of 360 days each) since the time the commandment went forth to restore and build Jerusalem\u2014<\/em>the very City he now was about to enter for the purpose of bringing it peace\u2014they would have known that Messiah would afterward be cut off, yet not for his own sins. The cutting off of\u00a0the innocent at this time of year for sins not his own (since he had never sinned) therefore implied God\u2019s\u00a0Passover sacrificial Lamb, scheduled to be killed on the 14th of Nisan, 33 AD. And therefore the Jews should have been looking for God to show in some demonstrable way the setting apart of that Lamb just before that<\/em>, which according to Old Testament symbolism should occur on the 10th of Nisan. And, indeed, in 33 AD there he was! But because Christ\u2019s own race had not set their hearts to know the time of Messiah\u2019s cutting off, they did not recognize him at his coming. And so Christ\u2014who on that Passover\u00a0could have been sacrificed by a believing <\/em>people, i.e., without any particular malevolence on their part but with knowledge that the Messiah would need to die, even as Abraham committed himself to sacrifice Isaac upon the altar without any malevolence toward him\u2014was instead rejected.<\/p>\n Likewise, most Gentiles today reject Christ. There is wholesale ignorance of the prophecies concerning the Messiah in the Old Testament, including that of Daniel 9:25-26a. But indeed, each of us has been oblivious to such truths at one point or another. And so each has lost himself or herself to some anxious- minded business in this cared-filled world consumed with its own transient ways, and ignored the Messiah who sacrificed himself for us. But having read here of the prophecy of Daniel, perhaps some reader now feels differently about the matter. If so, let me encourage him or her to act on this conviction now <\/em>and tell the Messiah you recognize his sacrifice for your sins. For although he was cut off from this world, he raised himself on the third day, the day of the First Fruits Offering according to Old Testament symbolism, so that he might be the firstborn from the dead (Col. 1:18). For he will surely save all those who trust in him.<\/p>\n It is an amazing thought to realize the Messiah is alive even as you read this. And his life is in himself, as he said. For in Mark 10:34 we are told that Jesus took his disciples aside to tell them the Son of Man would be killed, and would rise the third day. Here the verb \u201crise\u201d is in the middle voice in Greek, meaning self- reflexive action. That is, Jesus was not saying he would be raised (though elsewhere he did state that God would raise him). Rather, in Mark 10 Jesus is saying he would raise himself<\/em>. Now, we know that no mere creature is able to raise himself from the dead, any more than a mere creature could conceive the prophecy which was delivered unto Daniel about a coming Messiah who would be cut off.<\/p>\n Now observe that one of the characteristics of the Creator is that, although he draws all people to himself, he paradoxically wants to be searched out and found. This is why the Messiah was sent\u2014to help people find God. Combining the insights of Genesis 1 and John 1 we know that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were all Persons involved in creating man, and then reaching out to him. \u201cWithout him [the Logos, i.e. Christ],\u201d says John, \u201cwas not anything made that was made\u2026And he came unto his own\u2026.\u201d Yet despite his pre-human, eternal existence, the Son humbled himself to do the will of his Father. (The term \u201cSon\u201d refers to Christ\u2019s function, not to any ontological or chronological inferiority to the Father.) Now note that though Jesus said he would only do what his Father showed him\u2014and in fact did many miracles while on earth\u2014he refrained from doing the kind of miraculous signs and wonders in the heavens that the Jews of his own generation demanded a Deity should do, to prove his pre-human existence. Instead Jesus said the only sign they would receive was the sign of Jonah\u2014i.e., that the Son of Man would be in the earth [but for] three days and three nights. For imagine the likely outcome had Jesus condescended to his generation\u2019s demands for miraculous signs in the heavens. Surely people would have\u00a0\u2018believed\u2019 for the wrong reason. That is, they would be afraid that anyone powerful enough to perform\u00a0such miracles in the heavens could easily kill them, were they not to confess that he was God. And so, while they would hasten to confess <\/em>Jesus to be God, and even for fear and for \u2018brownie points\u2019 confess him to be a good <\/em>God, many would not really believe he was good at all, but that he was merely coercing their\u00a0confession under threat. This is why God does not legitimize confessions motivated solely by threat. He wants people to believe in and confess to his goodness without putting them under coercion. This stands in stark contrast to the method of numerous evil rulers and their minions throughout history. These have tortured persons into making false confessions, something these interrogators seem to value even more than their own blueblood confessions, taking, as they do, a perverse pleasure in them.<\/p>\n The Incredulity of St. Thomas, by Caravaggio. \u201cThen He said to Thomas, \u201cReach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.\u201d Thomas answered and said to Him, \u201cMy Lord and my God!\u201d (Jn. 20:27-28; NASB)<\/p><\/div>\n Yet someone may object: \u201cBut God does <\/em>coerce if he promises to punish all who disbelieve.\u201d But the suffering of God\u2019s judgment comes after <\/em>this life, not during it. And Ecclesiastes states just how much (or little) effect God\u2019s mercy has on us:\u00a0<\/p>\n Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil (8:11).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The exception of judgment in this life is when God judges a people or nation after generations of\u00a0disobedience, like that which came upon the people in Noah\u2019s time. Yet God had given the people of Noah\u2019s generation 120 years to repent after <\/em>he saw that men\u2019s hearts imagined evil only. The point is, God is not merely patient but also just; and therefore he must at some point punish evil, or else be unjust. But nowhere in the Bible does God hastily bring judgment. For the Scripture says, \u201cAll day long I have reached out my hands to a disobedient and accusatory people.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n C<\/strong>ON<\/strong>CLUSION<\/strong><\/p>\n About once a month I get dinner with a friend of mine who believes all religions are the same. Yet he hadn\u2019t always thought they were. But one day he exited church and looked across the street and saw a man mowing his lawn, and he wondered why that man should be excluded from the \u2018in\u2019 crowd\u2014his <\/em>crowd, the church <\/em>crowd, the crowd that believed in Jesus. This was the beginning of what would prove to be my friend\u2019s disbelief in the exclusivity of Christ. For he grew convinced there was no evidence whatsoever proving the superiority of any view, Christianity included. Now, whether his unbelief derived from (1) a general ignorance of biblical prophecy, which could have helped his belief in God, or (2) the cares of this world which choke the Word, or (3) a gnawing doubt about the exclusivity of Christ until the Bible\u2019s message became nonsense to him, I don\u2019t exactly know. But I suspect it was a combination of these, perhaps with the failure, so epidemic these days, of ignoring the advice of Daniel\u2019s famous contemporary, Socrates, who said that every statement should be tested to see if it were true.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s culture of apathy toward finding ultimate answers makes it harder for a person trying to find God. Too many ephemeral voices and images from TV and the internet swamp his or her attention. Added to all this meaningless overflow of information is the world\u2019s fragmentation through technology and device. Often, too, there is little spiritual support from family, friends, the workplace, and even the Church. And so the seeker is discouraged from finding God\u2014the Rock, the Refuge, the Safe Harbor for his soul. Rest\u2014where is it? And how could an ancient Bible possibly be relevant to him today, <\/em>amidst the bewildering complexity of 21st century life?<\/p>\n This last question becomes rhetorical in the mouths of academia and pop-culture notables, who know that the shortest path to convey the absurdity of a view is to ignore the subject altogether. Of course there is a vague allusion to the Bible on those rare occasions when the name \u201cGod\u201d is drug out of the cobwebs. It happened, for example, in the political realm immediately after 9\/11, when Congress buried the partisan hatchet just long enough to sing God Bless America <\/em>on the Capitol steps. But the stun passes, like surviving a blow on the head, and the nation goes back to its true self. As a New York City bus driver told me a few months after the Twin Towers tragedy: \u201cFor a while people were really patient with the buses\u2026but after about two weeks they were back to complaining like they always had.\u201d Ever goes the world along its predictable way, to what has been called\u2014to borrow a phrase\u2014\u201cthe tyranny of the urgent.\u201d<\/p>\n But we seek better things. Eternal things. Perhaps for the first time you have become aware of Daniel\u2019s prophecy in the Bible about Jesus the Messiah, and are ready to believe. Daniel tells us that Messiah was cut off, but not for himself [i.e., for his own sins] (Dan. 9:26). This means it was for our sins for which\u00a0Christ died. \u201cWho His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree\u2026\u201d says the apostle Peter (I Pet.\u00a02:21). It is in Christ\u2019s sacrifice alone <\/em>that we find rest in God. In fact, this is why the apostle Paul said that if atonement could come through our own works, then Christ died in vain.<\/p>\n However, many people reject that God\u2019s grace is obtained by a simple trust in Christ. These many <\/em>are therefore under the condemnation of God, since no other sacrifice can atone for sins.<\/p>\n And so, too, did divine judgment loom over many of the people of Jeremiah\u2019s day, for the people had been disobedient for a long time. Commonly, when we think of disobedience, we think of the more obvious sins. At first\u00a0glance it seems strange to us that God would exile the Jews for, of all things, not allowing the ground to rest every seventh year from agricultural pursuit. We think it\u00a0should have been for\u00a0the people\u2019s\u00a0hypocrisy and deceit, or for their adulterous and\u00a0murderous ways, etc. And certainly in one\u00a0sense all these were<\/em><\/p>\n Jeremiah Weeping Over Jerusalem, by Rembrandt. The city\u2019s destruction and the prophet\u2019s grief form the theme of the book of Lamentations.<\/p><\/div>\n causes for why God delivered the Jews into the hand of the Babylonian king. But the point God was making by citing the Jewish failure to give Sabbatical rest to the land was in principle the same contention which Christ had with the people of his own day. Namely, the question was whether a man could achieve by himself a true rest, or whether that rest must come through God. The former is where man thinks he will find rest for his soul through mere, created things. In today\u2019s world this method takes more than one form. It can take the ironic route in which man imagines his repose comes through material abundance<\/em>, the kind brought about by a ceaseless tread on the 24\/7 hamster wheel of work and acquisition. Another form is where the preservation of material nature <\/em>is paramount. This is where any sacrifice is expected for the environment, both personally and societally, until <\/em>the terrestrial world improves to whatever ideal standard the ideologues demand, which, of course won\u2019t ever be perfect enough.<\/p>\n This misguided emphasis on the material is why Christ in his own day departed from the crowd of thousands after miraculously feeding them material <\/em>bread. For he perceived they would come to make him\u00a0king because of it (Jn. 6:15), since they didn\u2019t want to work for their food. So he traveled to the other side of the Lake of Galilee. But that was not far enough away for a crowd who, as far as it was concerned, had literally just gotten a taste of what it would be like to live by bread alone. And so when they found Jesus they contended with him, that he should do as Moses had done, who fed their ancestors [manna] daily in the wilderness. But Jesus corrected them, telling them God, not Moses, had fed them, and that they should instead seek the Manna from heaven which the Father provided, namely, the Son himself. But as events proved, Christ\u2019s generation rejected him, as had many (though not all) Old Testament generations of Jews in their rejection of the LORD. Some of the people were fearful, not trusting God to make sufficient provision in six years the needs for seven, while others were just greedy and so abused the land through overuse. And so in effect, Christ warns his hearers not to live by bread alone, i.e., not to focus on physical or material needs, but to seek the Manna from Heaven which they must \u2018eat\u2019 (i.e., receive by faith). Thus by receiving Christ there becomes provision for the soul, not just the body.45<\/strong><\/p>\n Now, the Messiah of the Jews is a Messiah for all peoples. For the well-known Scripture of John 3:16 does not begin \u201cFor God so loved the Jews,\u201d or \u201cFor God so loved Abraham\u2019s descendants,\u201d but rather, \u201cFor God so loved the world<\/strong>\u2026.\u201d Yet all must come to God as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did, through faith.<\/p>\n The good news in all this is that we can find rest <\/em>in God\u2019s provision, the Messiah\u2014the Manna from heaven, so to speak\u2014without vainly trying to earn that rest. Indeed, God\u2019s rest is ultimately the focus of Daniel\u2019s prophecy about the coming of the Messiah, i.e., that we can find rest in God. As Paul says: \u201cSo there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God\u201d (Heb. 4:9, NASB). Here Paul is referring to a future, permanent rest for believers.<\/p>\n Therefore let all who trust in the Messiah for the forgiveness of their sins look forward to His Second Coming (since He has promised to return), with a similar anticipation to how the Jews were to have looked for His first coming. And may we share this message to all those who haven\u2019t yet found rest in the Messiah.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"doubting](\"https:\/\/danielgracely.com\/rockpapershivers\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/doubting-Thomas-300x225.jpg\")
![\"jeremiah](\"https:\/\/danielgracely.com\/rockpapershivers\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/jeremiah-weeping-300x199.jpg\")