Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: holy spirit

Lazarus – Death and Resurrection
```
Death and Resurrection
 Hosea 13:4 I have been the Lord your God
 ever since the land of Egypt;
 you know no God but me,
 and no Savior exists besides me.
 5 I knew you in the wilderness,
 in the land of drought.
```
“Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. God’s bread is the man who comes from heaven and gives life to the world.”
Yeshua told them, “I am the bread of life…
John 6:32b,34a NOG

The Death and Resurrection of Lazarus

John has already introduced us to those Jesus loves. Lazarus – HELP from the grave.

Now after a considerable walk from somewhere beyond Judea, Jesus arrives in Bethany.

Jesus walks into a scene of death visited by mourners who loved Lazarus but also religious officials from Jerusalem who sought to accuse their Messiah of blasphemy for previous signs on the Sabbath.

As reminder of both heavy hearts and hard hearts in the crowds:

John 6:

30 So they said to him, ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?

… 40 My Father wants all those who see the Son and believe in him to have eternal life. He wants me to bring them back to life on the last day.”

John 11

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem (less than two miles away).

He arrives at the funeral of Lazarus. No talk of death and resurrection here, just wailing and mourning his loss.

19 Many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Yeshua was coming, she went to meet him.

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask him.”

Lord God

Ἰησοῦν κύριε – Iēsous kyrios – Jesus Lord

Martha addresses their Messiah and friend.

“I know that God, theos in greek referring to any gods, but for Jews and followers of Christ (a Greek word for Messiah), Martha’s confidence in God includes a mysterious relationship between this Son of Man and the HOLY SPIRIT of the LORD God!

“God with” – ὁ – ho – with the Holy Spirit, the very breath of life which hovered over creation.
```
Gen 1:2
וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהֹום וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּֽיִם׃
```
“Who are you with,” we would ask?

Jesus, God with us, frequently answered religious critics with personally relational replies like,

“God is spirit, and those G3588 who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Now, out of compassion for a deceased friend and love for the family of Lazarus, the Messiah Jesus returns to Judea with nothing more to prove. (For the Lord had already raised others from death and healed some near to death of likely life-ending ailments to a cleansing of the flesh with life!)

Death and Resurrection

Death and resurrection always have connection. Will you rise again from the grave?

For Jesus’ friend Lazarus, temporary restoration of health and life in his case. Yet all understand judgment by the Lord God requires a raising of the spirit of your soul to life.

After flesh fails and bones decay to dust and ashes will the Lord also breathe life into a new body of each soul?

“..even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask him.”

23 Yeshua told Martha, “Your brother will come back to life.”

24 Martha answered Yeshua, “I know that he’ll come back to life on the last day, when everyone will come back to life.”

25 Yeshua said to her,

“I am the one who brings people back to life, and I am life itself. Those who believe in me will live even if they die. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

The Messiah of God!

Do you believe that?”

Pause to think:

“I am life itself!” Those who believe in Jesus ( יְהוֹשׁוּעַ ) will live even though we die. The Lord God IS our Salvation!

27 Martha said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who was expected to come into the world.”

She has said this – that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God – with witnesses surrounding her home — Jews who believe and Jews looking for excuse to kill Jesus.

… she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly,

“The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

When Mary heard this she sprang to her feet and went to him.

30 (Yeshua had not yet come into the village but was still where Martha had met him.) The Jews who were comforting Mary in the house saw her get up quickly and leave. So they followed her…

The Messiah approaching death and resurrection

Compelling drama! – with much expectation.

Those who loved this family and mourned the loss of Lazarus would not have expected Mary’s sudden joy. Rather, they followed her to continue their expected public mouring for the death of a fellow Jew.

Imagine their surprise at the scene about to unfold.

33 When Yeshua saw her crying, and the Jews who were crying with her, he was deeply moved and troubled.

34 So Yeshua asked, “Where did you put Lazarus?”

They answered him, “Lord, come and see.”

35 Yeshua cried.

36 The Jews said, “See how much Yeshua loved him.”

An appropriate witness of the true personal compassion of the Lord Jesus. Yet listen to the dissent of hardened hearts.

37 But some of the Jews asked, “Couldn’t this man who gave a blind man sight keep Lazarus from dying?”

Jesus hears our complaints and the Messiah hears our kind words. All those comments of the crowds did not matter to the Son of Man sent to this place to weep – sent here to suffer for our sins.

38 Deeply moved again, Yeshua went to the tomb.

It was a cave with a stone covering the entrance.

39 Yeshua said, “Take the stone away.”
```
To be continued...
```
March 28, 2020
Hebrews 10- Sacrifice and Offering
Offering on the Altar

I waited patiently for the LORD;
40:6 זֶ֤בַח וּמִנְחָ֨ה לֹֽא־חָפַ֗צְתָּ אָ֭זְנַיִם כָּרִ֣יתָ לִּ֑י עֹולָ֥ה וַ֝חֲטָאָ֗ה לֹ֣א שָׁאָֽלְתָּ׃

Sacrifice and offering You did not desire;
My ears You have opened.
Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.

Psalm 40:6 Masoretic Text; NKJV

The Perfect Sacrifice

The author of Hebrews states that in Christ we have a High Priest who does not need to repeatedly make offering and sacrifice. Therefore, the sacrificial blood of the Messiah on the Cross represents a new and better covenant.

Once again, he logically makes his case supported by the evidence of well-known scripture.

Hebrews 10:

Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. ²Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, purified once and for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?

He refers to the many rules and regulations of sacrifice and offering prescribed in the Mosaic law. Moses gave us a law of better things to come, a mere shadow of true worship. When we finally make the perfect sacrifice, becoming completely purified before the Lord, wouldn’t we then stop making more sacrifices? Wouldn’t our guilt be left covered?

Sin remains in the shadow sacrifice of the Law, because the blood of bulls and goats cannot cleanse sin perfectly.

We have awaited a Messiah.. patiently.. a High Priest Perfect for all time. From
a thousand years before, the writer quotes David’s well known Psalm 40:

Patience

I waited patiently for the Lord,
and he turned to me and heard my cry for help.
2 He brought me up from a desolate pit,
out of the muddy clay,
and set my feet on a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.

Think of this hope in the hearts of faithful Jews when the writer reminds us:

6 You do not delight in sacrifice and offering;
you open my ears to listen.
You do not ask for a whole burnt offering or a sin offering.
7 Then I said, “See, I have come;
in the scroll it is written about me.
Psalm 40:6-7A CSB

‘The Lord is trying our patience,’ they must have thought as Rome dominated their land, their city and culture. We wonder why the Lord has not blotted out evil and accepted faithful worshipers only – faithful in these last days.

Those receiving this letter in the first century would have known the next verses of the Psalm as well. The writer of Hebrews continues:

Hebrews 10:9 [quote of Psalm 40] he then says, See, I have come to do your will.

He takes away the first to establish the second.

The author’s firm reason taken in the second half of verse 9 compare the old and new covenants. He then follows this statement of God’s will with:

By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.
Hebrews 10:10 CSB

The priest of their shadow sacrifices stands imperfectly at the altar day after day.

¹²But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.

Testimony of the Holy Spirit

Then the writer of Hebrews then adds even more support from Scripture.

15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. For after he says:

16 This is the covenant I will make with them
after those days,

the Lord says,
I will put my laws on their hearts
and write them on their minds
Hebrews 10:16 quote from Jeremiah 31

Jeremiah by Michaelango

A new covenant – ” Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—

The writer of Hebrews appeals to scripture of the prophet Jeremiah, 600 years before Christ, for support of the New Covenant where sacrifice and offering will no longer be required.

He concludes:

18 Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

Enter the Sanctuary through the Blood of Jesus

Several editors of Hebrews take different directions for labeling the next section of chapter 10, which we will examine in my next post. Again the author quotes scripture known to faithful Jews as he pursues the argument for the Messiah Jesus.

Note just a few headings for the section to come:
- How We Should Live? – ISV
- Hold Fast Your Confession – NKJV
- Exhortations to Godliness – CSB
- The Full Assurance of Faith – ESV
- Let Us Come Near to God – GNT
All, thoughtful considerations of scriptural application to our lives. If you would like to take a preview, take it from the Greek in verse 19.

10:19 ἔχοντες οὖν ἀδελφοί παρρησίαν εἰς τὴν εἴσοδον τῶν ἁγίων ἐν τῷ αἵματι Ἰησοῦ
```
To be continued...
```
February 11, 2019
Hebrews 9- Covenant Ministry
Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant.
Hebrews 9:15B NLT

It’s not an exact translation from the Greek, but the heart of the author’s message from his letter to the Hebrews. He now proceeds from the main point in Hebrews 8 that Christ is our High Priest to the nature of a new and better covenant.

Old Covenant Ministry

High Priest in Holy of Holies

Remember how the sanctuary is a holy place to the LORD, separated from the sin of the world. Only the priests may enter as the worshipers stand near and the unclean kept distant. To think of the sanctuary as ‘only a tent’ would be contemporary error, for it is the Tent Altar where the LORD meets with His worshipers, hopefully accepting their sacrifices through the appointed priest.

Hebrews 9:

Now the first covenant also had regulations for ministry and an earthly sanctuary. 2 For a tabernacle was set up, and in the first room, which is called the holy place, were the lampstand, the table, and the presentation loaves.

He continues with description of the holy place familiar to all Jews from scripture.

6 Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.

The High Priest alone enters the Holy of Holies, the inner room of the sanctuary, and that just once a year. (A special place to meet the LORD, within the confines of a Tent or Temple.) Then this author of the letter to the Hebrews points to the holy sacrifice.

And he always offered blood for his own sins and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.
Hebrews 9:7B NLT

A Revelation of the Holy Spirit

We do not preach much about the Person of the Holy Spirit, once called the Holy Ghost. He is a revelation of the New Testament (or new covenant), which the writer of Hebrews unwraps here as when Christ is revealed.

τοῦτο δηλοῦντος τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ ἁγίου μήπω πεφανερῶσθαι τὴν τῶν ἁγίων ὁδὸν ἔτι τῆς πρώτης σκηνῆς ἐχούσης στάσιν
Hebrews 9:8 Greek NT
- The Holy Spirit makes this the way into the Holy place.
- The path into the Holy place had not been revealed while the outer or first Tabernacle was still standing. [This would also be evident by the succession from Tent to Temple to rebuilt temples made by man for worship of God.]
- The author tells his first century Hebrew readers “[the first Tabernacle] is
  a symbol for the present time [the first generation after Christ’s anointing.]
- Neither gifts nor sacrifices offered can make the worshiper perfect in conscience.
- Since offerings [gifts or sacrifices to the LORD] are physical regulations and only deal with food, drink, and various washings.
- God imposed ceremonial ordinances only until the time of reformation.
This reformation of worship revealed by the Holy Spirit creates a new covenant with the Lord.

But when the Messiah appeared as cohen gadol of the good things that are happening already, then, through the greater and more perfect Tent which is not man-made (that is, it is not of this created world), he entered the Holiest Place once and for all.
Hebrews 9:11-12A Complete Jewish Bible

I like this translation, for it provides a contemporary context to the readers of Hebrews. The Messiah appeared, the Tabernacle is a less perfect Tent and Christ entered the Holiest Place once and for all.

Just a contemporary reminder for 21st century readers:

“Christ” is not Jesus’ last name. For in Greek, the common language of the Roman Empire, Χριστός Christos is the anointed Messiah of God. We sometimes forget that faithful Jews had expected our Messiah for centuries ‘before Christ.’

New Covenant Ministry

Christ (the Messiah) appeared as High Priest. And He entered the Most Holy Place once for all time.

Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood…
Hebrews 9:12A KJV

Think of the ritualistic sacrifices of the Old Covenant. Are we not repulsed by the slaughter and blood at the alter of sacrifice?

Christ brings a cleansing of blood by His own Sacrifice!

By His own Blood Christ obtained eternal redemption for the worshipers of God.
פָּדָה Redeem your soul from sin through our Savior’s blood.

then how much more the blood of the Messiah, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself to God as a sacrifice without blemish, will purify our conscience from works that lead to death, so that we can serve the living God!
Hebrews 9:14 Complete Jewish Bible

Jesus, our Mediator

15 Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance..

[Don’t miss this:]

.. because a death has taken place for redemption from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

The writer of Hebrews now presents a legal case for dissolution of the old covenant.
- a death has occurred
- a will exists and is valid because of the death
- (for a will is never in effect while the one who made it is living.)
- Moses initiated the first covenant by blood (quoting Exodus 24)
Moses took the blood, splattered it on the people, and said,
“This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you concerning all these words.”
Exodus 24:8 CSB

The writer of Hebrews words it as a vow or covenant reminiscent of marriage.

20 Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. – KJV

21 Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. – KJV

In fact, according to the Torah, almost everything is purified with blood; indeed, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Hebrews 9:22 CJB

Copies cleansed

23 Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves to be purified with better sacrifices than these.

Christ entered heaven itself (not a copy). He appeared on our behalf in the very presence of God. Once, not many times like a priest on earth.

… But now he has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Some versions translate this as the consummation or completion of the ages. Jesus speaks of the ages as both ending and forever. Believers would do well to consider it.

And just as it is appointed for people to die once
—and after this, judgment
— so also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many,
will appear a second time, not to bear sin,
but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:27 CSB

Do you look forward to the judgment? Have you considered the love of God to offer the Blood of His only Son to bear your sin? And do you await Christ’s completion of God’s new covenant?

The writer of Hebrews continues with more good news in Christ’s sacrifice.
```
To be continued...
```
February 8, 2019