Do you choose what God said selectively from among scriptures?
I am a theologian; that is, I study God. Yet how? And where do I seek answers about God? Which books of the Bible? What verses?
Who should I believe in my choices about the Doctrine of Scripture?
You won't want to miss some definitions and important church history in Part 1 linked below
or our first doctrinal post on the holiness of God.
{These links may also be found in the talkofJESUS.com menu & will open in a new tab.}
Of course most of us will recognize what seems to be a legitimate question from near the beginning of the Bible when the serpent hissed against the LORD, ‘Did God really say..’
Yes, it would have been a legitimate question IF the questioner had not already known the TRUTH of the command of the LORD God. But Scripture records Satan’s cunning in Genesis . (He knew, but twisted truth.)
Sin is turning away from God
YOU questioned God’s truth.
Temptation of Eve
On behalf of all mankind for perpetuity, YOU crossed the line of obeying God’s commands.
Here you now wander into the darkness beyond Paradise .. continually asking, ‘DID GOD REALLY SAY..?’
And do not think, my fellow fallen saint, that you will choose what is TRUE without seeking the Lord.
Do not ask the one who hisses against Jesus Christ, any tempter who doubts what God said, since the LORD’s command to obey is what they will not do.
SO WHERE DO WE FIND TRUTH?
DOCTRINE – What do you believe?
Do you choose what God said?
Where do you draw your line in the sand about believing the Doctrines of the Bible?
Some preachers don’t believe in Satan or some truths about Christ. (What else won’t they believe from Holy Scripture?)
ALL of these TRUTHS are witnessed in Scripture. They give mortals many glances at Paradise and eternal life with the LORD God.
You just imagined yourself to be in the Presence of the Lord in Eden on behalf of the generations, but you crossed the line and wandered into the darkness of sin.
O man! I have asked myself, “Did God really say? Then I made excuses to the LORD for my sin.”
What is the ONLY BOOK where one made in the image of God can discern the TRUE words of WHAT GOD HAS SAID?
in the context of A.D. 90, with application to A.D. 2020,
rather than chronologically, culturally or by chapter & verse..
..while during recent months:
some sought to stream the stage of worship
some sent seeker-friendly scripture into our homes
some church communities disintegrated while others diminished & distanced (like our 2020 remote office meetings complete with slides).
To review the Gospel of John, simply click on any link in the outline below& it will open in a new window.
Roger – author of A.D. 2020 series on the Gospel of John
I hope you were blessed by the secure links to reliable sites for further study of Scripture, as well as insight into the 1st century church of John’s Gospel (written ~A.D.- 90).
Scripture encourages us to a more mature faith.
John’s Prologue – Good News!
IN THE BEGINNING was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
ALL THINGS came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of
MANKIND.
And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it.
14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God [Son] who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
John’s Prologue [1:1-18], from which the Apostle next proceeds to the testimony of John the Baptist and the Messiah’s calling of the Twelve, states many important theological themes & along with his Epilogue [21:1-25 {linked below}] provides additional depth of purpose of John’s Gospel.
John 3: “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” …
Teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ
‘My Father’s House – John 2
“You must be born again.
I am the Messiah – John 4
Before Abraham was, I AM
John 11
“..and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.
also love one another-John 13
Jesus prays – John 17
Jesus answered him – John 19:11
Jesus said:
Gospel of John
“Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! – John 1:29b
As Jesus passed by, He saw a man who had been blind from birth. – John 9:1
Are you greater than our father Abraham who died? And the prophets died. Who do you claim to be?” – John 8:53
“But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. – John 10:26-28
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise from the dead.” .. “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” – John 11:23,25
Hear all the unrelenting bad news of yesterday or today.
For followers of Jesus, His death diminished life’s hope in eternal life; that is until the Gospel of the Lord’s resurrection reached the eyes and ears and touch of His dearly beloved friends.
John and the Disciples witnessed the Lord Jesus in His Risen Flesh many times after His resurrection.
“Peace be with you.”
And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
John 20:20
Their sorrow had turned into joy and so must ours; for in Christ Jesus his disciples of every generation have eternal life through His sacrifice for our sins. This is our Gospel, His Good News to those who would believe.
NEWS of A.D. 2021
SEE what follows JOHN 2020 in JOHN 2021.
“Peace to you,” yet also a command of the risen Christ Jesus.
& without Him:
EXPECT MORE BAD NEWS
John’s Epilogue
John 20:30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.
But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John 20:21 CSB
I pray that the Lord has blessed you through the Gospel of John in A.D. 2020
Roger – Roger@talkofJesus.com
May our Lord Jesus Christ
draw you into His grace,
giving you new hope of Eternal Life
in the YEAR OF OUR LORD 2021,
in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
AMEN.
John 19:17 They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, carrying His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Hebrew is called, Golgotha.
Hours before: Sanctification of the Sacrifice
Jesus spoke these things; and raising His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You, just as You gave Him authority over all mankind, so that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
John 17:1-3 NASB – The Son’s High Priestly prayer
The Pangs of Death
‘I feel your pain,’ some must have mocked toward Jesus at His suffering the 39 lashes of scourging. No one ever truly feels the pain of another’s suffering.
But for His dear friends the Apostles the Son of God had assured:
“A little while, and you no longer are going to see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.”
John 16:16 NASB
Jesus had not dwelled on His prophesied suffering. Yet by the scriptures perhaps the Disciples denyingly sensed what He must suffer this day.
Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
The Apostles did not want to believe all of it, but to them the LORD revealed the Son embraced by the Father’s right arm.
For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
They also grew up near Him and even though some knew Jesus’ family, they were not attracted to Him until by Him they were called. In these three years Jesus became their Lord, Teacher and beloved friend.
He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Jesus was despised by the ruling council and leading Jews. The Disciples continually witnessed the Jews hatred for Him.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
Temple officials had previously despised and did not esteem Him. These Jewish scholars had never believed His message or the Prophets.
21 Then He said again to them, “I am going away, and you will look for Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.”
25 Then they were saying to Him, “Who are You?”
These politically powerful religious officials most likely asked this mockingly, as they did while striking their blindfolded Messiah during the mockery of a trial before Caiaphas High Priest of the Jews and later in the presence of Pilate.
‘Who are YOU totalk of God or teach us the Law?‘
So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am, and I do nothing on My own, but I say these things as the Father instructed Me.
John 8:28
And the Apostle John adds this witness then in his Gospel:
30 As He said these things, many came to believe in Him.
Many believers will follow Jesus Christ in a victorious procession to the place of worship, but only a remnant remains following a captive King to the Cross of Calvary.
20 Truly, truly I say to you that you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy!
As the Disciples had scattered as sheep from the wolves, surely they did not recall this at the time of Jesus’ arrest, trials, scourging and crucifixion.
Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come;
but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.
22 Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one is going to take your joy away from you.
And why this suffering? – SIN!
The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!
..Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you..
And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” – Genesis 3
The Prophesy of Christ’s Suffering
But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.
‘By oppression and judgment He was taken away,‘ prophesied Isaiah in the generation of Uzziah king of Judah. It was more than seven centuries Before Christ.
Isaiah, by the mouth of the LORD, indicts those who falsely convict Jesus.
They have just sent innocence to the Cross as the Substitute Lamb of Sacrifice for their own transgressions (sins).
‘And as for His generation,
who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people,
29 .. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
And now sinners take the sinless Sacrifice to the altar of the shedding of Blood.
They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, carrying His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Hebrew is called, Golgotha. There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between.
![“He who loves his [fn]life loses it, and he who hates his [fn]life in this world will keep it to life eternal.](https://talkofjesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/triumphal-entry.jpg)
