They Know Not What They Do

Biblegems #47

What did Jesus’ forgiveness from the cross accomplish for those who crucified Him; and were those who crucified Him truly ignorant of what they were doing?

Luke 23:34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

In earlier Biblegems (#37 and #40) we explored the effect forgiveness has when offered by a believer in the authority of Jesus’ name. In that case, if you were to sin against me and I forgave you, your sin against me would be cancelled out (Matt. 18:18-20). If your sin against me was an offense against others as well, you would still be accountable to God for that. I cannot forgive your sin against others.

Here, Jesus Himself is asking the Father to forgive those who are sinning against Him. Who are the guilty parties? Jesus is referring specifically to the soldiers who are following orders given by Pontius Pilate. It is the soldiers in verse 26 who led Jesus away from Pilate. It was the soldiers in verse 32 who led Jesus and the other criminals from Jerusalem to the hill called Golgotha. It was the soldiers who carried out the crucifixion itself in verse 33, and the same soldiers Jesus interceded for in verse 34.

Jesus sought their forgiveness because they were ignorant of the magnitude of their actions. They certainly knew the crime Jesus was accused of: claiming the role of king. But, unlike the Jewish leaders who trumped up the charges against Jesus, these Romans had no understanding of the revelation in the Bible of the coming messiah, the savior of the world. These unfortunate soldiers were executioners, likely performing their grisly task hundreds of times. This would seem no different. In fact, even though Luke’s Gospel alone records this saying of Jesus from the cross, both Matthew and Mark relate how the commander of those soldiers responded after Jesus died amidst an earthquake, and thunder and lightning under a leaden sky: “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mk. 15:39; cf. Matt. 27:54).

So what did Jesus’ act of forgiveness actually accomplish for these soldiers?

Jesus’ own teaching tells it all. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:19).

Whatever else these soldiers might have to account for on Judgment Day, crucifying the Son of God would not show up on the list. For—

…as far as the east is from the west,

so far has he removed our transgressions from us (Ps. 103:12).

This beautiful act of grace also demonstrates the power of the cross and the shed blood of Jesus to cancel out sin. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

The Bride Of Christ & The New Jerusalem

Biblegems #46

Are the Bride of Christ and the New Jerusalem the same?

The question arises from the following two passages in Revelation:

Rev. 3:12 Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name.

Rev. 21:2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

The word “city” often elicits images of crowded streets and clustered buildings, as when we hear the word “church” and picture buildings with sanctuaries and steeples. But in both cases, the principle idea behind the terms is the people within, rather than the structures that accommodate the people. After all, what would a city or a church be without people?

That being said, the Greek word used here for “city” is “polis,” which pictures a clearly defined town or city with walls. The New Jerusalem is presented in both the Old and New Testaments as city in terms of a physical location and as the people who populate it.

The New Jerusalem is not the same as the Jerusalem from which Jesus will reign on the earth during the Millennium. The Millennial Jerusalem will be built from earth’s resources brought in by the nations surviving Armageddon and the Lord’s return:

Is. 45:14 This is what the LORD says: “The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush, and those tall Sabeans—they will come over to you and will be yours; they will trudge behind you, coming over to you in chains. They will bow down before you and plead with you, saying, ‘Surely God is with you, and there is no other; there is no other god.’”

And…

Is. 54:11 O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with sapphires.

The New Jerusalem, however, is described as coming down from God through the new heavens to the new earth (21:1), all of which follows the Millennial Reign of Christ, the defeat of Satan and the Great White Throne Judgment.

This is the city Abraham anticipated:

For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:10).

This city is a “polis,” a physical location perfectly suited for the resurrected people of God:

…Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them (Heb. 11:16).

But the New Jerusalem is also the people who inhabit the city, the Bride of Christ:

But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven (Heb. 12:22-23).

The Marriage Supper Of The Lamb

Biblegems #45

Who make up the attendees invited to the marriage Supper of the Lamb, since the Bride of Christ is already present and the supper is for the Bride and the Groom? Are OT saints included? Are Gentiles who are won to Christ by the 144,000 included?

The Wedding Supper (“marriage supper,” KJV) is referred to in Revelation 19:9, which reads—

Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’” And he added, “These are the true words of God.

The angel is responding to a thundering shout of praise from an uncountable throng of voices in heaven. Heaven’s inhabitants are glorifying God for His victory over evil (Rev. 19:1-4), for establishing His Kingdom on earth (Rev. 19:6), and for the impending Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:7, 9). Earlier in revelation, this multitude is identified:

Rev. 7:9 After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

This multitude praising God in heaven is made up of all the redeemed throughout all the ages, including the 144,000 Jewish believers in Jesus from the Great Tribulation (Rev. 7:4-8, 13-17). This is the Bride of Christ. These are the ones shouting at the tops of their resurrected lungs, “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’”

The “wedding” and wedding supper” (Rev. 19:7, 9) refer to the same event. This is not the marriage ceremony (i.e. “union”) of the Bride and the Bridegroom, but the celebration feast that traditionally followed a Jewish-style ceremony, and after the groom brought His bride home. Jesus accurately describes such a wedding banquet in a parable (Matt. 22:2-14). In fact, the “Wedding Supper of the Lamb” is what Jesus referred to when he said to His disciples at the last Supper:

“I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29).

Clearly, Jesus has His followers, the Bride of Christ, in view as those invited to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Collectively, we who are in Christ are called the Bride of Christ. Individually, we are the guests at the Great Banquet. This is no contradiction, but a joyful mixing of metaphors to describe the many facets of our relationship to Jesus.

And, yes, this great company of the redeemed also includes the Old Testament saints. Jesus’ death on the cross was effective for them as well. As Jesus reminded the people of His day in speaking of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, “He is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Matt. 22:32)!

Jesus' Real Birthdate

Biblegems #44

Question: Does the Bible say what year Jesus was born? Also, who decided that we were going to recognize Jesus' Birthday on the 25th of December, and in what year did they decide this was going to take place? Just wondering. Merianne.

Jesus was likely born somewhere between 4 B.C and 6 B.C. The discrepancy is based upon an error made by a Christian in the 6^th century named Dionysius Exiguus, who intended to create a calendar based on the birth of Jesus. However, he miscalculated the year of Herod’s death, which was not recognized until many centuries later.

It is commonly held that December 25^th on our current calendar was not the actual birth date of Jesus. Here is what we do know for sure:

We know Jesus was conceived in the six month of Mary’s cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy (Lk. 1:24-27); and we know (based on when her husband Zacharias served in the temple) that Elizabeth conceived John the Baptist around the last week of the Hebrew month of Sivan (Lk. 1: 5, 8, 23-24). This would place the conception of Jesus in the month of Kislev (November – December). Nine months later would be the month of Tishri (September – October, according to our current calendar).

This means that the likely month of Jesus’ conception is the month when Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, is celebrated by the Jews. Interestingly, Jesus is described in the NT as “the light of the world” (John 8:12, 9:5, 12:46). And the month of Jesus’ birth marks the last feast of the year on the Jewish calendar, the Feast of Tabernacles. As it says in John, 1:14, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling (lit., “tabernacled”) among us.

The first century church, apparently, did not celebrate Jesus’ birth. This started to become more popular in the 2^nd – 3^rd century. Because the exact date of His birth was unknown, the church tended to mark His birth at the time of the Winter Solstice, taking advantage of the symbolism involved in the increased light of the lengthening days to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the “light of the world” (Jn. 8:12). While some have often tried to condemn the tradition as yielding to pagan practices of sun worship, nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, Christianity took pagan practices and replaced them with a celebration of the birth of the Savior of the world!

Life Insurance—Good Stewardship?

Biblegems #43

As Christians are becoming increasingly aware, The earth is the LORD’S, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it (Ps. 24:1). That means that all our money and possessions ultimately belong to God. It is wise to ask, therefore, is life insurance a good use of God’s money?

The word “insurance” stems from an older word, “ensure,” which in the mid-1500’s meant “engagement to marry” (Online Etymology Dictionary). It conveyed the idea of “making sure;” a binding agreement or contract. The term “insure” came into its modern use in the 1600’s, where it took on the idea of providing a financial means for “making sure” that necessary expenses were taken care of at death.

Life insurance, properly understood, is a form of inheritance. It does nothing, of course, to en-sure the length or quality of one’s life. Rather, it serves to protect the survivors of someone’s death against funeral costs and loss of income that person brought into the family.

The Bible says, A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous (Prov. 13:22). As believers learn to appreciate their role in God’s plan as managers of His resources rather than owners of our resources, the need becomes apparent to examine every expense, every investment in this light. We don’t want to spend God’s money frivolously, or in ways that once seemed right from a worldly perspective but may not be good stewardship from God’s point of view.

So we need to ask the hard questions: If I were to die today, would those who survive me be adequately protected financially to take care of final expenses (which can be quite high), plus have sufficient funds to manage the costs of living I can no longer provide for? Life insurance can provide the means for “making sure,” as well as we are able, that those who survive us are not overwhelmed financially.

Some people have sufficient wealth at their disposal and designated for inheritance that life insurance may not be necessary. But for most of us, life insurance is a kind of savings account specifically set up for that purpose.

This inheritance also conveys another important and beautiful truth from Scripture. An inheritance is a gift passed on, not earned income. To leave an inheritance is an act of grace; to receive an inheritance is to benefit from an act of grace. The Promised Land given Israel was given as an inheritance from God Himself:

… “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an

inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the

LORD your God, who has set you apart from the nations (Lev. 20:24).

Likewise, we who belong to Jesus Christ have our future needs provided for when we pass from this earthly life …into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you (1 Pet. 1:4).

The Bible And Cremation

Biblegems #42

Does the Bible teach whether it is proper or improper, right or wrong, to use cremation instead of burial?

The Bible contains very few references to cremation, and gives no specific teaching on it whatsoever as a matter of right or wrong, or even proper or improper. That being so, why is cremation an issue for many Bible believing Christians? The reasons are more of a cultural and traditional nature than biblical.

Traditionally, Christians and Jews have buried their dead, while several eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, have practiced cremation. Culturally, most Evangelical Christians have associated burial as consistent with biblical teaching, from the practice of the Old Testament patriarchs to the burial of Jesus. Perhaps the most poignant biblical reference in support of burial comes from Genesis 3:19:

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food

until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

However, the fact that the people of the Bible were typically buried rather than cremated does not represent a Bible doctrine. Not only so, but cremation actually reduces the physical body to the “dust” of Genesis 3:19 much faster than burial does. The Bible realistically reflects the ultimate decay of a person’s deceased body to a state of dehydrated chemical “dust.”

Christians who take the Bible seriously also take the doctrine of the resurrection seriously. Resurrection presupposes that the same body of the person who perished will be raised imperishable (1 Cor. 15:42).

Resurrection does not require a recognizable body—only the fundamental elements that once formed that body. It does not matter how long the person has been deceased, or how scattered those remains may have become over time. If a person died at sea and was subsequently eaten by sharks, the chemical remains of that body would be no more difficult for God to reorganize and resurrect than the remains of someone who had been buried three thousand years ago on a hill long-since eroded by the winds and rain.

The Christian martyr Polycarp, discipled by the apostle John and the Bishop of the church of Smyrna, was burned at the stake in 155 AD. When he refused the offer of release if he would only declare Caesar as Lord, Polycarp responded, "Eighty-six years I have served Christ, and He never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?" Polycarp did not lose his place in the resurrection because his body was burned at the stake.

The truth is, neither burial nor cremation makes any difference to God. It is not how we dispose of the body that is most important, but how we use the body while we inhabit its earthly form. As God’s Word says: If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing (1Cor. 13:3).

Three Days And Three Nights

Biblegems #41

I have a question that I've heard several explanations for in the past. Speaking of his death, burial and resurrection, Jesus said in Matthew 12:40: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Friday through Sunday morning doesn't work out to 3 days and 3 nights.

Thanks,

Joyce

This question has vexed non-Jewish people in every generation, for the Scripture is clear that the literal time frame in which Jesus was in the tomb was two nights, two days, and part of a third day. The Jewish people of the day, however, did not question this well-known saying of Jesus (Matt. 27:63), even though they might easily have used it to charge Jesus as being a false prophet because he wasn’t in the tomb for 72 hours before His resurrection.

The reason this charge was never made is that the Jews understood this saying as accurate. Why? Because it was a long accepted practice of the Jewish people in calculating time to treat part of a day as a whole day. There are many examples of this in Scripture as well as in non-biblical sources.

For example, 2 Chronicles 5:7 & 12 tells us: Rehoboam answered, “Come back to me in three days.” So the people went away. Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.” We do not know what time of day or night they arrived, nor does it matter. They could not afford to be as precise in setting appointments as we have grown accustomed to. If you showed up any time during the 24 hour period, you were on time. Any part of the day or night was considered a day.

“Three days and three nights” in Matthew 12:40 was a common figure of speech in the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day. Because we typically get side-tracked on the precise measurement of time, we also end up missing the point of the “sign of Jonah” Jesus’ intended. The meaning of the sign was to compare Jesus’ miraculous resurrection with Jonah’s miraculous deliverance from the huge fish’s belly. We don’t know what portion of those days and nights Jonah actually spent in suffocating stomach acids. What we do know is that what should have been certain death became a demonstration of the power of God.

To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God (Jonah 2:6).

As with Jonah, so also the Son of Man was not allowed to be defeated by death: …because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay (Acts 2:27). This was the sign of Jonah.