Compared with anything, much less the promises of
yesterday's reading for obedience, these are hideous thoughts: eating the flesh
of your sons and daughters, bodies piled up on their idols, cities laid waste,
sanctuaries desolate, devastation of the land, in exile. Does God paint a clear picture for what
happens if they are disobedient? It
doesn’t seem particularly safe to be in covenant with Him. It certainly doesn't seem safe to be
faithless to the covenant. Interesting
that He points to the land's enjoyment of the Sabbath while the people are in
exile, that is exactly what happens in the time of Jeremiah. Why does God
believe that they will not keep Sabbath particularly? Does He perhaps know something about the
future? There is, however, a remedy,
repentance. If they repent, He will remember
the Land. They are His people in
perpetuity and wherever they may be.
Whose Son is the Christ?
It seems an insignificant question and a bit like some sort of Buddhist
answer to the question, an answer but not really an answer, only a refutation
of the answer given. If the Christ isn't
David's son, whose son is he? They are
certainly expecting one from David's line, so their answer makes perfect sense
but Jesus appeals to Psalm 110 for proof they are wrong. In doing so He affirms David's authorship of
that Psalm but also points not only to that verse but to the entire Psalm which
is used in Hebrews as well. It contains
the verse, "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” It also speaks of ruling among enemies and
the day of God's wrath. Some of this is
fulfilled in the life of Jesus while some awaits His coming again. He is God's Son, one who appears, like
Melchizedek, out of nowhere but is a priest nonetheless as well as a king.
Paul tells the Ephesians that God has known all things
concerning our salvation since before the foundation of the world. He reassures them for the future based on the
fact that God has had a plan all along to save them. In the little song by Dottie Rambo, Behold
the Lamb, that we sometimes sing at the fraction of the bread in Communion, we
say that Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world and we miss the
theological statement in those words.
Jesus' sacrifice reaches back all the way to creation, this world was
founded upon that sacrifice otherwise Adam and Eve would have died upon eating
the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is upon the foundation of that sacrifice and God's grace that we exist
at all. We should be thankful with every
breath that this is so.
No comments:
Post a Comment