“Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and
faithfulness the belt of his loins.” Do
either of those words, righteousness and faithfulness apply to a man? Both are descriptors not of men but of
God. This one who is promised will be
different from all others not in degree but in kind. He will, however, come from the stump of
Jesse. What seemed dead now produces a
shoot. The Davidic monarchy has been
seemingly ended for a very long time but hope has not died, the Lord promised
one from David’s line will eternally reign.
David can lay claim to a certain level of faithfulness and righteousness
but David was a man of war and certainly an imperfect man in both righteousness
and faithfulness. This one will possess
both these qualities and will also have wisdom and understand, counsel and
might, and the knowledge and fear of the Lord.
His reign will not be like David’s reign in that peace will be its chief
characteristic, a peace that has not been known since before Genesis 3. Peace will extend beyond simply the absence
of war among people, it will encompass all creation. The reason for this peace is simple, the earth
will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.
“I can do nothing on my own.” Words to live by. Jesus never acted independently, always from
prayer and listening to the Father. His
aim was to please and glorify the Father, to make Him known. He says that there are three testimonies to
Him: John the Baptist, His works and the Father and they will not receive
either Him or the testimonies and in this they are judged. How is it that Moses accuses them to the
Father? Jesus says that they do not
believe his (Moses’) writings. What, in
particular, do they not believe about Moses’ writings? He could be thinking of the passage in
Deuteronomy 18 when Moses says the Lord will raise up a prophet like him from
among Israel and they are to listen to him but he could as easily be pointing
to the entire body of Moses’ writing and Jesus’ fulfillment of all righteousness
as defined in the Law. He was righteous
and faithful in all things and at all times.
Pre-millenialism is the belief that before the final
judgment there will come first a thousand year reign on earth while satan and
his angels are locked away. After this
thousand years satan will be loosed and will deceive many prior to the final
judgment. That idea is certainly not
found in other parts of the New Testament where eschatology is at issue and
there are problems with the belief because it doesn’t fit those other
passages. (See a good argument from Sam
Storms on this issue here.) The reign of Jesus is eternal and the swallowing
up of death, the final enemy, begins that reign. We know that in the end all things are
destroyed and there will be new heavens and a new earth. That peace promised in our first reading
awaits this recapitulation in Jesus. We
were told to pray for the coming of the kingdom, this is the kingdom for which
we long, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”
No comments:
Post a Comment