The Word for today:
2 Kings 6:8 - 7:20
mark this: 2 Kings 6:15-17 --
When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked.
"Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."
And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
Sometimes, we can't see things that are actually there. This is a fact of perception.
This should not surprise us. Our ears can't hear sound frequencies that our dogs can hear. So why should we presume that our eyes can see everything that is actually there?
We are being watched. We are an exhibition of God's grace to principalities and powers that we can't see:
His purpose was that through the church all the rulers and powers in the heavenly world will now know God's wisdom (1).
Are you getting the creeps yet? I am, just writing about this stuff.
Let's see how this works in reverse. Did you know that we can see things that angels long to look into--but can't:
The things which you have now heard from the messengers who announced the Good News...are things which even the angels would like to understand. (1 Peter 1:12)
So--we can't see some things that angels can.
But--angels can't see some things that we can.
Guess who else couldn't see everything? This may surprise you: Jesus.
Jesus emptied himself (2) of many divine attributes in order to became just like us. As the eternal Son of God, he was omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipresent (everywhere at once). But at his incarnation he became just like us in order to take our place. ('Incarnation' is a big word for what happened at Christmas--when the Word became flesh and arrived among us (3), as a baby in Bethlehem.)
And so, as one of us, with limited sight, he depended on the Holy Spirit to lead and guide him:
Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit...(4)
The Holy Spirit sees everything, even before it happens, so he knows the way. And he is always leading.
And those who will follow are led.
(1) Ephesians 3:10; (2) Philippians 2:7; (3) John 1:14; (4) Luke 4:1
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This "emptying" of Jesus is hard for me to understand, given that Jesus comes across as the most consistently powerful "person" in the entire Bible.
ReplyDeleteJesus seems to have vast supernatural power.
His instruction: "If you don't believe in Me, believe in these wonders." is calculated to lead fools like me to God.
"The fool hath said in his heart: there is no God." I have done this on many occasions, so I am one of these kinds of fools. When I consider the miracles of Jesus, they are so amazing that I wonder if they happened.
When I assume that the miracles of Jesus actually happened, then I feel that there is no way to go in thought except to go straight to Him.
People can always say that these miracles never happened, but that might not work with His biggest miracle: the resurrection.
You are left with having to explain why so many apostles and disciples risked their lives and gave their lives for something that was a lie that they knew was a lie.
Some Christians say that people should not use human reasoning to sift the world in the sieve of logic looking for God. I have heard some say that belief in Jesus Christ should rest entirely on Faith. (Although I think one of the meanings of the word "Logos" is "logic".)
I find it hard to dodge these issues about the resurrection and the apostles who felt compelled to teach people about it, if it was actually a shared lie.
So we are back to The Power of Jesus. When asked if His power came from Satan, Jesus gave the famous answer that if His power came from Satan, what sense would it make for Satan use his own Satanic power to destroy himself?
I am having trouble reconciling the powerless Jesus with the powerful Jesus. How can I understand this better?
---Onevoice
Hi, Aron--
ReplyDeleteJesus had all the power in the universe!
What he did, by choice, was become one of us in order to take my place and your place at a cross where "he became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him." (2 Cor. 5:21) "For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way." (Heb 2:17)
So the eternal Son of God willingly laid aside the glory of his divinity:
"He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:7,8)
Nowhere does any of this state that he did not do miracles! He did multitudes of miracles! There were times when multitudes followed and "he healed them all!" (Matthew 12:15)
He walked on water, fed 15,000 with a few loaves and fishes, raised three people (that we know of) from the dead; he turned water into wine, stilled the storm, restored sight to the blind...
He did so many wonders that, "if they were written one by one, the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."(John 21:25)
The blog article you are responding to quotes Luke 4:1 in order to show that Jesus was led by the Spirit, just as we are:
"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert."
The topic of the article was God's guidance. It shows that Jesus modeled our dependence on the Holy Spirit for guidance.
The very same scripture--Luke 4:1--also shows the source of Jesus' miracle power:
"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit…"
He was a model for us in this regard as well. We are to live a life empowered by the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus did in the days of his incarnation, when "he became flesh and dwelt amongst us." (John 1:14)
I hope this answers your question, Aron.
Your final remark is, "I am having trouble reconciling the powerless Jesus with the powerful Jesus. How can I understand this better?"
Let me say, Aron, that there is no 'powerless Jesus!' Jesus had all the power in the universe available to him. He was "full of the Holy Spirit," we've just read in Luke 4:1. In John 3:34 we read that "God's Spirit is upon him without measure or limit."
I hope you keep learning and learning about Jesus. I pray that you'll "Stand in the Rain" with us day by day, and that you'll ask any questions you have.
If you stay with us, you'll find that the Jesus of Scripture is the Creator God, who made something--a universe of universes--out of nothing!
And then he did his greatest miracle. As the Redeemer God, he became one of us in order to pay the "wages of sin" (Romans 6:23) that we can't pay. When he rose from the dead, he'd performed a greater miracle by far--he'd made good out of bad!
And this greatest miracle depended on the "kenosis"--the emptying--of Philippians 2:7.
But even when he'd emptied himself to become 100% man, he was always 100% God at the same time. There was never a moment when he was not God. He emptied himself of the prerogatives of deity, choosing to live on this earth with certain limitations. But they were self-limitations.
So the emptying itself was a part of his greatest miracle! It was a necessary part of the miracle of bringing you and me and countless other believers back from the dead.
In order for him to say, "Aron, come forth to eternal life," he had to become one of us; he had to bleed the same blood in order to die the same death.
It's been a privilege to answer your question, Aron. God bless you and keep you.