Torn Open

Matthew 3:16-17

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.  At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (NIV).

   As we learned last week, Jesus repented on behalf of people by getting baptized.  Just afterwards, heaven was opened.  In the book of Mark, the phrase used in the NIV is “torn open.”  Dr. Robert Stein, in his excellent book, Jesus the Messiah, makes this statement: “[Mark] uses this same term in only one other place—Mark 15:38.  There he writes that at the death of Jesus ‘the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom’” (1)

   This event of the heavens being opened, “torn open,” captured by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, was an event where God was foreshadowing the redemption Jesus would make possible on the cross.  This is a key message!  God was foreshadowing the atonement which would make it possible for people to not only be in the presence of God, yet even be in a loving relationship with God.

   A second occurrence after being baptized: the “Spirit of God” descended on Jesus.  Jesus is the Messiah (Hebrew), the Christ (Greek), both of which translate as Anointed One.  Priests, kings, and I have even argued prophets, were anointed with olive oil.  Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit!

   For anyone who believes in Jesus Christ, he or she is baptized with the Holy Spirit, as John the Baptist states in Matthew 3:11.  Being given the Holy Spirit from Jesus happens immediately upon belief, not right after being baptized in water, since Christian baptism is different and of a fuller nature than John’s baptism.  John’s baptism was simply of repentance.  Christian baptism is done in the name of the Triune God, and symbolizes having accepted and shared in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Christian water baptism is a response to what Jesus has done.

   Thirdly, a voice from heaven spoke!  The proclamation by God was the same as the statement at what is now termed the “transfiguration.”  And Peter states how he heard God the Father make that statement when they were on the “sacred” mountain (see 2 Peter 1:17).  God was truly proclaiming love.

   Love is what this is all about.  Love is the reason Jesus was willing to repent for the sins of all people on their behalf.  Love is the reason God tore open the heavens in the midst of the barrier that was entrenched between God and people due to the sins of people.  Love is the reason Jesus died the unimaginable death on a cross for the sins of all people.  Love is the reason that today God wants you to be saved from your sins, which block His love, and to be in a loving relationship with Him.

   To be saved, you need to believe in Jesus, the One who died as the substitute for you.  Believe in Jesus, and you will be in an everlasting loving relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit!  He loves you.

Hunter Irvine

(1) Robert Stein, Jesus the Messiah: A Survey of the Life of Christ

(Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 98.

On our behalf

Scripture passage: Matthew 3:13-15

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.  But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then John consented (NIV).

   Luke clearly states the mission of John the Baptist: “He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3).  John himself stated: “I baptize you with water for repentance” (Matthew 3:11).  Preparation was necessary for the Messiah, and that preparation included repentance.

   By pursuing and accepting the baptism of John, Jesus was repenting.  Yet Scripture clearly states Jesus was sinless (see 2 Corinthians 5:21).  So why would Jesus insist on being baptized by John?  The answer is: Jesus was submitting to a baptism of repentance not for His own sins, rather for the sins of the world.  Jesus was taking the responsibility for the sins of people upon Himself on behalf of all humanity!  Jesus was repenting of sins as a representative of people before the Holy Father.  And Christ’s public sign of repenting on our behalf would lead to being crucified on a cross as the substitute for our sins.

   I add that Christian baptism has a fuller meaning.  Jesus would later instigate a water baptism in the name of the Triune God, symbolizing death to sin and new life in Him!

   I had numerous great classes at Colorado Christian University, and I am thankful I studied there.  I still think it is ironic my favorite class was my first semester.  The class was my favorite subject, and the adjunct professor made it fun and engaging.  And I remember one day when Professor Tafoya asked the class, “What was it that Jesus did with the Law?”  (He was referring to the Mosaic Law.)  Students remained silent.  I waited a bit, yet then I said, “He fulfilled it.”  That was the correct answer.  And the Messiah also fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham and the promise to David.

   And fulfillment of the Mosaic Law, and the promises to Abraham and David, required the fulfillment of the promise made to Joseph that Jesus would save people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).  By even repenting for the sins of people, Jesus did fulfill all righteousness, since that was the beginning of His ministry which would culminate in Him being the atonement for sins.

   With forgiveness received, a believer is declared righteous by the Messiah, and is baptized with the Holy Spirit who will be with that person forever.  He or she is adopted as a child of God.  And he or she has entered, upon believing, the New Covenant, which is an eternal covenant indeed.

   The only way a person can be righteous forever in the sight of God is to gain the righteousness of God, which is available only from Jesus, and which is offered by Jesus even today.

Hunter Irvine

Awaiting the Messiah

Isaiah 40:3

A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God” (NIV).

Matthew 3:1-6

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”  This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”

John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist.  His food was locusts and wild honey.  People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan.  Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River (NIV).

   Note the quotation by Matthew of the prophecy of Isaiah is not precise.  When I was a young Christian I became a bit baffled by the fact Old Testament Scripture was often quoted with some variation.  Considering I was told Scripture was the “word of God,” as a fresh college graduate I expected quotations to be precise.  After all, that is what my college professors expected of me!

   I eventually learned people at the time of Christ often quoted the Hebrew Scriptures from a Greek translation termed the Septuagint.  Greek was a common language between folks of different countries in regions in the vicinity of the Mediterranean Sea, so the scholarly Greek translation was popular.  But the translation by scholars of the Hebrew, and a small amount of Aramaic, into a much different language, resulted in some language variance.  Yet the message remained.

   In the past few months, we covered the entire first chapter of Matthew.  The Christmas story continues in the second chapter telling of the Magi who traveled to worship Jesus, and telling of the evil King Herod.  Then there is an escape to Egypt by Joseph, Mary, and their baby.  In due time, they returned home to Nazareth.

   Matthew then jumps ahead in time to when Jesus was about thirty years old, and we are abruptly introduced to an eccentric character.  John the Baptist grew up apparently a hermit in the desert (see Luke 1:80).  John wore camel hair clothes and ate locusts and wild honey (see Matthew 3:4).  Locusts probably taste better soaked in honey, but getting wild honey involves dealing with wild bees.  John seems to make some people a little uncomfortable even after nearly 2,000 years.  I have rarely heard a sermon about him, and I never recall him being discussed in any of my Biblical studies classes.

   Yet people were flocking to him!  “People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan (Matthew 3:5).

   What was John doing?  First he was preaching.  Second, he baptized people in water.  But water baptism was not a command under the Mosaic Law, and most of these folks were probably Jewish.  A scholar in the 1700’s, Dr. John Gill, said there was no written record of baptism before the time of John the Baptist. (1)  (Have any such writings been discovered since the 1700’s?)

   And no Jewish writings exist which record Jewish baptism, distinct from Christians who were Jewish, after the time of Christ’s ministry on earth until the Talmuds, and the Jewish Talmuds were written centuries after Christ.  There are statements in Talmuds of Jewish people baptizing Gentiles who desired to convert to Judaism, (2) though it was not done in the name of God. (3)  And there is a mention of some Jewish women being baptized, possibly since they did not have the covenant sign of circumcision. (4)  But applying the practice of Jewish baptism for converts to a period several centuries earlier is scholarly speculation, which Dr. Gill disagrees with.

   However, baptism did not seem foreign to some Pharisees.  When some Pharisees questioned John as recorded in John 1:24-25, they seem to be familiar with the practice of baptism.  I consider baptism had possibly become a practice at some juncture before the time of Christ, where Jewish people would immerse people who were not ethnically Jewish in water as a sign of their conversion to Judaism.  Yet I speculate the practice was done only for a short period of time before the time of Christ, and was probably uncommon.

   The bottom line is Jewish male infants were circumcised on the eighth day, as commanded by God to Abraham (Genesis 17:12).  Jewish infants, youth, or men were not baptized.

   So the question is clear: Why would Jewish people flock to a vagabond who was doing an act, baptizing in water, which was either a foreign act or an insulting act for a Jewish man?

   I think there were two main reasons.

   First, I think a minor reason John was not shunned was the fact he was in the priestly line of Aaron.  We learn from Luke, who like Matthew gives details about the “Christmas story,” that John was a descendant of the high priest Aaron, the brother of Moses.  Both the dad and the mom of John the Baptist were descendants of Aaron (Luke 1:5).  And only descendants of Aaron were eligible to be Hebrew priests.

   Now John apparently was not an ordained priest like his dad, and he did not serve in the Temple like his dad had.  John was radical, yet I think people in that region knew the lineage of John.

   Second, I think the primary reason people flocked to John and were baptized was they were anticipating the Messiah, and they thought John might be Him.  The prophet Daniel gave a prophecy which included a time period when the Messiah would arrive (see Daniel 9:25).  And there were likely those who still recalled the testimony which the angel of the Lord gave some shepherds about thirty years before (see Luke 2:8-12).  Jewish people at the time of Christ were expecting the Messiah, which is subtly shown in several Scripture passages, for example, Luke 3:15- “The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ.”  If John was the Christ, they were willing to carry out the sign of repentance.

   John clearly stated he was not the Christ (see John 1:20).  Yet he told of the One who was to come who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.  Indeed John’s mission was to prepare people for the start of the ministry of Jesus the Messiah.  And preparation required the need for repentance and a water baptism symbolic of repentance.  Jesus would later instigate a water baptism in the name of the Triune God, symbolizing death to sin and new life in Him!

   Repenting to God is simply recognizing your wrong doings and saying sorry to God.  Repenting to a person is simply recognizing your wrong doings which have hurt a particular person, and saying sorry to that person.  Repenting does not mean you are the only one who has done something wrong.  It is simply facing up to your own wrong doings.

   All people need to repent of our sins to God, admitting our sins, and saying sorry.  Jesus, who is God the Son, came into the world to be our Savior and intercessor.  We need no other intercessor besides God the Son.  Anywhere and anytime, you can say sorry to Jesus!

Hunter Irvine

(1) John Gill, A Dissertation concerning the Baptism of Jewish Proselytes (London: George Keith, 1771), 47.

{Note this was previously one section of a book by Dr. Gill, A Body of Practical Divinity, which was likewise published by George Keith in 1770.}

(2) Ibid., 52.

(3) Ibid., 69.

(4) Ibid., 52.

Silent Night

My Christmas message is offered knowing many people are not able to be worshiping in a church this Christmas Eve due to the pandemic.  And just as I had Thanksgiving meal alone for the first time in about a decade, I realize there are others like me who are single and alone, or folks who cannot be with extended family due to the high coronavirus risk.  It is a challenging time for many of us.  I have prayed you would be encouraged by my message.

   On Easter, I worshiped God all morning in my room, which included doing what I do most every morning: Scripture reading and pondering, prayer, and singing.  I also journaled.  And after spending much time thinking about and relishing a big blessing from God in my life, I gained a special blessing.

   The morning included intense lamenting as the coronavirus catastrophe was swelling in the U.S.  And my friend Christel, who had a different health challenge for many years, was in much pain that very day.  She passed away five days later.  Honestly, Easter did not seem like Easter.  Our neighborhood road is ten times calmer when high school is out, but on any given day some cars roll down our street.  Surely cars passed by on Easter Sunday, but I did not hear a single one all day.  The silence was eerie.  Yet before going to bed that night, I had joy and peace knowing that Jesus is risen from the dead, and that He loves me!

   Easter was the central yearly celebration for Christians early on.  In early centuries the celebration retained the term Paschal Festival or Paschal Feast, “Pascha” meaning Passover.  (Pascha is still used by some Eastern Christians.)  The emphasis was on the sacrificial atonement of Jesus as the Lamb of God, expressed by Paul in I Corinthians 5:7-8.  Yet resurrection was also key.  Ignatius once referred to all Sundays, which he termed the Lord’s Day, as resurrection-day!  Anatolius of Alexandria called the Paschal feast “the festival of the Lord’s resurrection.”  There is a classic set of writings of early Christians, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.  Doing a search for the word “resurrection” for simply the first three volumes, I got 650 hits.  Resurrection was a focus for the early Christians along with the atonement.  Thus the term Easter was embraced eventually, a Saxton word which denotes resurrection (which I know thanks to the scholar C.F. Cruse).

   Centuries later, Christians started celebrating Christmas.  Carols have long been one of my favorite Christmas expressions, and “Silent Night” is a staple.  Jesus was born in the middle of the night.  Since so many people were in Bethlehem to register for the census, a few folks were probably still awake being rowdy.  Yet when the shepherds went to see the baby, surely there was much silent reverence before that newborn.  The quiet reverence surrounding the manger where the Messiah lay would not have been eerie like the April 12th silence, rather the silent reverence was surely awesome.

   And think of all the blessed reverence there has been by Christians year after year for the past two thousand years for the birth of Christ.  I personally have been a part of Christians being reverent on Christmas Eve expressed by both a joyful noise in celebration, and in that powerful act of softly singing “Silent Night” with candles in hand.  Revelation 8:1 speaks of silence in heaven when the seventh seal is opened.  God remains holy throughout all ages.  We should heed the teaching of Scripture: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe…” (Hebrews 12:28).  Reverence for God is right even when so much in our world comes unglued in the midst of rampant sin.

   If you have never truly celebrated Christmas or Easter in your heart, you can.  That baby who was born in a manger was Immanuel, which means “God with us.”  And about thirty-three years later, Jesus was crucified on a cross for the forgiveness of sins of anyone.  He was the substitutional atonement for the wages of sin, which is spiritual death.  Then He was resurrected.  I invite you to receive Jesus as your Savior and Lord.  You need to truly believe in Jesus.  The result is eternal life in heaven, and hope in this world.  Though there has been so much sickness and death and loss and hurt and animosity and stress and loneliness this year all around the world, the love of God is still available, and the love of God results in everlasting goodness.

Hunter Irvine

+   Take some prayer time.

- Tell Jesus anything you want to right now.

- Give thanks to God that even after such a challenging year for so many, we have a reason to celebrate Christmas, thanks to the love of Jesus.

I encourage you to now sing “Silent Night! Holy Night!”

Here is a link with lyrics to the song performed by Natalie Raynes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoF6eVNo-Zc

I hope your Christmas is blessed, because Jesus loves you!  love, Hunter

Matthew 1:22-23 Immanuel

Matthew 1:22-23   All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” –which means, “God with us” (NIV).

Isaiah 7:14   “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (NIV).

   Fitting that Matthew tells us the prophecy from Isaiah, since we learned last week the angel of the Lord said Jesus would forgive people of sins.  He is showing Jesus had the authority to forgive sins, since He was Immanuel.

   A big champion of what we now call The Nicene Creed was a church leader named Athanasius.  The scholar Dr. Chris Hall clearly explained in his book Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers that Athanasius refuted Arius with two key statements, the first being the fact salvation can come only from God.  Dr. Hall stated: “The Arian Christ, Athanasius insisted, could save no one.  No creature possessed the ability or prerogative to save from sin.” (1)

   Radically, the prophet Isaiah was saying in the 8th century, long before the birth of Jesus, the Messiah would be God!

   The picture on a Christmas card this year from my dad and step-mom is an old worn down barn next to a rolling field with low mountains in the distance.  An inch or two of snow covers the ground, and the sky is covered with clouds.  The photo was apparently taken near the Appalachian range of Pennsylvania, and reminds me of the Appalachian region in Virginia I am so fond of.  It looks really cold, yet I know that in mid-Appalachia, winters move on in due time.

   Having lived in Colorado for twenty-one of the past twenty-three years, the winters wear on me more as the years go by.  I miss the east coast where I grew up.  Though Colorado is not my climate of choice, I am thankful to live here now, because there are people here who love me.  For me, joy and peace comes not from a place, rather from who you are with.

   So even though I have had numerous rough circumstances ever since coming to Colorado to do ministry work, I have had joy and peace consistently, because all along God has been with me.  Sometimes, problems come in just like a winter storm in Colorado, and God seems hidden.  Sometimes God seems to be nowhere around.  Sometimes joy and peace seems elusive.  Yet God who is unseen is God who became a human being, beginning like all humans, as a baby.  There in the manager was Immanuel, which means “God with us.”  Jesus is still here today through the Holy Spirit in the hearts of all people who have given their heart to Him, and Jesus is speaking through Scripture which He inspired for humanity to learn from Him.

   Here on this fourth Sunday of Advent of 2020, in the midst of a long hard pandemic season, we can trust the revelation of Scripture that Jesus remains “God with us.”

Hunter

Question for pondering:   When do you feel closest to God?

- Take some prayer time.  Talk with God about your needs and your hopes for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day upcoming this week.

(1)   Christopher Hall, Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 60.

Matthew 1:21 The Promise to Joseph

Matthew 1:21   "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins" (NIV).

   We saw in the start of the book of Matthew the seemingly boring genealogy is filled with the promises of God, rooted in Hebrew Scripture, which would be fulfilled by the Christ.  Now in this New Testament Scripture, Joseph got a wild promise from God!  The promise came from an angel of the Lord speaking to him in a dream.  And what was the promise?  That Mary’s baby will save people from their sins.

   I add the name Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, which means “YHWH saves.”

   How did Jesus make it possible for people to be saved from sins?  Romans 6:23 states: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

   Physical and spiritual death is the result of any single sin.  Jesus died in the place of people.  Jesus was the substitute for the wages of sin.  Receiving the atonement Christ made results in life.  That was His plan from the beginning.

   How can a person receive this salvation?  By believing in Jesus.  The great proclamation of the Reformation was that salvation is by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  To believe in Jesus is to receive His mercy.  When you believe in Jesus, you receive the mercy and grace He wants to give you, because He loves you.

   And the result is being baptized with the Holy Spirit, which means a journey with Jesus has begun.  And on that journey a follower of Jesus is enabled to live a life becoming more and more of a loving person.

   For me it is more comfortable to ignore the topic of sin.  Yet facing the topic of sin is how to be free from it.  And facing sin requires dependence on Jesus.  We all need mercy, and Jesus offers mercy.

   And we all need to improve.  Thus we need to keep relying day by day on the power of the Holy Spirit.  There is much in this world which seems normal, and much in this world which “everyone” else seems to be doing, but which result in hurts, be they slight hurts or huge hurts.  Sin is harmful, and ultimately deadly.  Believing in Jesus results in salvation, then relying on Jesus results in an increasing freedom from sin.

Hunter Irvine

Question for pondering:

1.)   What is one wrong thing you did this past week?  You can ask God for forgiveness.

- Take some prayer time.  With the current coronavirus surge, problems galore are continuing.  Just this week I learned of several people who were recently sick with COVID, or who are sick now.  Please say one prayer for people who are sick at this time.

Matthew 1:19-20 Joseph considers divorce

Matthew 1:19-20

Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.  But after he had considered this, and angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (NIV).

   My first thought: “Divorce is not an appropriate Advent topic.”  Yet it is a relevant Advent topic, because had the angel of the Lord not given encouragement and a revelation to Joseph, and had Joseph not obeyed the angel of the Lord, Jesus would have been born into this world having parents who were divorced.

   Matthew calls Joseph “her husband” in verse 19.  2,000 years ago in the Jewish culture, if you were engaged, you were legally married, which is why Joseph would have needed a “divorce” to end it.  So here they are legally bound and on the doorstep of the wedding, and then Joseph learns his wife is pregnant.

   Under the Mosaic Law, the sentence against Mary would have been death, as is stated in Leviticus 20:10.  Obviously the Jewish leaders were not following this regulation of the Mosaic Law which was surely unpopular.  But we learn here Mary would have been publicly chastised, and it would have probably been a stigma for her which may have resulted in not being able to get another husband of good character.

   Interesting that Matthew says Joseph was a righteous man, thus we know that Jesus had a special father.  Yet even he had decided to divorce his bride, apparently without talking with her.

   My parents are divorced, and I was terribly hurt by their long separation and subsequent divorce.  Once I started following Jesus, a healing process began.  I consider in retrospect that I was a follower of Jesus for about a decade before I was ready for a healthy marriage.  God gently worked to bring healing in my life.  Then in the summer of 2000, there was an incredible event of healing when I took the afternoon to pray on the grass beside the library where my parents first met.  That afternoon, I forgave my parents for the sins they had done which led to their divorce.  The result was awesome: the capability to live free from the hurt and anger which had resulted from my parent’s divorce.

   But much damage was done in my life which I still have to deal with all these years later.  For example, to this day I still have the dream of being married, though I remain single at an older age where most women I know have been married for a long time.

   And now I recall a fact I have not thought of in a long time: After my parents got divorced, Christmas time was a bit depressing for me.  In my youth, Christmas had been the most exciting family day of the year.  But once my family was broken, the special day was no longer the same.  I remember one year in college where I slept in rather than waking up on time with my younger sister to get presents.

   Praise be to God that once I became a Christian, Christmas swiftly gained a growing significance which was not tied to my past family Christmases.  Christmas became about Jesus, my Savior and Lord.

   As we continue with the Christmas story here on the second Sunday of Advent, please know we Christians still have hurts and there is nothing unusual about hurts from family.  If you have such hurts, you may need to talk with a friend about such, yet first and foremost it is best to talk with God.  Tell Him about your hurts.  Listen to Him for help and for healing.

   We all need forgiveness from Jesus, and we all need to forgive people who have hurt us, including our parents for those of us who were hurt by our parents.  Forgiving requires dependence on God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the One who is merciful.

   What better Advent activity than to gain more healing, so we may be better prepared for the blessings of Christmas after this extremely challenging year of 2020.

Hunter

Question for pondering:

1.) Have you ever had a disappointing Christmas?