Father, as we approach you in this Lenten season, we are reminded that all of what we're about here and all of what our lives are about is ultimately the glory that comes to you through Jesus Christ, our Savior, and Lord, who was crucified and resurrected on our behalf. And as we are just a few days away from Good Friday, well, we remember the great death of His misery that was for us. The curse that He took for us, the pain, the agony for us, the sacrifice for us, and the redemption that is ours, the atonement that is ours, the justification that we have, the adoption as children, all of these things, we give you and our Lord glory. When we think of Easter and the resurrection that proves that Jesus was who He said He was, that indicates that there is resurrection life to all believers, that gives us an eternal hope that we too will live one day in resurrected bodies, bringing glory to the Son and to the Father. We again would give you glory in this moment. We pray that you use this class in some small way to give us insight into the glory which is rightly yours and your wonderful name we pray. Amen. Let me ask you, this is a rhetorical question. So I don't want to see any hands just yet. But what did Jesus intend to do? That's the question I want to ask today. What was Jesus all about? And I want to try and answer that with a mind in part towards the historical Jesus question and also a mind in part towards the gospels themselves and how they represent Jesus' intention. But I want to do both of those aspects and bring them together into asking who is Jesus? What did He intend to do? And I want to basically make three points. You don't have an outline on this, but you do have some items actually from last time. Remember that they hand out on the Passion Predictions and the Lord's Supper? You'd be helpful if you got that out. If you don't have a copy, there are a limited number of copies right back there, right behind Patrick in the camera. So you'll need a copy of that in front of you as well. Now, I want to make three basic points about the intention of Jesus. Well, really four. I just revised my own outline of my head. The first is he intended to be understood as the Messiah. The second is he intended to teach. The third is that he intended to die, and the fourth is that he intended to rise again. So I'll just repeat those. He intended to be perceived as the Messiah. He intended to teach. He intended to die, and he intended to rise again. If you got those four points, that's the whole of what today is about. Let's start off with the first point that he intended to be understood as the Messiah. And here, I'd like you to open to Daniel chapter 7. So Daniel chapter 7. In particular, I'm looking at Daniel chapter 7 first 13 and following. Actually, we should probably get slightly back to the context and look at Daniel chapter 7 verse 9. Daniel in the midst of this apocalyptic revelation of who God is sees the following. I kept looking until Thrones were set up and the ancient of days took his seat. It was the ancient of days. Well, that would be the Lord God. His vesture was like white snow and the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames. Its wheels were a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out before him. Thousands upon thousands were attending him and myriads upon myriads were standing before him. The court sat and the books were open. And so that's the picture of God. Then we look at verse 13 of the same chapter of Daniel chapter 7. I kept looking in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming. And he came up to the ancient of days. So this isn't the same as the ancient of days, but this is the one who's like the son of man. And was presented before him and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the people's nations and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. Now, when we looked at the use of the Old Testament in the new couple of weeks ago, some of these things that you see here might echo some passages that you'll remember we talked about. So we have one who is like a son of man. So therefore he is viewed fundamentally as being human in some respect. And then in verse 14 it says, and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom. Now, the bit about dominion should remind you of perhaps even Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 when God creates human beings. In the image of God he creates them. He creates them to rule over, right, to have dominion over all the rest of his creation. So you see an echo of Genesis 1 even in Daniel, and probably that's intended in Daniel. Then you have glory and a kingdom that all peoples nations and men of every language might serve him. Well, that reminds us of this kind of constant refrain in the Old Testament about all nations. One place that we encountered all nations was, and of course in the covenant made with Abraham, is going to be a blessing to all nations. We also meet the concept of all nations in the book of Isaiah where Israel and ultimately the servant is to be a light for the Gentiles, to the Gentiles. So you have this idea of all nations, another kind of Old Testament theme that's coming in here and informing what's going on in Daniel. And then that all the peoples nations and men of every language might serve him, his dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. And that in my mind is reminiscent of the Davidic covenant where God promises to David a child, a son, who will have an unending kingdom. So you see kind of this combination of themes coming together, even in Daniel, of a universal rule of the true man in whom it's capsulated the kind of kingdom promises we have in David in particular in the Davidic offspring, the Davidic we would say Messiah. What is striking about his position in this passage is not just that those themes come together but the material in verse 13. I kept looking in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him. Okay, let's just picture this for half a second. Here is the ancient of days, Lord God Almighty, whom thousands upon thousands myriads upon myriads of people are currently serving. I mean angels and jelly beings are serving. He's in court, he's clothed like white snow, his hair is with pure wool and his throne was ablaze with flames and this guy just kind of walks up to him. That is no typical son of man to stand in that presence and to walk up to him and to receive this kind of universal authority from him is to receive something that is yes in keeping with the kind of promises to David but it's beyond it, isn't it, in a certain way? Now, where I'm going with all that and how this has to do with the intention of Jesus is what did Jesus frequently call himself? We call himself the son of man, okay? Now, there's probably multiple dimensions going on in that title and it could have been perceived in his day and I think rightly to a certain degree as a simple claim to being a human being. I am a son of man, it's like I'm a son of Adam, right? But there was always the possibility of it having these kind of denielic overtones of this supreme son of man who has exalted beyond any other being in all of creation so that he is effectively the right hand agent of the ancient of days, moving slightly beyond the language of Daniel itself. And then when you get to Matthew, chapter 26, after Jesus has frequently recalled himself the son of man and Jesus is before the high priest and the high priest in Matthew 26 says, in the passage I think we've referred to before in here, about 663. The high priest says, I assure you by the living God that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God. So he's specifically saying, are you the Messiah? Are you the Son of God? Now, what is striking about this is that Jesus does not usually accept the Christos title, but the Christ title, the anointed one, the Messiah title. And so this is a very pointed question where the high priest is saying, commit here, you the Messiah. And Jesus says, you have said it yourself, which of course is a backdoor way of saying yes. And some of the other gospels they, instead of using this kind of idiomatic way, they're just more direct in saying, he said yes. They're just representing the intent of what he said. Nevertheless, I tell you, here after you shall see, we just heard this passage, the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power on coming on the clouds of heaven. And in doing that, in that one moment, he is combining Psalm 110 with Daniel 7. The discussion of the Son of man in Psalm 110 then becomes focused on the Son of man in Daniel 7. And he's connecting them together and he's saying, I've been using this term, Son of man. You know what I think it means? I think it means Daniel 7 in Psalm 110. So he brings those two together. I've mentioned before, I think, again, but it bears repeating that the priest tears his robes and says he is blasphemed. In this moment, I think what's going on is not, again, just simply that he said, yeah, I'm the Messiah. There were a number of Messianic claims that were made in the first two centuries of the Christian era, AD, that is. So it's hard to know that this was a sufficient grounds for blasphemy. But the equation of himself then, with the one who sits on the right hand of the throne of God from Psalm 110, with the one who approaches the ancient of days, Daniel 7. The whole context of both of those passages comes to bear to inform you that this is not just a regular everyday old man. This is somebody who claims to have the authority of God Almighty, and therefore he's a blasphemer. Now, that is to just take one title that Jesus uses of himself in the Gospels. And frankly, there's a lot more that could be done here with titles in the Old Testament, titles in the New Testament, the ones especially that are associated with Jesus. But if you just take that title and it's evidence so frequently throughout the Gospels that even the most skeptical historical Jesus scholar says, yeah, Jesus called himself a son of man. And then you see how that's understood, then you realize that this is not just a claim to be the Messiah, but this is the Messiah with the capital M. This is the Messiah who has the very power of God Almighty at His disposal. So point number one, Jesus intended to be understood as the Messiah. Point number two, Jesus intended to teach. We have already seen this in Matthew, of course, on the Sermon on the Mount. And Matthew, as a gospel, gathers into five great discourses principally the teachings of Jesus. And we've read the first one, the Sermon on the Mount, or at least parts of it. But Jesus did come to teach. I have some relatives, I'm not sure if I mentioned this in this class, I think I mentioned it in a different class. But I have some relatives who saw the Passion of Christ movie. And they are not, they would not be Christians as you and I would understand Christians. We were interacting over this a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks ago, about the movie The Passion. And one of my relatives was saying that she thought that this movie really missed what Jesus was about, because it didn't present any of his teachings. The Passion movie is principally about the death of Christ. I'm not saying you guys should have seen this movie, but I'm just for curiosity, how many people have seen it in the room? Oh my goodness. I'm surprised. Well, over 90% of the people in the room, I'm surprised. Okay, so you've seen the movie, see what I'm talking about. Well, the movie is about the death of Jesus. And there's occasional little blurbs of teaching in there that are brought in. But principally it's just as a means of interpreting his death. And I have to say that my relative here in this respect is right. The movie does not present a full or picture of the Ministry of Jesus. As much as we as people who are reading our Bibles want to focus on the death of Jesus and especially coming out of Paul's emphasis on that, we want to say it's about the death of Jesus that primarily that's what, you know, the Ministry of Jesus is about good Friday. I want to say no, there's a whole lot of time that he spent teaching. I mean, he could have gotten to the cross a lot faster if he wanted to. And so he needed to inform people about what the kingdom is and what was about to come. Can I mention the other thing that I think is missing from the Passion of Christ movie? The resurrection of Jesus. There's this very quick scene at the end where he stands up in the tomb. And if you already know the Gospels, you can properly interpret it. But I would submit to you that somebody who's never read the Gospels looks at that scene and goes, what in the world? I mean, I thought he was dead and now he's standing. And he's in this weird kind of cave thing, you know. You have to understand something about Jewish burial practices and a whole lot of thing. And the scene is too quick to, I think, really give full weight to the resurrection. So there's other aspects of the movie that I appreciate and some that I would critique. But those, we have to say that it does not present a full or picture of Jesus. He is a teacher. He is one who dies and he is one who is resurrected. We have to see all of those things. It's universally seen in the Gospels in that way and beyond. Now, when we talk about the teaching of Jesus, it's principally the teaching about the kingdom of God. Sometimes, for instance, in Matthew, the phrase is used the kingdom of heaven. I hope you understand that the word heaven there is a, it's a circumlocution for the name God. Because of course a Jewish person in the first century didn't want to say the name God too often. So they would say the kingdom of heaven, which is a way of saying the kingdom of God because heaven equals God because that's where God rules. So it's one of many instances where one phrase is used to stand for God. Therefore, while some gospel authors will use frequently kingdom of heaven and others for the same passages will say kingdom of God. What's going on there is one is writing from a very Jewish perspective and probably closer to what Jesus actually said kingdom of heaven. But we as Gentile readers might not understand that. So the other Gospels are so kind as to say kingdom of heaven, which is what Jesus means, even if not exactly what he said in the Aramaic, for instance. So teaching about the kingdom of God. Now, there are places where Jesus teaches very directly and overtly about the kingdom. So you have that, for instance, in the Sermon on the Mount where he just gets up and he lays out a kind of kingdom ethic. This is what righteousness looks like from the viewpoint of God. And you can't keep it, but at the same time, once you're forgiven, this is what constitutes holiness and this is what you pursue. So that's the kind of kingdom ethic you have in the book of Matthew. One of the most frequent aspects of Jesus' teaching is that of parables. And so we need to take just a few minutes to focus on that one dimension of Jesus' teaching. Not all of Jesus' teaching was in parables. I'm quick to say that. But a lot of it was in parables and so we need to understand a bit how parables work. So if you would turn to Mark chapter four then, we're going to look at what Mark represents as one of the first parables of Jesus. I'm going to assume that you're somewhat familiar with the parable itself. The parable is that of the sower and the soils, right? And the sower goes out and he any spread seeds, right? But there's four kinds of soil. So there's the kind of soil that is beside the road. There's the rocky soil. There is the soil that has thorns in it. And then there's the good soil. Those are the four kinds of soil there. And the seed, as you know, responds differently each kind of the soil. And it's really only in the last soil in the good soil that the seed truly sprouts. Now, this is followed by the 12, begin to ask him about the parables. See, that's what says in verse 10 of chapter four, right? And so you're expecting Jesus to come in and say, oh, well, that's easy. You know, here, let me just explain it to you. And eventually he's going to get there and he's going to explain the parable to him. Before he does, he talks about why he speaks in parables. And he says this, to you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God. But those who are outside get everything in parables. In order that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing they may hear and not understand, lest they return and be forgiven. And that last is a quote from Isaiah. Now, I want to be careful to say that this is one dimension of the parables. Because if you were to go here exclusively, you get the sense that the parables are for the people outside, so that they really can't understand what Jesus is about. And notice in Mark, although it's weakened in some of the other gospels, the phrases actually used in, verse 12, in order that while seeing, they may see and not perceive. So he has a purpose to the parables. And the parables is to mystify the people who are outside the kingdom of God. Now, that is, I think, even in the context of Mark, only one of the purposes of the parables, because right after that he goes on to explain this parable to them. Which indicates that at least in some respects, the parable also informs the people who are in the kingdom of God, what the kingdom is like. So I think we can say that the parables at least have a dual focus. For the people who are in the kingdom, they become a kind of challenging way to determine what the kingdom is about. An illustration, if you would, of the kingdom. But to the people outside the kingdom, they become almost a grounds for condemnation. Because they see that what's going on, they hear what's going on, but they can't fit it altogether. Now, this is a very striking aspect of Jesus' teaching then. If your concept of Jesus is that, you know, meek and mild Jesus good and kind out there are children coming to him and just kind of teaching nice thoughts and teaching people to love one another, then you've missed a whole dimension of Jesus' teaching, which is he is there to divide people from one another. There are those who are going to be in the kingdom and those who are going to be out of the kingdom and his teaching does both. Being being takes him and divides them from one another. So, you have to understand his teaching at least in that regard. Now, let's go on through the rest of Mark four, I'm still in Mark four, and see how he then explains the parable. Verse 13, and he said to them, Jesus said to them, do you not understand this parable and how will you understand all the parables? So, he's giving them a bit of a matrix for understanding parables now. How will you understand the rest of the parables if you don't understand this one? This is the first one, this is the one, at first in the Gospels at least. This is the one that if you get this one, you start to get the rest. The Sower soads the word. So, what is the seed then? The seed is the word of God, the proclamation of the kingdom effect. And these are the ones who are beside the road when the word is sewn, and when they hear immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sewn in them. So, the one beside the road, the seed is immediately taken up, like the birds take it up, because it never actually penetrates into the soil. In a similar way, these are the ones on whom the seed was sewn on the rocky places, who when they hear the word immediately receive it with joy, and they have no firm root in themselves but are only temporary, then when affliction or persecution arises because of the word immediately, they follow away. So, it's like, wow, that's really cool teaching. I want to be here. Oh, you're going to suffer. Well, again, out of here. It's that kind of reaction. As soon as persecution comes, they're out. Three. And others are the ones on whom seed was sewn among the thorns. These are the ones who have heard the word and the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter it and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. Now, there's a debate there as to whether unfruitful means that these people are not in the kingdom at all, or whether they're just unfruitful members of the kingdom. And I'll let you guys debate that. I would be, I would slightly favor the idea that they're not in the kingdom at all, because to be an unfruitful seed is to be useless and to be cast out. That's how I would perceive it. And those are the, and then finally, the last one, those are the ones on whom seed was sewn on the good soil and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit 30, 60, and 100 full. Now, at the beginning of the gospel and at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, as the gospel represents it, Jesus is also stating something about his intent and how he perceives his ministry. He effectively is the one who's going to be throwing out the word. And he knows that the kind of responses he gets is not going to be just kind of warm fuzzies. I mean, this is going to separate people. Some immediately are going to reject it. Some are going to receive it with joy, but as soon as they see what it's really like to follow the Messiah, they're going to scatter away. You see that in the gospel. There's a lot of disciples in the front end of the gospels and they keep disappearing as you go on through. And then there's this idea of the deceitfulness of riches and the worries of the world and that, of course, reminds us of some of the other teachings of Jesus such as in the sermon on the Mount. Do you not be anxious for anything? Because ultimately God is the one who feeds and so you don't be anxious for clothing or food or anything else. Your job is just to follow Christ, I mean, effectively. So that's what I'm drawing some correlations there, but that's how I would see it. So what's going on here is that there's three categories of people who ultimately are not going to follow Jesus and Jesus knows it. And he's dealing with disciples that. And it's actually even part of his intention that this happened because he's after the people who are going to bear fruit. And that's who he's after. So this is the intention of Jesus. Now, going back to methodology then and to trying to understand parables, it's clear that the parables are representational. So they represent different aspects of the ministry of Jesus or of the kingdom of God or of his disciples, etc. So they represent certain things. And so part of understanding the parable is properly decoding the representations. I would acknowledge that much. Let's, however, also say that there's a number of things. It's almost actually in the soar and the seeds parable. It's almost as if there are four different parables there. Because you see there are four different characters, if you would. There's four different soils. And so they represent four different kinds of people. One is tempted coming out of this parable to think. Because nearly every aspect that's mentioned in that parable represents something. That if you go to another parable, everything that is in the parable is representational. Usually parables themselves make one, maybe two, maybe three points. But they don't make a half dozen or several dozen. Let me show you what I mean by that. If you would turn to another famous group of parables in the gospel of Luke. And I'm thinking of Luke chapter 15. And I want to go to one example of this. Luke 15.8, and then we're going to talk about the overall context. Let's go to the lost coin parable. Very famous parable. Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it. And when she is found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors saying, rejoice with me for I have found the coin which I had lost. And the same way I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Now, Jesus tells you what the parable is about. He gives you exactly what's about. Joy in the presence of angels of God over one sinner who repents. So we go back into the parable and we're looking for those three dimensions. Joy, angels of God, sinner who repents. Well, who's the sinner, the one coin? What are the angels of God, the friends and the neighbors that are rejoicing with her? And where's the joy when she says rejoice, right? That's how far you should go with interpreting that parable. That's it. That's all there is there. So don't, don't say, what about the ten silver coins? What about the other nine? Who are the other nine? Well, let's see. Let's try and decide who the other nine are. Or don't think that when she lights a lamp, that there's a lot to do with this lamp thing. I mean, that's just part of the parable because if you're in a dark house, you've got to have a lamp to look around for the coin. I mean, it's just making it more vivid. So don't try and make this representation of the lamp. The sweeping. Well, don't try and make too much of the sweeping. And she's just looking for a coin, okay? So in your interpretation of parables, I would suggest a certain amount of restraint in the representations that you find, okay? And you should not go beyond the representations that Jesus explicitly wants you to make, okay? I mean, I guess what I'm speaking to here is I've been in several sermons in my life, thankfully not recently, but several sermons in my life, where a person makes this one story into a 30-minute-long sermon. And let me just say, if you can make this into 30-minute-long sermon, you are over interpreting the text. It's making a very simple point. You can make it in two to five minutes. And there might be implications you'll draw out for some period of time. But if you start interpreting the sweeping and the lamp and the extra coins, that's not what was intended, okay? So stay focused on what the parable is principally about. One of the ways to see what the parable is principally about is to look at who the characters are. If they're people in the parables, usually each major character represents something that we need to take into account, okay? Whereas all the other stuff might be fairly peripheral. So let's move on to the next parable, probably one of the most famous parables in the Ministry of Jesus. It's the parable, the prodigal son, right? Now, it would take us a while to read through the whole parable. You guys know it. Let me just remind you of it, basically. There's a son, there's a father, he has two sons. The older son is responsible. The younger son is not. The younger son comes up to the father and says, I want my inheritance now, which of course was horrible in the ancient world. That's basically like saying, I want you to die. I want my inheritance now. The father says, okay, gives the inheritance to the son. The son goes off and squanders it. Ultimately, he ends up slapping pigs and realizes, I'd be better off if I was with my father because my father treats his servants better than I'm being treated while I'm slapping the pigs. So I'm going to go back to the father, ask to be a servant. The father comes running out as rejoiced to see the son there. And then the older son afterwards is ticked off. That's the parable. Who are the characters in the parable? You tell me. Father? Son? Older brother. Those are the three characters. So we need to view the parable from the perspective of those three characters. So certainly, the younger son, the prodigal son, is the repentant sinner. And that, although Jesus does not explicitly interpret this parable for us, it is in a sequence of three parables. We just read the preceding one, the last coin, over one sinner who repents, verse 10. But if you go back to the preceding parable, verse 7, I tell you the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. So you have a series of three stories that are all about repentant sinners. So we're expecting a repentant sinner in the lost and the prodigal son, and we got one. Okay? That's the prodigal son himself. Who's the father? God. Right? And again, we're set up for that because of the idea of God basically being the one who's pursuing, you have the angels of God explicitly mentioned in the preceding parable, and you have the father terminology that goes throughout Jesus' teaching. So you're expecting the father to be God. And that's right. Who's the older brother? He doesn't rejoice, but who is the older brother? The Pharisees. If you don't go to the back of the beginning of chapter 15, right? Beginning of chapter 15, verse 1. And all the tax gathers and sinners were coming near to him to listen to him, and both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them. And then Jesus tells his parables. And he's saying, you think it's bad that I receive sinners. God himself rejoices when a sinner repents. I'm behaving just like my father does, effectively. You are the older brother. Now, a side implication of that. We have a lot of great children's books that are Bible-based for our kids. A lot of them talk about the prodigal sign. They always end without exception. There's a couple of exceptions. But they almost always end with God rejoicing that the prodigal is back. The father rejoices the prodigals back into story. But there's a whole lot more verses to that parable. And we do an injustice to Jesus' parable when we stop there. Because he's also intending to say that if you are a Pharisee and you look over and you say that person does not belong in the kingdom, you're like the older brother. And that's not a position you want to be in. So there's three applications to come out of this parable, effectively. Repent. Rejoice as God rejoices and don't be like a Pharisee. Those are your applications. And each application note is connected with a specific character in the parable. Note that I did not bother to exegete the swine. So who are the swine then that he was slapping? Well, that is irrelevant, really. The point is the main characters are the ones that give you the points as to what the parable is about. Now let me also warn you that most parables are much simpler than this parable. This parable has three main characters and they all are very much involved in the action of the parable. Most parables just have one character or one item that's mostly under discussion. And they make just one main point. So you'd be careful and restrained in your interpretation of parables. That's one large comment with regard to methodology. The other main thing that I want you to pick up with regard to methodology in the interpretation of parables is read them in context. What so often happens in our reading of parables is we just read the parable. Okay, I have a Bible study, Bible studies on the prodigal son parable. Let's start in verse 11. Let's read through 32. Let's talk about it and we'll have cookies. We're done. And you don't read the stuff that came before. You don't see the sequence of three parables coming out of this whole discussion with the Pharisees and the way that Jesus is working with the sinners that are around him. I have found it most useful to read the parables in context. Okay? And if you do that, then you are much more likely to get the proper meaning of the parable itself. Let me say a couple of things in that regard. One is I think a danger here is that evangelicals in Bible studies, again you're just given a passage and so you forget to look at the stuff that came before and after. You should always, in leading a Bible study, have prepared by looking at at least a chapter that preceded in the chapter that came after. You should be prepared as a leader to do that and you should encourage your people when you're doing a Bible study to do that as well. Be sure and look at the context. A professionally, let me also say that New Testament scholars often miss these kind of things because they are working in a historical Jesus framework. So it's a much more skeptical framework where the order of the narrative in the gospel is thought to come from the gospel rider, rather than from the life and ministry of Jesus. And so the order, they think, is the interpretive matrix of the gospel author instead of Jesus. So we need to read the parable as if there was no context in order to just understand Jesus. And I would submit to you that that is fundamentally a mistake. That when you read the parables, you always read them in context. Trying to decide, I actually, I want to come back to this maybe on some other occasion if we get a chance, if there's time, and look at Luke 16. But we won't do that today because there's the whole chapter. Can I maybe just encourage you, let's do this. I know it's two weeks from today. So the odds of you remembering this are slight. Some time in the next two weeks, do you think you could find 10 minutes to read Luke chapter 16? So that when you come to class, we can talk about it because I'm going to assume that you've read it fairly recently so we don't have to read the whole chapter together. But then I want to show you how I think the context is very important for understanding what's going on in, again, another series of parables. So we'll do that another time. Okay, so the intention of Jesus to come back to our major points. First, he intended to be understood as the Messiah. Second, he intended to teach. And under that teaching, we looked for a few minutes at parables because they're some of the most complex aspects of the teaching of Jesus. Do you have any questions at this stage before I go into the next two? That's right. Yeah, I don't think there's any evidence in any Jewish literature that I'm aware of that's around the time of Jesus that they perceive that the Son of the Messiah was going to be God himself. The question is when did the disciples recognize his deity? At what point, as you go through the gospel narratives, do they get it effectively? I would argue that the disciples didn't truly get it until after the resurrection. Now, I would also argue that they had glimpses that came before. So they saw things. I mean, they saw him walking on water and they thought, who is this? Who can do such things? They actually controlled the very elements of nature itself. And they were shocked by that. And they saw little glimps there. But they... I don't think the pieces all completely fell into place and stuck until after the resurrection. Yeah, short answer, but that's... I mean, we could expand on that, but that's... Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Peter didn't acknowledge the deity of Christ on the day of Pentecost. I would say that their points where the precise understanding of the deity of Christ comes out more clearly. The other thing I think we have to say is that if you read through the New Testament, you do not have a... I'm going to say something and then I'm going to quickly qualify it. So hear the saying and then the qualification. You do not have a full-blown doctrine of the Trinity. The qualification is it's all implicitly there, but nobody is sat down to say, okay, we got one God, one substance, three persons. It took a while for the church to come to the point where they could assimilate all of the different teaching that throughout the New Testament Jesus is clearly God and He's clearly man. And how did the two natures work out God and man? And how is it that this God can be the son of God and there can be the Holy Spirit and how is all that worked out? There's the clear understanding of all of that. But the actual working out of it remains a bit of a mystery in Scripture. And I think there was some real advance in the discussion of the Trinity and the early church that followed that is still helpful. But we also have to say it still remains a mystery even for us. There's parts of that that we just simply can't understand. In part because we're not infinite divine beings, so we can't understand what it means to be God, okay? So I am willing to see in Peter and in the early church an awareness that he is God, but also an awareness that it's difficult to work out all of that. And so I'm not sure that I would accuse them of not understanding the deity of Christ in the earliest ministry after the resurrection. Do I understand where your point's coming from? Yeah, I'm sorry. I really should say teaching and healing. I mean there's a whole context of that as well and you are right to correct me on that regard. The teaching ministry is not just teaching it, there's a teaching and healing component to the ministry. So thank you for that corrected. The healings though, the miracles testify to who he is. So if you go through the gospel of Mark, for instance, I mean he starts off with some kind of basic miracles.
So you have him dealing with healing various diseases, Mark chapter 1, verse 34. Then a leper comes to him in verse 40 and he cleanses the leper and he instructs him to go to that. So you have these basic healing miracles. Then there's the healing of the paralytic in which context he then claims to forgive sins and to display that his right to forgive sins is indicated by his ability to heal the paralytic. Then you have him calling the disciples etc. And eventually you get to the point where he actually stills the see in chapter 4. And by the end of that then they say who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him I referred to that earlier. Now and he heals the demoniac so he has power even over the demons. So what you see kind of going on in the ministry of Jesus is he starts off with some kind of baseline miracles. I mean I don't want to demean them by any means but this is like healing. Well healing, that's a miracle we've seen that before. But he escalates to where he has control over all nature, where he has control over the demons and where he eventually raises people from the dead. So you see this kind of escalation of miracles. Now what that is representing is the in breaking of the kingdom of God in Jesus but how great Jesus is. Because the question the disciples ask in chapter 4 of Mark is entirely correct. Who then is this? Who is this guy? Who is able to exceed the bounds of any sort of miracles. Now I would argue then that the miracles have a teaching function in the process of all of that. They are an in breaking of the kingdom of God but they don't just exist by themselves. They exist within the context of Jesus' teaching ministry and vocation. So thank you. I'm really glad you brought that up. Anything else? Okay. Now the next thing I want to convince you of is that Jesus intended to die. Now in this regard I am willing even to entertain some of the skeptical presuppositions of the historical Jesus scholar and say I think I can still show you that Jesus intended to die. Because especially if we go to the Lord's Supper passage, which is you've got your hand out. The first part of it is key passion predictions. The third page of it is the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is certainly understood and appreciated in the early church. So therefore it may not meet the criteria of dissimilarity. But there is an aspect of it in terms of the multiple attestation aspect that you have it not only in the three synoptic gospels but you also have it in first Corinthians, which is probably one of the first letters that Paul overwrote and thus in time preceded the synoptic gospels. So first Corinthians is actually earlier than the synoptic gospels. Probably within, well certainly within 20 years of the life of Jesus. But when Paul mentions about the Lord's Supper in first Corinthians, he sets it up if you're looking at the fourth column there. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus in the night he was protected took bread. So he's understanding this as a tradition that comes from the Lord himself. So he's saying this antidates his own practice. In other words, very close to the life of Jesus you have explicit testimony to the Lord's Supper. The other thing that is striking about this passage is you see it laid out in parallel columns is that you recognize that the core of the tradition remains the same all the way through. There's a slight different ordering in Luke especially compared to Matthew or Mark and also in some respects with what Paul does. Now that ordering is possible. I mean we can certainly reconcile it and harmonize it and see that these these gospels all basically present the same thing and I'm certainly willing to do that. But the differences in detail also help to testify to the authenticity of the tradition because this tradition is so strong that people independently can tell it. And yet there's still this core that is overlaps between all of this. So what I'm trying to say is that if you apply some of the tests of the early of the historical Jesus scholar you still end up with a very secure account of the Lord's Supper. The last thing is that what we understand to have been from other sources the thing that most that served as a hallmark of the early church and also served as a place which it was opposed in Greco-Roman society is this idea of eating the body of Christ and the blood of Christ. We have even in the traditions associated with Plenty, this Plenty of the Elder who was early second century Plenty of the Younger sorry in his letters. He writes about these Christians that have these weird practices and later in certain traditions the Christians have to apologize for this practice by saying we are not cannibals because if you run around and you say you know I'm eating a body or what a people immediately think. This weird cannibalistic practice going on and then you say I'm also eating drinking blood and it sounds weird. So there would have been opposition to this in pagan society and that shows all the more that this tradition was so strong that the early church practiced it despite if you would it's understanding. So therefore the Lord's Supper becomes a very secure historical event so much so that there are very skeptical historical Jesus scholars that admit that yeah okay okay there was the Lord's Supper. I don't actually want to go there right now it's a good good question but I'm going to stay on target here and talk about what Jesus is intention is not interact with church traditions it's a good question thank you all right the Lord's Supper. What is the Lord's Supper about well Jesus says in the context of a Passover meal this is my body this is my blood and in all the all the traditions on the blood this is my blood of the covenant and to clarify that Luke and Paul alike indicate that this is a new covenant. This is a covenant which is made in my blood poured out for many as in Mark poured out for many for forgiveness of sins and Matthew and clearly understood for forgiveness of sins and context and Luke and first Corinthians. So Jesus is saying before he's being betrayed look I'm intending to die and I'm intending the blood of my death to inaugurate a new covenant okay so therefore the intention of Jesus is to die okay with me on that so there you have this clear intention of Jesus to die going back to a tradition that I think has to be associated with the historical Jesus. Now if you turn back to the key passion predictions in the synoptics let me just say that immediately on the skeptical presuppositions of the historic Jesus scholar they write these off because all of these texts that I have listed here predict I'm going to die and many of them also predict the resurrection. On it if you don't believe in miracles and your historical Jesus scholar then you don't believe people can predict their own deaths let alone do you believe that they can predict the resurrection and be right because resurrection don't happen. So therefore they won't accept this kind of testimony but my point is to say that if you just take just the three gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke which are called the synoptic gospels because they share a lot of similar elements. If you just take those Jesus again and again and again says I'm going to die and I'm going to be raised again it clearly showing that he intended to do so. So one example of this is in Matthew 1621 it's a second one listed on your hand out there and you'll see I put in parallel columns so that the same traditions that appear in the other gospels are lined up with one another. 1621 from that time Jesus Christ began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day. Well that's pretty clear. He knows he's got to go to Jerusalem and he's going to be imposed by the temple elite and he's know that he's going to be put to death and he knows he's going to raise. And that same tagline kind of is going to suffer, die, be raised, happen several times throughout the gospels. So there's another aspect of Jesus's intention here. One of the most striking ones is the one that's at the bottom of your first page in Mark 1033 where he says behold we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes and they will condemn him to death and will deliver him to the Gentiles. So there it's very specific exactly what's going to happen. He's going to go but the Gentiles are the ones that are ultimately going to put him to death and they will mock him and spit upon him and scourge him and kill him and three days later he will rise again. Matthew summarizes that by saying they will crucify him. In any case the point is that Jesus has quite a prescient knowledge of what's going to happen.
Now what's more striking to me is if you return in your Bibles to Mark chapter 10, excuse me I'm going to cough you for a second. So if you turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 10, how the disciples responded to these things. One of the things that I think makes the reports of these Passion Predictions all the more believable is that when Jesus says this inevitably the disciples don't get it. So it's kind of like Jesus says it and they're like oh yeah that's fine. I have this other question the other day Jesus and they're on a completely different topic. And you see this in Mark chapter 10 so after the passage that we just read 33 and 34, scourge him and kill him and three days later he will rise again for 35 and James and John. The two sons of Zebedee came up to him saying to him teacher we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you and he said what do you want. And they said grant that we may sit in your glory one on the right and one on your left. I mean how clueless can you be. Your Lord has just said not only that he's going to die but that he's going to be beaten and tortured at the hands of Gentiles and he's going to die and if you know and be killed. And their response is oh yeah we want the best position in the kingdom. That's just clueless. Now if you go through again all these Passion Predictions you'll see that almost inevitably the response to Jesus when he says these things is something like that. Just cluelessness on the part of the disciples. This I think is so believable and at the same time so surprising that it testifies to the authenticity of the account itself.
Moreover then in this context Jesus gives in Mark chapter 10 a matrix for understanding his death and the purpose and the intent of his death. So he responds to them you know can you really drink what I'm about to drink and they say oh sure we'll drink it all and he says I don't think you can I mean basically. But then in verse 42 and Jesus calls all of them to himself because by this point they're all disputing they're kind of hacked off with James and John that they got their first to say I want to be at your right hand you know. I mean you can just imagine you know Peter sitting there going man I thought I wish I thought of that you know. And so Jesus calls them all together and he says you know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their great man exercise authority over them. But it is not so among you but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. So he's correcting their whole understanding of what it means to be first in the kingdom of God and then he says for even the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. You want to know how to interpret my death? There it is and there's two different aspects to that one is my life is a ransom for many just like in the gospel account of the Passover. He's going to die he's going to inaugurate a new covenant what is he going to do with that he's going to provide forgiveness of sins here he's going to provide a ransom. So you're good evangelical understanding of Jesus's death being an atonement for sin goes back to Jesus himself take courage the intention of Jesus was to die and to be a ransom for your sins. That's one aspect second aspect. He also intends his death to be a model for his followers. Now there is a there was a teaching in the early church that eventually made it into kind of a polegian understanding of the death of Jesus some of you know what I mean we're talking about 4th, 5th century history of church. And that was that Jesus's death was an example and that was basically all Jesus did. You want to know what it cost to be obedient to God it might even cost you your death because that's what our Lord underwent. And so it's just an example. The result is that the church reacted so strongly against that kind of understanding by saying no no look the death of Jesus is the very basis for our salvation. So the basis for our atonement for our ransom for our justification everything Jesus had to die so that our sins are dealt with. It's not just an example that there has been at times an over reaction in the church to say that Jesus's death is not an example. It's principally all about dealing with sins. But in Mark chapter 5 Mark chapter 10 Jesus set it up as both of those things. It is an example because it shows you the kind of servanthood nature of the follower of Jesus because Jesus himself isn't even better servant than you can ever hope to be. He died for the whole church and that's what we're intended to be as well. So there's two applications coming out of this one your sins are dealt with you are forgiven. Two, imitate Jesus and be a servant of the rest of God's people. So you should be sure and draw both of those out. And I will ultimately argue when we get to the apostle Paul that he does both of those as well. That you have the death of Jesus being an atonement for sins and an example for people to follow. So Jesus's death he intended to face the cross. The last intention of Jesus what was the intention of Jesus? Well he intended to be understood as a Messiah to teach and then I again will incorporate Carol's helpful corrective there is to teach and to perform miracles as a means of teaching. Third, Jesus intended to die and he intended even more than that let's be more precise there. He intended for his death to be an atoning sacrifice for sins.
Fourth and finally Jesus intended to be raised again from the dead. Now we've already seen that in these passion predictions. The two that we read and several of the others that are written down here says that Jesus doesn't just say I'm going to be killed but I'm going to be raised again on the third day. I'm going to be raised again. So he didn't anticipate the end of his ministry being his death. He anticipated the end of his ministry being his resurrected body. And it's a little overstatement to say that's the end of his ministry but he anticipated to go that far at least. Therefore if you were to think of like Schweitzer and this idea that Jesus just came to bring in the apocalyptic kingdom and he was mistaken because he thought his death would kind of force God to do. That's God's hand. That's completely off. Jesus thought that his death was going to produce atonement for sins and he knew he was going to be resurrected from the grave and so it doesn't end in the cross. It ends in the resurrection. And that's why going into Good Friday and Easter it's so good that we proclaim not just Good Friday but especially Easter. Now I have given you also got as a handout here at the beginning of class this resurrection of Christ in the history of redemption. This is a lecture I do in another class on the resurrection. And one of the reasons I do a lecture on the resurrection in a different class is it is so rarely taught and taught well when it is taught in the evangelical church. I can't tell you how many gospel presentations I have heard or read that end with Jesus died for your sins. Period. As if that in and of itself is the good news. That is not the whole of the gospel. That's part of it. But the other part of the gospel is and Jesus was raised again from the dead so that you might have the hope of new life. So you need to have both aspects of that going into this. Now this is kind of deep background for you guys. I would encourage you to read through it. See if the outline makes some sense to you. Coming out of a midterm exam you might wonder how much of this is going to be on a test. Only the amount that I bring into class two weeks from today which will be a limited amount. But I care about this because let me just give you this much. One of the great systematic theologies of the 20th century was one by Lewis Burkhoff, 800 pages long. Come strongly out of the reformed tradition. We used to use it as a teaching textbook regularly here and now that they use some other textbooks because Burkhoff is kind of hard to read. But that's not his fault. It's ours. Anyway so there is Burkhoff. This 800-page plus systematic theology. You know how many pages the man has on the resurrection of Jesus? Three. Yes. Thank you. Somebody's having for a different class. Three pages on the resurrection of Jesus. That is indicative of an imbalance in Protestant theology and therefore it behooves us and especially you as you go into this Easter season to contemplate. Just what is there about the resurrection that I haven't thought about enough just yet? And I leave you with that thought and I encourage you to have a wonderful celebration of the Lord's death and his resurrection in the next weekend. Thank you.