Articles

John 5:46

“For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.”

Luke 24:44-48

“Then He said to them, ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.’ And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.’”

Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. One of the cries that we see from many today is that they think that Jesus would teach differently today than He did when He walked the earth. Many would say that Jesus would have ‘learned more’ and that His teaching would be different. Many try to make it look like Jesus and Paul taught differently about things, and that if Paul were to teach today, there would be very different teachings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus did not abolish the law of Moses; He fulfilled it and obeyed it right down to the nth degree.

The entire Bible is about Jesus.

Just this morning in my devotions, I was reading from Matthew about the birth of Jesus, the new King of the Jews, and the Scribes were able to quote Micah 5:2. And then when the children were hunted down and killed by Herod, we are told that this is a fulfillment of another prophecy from Jeremiah 31:15. We can go on and on, but over and over we see that event after event in the life of Jesus is supported by an Old Testament prophecy. There are some 309 prophecies about Him that are fulfilled in the New Testament.

So, over the next little while, we will explore the person of Jesus in the Old Testament and show Him and the real, present face of God and the Person of God. It can be difficult for people to see Him at times, and I will endeavor to be as clear as possible so as not to cause more confusion, but to cast a light and show Him more clearly.

We begin right at Creation; we are told in John 1:1-2, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”

Jesus, we are told, was right there at the Creation. Look at the last phrase, nothing was made without Him. This is an interesting irony, as we explore the verses in Genesis 1:26-27, where Man is made. Here are the verses: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

I had never thought of it until one of my Preacher brothers mentioned this, but Jesus made Adam in His image; we understand that to mean that Man is a triune being at the existence level: mind, body, and soul. But let us even look at the mechanics: two hands, two feet, legs, shoulders, muscle structure, ligaments, and the like; how our bodies work, the need to eat, drink, sweat, and all the ways that our bodies work, we are made in the image of Jesus. Thus, this body design existed before us, in Jesus.

We know that angels can appear in the image of a man; both Gabriel and Michael appeared as men, but other angelic beings were very different. The cherubim, for instance, had 6 wings, and even though they had the face of man, they were obviously different. In contrast, the angels that accompanied Jesus (God) to Sodom looked like men, and they could speak in the known language and engage in conversation.

Genesis 19:4-5, “Now before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot and said to him, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally.’”

The men of Sodom assumed that the angels were simply men from their appearance. So, we see that we are made in Jesus’ image right down to how we look and how we walk, talk, breathe, and exist.

One of the other images of Jesus to look at in Genesis today – and there will be many others as we move on in this journey – is in Genesis 3 in general, but we will specifically look at verse 15. In verse 8, we are told that Adam and his wife (not yet named) ‘heard God walking,’ and they ‘hid’ themselves from Him. God, in turn, had conversations with Adam and his wife, and if we take the conversation as far as we can, it would seem that this was not the first time God had seen Adam. Many think that Adam was made in the Garden of Eden, but we are told that God put him there.

Genesis 2:15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”

But after Adam had sinned, God made this amazing promise to Adam and his descendants in Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

This is the very proclamation of the Gospel in the Bible; this is the Promise that the Second Adam, Jesus, would do what the First Adam could not and be perfect and sinless. Notice that the promise is that ‘her Seed’ will come and kill the serpent (Satan). Many of you will know this, some may have never heard this, and for those of us who have our faith in this Promise, it is good to hear it again. In biological terms, the man produces the ‘seed,’ the sperm that brings life to the dead egg of the woman. This should say ‘his Seed,’ BUT it does not; THE Seed is of the woman without the help of a man. This, of course, is the promise of the virgin birth. We see this repeated in Isaiah 7:14.

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”

Jesus, born of a virgin, no help from a man, thus no sin nature that is passed from the first Adam. This Seed, the Promised Immanuel, will come and crush the head of the Serpent, and in the process, be temporarily hurt, a bruised heel. One recovers from a ‘bruised heel’; one does not recover from a ‘crushed head.’ This Seed, Jesus, the Messiah, will come and kill Satan, and in the process, be temporarily hurt. This Seed will deliver us. By the way, Immanuel is God with us. Jesus is God, the promised Seed.

There are many more wonderful pictures of Jesus in the Old Testament, and we will explore as many as we can over the next few weeks. He is coming again soon, and just like He was the principal character of man’s history, He is also the principal character of our future.

Look up, Jesus is coming soon, very soon.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario

What comes to mind when you consider the unpardonable or unforgivable sin? Your mind might drift back to sinful things you’ve done in the past or are presently doing. You might think about the sins committed against others or against yourself. Many people have a sort of hierarchy of sins taken from a list curated by society over the centuries. There are even some sincere Christians who have a sliding scale of sin severity based on wisdom and traditions of men. The Bible cuts through the clutter of human opinion. It explains precisely what the unforgivable sin is and how to deal with it because ignoring it has eternally tragic consequences. Romans 6:23

As humans, our collective ability to falsely rate and rationalize sin is profound. We have a list of the biggies like murder, robbery, adultery, rape, and abuse, among others. Then there are the so-called lesser evils of gossip, slander, hatred, emotional adultery, lying, greed, pride, and sexual immorality, etc. Then we try to fool ourselves and our Creator by making excuses for sin by blaming our family, upbringing, culture, socioeconomic status, the past, our surroundings, or God. Although the conscience might be soothed for a season, the nagging guilt and knowledge of who we really are inside reemerges.

In Matthew 12:22, Mark 3:22, and Luke 11:14, Jesus has an encounter with the Pharisees and warns about committing the unpardonable sin. Jesus heals a man who was demon-possessed, blind, and mute. The Pharisees are murmuring among themselves and saying that Jesus cast out demons through the power of the prince of demons. Of course, Jesus rebuked them and gave the famous response that a kingdom divided against itself can’t stand. The Lord also warned His listeners that all sins can be forgiven except for the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. The Pharisees blasphemed the work of the Spirit by attributing it to demonic power, but that’s not all.

Jesus warned that those who aren’t with Him are against Him, and whoever doesn’t gather with Him scatters. Not only were the Pharisees guilty of crediting the Spirit’s work to demons, but they were also guilty of opposing the work of the Spirit by scattering people. The Pharisees were guilty of blaspheming the Spirit by lying about and ultimately rejecting Him.

When we consider much of what the Holy Spirit does, we have to take a close look at John 16:8-9. Every believer knows that the Holy Spirit is with us as our Comforter, Helper, and Friend. In the verses above, we see that a large part of the Spirit’s work is bringing conviction to the world regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment.

For thousands of years, right up to our present day, scores of faithful preachers, perhaps billions of Christian witnesses, have spread the gospel. In recent times, we still have some biblical solid radio, television, and internet evangelists bringing the good news. There are Bibles in virtually every hotel room, tracts left for others to find, and evangelical churches on almost every corner in every town in Western society. Creation itself shouts there is a God, and every person’s conscience attests to the fact that we have a Creator to answer to. Romans 1:18-21

As the gospel goes out and the Holy Spirit moves among and convicts people of sin, some will respond with repentance and saving faith in Jesus, while others will hear the same good news and respond with rebellion and hardness of heart. When people ignore and reject the work of the Spirit, they are setting themselves up for blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. They go through life gambling with their eternity by not coming to repentance. Revelation 9:20-21 shows there is a time when people choose not to repent, leading to the time when they can’t repent.

Whether we’re taken into eternity by death or the Lord’s return, whatever our standing is with Jesus at that moment will be our reality forever. To reject the good news that Jesus came into the world to save sinners and decide not to respond by faith and repentance is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. That is the one sin that God won’t forgive.

Remember the list of sins we mentioned earlier? Every one of those sins can be forgiven, and we can be made clean by the blood Jesus shed on the cross for all of us. The word of God clearly states that today is the day of salvation and not to harden your heart if you hear His voice. Don’t be deceived by Satan or yourself through rationalizing sin. Don’t gamble your eternity with unfortunate sentiments like: “He knows my heart” or “The God I know would never send anyone to hell.” Here’s what famous preachers said about our human ability to rationalize sin and reject the good news:

We’ve tried to call our sin errors, mistakes, or poor judgment, but sin itself has stayed the same.” -Billy Graham

“We have the strange illusion that time cancels sin.” -C.S. Lewis

“People on Earth hate to hear the word repent, while those in hell wish they could hear it just once more.” -A.W. Tozer

Dear friends, this isn’t a hyper-grace message, and I want to make it clear that the temporary pleasures of sin always come with a price. Consequences are measured in broken relationships, families, and lives. When we finally come to the end of ourselves and realize that the wages of sin is death and we only deserve judgment and hell, then will God’s grace truly be amazing to us. If you haven’t come to repentance and made Jesus your Lord, please do it today and be free from the only sin God won’t forgive, Romans 10:9-10.

Fellow Christians, Time is short, Jesus is coming back soon, and many lost people are going into eternity every day. We must do everything we can to bring the good news to everyone the Lord leads us to.

All for Him,

Howard

Podcast Episode: The One Sin God Won’t Forgive

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/concerning-the-times/id1565453348?i=1000732861814

The Entire Story of the Bible is About Jesus :: By Sean Gooding

The One Sin God Won’t Forgive :: By Howard Green