“But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

“So, the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.”

Over the past few months, we have been exploring Jesus in the Old Testament, and we will get back to that in a bit. But for now, we will take a bit of a break and look at some other things.

Last Friday night, I had the chance to attend a ‘lock-in’ hosted by one of our sister churches in Michigan. As the kids played and hung out, I had the chance to chat with one of my dearest friends for hours. He is a pastor like me, and we often spend time chatting about things we are learning in the Bible as we study. He is also preaching about Jesus in the Old Testament in his church.

In the course of that, he observed this pattern, and we explored it for about an hour or so in our discussions. We are familiar with the verses quoted above; they remind us to be humble and to put ourselves last.

In one text about the man hiring workers in Matthew 20, the man hires workers at different times of the day and pays them the same at the end. The men who worked 12 hours got paid the same as those that worked one hour. The ones who worked longer were upset and complained. The man makes the statement that he had honored their agreement and that he had the right to pay people whatever he wanted.

There is a law to be learned here that those who served God all their lives and those who served God for a few minutes are all going to get the same reward. We are not rewarded on merit, BUT by the grace and goodness of God. This is the surface lesson to be learned here. But if you are a student of the scriptures, you will know that the ‘milk’ of the Word is just that and if we keep reading, looking, asking, studying and talking to each other, we will find that there are layers to the truths and the verses. This is one of the occasions.

God has a habit of choosing the second or the last over the first. The most obvious of that is with Adam. In 1 Corinthians 15:22, we are told this: in the first Adam, all men die, but in Christ, all men can be made alive. In 1 Corinthians 15:45-47, we see that the Last Adam was a life-giving spirit. So, the first Adam was not the one God sent to redeem us, but the second one, Jesus.

All the way through the Bible, this principle continues. In Genesis 25:23, we see this verse, “And the Lord said to her: ‘Two nations are in your womb, two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.’”

God chooses the second over the first. Later, we see in the New Testament in Romans 9:13 that God chose Jacob over Esau. As we move further into the scriptures, we find this second over the first in places that we did not even recognise.

In Exodus 1, we see the birth of Moses. We know that Moses becomes the man who leads Israel out of Egypt and to the edge of the Promised Land. But many of us may not put together that Aaron was actually born first. Thus, God chose the second over the first. In Exodus 7:7, we see that Aaron is 3 years older than Moses to lead Israel. This is not to diminish Aaron’s part, but Moses obviously was the leader, and the Torah is called the Book of Moses, not the Book of Aaron.

Back in Genesis 14, we meet a man named Melchezidek, who is the High Priest of Salem, and in Hebrews 7:3, we see that this Man has neither mother nor father, and He does not have a beginning nor an end of life. Jesus, we are told in Hebrews 6:20, is a High Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Notice that Jesus is not a priest after the order of Levi under the family of Aaron, but rather the order of Melchizedek. Not the priesthood of Aaron; his could not offer eternal life, but the High Priest Melchizedek can (Hebrews 7:22-25); only the priesthood of Melchizedek can offer salvation to the ‘uttermost.’

We are told in Hebrews 7:11 that the priesthood of Aaron could not offer perfection; it could not offer eternal life. Back in Exodus 34:33, we see that Moses needed a veil to cover his face because his face shone every time he came down from meeting with God. The people asked him to wear a veil so that they would not see the shine on his face, but the shine faded.

In 2 Corinthians 3:13-16, we see that the veil was to cover that which was fading away; in contrast, Jesus removed the veil. So, the covenant that came with the first veil was passing away, but the covenant that came with the second veil is eternal. The law could not offer eternal life, but the cross can and does.

In Hebrews 12:18-29, we see a tale of two mounts; the Law was given on Mount Sinai, and Jesus died in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. God rejected the first; no flesh can be justified by the Law. Justification can only come from Jesus’ death on Mount Zion.

Even as we look at Jesus’ first miracle that is recorded in John 2:1-10, we see that the first wine offered during the wedding is inferior, and when Jesus sends His wine to be accepted, the governor of the feast is astonished because the last is better than the first.

God chose David, the second king, over Saul to bring the kingly line and promise. Elisha performed twice as many miracles as Elijah (2 Kings 2:9). Elisha had a double portion of Elijah’s spirit.

Israel was given Jerusalem, but we await a New Jerusalem, which is the second over the first. The Jews are currently blinded by the first covenant, but in Hebrews 10:16-17, God promises a new covenant with Israel where He will remember their sins no more.

We can go on and on; I hope that you will begin to look for this pattern as you read and study.

Finally, we see in Hebrews 9:11-12, not by the blood of goats and calves, BUT by His own blood. “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”

When we read in Exodus through Leviticus and all the way to even Jesus’ day, we see the blood of animals is shed for the temporary covering of sins; the High Priest had to enter the Holy Place yearly to offer a sacrifice, and daily that priests had to kill millions upon millions of animals as a picture of the blood that Jesus would shed one day. But here in Hebrews, we are told that with Jesus’ own blood, He died once for our eternal redemption.

I am so glad that I am under the second covenant, the one that Jesus paid for in His own blood. Nothing in my hands I bring; simply to the cross I cling. I pray the same for you.

Judges 13:1-25

As we journey through the Book of Judges, we can see that there is a significant role played by The Angel of the Lord at various times.

We took a look at the encounter with Gideon last time, and today we will explore a very familiar passage and look at Samson. As we explore this, we can see that there is a pattern that emerges here: the Israelites forsake God, begin to worship idols, and then, God allows the surrounding peoples to punish them. (By the way, the enemies are invading us here in North America as we get further and further from God.)

In Gideon’s day, it was the Midianites, but now in Samson’s time, it is the Philistines. The Jews have been oppressed by the Philistines for 40 years, we are told in Judges 13:1. God sends and tells a woman that she is going to have a son; he, Samson, would begin to deliver the people from the Philistines. Samson was not even born yet, and if we simply take a look at what was considered a man for war, he would have had to be 20 years old before he began his acts of deliverance against the Philistines. So, even with his birth, there was still a long time to be oppressed before the deliverance came.

In verse 3, The Angel of the Lord appears to a woman in the tribe of Dan, who is married to Manoah. The Angel, Jesus, as we have discovered in previous encounters, promises her that she will have a son, and then tells her how to raise him. He is to be a Nazarite from birth; he is not allowed to eat grapes, raisins, drink wine, cut his hair, be around the dead, or eat any unclean food. This dear Sister is barren, and Samson would be her first son. In verse 6, she tells her husband Manoah all that The Angel had told her, and he asks God to come and tell him as well. In verse 9, The Angel appears to Manoah’s wife again, and she runs to get him so that he can hear for himself.

In the next few verses here in Judges 13, The Angel identifies himself as God to Manoah, and we will explore that here. First, in verse 11, Manoah asks the ‘Man’ if he is the same person who spoke to his wife, and The Angel answers, ‘I am.’ Not ‘I am her.’ Not ‘Yes, it was me,’ but He specifically answers with the name for God given to us in Exodus 3. In verses 16-20, The Angel accepts a burnt offering as a sign of worship from Manoah and his wife. No mere angel will allow this; even in Revelation 22: 8-9, the angel showing John around the New Jerusalem would not allow John to bow down to him. He tells John, I am just a servant like you, and he refuses to allow John to worship him. So, this Angel in Judges allows Gideon to worship Him with a burnt offering in Judges 6:21, and He receives worship here from Manoah and his wife in Judges 13:20. Once this happens, Manoah is afraid. It would appear that up until this time, he was not convinced that this was God talking to him. But once he saw that this Angel accepted the sacrifice and went up into Heaven in the flame of the sacrifice(verse 20), then Manoah understood that this was God who spoke to them (verses 19-22).

So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it upon the rock to the Lord. And He did a wondrous thing while Manoah and his wife looked on— ²⁰ it happened as the flame went up toward heaven from the altar—the Angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar! When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground. ²¹ When the Angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that He was the Angel of the Lord. ²² And Manoah said to his wife, ‘We shall surely die, because we have seen God!’”

This was a genuine fear that Manoah had; it was irrational, as his wife pointed out, but a genuine fear nonetheless. He knew that in Exodus 33:20, the Torah tells us that ‘No man can see God and live.’

Now God tells us that He spoke to Moses ‘face to face,’ in Exodus 33:11; this refers to clear and direct conversation. God tells Miriam in Numbers 12:8-10 that she should have had more reverence than to speak out against Moses because he spoke to him ‘face to face.’ Somehow, Moses had access to God that no mere man has had since. But Manoah understood that seeing God meant death.

The Angel of the Lord is God. This is Jesus, as we established in Joshua, the Commander of the Lord’s Armies. Then one more look as we explore the story here of Samson. In verse 17, Manoah asks The Angel for his name, and The Angel answers, “Why do you ask My name, seeing it is wonderful?”

In Isaiah 9:6, we are told that one of the names of the Son that will be born to redeem us is ‘Wonderful.’ Jesus is Wonderful. We know the rest of the story: Samson grows up, he has a real problem with women, and while they are the eventual Achilles heel that brings his downfall, he does begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines. He kills about 3,000 of their lords and leaders when he is also killed as a temple falls on them and him. We are told that he judged Israel for 20 years.

Jesus is the central theme, the star, the main character, the subject of the ever-present God in the Old Testament. We saw Him in the Exodus and the journey through the wilderness; we saw Him with Joshua; and now, we see Him in the Book of the Judges. Jesus has been the story of the whole Bible from the very beginning. We are told in John 1 that He created everything.

Those of us Gentiles have been blessed in that we have been granted eyes to see Jesus in the Old Testament. And there are some Jews that, by the grace of God, when they take the time to read the OT, can also see Jesus; they repent and come to trust in Him as Savior. But the vast majority of Israel is still blind. One day soon, their eyes will be opened, and they will see that Jesus is the Messiah. Rejoice that you can see Jesus as your Messiah. Don’t ever take that grace for granted.

I pray that as you read through the Bible, you will be looking for Jesus, looking to see references to Him, looking for pictures of Him, descriptions of Him, and where He is there doing stuff and pushing God the Father’s agenda forward.

Jesus is God, 100% God, but it was the plan from the beginning for Him to come as a Man, 100% Man as well. This was never the ‘backup plan’; it was the ONLY plan. Jesus, the God-Man, living on Earth, experiencing life as a Man, being hurt, betrayed, hated, tempted, seeing how frail we are, experiencing hunger, fatigue, thirst and all that we go through. He had to bury Joseph and experience loss. He was poor and totally dependent on God the Father for all He needed. But all this was done for you and me; this way, Jesus can truly be an authentic Advocate for us in Heaven. He could be the authentic substitute for us on the cross and take our sin. He would rise from the dead and kill the one thing that makes all men fear, death.

In Jesus, by Jesus, and through Jesus, we have Hope; we have the promise that death is a door and not a destination. For those of us that have this hope, we need to be constantly rejoicing, and for those that don’t have this hope, you need to repent and humble yourself under the promise and the person of Jesus. He is the Hope for this life and the next.

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