This week, we continued on with the “Two Kings, Two
Thrones” series. This week, we looked at how Jonathan, Saul’s son, works into
the picture. As King Saul’s son, he is
heir to the throne of his father. God has already told Saul that his throne
would not go to his child, and that he also is going to lose his throne. When
we read about Saul’s actions, however, we find that he continued on as though
he expected to remain king and pass his throne on to Jonathan with or without
God.
In this series, we have defined Saul as a type and
picture of the law or life under rule of the law. Jonathan’s “inheritance” was
empty and, according to God, dead. The apostle Paul tells us that the law is a
ministry of death. It has no future. It lost its purpose when Christ fulfilled
it for us.
In 1 Samuel 18:1, just after David defeats Goliath, we
are told that Jonathan becomes one in spirit with David. I believe Jonathan is
a picture of the believers of Jesus’ time here on earth – His disciples and
those who followed Him. They became one in spirit with Him and His message, yet
remained slaves to the law. Jonathan never forsook his father. He was loyal to
David because he saw God’s hand upon him. He never betrays his father, but he knows
there is no future in his father’s kingdom.
Galatians 3 tells us a lot about inheritance under
the law and inheritance in Christ. Jonathan was making a decision that could
impact his inheritance. Galatians
3:23-25 tells us that this new inheritance is established through this “faith”
that had come. We know that faith is Jesus based on the context of Paul’s words,
but there is also further evidence.
In Hebrews 11:1, the famous faith verse, it says,
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.”
That word, substance, is a Greek word hupostasis. That same Greek word is also
used in Hebrews 1:3 in a seemingly different way. It describes Christ as the
“image of his person.” The words “his person” are also the Greek word hupostasis.
That “his person” is Jesus.
We also looked at John 1 and compared bara creation
(faith creation, something out of nothing) in John 1 and Genesis 1 with assah
creation (creating something out of something else). Bara is used in the Bible 56 times, used to
describe God creating in the past tense. It is used to mean “to cut down” twice
(in Joshua where he cuts down the enemies in the promised land). It’s used sarcastically by God once. It is used prophetically to talk about
Jerusalem/New Covenant, and twice in Ezekiel to mean choose. Bara is bet and resh, meaning head of
household, and aleph, meaning power. So
Bara is the power of the head of the household.
Barak (to bless) is bet and resh again, plus kaph, taking what you have
and gives it a second person possessive (you/yours). This means the power of the head of the
household is yours. This denotes a
transfer of authority.
We also talked about assah creation, especially as used
in Exodus 19:8, where the people say that with the law they can make their own
way.
With that understanding, we can look at Hebrews 11:1 a
little differently. That substance is Jesus. Jesus is the substance of things
hoped for and the evidence of things unseen. The context of the rest of Hebrews
11 bears that out, for it talks about all the great warriors of faith of the
Old Testament and how they never “SAW” the inheritance that we now see and
have. That promise was Jesus.
In fact, the very promise referred to both in Hebrews 11
and Galatians 3 is the promise made to Abraham in Genesis 12:2-3. The key part
of that promise that is being referenced in those New Testament verses is the
last part – that all the world would be blessed through his seed. That seed is
Jesus. He physically descended from Abraham, and He is the spiritual promise as
well.
Taking it one step further, the true promise is the Holy
Spirit. That is what was unavailable to anyone before Christ’s completed work.
Abraham lived before the law and he, by his faith and belief, was declared
righteous by God – as anyone living apart from the law (like us), but what
makes us New Testament believers unique is that we now have the Holy Spirit
available to us.
That Holy Spirit is the one who will teach us and guide
is in our walk with God. Galatians 3:25 tells us that, in Christ, we no longer
need the law as a supervisor. That goes against what we generally believe. When
you get saved, it’s by grace, but we think we must have the rules for
righteousness to learn to walk the straight and narrow. Paul is saying, “no!”
The Holy Spirit is the gift of God. He lives inside of us and now writes the
law upon our hearts instead of on stone tablets. The Holy Spirit allows us to have direct
communication, guidance, mentoring and training from God Himself – not life by
a list of rules and interpreters of rules.
I believe we should spend less time teaching new
believers about what you they are now allowed and not allowed to do as a
Christian and more time teaching them about the Holy Spirit and how to develop
a relationship with Him. That is how God designed it to work. It is why Jesus
did the work He did. We need to learn to trust Him to do what He said He would
do!
To listen to the entire sermon go to http://ahwatukeechurch.com/media.php. To learn more about Living Word Ahwatukee,
visit http://ahwatukeechurch.com/.
