CT Learning to Count to One

Consider this timeless article from a few years back: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/februaryweb-only/learningcountone.html

Moses & Me

Moses is inextricably linked to the New Testament, and to our experience of Jesus.  We think of his miraculous rescue from persecution as an infant, the result of Pharaoh's daughter and Miriam cooperating. We learn from Stephen about how Moses was rejected by his true people, the Hebrews, as their leader, way before the burning bush.  Moses' ministry was a miraculous epic of contrasts between God and the ancient Hebrews, mediated by the life-giving law and intervention of Moses.  Yet Moses didn't enter the land of Promise, but was buried by God outside of its bounds.  

So how are we linked to this ministry?  Why is it important that Moses is mentioned about 85 times in the NT? We are his spiritual descendants, in that Moses said there would be a prophet like him raised up from the descendants of Israel.  Jesus was that great prophet, that second Moses, who fulfilled the life-giving law of Sinai.  Jesus is the great redeemer to which Moses pointed.   

We are like babies in baskets, set in the weeds at the edge of the river.  But we don't have to stay that way.  God can draw us out of the waters, can get us out of the weeds.  

We are like those who see the smoke on the mountain but want the Golden Calf.  But we don't need to be.  The true and living God is speaking in the hearts of people today, echoing the Song of Moses through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  The mission is the same: to make it plain that God rules, and so salvation has come to the people.  

John 1:16-17 "And of his fullness we have all recieved, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ."

The Faulty Default

Jesus cannot be properly known apart from the saving work of God in the Passion (suffering, crucifixion, death, resurrection).  Why is this important?  Does anyone actually assume to know Jesus while simultaneously ignoring the passion?  I believe this is much more common than you'd think; I believe it is not only the easy thing to do, it is the "default" view of Jesus.

In Matthew 16:13-23 the main point is that Jesus "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." This point is common to the synoptics.  We may read this and *yawn* because everyone knows this, silly. 

Yet Peter became Satan over this.  Some early versions of Christianity tried hard to explain this away.  The Epistle of Barnabas denies the whole scenario for Islam's sake.  People have claimed Jesus' goodness, virtue, and divinity while jettisoning the miraculous from the NT texts.  Many great & good call Jesus the good man who said great things we all should follow.  Even Sam Harris points to the Jesus "as revealed in the Sermon on the Mount" and urges all to follow him. 

But Jesus is clear in Matthew 16:21, and He understood this was God's agenda (23) that would not be popular for his disciples.  So we may agree with Peterson on the point, "Jesus is not a god of our own making and He is certainly not a god designed to win popularity contests."

Do we embrace Jesus' suffering, crucifixion, death, and resurrection as the saving work of God?  Or do we agree with Peter who said, "God forbid it"?  May we pause, consider, and believe that Jesus' life was as he said, that his sacrificial work was the work of God, and so realize that to truly know Jesus we must know his sufferings on behalf of the world.  And that is the beginning.