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Part 3 of the Series:
“search the scriptures” John 5:39
1. When teaching in the temple at Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus said to the Jews, ‘Ye are from beneath; I am from above … I am not of this world’, John 8. 23. The prophet Micah prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, Mic. 5. 2. He who is the eternal One came into time and space - ‘When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son’, Gal. 4. 4. He came into space, leaving the infinite realm of the heavens.
When he was praying at the dedication of the temple, Solomon said, ‘But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee’, 2 Chr. 6. 18. How amazing it is, then, to read of the humble circumstances into which the Son of God was born, ‘And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn’, Luke 2. 7. Charles Wesley expressed it well in a line of his hymn, ‘Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man’.
The Lord spoke often of heaven as the place He came from and the place to which He would return, ‘And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven’, John 3. 13; cp. 6. 32, 33, 38, 50, 51, 58.
John the Baptist said, ‘He that cometh from above is above all … he that cometh from heaven is above all’, 3. 31. Paul wrote of the great contrast between Adam who was created, and the Lord who is the Creator and came from heaven, ‘The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven’, 1 Cor. 15. 47.
During His sojourn in this world, the Son of God continually brought delight to the heart of His Father in heaven. Isaiah prophesied of the One who would ‘grow up before him [God] as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground’, Isa. 53. 2. In the midst of all the weeds, thorns, and thistles of this world of sin, there arose a tender plant, exquisite in its beauty. In Christ, not only was there the absence of sin of every kind, but the presence of every grace and every virtue that God ever desired should be seen in a man. He brought the very fragrance of heaven itself to this sinful world, ‘All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces’, Ps. 45. 8. He alone could say, ‘I am from above’, John 8. 23.
2. The Jews in the temple listened as the Lord Jesus spoke of His Father. They said to Him, ‘Abraham is our father’, John 8. 39. The Lord Jesus said, ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad’, v. 56. Then they said to Him, ‘Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?’ The Lord replied, ‘Before Abraham was, I am’, v. 58. He did not say, ‘Before Abraham was, I was’, which would also have been true, of course, but it was altogether more significant that He said, ‘Before Abraham was, I am’.
3. ‘Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?’ 10. 36. This was clearly the Lord Jesus affirming His deity. In addition to the Lord Himself, there were seven individuals in the Gospel of John who confessed Jesus as the Son of God:
4. ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty’, Rev. 1. 8. Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, embrace all the letters in between. To indicate that someone has mastered a subject, we might use the words, ‘they know it from A to Z’. Forming these letters into words, it is possible to communicate all of the knowledge known to man. God has revealed Himself fully in Christ, He has spoken unto us in His Son, Heb. 1. 2; cp. Rev. 1. 11; 21. 6; 22. 13.
The words ‘which is, and which was, and which is to come’ in Revelation chapter 1 verse 4, concerning God the Father, indicate eternality; in verse 8 the same words are used equally of Christ. ‘The Almighty’, which is used nine times in Revelation, speaks of the omnipotence of God in every sphere. In a turbulent and uncertain world, how reassuring it is for the Christian to remember that God is in control, Eph. 1. 11. ‘The Almighty’ is used in the book of Job more than thirty times, where infernal powers are also shown to be subject to Him.
5. The last ‘fear not’ in the Bible is followed by three I AM statements, each of which should dispel the believer’s fear: ‘And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; [1] I am the first and the last: [2] I am he that liveth, and was [became] dead; [3] and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death‘, Rev. 1. 17, 18.
The One who in verse 13 is introduced to us as the Son of man, is unaffected by time. He is the Eternal One. In relation to history, He calls the generations from the beginning, ‘I the Lord, the first, and with the last; I am he’, Isa. 41. 4. In relation to redemption, ‘I am the first, and I am the last’, 44. 6. In relation to Creation, ‘I am the first, I also am the last’, 48. 12.
When we pray for loved ones, let us remember that our Lord is not constrained by time; and even should we be called home before our prayers are answered, we can rely absolutely on Him to honour His promise and answer according to His will. The golden vials full of odours are the prayers of saints, Rev. 5. 8. They are retained in heaven and do not disappear into the ether. Let us continue to leave in this world a legacy of prayer.
Death had no claim upon Him, ‘I have power to lay it [my life] down, and I have power to take it again’, John 10. 18. We must die because we can do nothing else; He died of His own volition.
William Kelly notes on this verse, ‘He is the absolute master of all that might threaten man, whether for the body or the soul’.1
6. ‘And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely‘, Rev. 21. 6. When the Lord Jesus said on the cross ‘It is finished’, John 19. 30, everything necessary for man’s salvation was complete. These words, ‘it is done’, refer to the purposes of God being brought to fruition in ‘a new heaven and a new earth’, Rev. 21. 1.
On the occasion of the great feast day in Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink’, John 7. 37. He alone can satisfy the thirsty soul in time and in eternity. He said to the Samaritan woman, ‘Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst … [it] shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life’, John 4. 14. Believers will drink eternally from a never-failing supply. The message of Isaiah is, ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters’, 55. 1.
7. ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last’, Rev. 22. 13. God has revealed Himself fully in the person of His Son. Eternity will never exhaust the exploration of this theme. Paul speaks of ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’, Eph. 3. 8, and we are assured ‘Christ Jesus … is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption’, 1 Cor. 1. 30.
8. ‘I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star‘, Rev. 22. 16.
The One who was before David in time, came through David’s royal lineage. Paul stressed His link with David, ‘Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh’, Rom. 1. 3. Matthew begins his Gospel by introducing Him as ‘Jesus Christ, the son of David’, 1. 1. David’s ancestor is also David’s descendant, Isa. 11. 1.
‘The bright and morning star’ anticipates His coming again. In the last words of David, he spoke of ‘a morning without clouds’, 2 Sam. 23. 4. He also wrote of a morning without tears, Ps. 30. 5. Solomon wrote of a daybreak without shadows, S. of S. 2. 17. These words are engraved on many a headstone, marking the place where the mortal remains of a Christian have been interred.
For the believer, the morning star heralds the dawning of an endless, fadeless, cloudless day - ‘The night is far spent, the day is at hand’, Rom. 13. 12. He is the morning star in relation to the church, which awaits the imminent return of her Lord. Three times in the last chapter of our Bible we read, ‘Behold, I come quickly’, Rev. 22. 7, 12, 20. He is the Sun of righteousness in relation to Israel. At the end of the tribulation period, the Lord Jesus will come for Israel’s salvation, ‘But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings’, Mal. 4. 2. ‘Unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation’, Heb. 9. 28.
We wait to see
the Morning Star appearing
In glory bright;
This blessed hope illumes,
with beams most cheering,
The hours of night.
Margaret L. Carson (1833-1920)
Quoted in Jim Allen, Revelation in K. S. Stapley and T. Wilson (eds), What the Bible teaches, John Ritchie Ltd., pg. 49.
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