Tuesday, 6 June 2023

The Upper Room Discourse 11

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John 14:7 If you have come to know Me, you will know My Father also. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.

Yeshua is building on where we left off last time. Then Yeshua said, John 14:6b No one comes to the Father except through Me. In the new verse, we find He makes Himself equal to God. This concept had gotten Him in trouble before with the ruling authorities.

John 5:18 So for this reason the Judean leaders kept trying even harder to kill Him - because He was not only breaking Shabbat, but also calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. In both the ancient and modern Jewish mindset, there is a huge difference between the people calling God, "Our Father, our King," and Yeshua calling God, "My Father," making Himself equal to God.

What does it mean to "know" God? In the Biblical sense it means to have an intimate relationship, as in, "Adam 'knew' his wife and they conceived" (Genesis 4:1). To do things "decently and in order" requires covenant. Yeshua had to come to establish the covenant of intimacy with God, a blood covenant broken by Adam. This new covenant is called a new and living way.

Hebrews 10:20 He inaugurated a new and living way for us through the curtain - that is, His flesh.

In ancient Israel, only one man (the High Priest), could go into one place (the Holy of Holies) once a year (on Yom Kippur) to have intimacy with God. In Yeshua, we all can go in everywhere, all the time and have intimacy with God. Yeshua made the way.

We have this command from God ... Exodus 33:20 But He also said, "You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live." So we need Yeshua ... Colossians 1:15a He is the image of the invisible God. Philippians explains this a little more fully. It's a little long, but I can't figure out how to shorten it. Here we have it all.

Philippians 2:6-11 Who, though existing in the form of God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be grasped. But He emptied Himself - taking on the form of a slave, becoming the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled Himself - becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Yeshua every knee should bow, in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue profess that Yeshua the Messiah is Lord - to the glory of God the Father.

Yeshua is both Savior and Lord. He is both Priest and King. As Priest, He is salvation to us. As King, He must be obeyed immediately and without question. Whenever these two merge, we find Yeshua.

Romans 11:26-27 and in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, "The Deliverer shall come out of Zion. He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins."

Let's pick this up again next time ...