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Unit 1
Lesson 3 The Provision -- The Cross
John 1:1-5, 14, 18 1 Corinthians 15:1-4
In eternity past, God planned for the salvation of men and women whose creation and fall had not yet become a reality in time. After their creation and fall, at the perfect moment in human history, Christ came to earth to execute the plan.
Everything in the universe points to the Savior. Every principle, every promise, every truth in the Word of God has value only as it relates to the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why Colossians 1:18 says that the whole plan of God is summarized in one thing: that He have preeminence--first place--in everything.
Christ's preeminence stands on two things: His person and His work. Who is Jesus Christ? He is--and always was--God. At a point in time He became--and always will be--man. Near the end of the first century, at a time when the doctrines of both the deity and the humanity of Jesus Christ were under attack, the apostle John wrote to clear up the confusion over just who Jesus was.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. (John 1:1-2)
Go back, John says, as far as you want to go, a million years, a billion years before creation, and wherever you start, the Word "was." This word is eimi in the Greek, meaning "to be. In the imperfect tense it means continuous existence in the past.
Not only did the Word exist in the beginning, but the Word was "with God." The Greek pros means "face to face." John is declaring the uniqueness of the Word, the fact that He is set apart from God the Father. In the beginning the Word existed; the Word had eternal existence in the past and was face to face with God and therefore stands unique from God. And "the Word was God." John could not be any more dogmatic about the deity of the Word.
He repeats the idea of the uniqueness of the Word in the statement, "He was in the beginning with God." This time John uses the personal pronoun houtos, meaning "this unique person." John is stressing the fact that this Word is not a force, not power, not an emanation, but a person. This person has existed forever, is unique from God, and yet is God.
All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:3-5)
"All things" includes everything that is created. "Came into being" is from the verb ginomai, which means for something to come into existence that was not in existence before. In the phrase "by Him," John uses dia, the preposition of instrumental agency. This tells us that Jesus Christ is the creator of all things. A few verses later, in John 1:10, we are told that "the world was made through Him." Apart from Jesus Christ, nothing came into being.
Later in his account John would record similar words spoken by the Lord on His last night with the disciples, "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." As nothing came into being in the physical creation apart from Jesus Christ, so nothing comes into being in the spiritual realm apart from Him. Apart from relationship with Him, nothing in life has meaning or reality.
This is the idea John is expressing when he writes "in Him was life." In Greek there are two words for life. Bios refers strictly to the physical aspect of life. Zoe, the word used here refers to life in the absolute sense, life as God has it. This is the word used for quality of life, value, meaning. In the Word was (the tense says "always was") essence and quality of life and the life "was the light of men."
With the Fall, man had become alienated from this life (Eph. 4:18). But now, somehow, all of the qualitative life that existed in the second Person of the Trinity throughout all eternity became the light of men when the Word entered the human race. He came that all men might become partakers of this life through faith in Him (John 3:15).
This life was the light in the darkness of a dead world, the light that shone and was not comprehended. This light that revealed to the fallen human race how God could bring to bear all His divine essence on the problems of man, this light was illustrated in the person and life of Jesus Christ.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
"Became" indicates a transition from eternal pre-existence to existence in time. The Word laid aside the glories of heaven, or, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9, "though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." The word "poor" used here refers to utmost, absolute poverty. Why did He become poor? So that we could become exceedingly rich.
The word "dwelt," skenoo, means "to tabernacle." It means that what was seen in the Old Testament in the tabernacle of Israel--the Shekinah Glory--had now become flesh and blood. God no longer resided in the temple; He now resided in a human body and His glory was concealed in the tabernacle of human flesh.
God the Son chose to set aside the rights of His deity and leave the throne room of God and travel through billions of light years in space to take on Himself the form of an infant and enter into this world. He who was omnipotent chose to subject Himself to the frailty of human flesh. He who was omniscient chose to subject Himself to the limitation of human thought. He who was omnipresent chose to confine Himself in the flesh to the limitations of time and space and matter.
God Revealed
No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. (John 1:18)
Jesus Christ is the only visibly revealed member of the Trinity. The Greek word translated "explain" in the New American Standard and "revealed" in the King James is exegeomai. It means "to draw out in narrative; to unfold in teaching; to recount, declare, reveal."
Every Old Testament appearance of God was the pre incarnate Christ. The second Person of the Trinity appeared on earth in bodily form described in some cases as "the angel of the Lord" (Gen. 16:7-13, 22:11-18, 31:11-13, 48:15-16; Ex, 3:2-14; Judg. 6:11-23, 13:2-22), in some as "a man" (Gen. 18:1-33, 32:24-32; Josh. 5:13-1 5; Dan,.,3:24-25), and in some as simply the God of Israel, the Lord (Ex.'24:9-1 1).
At times He appeared in a form called "the glory of the Lord." He was the cloud and pillar of fire that led and defended the Jews throughout their wilderness wanderings (Ex. 13:21-22; 14:19; 16:7,10; 24:16-1 7; 33:18-23). He was the luminous cloud which rested over the ark of the covenant, between the golden cherubs, in the holy of holies, in the tabernacle and later in the temple (Ex. 25:22, 33:9-10, 40:34-38; Lev. 9:23, 26:11-12; Num. 16:42; 1 Kings 8:11; 2 Chron. 5:13-14).
The term "Shekinah Glory" or simply "Shekinah," from the Hebrew shaken, which means "to dwell," came to be used by Jews to describe these visible manifestations of the presence of God. Jesus Christ is the Shekinah Glory. With the incarnation, this glory entered humanity. "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among Us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).
He did not lose any of the powers that were His as deity, but as a man, He chose to live under the rules He would expect us to live by He submitted Himself to the will of the Father John 6:38). He taught the teachings of the Father (John 7:16). He did that which was pleasing to the Father (John 8:29). He sought the glory of the Father (John 8:50).
"And," John says, "we beheld His glory." Glory means God's character and essence reflected It was not the glory of wealth and riches, not the glory of personal appearance or attractiveness. It was what is called in the Old Testament "the beauty of holiness" It was the beauty of total perfection total purity, the most beautiful thing in the universe-God's character revealed in a single human being, a man "full of grace and truth."
No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. (John 1:18)
God is spirit; He is invisible. But the Son has "explained" Him. Jesus Christ is God, born into this realm as the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15). "When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law" (Gal. 4:4). Now God in human flesh reveals God in eternal spiritual essence. "Explain" is exegeomai; we get the English word "exegesis" from this. It means to bring out the true meaning, to reveal in the light, to fully explain, to display something in its fullest sense. Jesus Christ displays in the fullest sense the character of God and reveals God to the human race.
Jesus did not come just to show man how to live a good Life, to be an example. He was born to die. Without His death, His perfect life would do man no good at all. Man's problem was not lack of a high enough standard; it was inability to live up to any standard. The Law had proved that man could never work his way to God. Between man and God stood the barrier of sin. Man was helpless to pay the penalty for the past and hopeless to do better in the future. He was helpless and hopeless, that is, until the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. (1 Cor. 15:1-2)
In 1 Corinthians 15 the apostle Paul explains first the power and then the content of the Gospel. What Paul was making known was the Gospel he had preached. The word euaggelizo, from which we get "evangelize," simply means "to proclaim good news." In order for the Gospel to accomplish its purpose, someone has to proclaim it.
After Paul proclaimed the Gospel, these people received it. Paralambano means "to take as one's own." These people were given the message and they received it by grace through faith. They believed in Jesus Christ.
The verb " stand" is from histemi. In the perfect tense it means that at a point of time in the past they took a stand with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ, with the result that they will stand e forever. Paul uses this tense to emphasize their eternal security. According to Romans 5:2 the stand of the believer is in grace.
"Saved" is in the present tense. Paul is saying, "You are saved now; you are going to be saved tomorrow and next week and a next month and next year. You are going to be saved forever. Q Why are these people saved? Because they believed in the Gospel.
If Paul is saying that these people have eternal security in Christ, why does he suggest in 1 Corinthians 15:2 that they might have believed "in vain"? His statement can only be understood in the context of the whole chapter. What Paul means by believing "in vain" is explained in verses 12-19.
We know from verse 12 that there were in the Corinthian church people who did not believe that someday there would be a physical resurrection. The idea of physical resurrection was totally foreign to the philosophies under which the believers in Corinth had been raised. Greeks looked at the body as a prison. When Paul taught a bodily resurrection, they thought of being in prison forever.
Faith in Jesus Christ had saved these people, even though they denied the physical resurrection. But Paul wants them to grow now, and he knows they need to understand the doctrine of the resurrection. In verses 12-14 he tells them that if there is no physical resurrection, then Christ Himself has not been raised from the dead. If Christ has not been raised, then both Paul's preaching and their faith are "in vain"--empty, meaningless, useless. If Christ has not been raised, there Is no solution for sin. If their hope in Christ is meaningful only in time and not eternity, then they are wasting their lives believing in Him.
The only way a person can believe in vain is if the message he believes is false. In verse 2 Paul is saying "Look, if you believe this message and you believe that Jesus Christ is raised from the dead, then you are saved and you do stand in grace. If you believe some other message, then whatever you have believed is worth nothing."
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3-4)
Now Paul goes back to the basics, to that of first importance What is the most important thing to know about the Bible? It ought to be this right here. Paul says this is number one priority This is the most important doctrine we can have clear in our minds because it is the most important thing that Paul received.
This was His substitutionary death. He died the death we all deserve because "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). He paid the Penalty for every sin ever committed--every sin in the past, in the present, in the future. All our sins were poured out on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ' s death was according to the plan of God, and that plan was pictured in the Old Testament. Everything in the Old Testament points forward to the promised Messiah, to the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. (For a very few examples see Genesis 3:15, 22; Leviticus 1-51 16; Job 19:25-27; Psalms 16, 22; and Isaiah 53.)
Why is it important that He was buried? Because He had to be truly dead. First-century Jews believed that the soul and the spirit did not totally depart from the body until the end of the third day. So, the fact that Jesus was buried and was in the tomb for three days was crucial to the message.
The fact of Christ's resurrection is the only basis for the Christian's hope. The verb here is in the perfect tense, which means it was a past action having continuous present results. The result of the resurrection is every bay. Because of victory over death, Jesus Christ is to the believer the source of resurrection life (John 10:10-11, 11:25-26; Eph. 2:6; Col. 3:1-4; 1 John 5:11-12) and the source of resurrection power (Rom. 6:4; Matt. 28:18; Eph. 1:19; Phil. 4:13).
We are all born physically alive but spiritually dead (Gen. 2:17; Rom. 5:12, 6:23). When we believe the good news, we are turned around. Identified with Christ in his death and resurrection, we are now dead to sin and alive to God (Rom. 5:8; 2 Cor. 5:21). We have become a new creation.
Greek
The New Testament was written in the language used in the Greek-speaking world from about 300 B.C. to about A.D. 500. It was known as Koine or "common" Greek because it was street language, the language of the people, as opposed to the classical Greek of literature.
Koine Greek was devised by Alexander the Great for one reason: to conquer the world. When Alexander first began pulling together an army from the Greek city-states over which he had won ascendancy, he found he had a serious problem. When his drill sergeants bellowed, "Left face, forward march," every soldier moved in a different direction. There was no one Greek language. The men of Athens spoke with the classical eloquence of Attic Greek; the Spartans communicated in the monosyllabic grunts of Doric Greek.
Before he could ever hope to conquer the world, Alexander had to conquer the tongue. His Greeks had to have one clear, easy-to-understand language. The language through which God would communicate the New Testament message was originally designed to be so clear, so exact, that in a combat situation every person on the battlefield would immediately understand his commanding officer's instructions.
Alexander had been taught by his tutor, Aristotle, to think with mathematical precision. When Alexander's desire for accuracy and clarity in language met with his mathematical mind set, Koine Greek was the result. It was the perfect language in which to communicate absolute truth.
Nowhere is the potential for accuracy more clear than in the Greek system of verbs. Every Greek verb has a three-fold fix so the reader can know exactly what the verb means. The three "fixes" are tense, voice, and mood.
There are five tenses in Greek. Each tense tells the reader two things about the action the verb is describing: the time of the action and the kind of action. The possible times are past, present, and future. The possible kinds are linear (continuous or progressive action) and punctiliar (action that occurs at a point of time). A line ( ________ ) illustrates linear action. A point (.) illustrates punctiliar action.
The present tense shows progressive action in the present time ( ________ ). When Jesus says in Matthew 7:7, "Ask seek ... knock," the present tense tells us that He does not mean, "Ask once and then quit," but "Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking."
The aorist tense shows action that takes place at a point in time-that point could be in the past, present, or future (.). In Acts 16:31 Paul's instruction to the Philippian jailer is in the aorist tense, telling him to make a once-for-all decision: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved."
The perfect tense, which cannot be adequately expressed in English, shows completed past action having present results (. ________ ). . John 19:30, it is finished," says that the work of Christ on the cross was completed at that point in time, but its results continue forever.
The imperfect tense shows continuous action in the past ( ________.). In Acts 1:6 the disciples "were asking" the risen Lord if He were about to restore the kingdom to Israel. The imperfect tense here tells us that they did not ask just once; they kept asking the same question over and over and over again.
The future tense can show either continuous or completed action in the future.
The three Greek voices show the relationship of the subject to the action of the verb. In the active voice, the subject produces the action (implying, therefore, choice on the part of the subject). In the passive voice, the subject receives the action. In the middle voice, which has no English equivalent, the subject produces the action and participates in some way in the result of the action. The middle voice is like a boomerang.
Mood shows the relationship of the action to reality from the viewpoint of the speaker. There are four moods in Greek. The indicative mood expresses real action. The subjunctive, optative, and imperative moods express three different kinds of potential action.
First Corinthians 15:1-2 gives a good illustration of how clearly Koine Greek can communicate-and of how inadequate is English to express the subtleties of Greek. In two verses there are seven different verbs and five different constructions.
(I Corinthians 15:1-2) "Now / make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which a/so you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which (preached to you, unless you believed in vain."
I make known is present active indicative ________
I preached is aorist middle indicative .
You received is aorist active indicative .
You stand is perfect active indicative .________
You are saved is present passive indicative ________
You hold fast is present active indicative ________
You believed is aorist active indicative .
The present tense and active voice of the verb "make known" tell us that at the time Paul was writing this letter, he was choosing to continuously proclaim the good news. When he says he "preached," the aorist tense tells us that at some earlier point in time, he had told the Corinthians how to be saved and they had, in a moment of time, made a decision to "receive" the word-they believed in Jesus Christ. With "stand" in the perfect tense, Paul is saying that at a point of time they took their stand, with the result that they will stand forever. (The stand they took ~ was faith in the only solid foundation: Jesus Christ.) The present ~ passive indicative "are saved" tells us that they did not save themselves, they received a salvation that is always in the present-it will last forever.
Because of the phrases, "if you hold fast" and "unless you believed in vain," this verse is often used by people who deny the eternal security of the believer. In English it does sound as if salvation depends on our being able in our own strength to hold on. But there can be no question about what this verse says in the Greek.
In Greek there are four ways to say "if." The first-class condition means "if, and it is true." When Satan said to Jesus in Matthew 4:3, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread," he used a first-class condition. Satan had no doubt that Jesus was God.
The second-class condition means 'if, and it is not true." When Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7:39 said to himself, "If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is," he used a second-class condition. Simon was saying, "If Jesus were a prophet, but He is not." He was displaying his unbelief.
The third-class condition in Greek is closest to the English "if." It means "maybe it is true and maybe it is not." When Jesus said in John 14:15, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments," He was saying that we have a choice. Maybe we will choose to love Him and maybe we will not, but if we do love Him, we will keep His commandments.
The fourth class condition which is very rare means if and I wish it were true, but it is probably not." Peter used the fourth-class condition in 1 Peter 4:16 when he wrote, "If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed." The people to whom he was writing were suffering; Peter wished they were suffering because of their faith, but he knew most of their suffering was because of their lack of faith.
In 1 Corinthians 15:2 Paul uses a first-class condition. A more literal translation would be, "by which you are saved since you hold fast the word."
The meaning of the second "questionable" phrase in 1 Corinthians 15:2, "unless you believed in vain," is just as clear, but only when studied in the context of the entire chapter (cf. 1 Cor. 15:12-19, especially verse 14, where "in vain" is defined. See page 24-25).
Koine Greek is by far the most accurate language known to man, but it is still a human language. In interpreting the Word, if we know the rules of the Greek language, but do not know the rules of Bible study (See page 58), we will veer off course in our theology. But even if we understand the Greek language and the science of interpretation and are not filled with the Holy Spirit when we study, we will not understand a thing God has to say to us (1 Cor. 2:14).
The Cross
The work of Christ on the cross is:
It was a payment, a judgment. Jesus took on Himself the judgment for all sin (Gal. 3:13; 2 Cor. 5:21).
Jesus Christ died in our place. Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would be wounded for our iniquities and bruised for our transgressions (Isa. 53:5-6; Lev. 1:4; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24.)
Jesus knew the plan of the Father and He went willingly to the cross (John 10:18). Isaiah says that He set His face like flint (Isa. 50:7).
"Redeem" is exagorazo. Agorazo means "to buy in the slave market." Ek means "out." When Jesus Christ entered this world, we were in the slave market of sin. He walked in, paid the price for all of us, and opened the gate so all who wanted to could go free (Gal. 3:13, 4:5).
It satisfied God's righteous demand for a perfect sacrifice for sin; Christ was that perfect sacrifice (Rom. 3:25; 1 John 3:2).
By it we are restored to a relationship of peace with God (Rom. 5:1).
It is effective. When anyone puts faith in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, that work accomplishes the salvation (Ram. 5:9; 2 Cor. 5:21; Eph. 2:13; Heb. 9:11-1 2).
It reveals much about God-His love, His compassion, His mercy and grace, His condescension, and more (John 3:16; Ram. 5:8; 1 John 4:9-10).
MEMORY VERSE
(John 1:1-5) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
REVIEW
Unit 1, Lesson 3
- Who is Jesus Christ?
- Who is "the angel of the Lord" described in passages like Genesis 16:7-13, Exodus 3:2-14, and Judges 6:11-24?
- How do we know Jesus is God?
- Why did Jesus become flesh What happened to Jesus on the cross?
- What are the four most important facts in the Gospel?
- Can a Christian lose his salvation?
- How do you know?
- Why was Greek the perfect language for explaining New Testament truth?
- How would you explain to an unbelieving friend the meaning of Christ's death on the cross?
- What Scriptures would you use to back your claims?
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