Foundations of Spiritual Formation I: The Work of the Spirit

Transcription

1 Foundations of Spiritual Formation I: The Work of the Spirit SF507 LESSON 04 of 07 Richard E. Averbeck, Ph.D. Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois This lecture is entitled Holy Spirit, Redemptive Community, and Relational Spiritual Formation. It s part one the biblical theology foundation for this. We have already worked through the first core dimension of spirituality, Holy Spirit, and human spirit how the Holy Spirit works directly on our human spirit and its implications. We now turn to the second dimension. It flows from the first very naturally and back into the first. Recall that we re talking about these from a biblical point of view in which each of these dimensions has Old Testament foundations leading into the New Testament. And then there are specific New Testament applications to the Christian life, and they affect each other as well back and forth. All three of these dimensions, they work together. They re a package that the Holy Spirit works in us. Now talking specifically about the temple of God and the temple of the Holy Spirit the second concentric circle we re talking here about the actual presence of the Holy Spirit in us as He works in our human spirit making us a temple, or a sanctuary, of God the Holy Spirit today. This is an essential part of who we are our identity in Christ, and that s true both on the individual and the corporate level. Thinking of this dimension, it seems to emphasize the way it develops in Scripture, that practicing of the presence of God in our life day by day, moment by moment. This is done through prayer and worship and purity, relational love, spiritual giftedness, just living out the actual presence of God and awareness of that presence, having an affect on us that overwhelms us in so many ways in favor of living for the Lord. The foundation for this concept is laid in the Old Testament in the tabernacle presence of God, or at least that is one of the mean dimensions of it in the Old Testament. It touches everything in the Bible, really, and everything in the Christian life. He is a God of creation and redemption. He is present with us in the world, this God of creation and redemption. As Paul put it in Act 17, For in Him we live and move and have our being. 1 of 16

2 The passage here is Exodus 40: There s background in this in other passages. For example, back in Exodus 3 we have the burning bush and Moses encounters the Lord there and then in verse 12 there s a promise. As he goes to bring Israel out of Egypt we have this promise in verse 12 that is given to him: Certainly, the Lord says, I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I that have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God at this mountain. This is called the mountain of God. In Exodus we have a theophany there at that mountain of God in which He comes back there as promised in 3:12 and there is this awesome theophany with the cloud and the darkness and lightning and all sorts of manifestations of God s power and awesome nature. Then in Exodus 33 we come down to the connection this has specifically to presence. This is in the context of the golden calf incident. As a result of the rebellion there and the Lord s reaction to it, the Lord says this in Exodus 33:1-3: Then the Lord spoke to Moses, Depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, To your descendants I will give it. I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, because you are an obstinate people, and I might destroy you on the way. He might break out against them. Well Moses reacts to this very strongly because one of the main foundations of his relationship with the Lord is that the Lord was going to be with him in what he was doing in this mission of bringing Israel out of Egypt and into the promised land. So in verses we read this: Then Moses said to the Lord, See, You say to me, Bring up this people! But You Yourself have not let me know whom You will send with me. Moreover, You have said, I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight. Now I pray 2 of 16

3 [Moses says], if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people. And He said, My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest [the Lord says]. Then Moses says back to the Lord, If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. We have no business going anywhere without Your presence, Moses says to the Lord, because that s essential to the very nature of the mission and what was going on God s actual presence with them. So there s this strong focus here in Exodus on this presence. It comes to a major focus then in Exodus 40, which you have on the sheet. After the erection of the tabernacle, almost about a year later after coming to Sinai they had to build the tabernacle first, but once it was setup we read this in Exodus 40:34: Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, this glory cloud that had led them to the wilderness. Even out of Egypt and on up through. [It] covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out.... So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel during all their travels. The fire pillar in it was theirs so that they could see the cloud also at nighttime. Now this continues on into Leviticus 1, the next verse. After we come to the end of this chapter 40 in Exodus, Leviticus 1 says this: Then the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel. In other words, Moses, as it said earlier, could not enter the tent of meeting because it was filled up with this glory cloud of the Lord this presence. The tabernacle actually here now with the Lord (He s taking up occupation in the tabernacle) actually becomes a movable Sinai. The Lord fills the tabernacle with His glory and then moves with them. It s the Lord s tent in the midst of their tents, and He moves with them in the camp. So it s a movable Sinai in a sense. 3 of 16

4 Now we can follow this on through. This presence issue is pivotal in the Old Testament, and it comes through in this particular way. So when we come, for example, to the inauguration of the tabernacle in Leviticus 9, at the end of that Chapter we read this in Leviticus 9 verses 22-24: Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them, and he stepped down after making the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings. Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting. When they came out and blessed the people, the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. Then fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the portions of fat on the altar; and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. The point is that God is making very clear to them that He is actually physically, visibly present there. That s His way of showing His presence. And they re overcome by this in the context. Then over in Leviticus 16, on the Day of Atonement, we have this discussion leading into it that s based upon that previous material back in Leviticus 9 and 10. And Leviticus 16:1, we read this: Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they had approached the presence of the Lord and died. The Lord said to Moses: Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, or he will die; for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. That s the very nature of this presence. Now going back in Leviticus 9, the end of Leviticus 9 then. This is referred to in Leviticus 16 in the passage we just read, and that s Leviticus 10:1. Still on the inauguration day now back in Leviticus 9 and 10: Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective fire pans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord [10:1-2]. So the Lord broke out against this violation of the two sons of [Aaron,] Nadab and Abihu, right on the first day when they were 4 of 16

5 functioning as priests within the tabernacle. Then Moses said, in verse 3, to Aaron, It is what the Lord spoke, saying, By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored. So Aaron, therefore, kept silent. The point is that this very presence of God requires that there be holiness right in His presence. He breaks out against impurity and sin and corruption as He did with the golden calf earlier. Leading in then to Leviticus 16, at the end of Leviticus 15. We re going back and forth to show these connections between these two units. It s all connected to this very presence of God in the midst of Israel. In Leviticus 15:31 we read this: Thus you shall keep the sons of Israel separated from their uncleanness, so that they will not die in their uncleanness by their defiling My tabernacle that is among them. So they need to keep the purity, the physical purifications, and all these things since God was physically present they need to do physical purifications. This corresponds to the fact that in the New Testament we don t have a tent out in the churchyard in which the Lord is showing his manifest glory cloud presence there in a physical, visible way. No, the Lord is present amongst us in a spiritual way through the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit actually becomes the one who occupies, indwells us individually and corporately. And this is where this whole concept goes in the New Testament. So therefore they had to purify in the Old Testament in very physical, ritual sorts of ways because there was the physical, visible presence of the Lord in the tabernacle. We have to purify in spiritual life, in our conscience, in our heart, and clean that up because that s where the Lord dwells. And He dwells amongst us, so we need to be pure in how we live and love one another. This is how the New Testament develops it, and we will say more about it as we go on here. This glory cloud presence continues as we go into the book of Kings when the temple is built and replaces the tabernacle. The same thing happens there in the temple in I Kings 8. And that also shows up in Chronicles as well. So the point is that there s this physical tabernacle presence of God that is the foundation of understanding, in the New Testament, many things that are built off of this background in the Old Testament. 5 of 16

6 So, for example, compare this glory cloud with the prologue to the gospel of John. John 1:14 reads thus: The Word became flesh. The logos the Word, Jesus Christ became flesh and made His dwelling among us. He tabernacled among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. The connection between the dwelling and the glory, and this comes to full manifestation in the Lord Jesus Christ and how He came as the light of the world, which is a big part of what the prologue is talking about in the gospel of John. This is all built off of this Old Testament foundation of the very presence, glory filled presence, of the Lord who dwells among us His presence with us. This continues as we go, for example, into the High Priestly prayer in John 17. He s praying for his apostles and those who would believe in Him through them. And He says this in verse 22, He says specifically: I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are one. So the glory that He came with He transfers to us. Now this is a very profound idea. If we think of it in this way, for example, what we re talking about is that we actually get to be now the glory of God in the world. We are made to be that. We are the way God shines His great glory and honor and awesome nature into this world. And in this High Priestly prayer this idea is linked specifically to our unity with one another in Christ. Our love for one another, as He says back in John 13:34-35, how will they know that we are His disciples but by our love for one another? And the background there is also very important. So in John 13, as we look at that passage, we find those verses I just mentioned, verses 34 and 35 but if you go back to verse 31 in John 13 we read: Therefore when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately. Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, Where I am going, you cannot come. A new commandment I give to you. [verses 31-34]. And therefore He talks about His concept of loving one another right in this context of glory and the manifestation of His presence 6 of 16

7 through His people. This is what the High Priestly prayer, giving us the glory, is all about. So that we bring the glory of God now because we are Christians little Christs in the world. This continues on then into II Corinthians 3. We referred to this earlier when we were looking at Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 and how it comes through in the earlier part of this chapter on the Spirit of God and the writing of the Law on the heart by the Spirit those expressions there in the early part of that chapter. Well later on in that chapter we come to verses 17 and 18 and we read this: Now the Lord is the Spirit, so the Lord is identifying Himself with the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory. The more we become like Jesus in being transformed that s a formation word the more that happens, the more we shine forth the glory of God in the world, and that glory comes from the Lord who is the Spirit, it says at the end of those verses. This is a powerful statement of us becoming the very glory of God in the world in the way we live by being transformed into the image of Christ. The special connection to the Holy Spirit s presence is the foundation for this whole connected set of concepts in these passages. Now this presence, this tabernacle or temple presence of the Lord through the Holy Spirit has an individual perspective and it has a community perspective. First the individual perspective comes out in I Corinthians 6: I ll start with verse 18. Flee from sexual immorality is what is the context here. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. So we re talking here about the practicing of this presence of God right in our own body, in our own personal life. And the concern here is very much connected to purity and in the need for us to manifest the purity of the Lord in our lives. Now one of the passages that picks up on this in a very interesting and helpful way is I Peter 1:15-16, and back in those earlier verses it talks about be holy, for I am holy. That comes straight from Leviticus 11 and 20 and various places through that book. But right in that context in verse 22, after that be holy, for I am holy, 7 of 16

8 we read this: Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, notice there purify. That s the same terminology that the Greek translation of the Old Testament would use in translating purification terminology in the Old Testament, Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls [your heart, your spirit] for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. It s important to note the connection between purifying your soul so you can love others well. You can t love well without a pure heart. First Peter 2, the next chapter, actually picks up on this and talks about us as being a temple and a priesthood as those who are in Christ through the work of the Spirit in us. We ll come back to that later. First Timothy 1:5 reads: The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. The main point here that I m trying to make is that showing forth the glory of God in the world depends upon us showing love toward God in one another. This ties in with the two great commandments in Matthew 22, the summary of the whole Law in the prophets can be found in love of the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, and love your neighbor as yourself the two great commandments. So this love in the I Timothy 1:5 passage tells us the Bible itself tells us why we should read the Bible and how we should teach it. The whole purpose of it is to transform us into people who love well and do it from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Now that s no small matter. How hard is it? How much change is required for us to have a pure heart and a good conscience and an unwavering faith? This concept comes through in the John 13 passage that we were referring to before; the mark of the Christian is love. They will know that we are Christians by our love for one another. The same principle comes through in another way in I Corinthians 12. First Corinthians chapter 12, the end of it, leading into the love chapter in chapter 13 we read this starting in, I ll go back to verse 27. First Corinthians 12:27-28: Now you are Christ s body, and individually members of it. God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts. 8 of 16

9 The various gifts of the Spirit are being talked about here. Not everybody has the same gifts. Verses 30-31: All do not have gifts of healing, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way. Then we go into this chapter [chapter 13:1-3]: If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all my possessions...even if I am completely giving up all sorts of things to the poor and everything else, if I don t have love, it really profits nothing. Love is the quality, the very nature of which makes everything else what it needs to be. So, for example, if we were going to compare the importance of the spiritual gifts, which are definitely so important to what the Holy Spirit is doing in us and through us, the Lord says right here in I Corinthians 12 and 13 that those gifts can t measure up at all to the need to be someone who loves well. In fact, the gifts are actually given to us as means and as tools for doing love toward God and toward one another and toward people in the world. So the point is that if love is the goal of our instructions, the whole point of teaching the Bible in the first place, and if it is a summary of the whole Law and the prophets, everything can be hung upon the framework of love God and love your neighbor. If it is the mark that distinguishes us in the world as Christians and if it is more important than any giftedness or talents or whatever we have, then I would say love is pretty important. It is central to who we are and who we are to be in Christ. It s how the glory of God shows its way through into the world, because Christ came to love. God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son [John 3:16]. Now these patterns keep on going here. As we continue on, another manifestation of this individual perspective on the Holy Spirit working in us is the fruit of the Spirit. You ll notice that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and selfcontrol [Galatians 5:22]. It goes on to say, Against such things there is no law [verse 23]. The point is that the work of the Spirit is about character formation. It s 9 of 16

10 about changing our character in such a way that we become truly people who, in our relationships with other people, are known for how well we love and how well we show that love through joy and peace and kindness and faithfulness and gentleness and all these various qualities. This is one of the main things that Jesus works in us through the Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit are primarily relational. They are about how we do relationship with one another. This again reflects back upon the fact that this is how we show that we are Christians. Now the community side of this is also very important. And, of course, the fruit of the Spirit and these other things to which we referred earlier, under the individual aspect of the presence of God with this, all pile into the community perspective as well. But actually the community focus is given more emphasis in Scripture than the individual in this regard. For example, in I Corinthians 3:16-17, Don t you know that you yourselves [plural] are God s temple? And that is, God s Spirit lives in you. If anyone destroys God s temple, God will destroy him; for God s temple is sacred, and you are that temple. You don t mess with God s temple. That means that you must not mess with God s church. And that church is built up of us as individuals who are inhabited and who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That makes us a community that is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He is in us; He is also among us; and He is with us and He works through us. All of these are part of what the Holy Spirit is really doing in His presence with us. Now the same point gets developed in a very extensive way in Ephesians 2 and 3, and I want to look at that passage with you. It s a very profound way that it is developed there. In chapter 2 the apostle Paul is talking about the breaking down of the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile. Then in verses he picks it up in this way: So then you, you Gentiles, are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, the holy ones of old, and are of God s household, having been built on the foundation, now we begin to get this temple terminology, foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, the cornerstone is what you line everything up with, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple. He comes right out and says it. He calls this whole building, Jew and Gentile together, the whole church, being built into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. 10 of 16

11 He comes right out and ties this whole thing in from the Old Testament foundations of tabernacle and temple theology. We have this building right into the church, but now we re not talking about a holy place but really a holy people here is what we re talking about. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and God s glory manifests itself through us. This is what we get to be. What could be better? This is what it s all about. Now he goes on into chapter 3, and what we have there is an excursus, because he begins in 3:1, For this reason I, Paul, then he goes into the mystery of the church in terms of revelation the mystery that it was. Then He comes back to his line of argument in verse 14 by repeating, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father. Then verses 15-18: From whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner person, so the glory in the inner person, so that Christ may dwell, the dwelling place concept comes right through here we already have the glory mentioned, the spirit in the inner person so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, we re talking about digging down into the foundations of our lives, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth. The dimensions of the temple: breadth, length, height, and depth. He s playing off of the same image in order to help us to understand this issue of, we are actually the presence of God in the world because the Holy Spirit inhabits and works in us. Verse 19: And to know the love of Christ, the love of Christ comes through here, which surpasses knowledge, the importance of this love, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Remember, the holy glory cloud in the Old Testament filled up the tabernacle there in Exodus 40, and it s the same truth for us. We re filled up with all the fullness of God. Verses 20-21: Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church, we re manifest through the glory that s in the church, in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. This is a profound passage that keeps on developing from chapter 2 3 and actually into chapter 4 as well about these issues that are so important to the very nature of who we are as God s manifest 11 of 16

12 presence in the world as His dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. This continues on, as I ve mentioned, into chapter 4. For example, in 4:1-3: Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, you ve been called to be at the temple, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now we are back to the concept that Jesus had in the high priestly prayer in John 17 the importance of the unity of this body. Verses 4-6: There is one body, one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is over all and through all and in you all. Now we have been given various kinds of grace gifts and so on, and he goes on and talks about that. But we are one, and it is this one [who] does this love for one another that shows forth this vast glory of God in the world. You can keep on going with that. You can see the Spirit as well as the Father and the Son in this. It is another Trinitarian passage. Moving on from there you come then to this passage in Ephesians 5 the well known be not drunk with wine passage, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. Verses 19-21: speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ, and so on. Now this filling terminology is really quite important here, and it has background in the book. Back in Chapter 1, the church is the fullness of Christ, being filled with the fullness of Christ in Ephesians 1: Then you have the filling of Christians and the church by the Father in 3:19 and the Son in Chapter 4. And here we come to this Holy Spirit. So we have the Trinitarian dimensions of this in the book of Ephesians. So as you walk through this, you begin to see how important this is to the very nature of what the temple is, because a temple is, by nature, a place of worship. And the very manifestation of us being filled with the Spirit is that we 12 of 16

13 worship we speak or are speaking to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. We are singing and making music in our hearts to the Lord, giving thanks and praising. This is important because what it shows is that the Holy Spirit is indwelling us. It makes us a place of worship. We are first of all and above all, as Christians, worshipers. The centrality of worship is very important here. This continues on and talks, of course, about the effects of this. If there is this worship taking place, you are going to be filled with the Spirit, and you will give your self up for others. The Spirit works God s love in us in such a way that not only do we have this love so filling us up, but that leaves nothing for us to do but to go and love. There is nothing else that makes sense because we are so fully loved. And the Spirit makes it so clear to us in the depths of our own human spirit. Now in the latter unit of this, what I want to do is walk through another element of what it means to be this temple of the Holy Spirit. Because not only are we a temple, but also one of the main things that happens in a temple is that you have priestly activities. Christians as priests who offer sacrifices comes out strongly in the text, building off the same background in the Old Testament. In Exodus 40 we have the glory filling the tabernacle and then Leviticus 1 7 talks specifically about the various sacrifices that would be offered to honor and to glorify God in that tabernacle. There are all sorts of details there. You need to take special note of the fact that at the foundation of the Israelite covenant with God at Sinai we have Exodus 19:6. God is going to make them His Kingdom of priests and a holy nation. They are ordained as that. They are consecrated as a kingdom of priests. Now this comes through into the New Testament as well. We have the priesthood of Christ and Christians talked about in Hebrews A lot of attention is given to Jesus as the pattern of the Melchizedek Priesthood in the Old Testament. Then we have Jesus as our Royal Priest who makes us believers also a holy priesthood that offers sacrifices. In I Peter 2:4-5, we read this: As you come to Him, the living Stone rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him, now notice He s a living stone. So we re kind of echoing some of the same concepts that Paul uses in Ephesians 2 about the stones and Jesus as the cornerstone. That being the case, You also, verse 5, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood. So we are being built into a spiritual house, but at the same time 13 of 16

14 using a different kind of figure we re becoming a holy priesthood. So we re both the temple and the priesthood. Different things from those concepts in the Old Testament applied to who we have become in Christ. And as priests, we re ones who are offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. So we re a temple in which sacrifices are offered. We re the priests who offer them. And we actually offer up spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God as those priests. We re a kingdom of priests. First Peter 2:9 draws upon the Exodus 19 passage. It says we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, and that is so that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light into His glory light again, recalling Exodus 19. It shows up elsewhere in the New Testament as well, especially in some passages in Revelation that are cited there. Now the sacrifices of Christ and the Christians are important things to talk about here in understanding that we are a temple of the Holy Spirit a place where God is actually present. When you re present with this great and holy God you bring him gifts you bring Him offerings. This is the very nature of what you do in order to honor Him and show how deeply you appreciate Him. Jesus, of course, fulfilled the ritual sacrificial requirements for our salvation. You can see many New Testament passages about this. I m not going to go into that. We have all sorts of them about Him being our sin offering, or Him being our Passover offering. [There are] many different kinds of passages about this. But since Jesus gave Himself as a sacrifice, Christians must do this too if we re going to become like Him. Jesus responded in a certain way to the Samaritan woman when she asked about where to worship. She s bringing up the issue of worship. But He goes in a different direction; one that she is not expecting. He says, Yes, Jerusalem is the place of worship, historically. But he says, God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth [John 4:24]. The issue is to get down into the heart, the spirit of the person, and it s from there that real worship happens. That s where He takes her. And that s where He takes us. In Romans 12:1, for example, we have the background of the Old Testament s sacrificial law becoming the foundation for understanding this command to offer your bodies as a living 14 of 16

15 sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. One of the main ways we worship as believers is to offer ourselves as a sacrifice pleasing to God. This is a figure of speak, of course, but that s the point. It s using the background to understand what it is to live well for Christ, to offer ourselves up to Him. Then some passages explain or illustrate what this means, and there are quite a number of them. One of them, for example, is in Romans 15:16. He s talking about His ministry amongst them and He said He has done this to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so that My offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. He is using all this Old Testament sacrificial terminology for offering and it being an acceptable offering and Him being a priest in order to help us understand that when we serve Him that is an offering that we give to Him. That s the nature of what it is. And as a priest, this is who Paul was and his special ministry. His special call, as we know, was the apostle to the Gentiles. That is an offering that he wants to offer up as this sweet savor offering to the Lord. One passage that develops this as well is Hebrews 13:9-16, [which] actually comes into this. I will go specifically. He talks about an altar starting in verse 10 and so on. But in verse 15 we read this, Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. That is a sacrifice. Praising God is like sacrificing to him. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. This is all based upon this Old Testament background. Remember, the New Testament believers in the first century had a Bible, but it was the Old Testament, and most of the time it was the Greek Old Testament. So they were saturated with understanding these things in the Old Testament. The New Testament apostles were assuming that the readers of their writings would be saturated with the Old Testament. That is the foundation on which they are making their arguments. So they can refer to these things as if everybody would know what it is like to make sacrifices and so on because they really would have understood it in their time and in their place. The I Peter passage also talks about offering up sacrifices as we have said. 15 of 16

16 Finally I want to consider something that occurred to me a while back in reading I Peter 2, the latter part of that chapter. We looked at the earlier part, but there is an interesting connection to Isaiah 53 here. What happens in I Peter 2:18-25 is that Isaiah 53 is applied not only to Jesus; it is applied to Jesus but it also applies to us. Jesus is the suffering servant the ultimate suffering servant of God. If we are going to become like him we too have to become suffering servants. He picks up on this in talking to slaves in that day who are Christians. He writes it in this way (this is printed on the sheets with the parallel expressions from Isaiah 53 referred to) starting in verse 18, he said: Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. So a servant can suffer in a way that is really pleasing to God even in his harsh circumstances. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. Isaiah 53:9 is being referred to there. When they hurled in their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, he made no threats [Isaiah 53:7]. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed [Isaiah 53:45, 11]. And finally, For you were like a sheep are going astray [Isaiah 53:6], but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 16 of 16