I wish there was a way to communicate to you the excitement over what I'm seeing in the Word and by the Spirit with regards to the Grace of God, how good He is to us, and the love that He has for us. Unfortunately, the only way I can think to that is continue to teach, continue to teach, and continue to teach.
For years I know that many of us had this idea of an angry, vengeful God...the God that if we caught Him on the wrong day was liable to smite us and knock us down until Jesus came on the scene. Jesus was presented to us as the salve that abated His anger, and that either Jesus took all the anger upon Himself OR Jesus is there to constantly talk God off of a ledge where we are concerned.
Stories like the Israelites wondering for years in the wilderness, where we see God and Moses arguing over whether or not they should wipe out the Israelites are often brought up as a point to showcase God's wrath. I've even heard preachers joke, and have made similar jokes myself in the past, that it was a good thing that God and Moses were never on the same page on the same day, or it would have been the end of the Israelites.
The thing that is so interesting to me now that I look back on this idea of God is how much it doesn't line up with our New Testament understanding of who God is. You see, in the scripture, we see a God who is merciful to the unrighteous, justifying the ungodly, and not treating us at all the way we would expect based on the Old Covenant.
So how are we to reconcile the two? Is God really the angry, vindictive God of the Old Testament scripture? Is He the merciful, kind, and loving God of the New Testament scripture? Was Jesus simply the glasses He had to look through in order to not want to strike us dead? Did Jesus' death satiate God's desire for bloodshed?
These are all valid questions, but I think there are two passages of Scripture that have become vital to us in this ministry when it comes to understanding the Bible.
Paul tells us in Colossians 1:15 that Jesus is, "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation," lining up with Jesus' words to Phillip where He tells him that, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." (John 14:9)
In other words, if you want to know what the Father is truly like, look at Jesus. The one who showed compassion to the world around Him, who loved the sinner, reached out to the unreachable. One translation actually says that Jesus is the "Carbon Copy" of the Father, so if Jesus is the example of the Father that we've seen in the world around us, you and I should hold that up as our ultimate image of God.
The next verse I want to draw your attention to is Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 3:12-18 as he compares the glory of the Old Covenant that was passing away to the glory of the New Covenant, which is eternal, "Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech— unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord."
What is Paul telling us here? That when the old covenant was written, there was a veil over the minds of the writers of the Old Testament - literally, they could not see God clearly, and that veil remains in place over hearts and minds until we commit to look to the scripture with unveiled faces. In other words, we can finally see the Old Testament outside of the veil that has existed on it since it was written if we look at it with the mind of Christ.
This has caused me to re-evaluate HOW I read the Scripture, and in some ways, I feel like I'm reading Scripture for the first time, seeing it in the full light of the Person and Character of Jesus. A reading of scripture this way causes us to be more loving, more empathetic, and more gracious to all those around us, for we recognize that we have been granted grace.
As you study this week, I'd encourage you look at the scriptures afresh and anew without the veil present, without the clouding that comes from our years of religious tradition. Instead, read it with the understanding that we are now afforded clarity to the scripture by looking to the person of Jesus.
By Grace,
Dave