Mark (Program #9) – The Ways the Slave-Savior Carried Out His Gospel Service (4)

By the time Jesus was ready to begin His earthly ministry, a well established God ordained religious system was firmly entrenched in the land of Palestine.  But as the very God Himself who was the fulfillment and reality of all of the components of that established religion you would think that He would had taken a great care to approach the leaders of that religion and to bring them into His ministry.

But the record of the New Testament reveals quite the opposite.  The gospels, in particularly the gospel of Mark revealed that Jesus showed no interest in maintaining the old religion with its’ traditions and rituals.  Even those were among the ones that God had originally instituted such as the Sabbath.

Rather, Jesus  offended the religious community to the uttermost by breaking the Sabbath regulation repeatedly and revealing that as the Lord of the Sabbath He was well within His authority to use the Sabbath to care for His people instead of as a  religious fetter to bind them and even to kill them.

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Mark (Program #5) – The Contents of the Slave-Savior’s Gospel Service (1) & (2)

The book of Mark opens with these words, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” It then reveals that this gospel is really the fulfillment of the types, the promises and the prophesies of the Old Testament. Along with the removal of the custody of the law. But Mark chapter 1 goes further because it shows us not what just the gospel is but the content of the gospel. This gospel is not something vague but rich in its’ details.  And in this chapter, chapter 1 which is divided into 5 sections. We see the rich content of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

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Ezekiel (Program #25) – The Holy Land and the Holy City

Clearly the subject and central focus of the last section of the book of Ezekiel is the temple, the house of God. Show the house to the house, the Lord tells Ezekiel and that is exactly what he does in the final chapters. Yet, there’s a very profound postscript to Ezekiel’s vision that is found in the final chapters of the book and that is the land upon which the temple sits. In fact the land and the house are the central focus of the entire Old Testament. Recall Jehovah’s words to Joshua following the death of Moses as the children of Israel were encamped at the border of the good land in Canaan, “Moses My servant is dead; now then arise, and cross over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land which I am giving to them, to the children of Israel. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads I have given to you, as I promised Moses…Be strong and take courage, for you will cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them.” (Joshua 1:2-3,6). Well if the temple typifies the church as the fulfillment of the house of God, what then does this land typify?

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1 & 2 Kings (Program #20) – Concluding Word of the History of the Kings among Israel

During the 400-year period when the kings rule in Israel, God witnessed the hearts of His people drifting farther and farther away.  Except for a very few exceptions this degradation was actually led by the kings themselves.  Idolatry, immorality and general hardness of their hearts were the things that characterize this dark dark period in the history of God’s people.  But actually there is much that we can learn even from the failures of those kings.  Because as we have seen so often in this life study, the Old Testament is a book of types of typology and the New Testament is the fulfillment of those types.  We will explore the New Testament fulfillment of the type shown to us by the kings in this final program in the life study of Kings

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1 Corinthians (Program #39) – The Type of Israel

The Bible contains two histories. The history of Israel in the Old Testament and the history of the church in the New Testament. Actually these two histories are really one story. The history of Israel a type, a shadow while the church is the fulfillment, the reality.

In many of his writings the apostle Paul used the Old Testament as a book of types and pictures to help illustrate the New Testament economy that he was entrusted to preach.

In 1 Corinthians 5 he mentioned the Old Testament passover as our type of New Testament experience of redemption. In chapter 9 and 10 he again picks up the Old Testament to show us a pattern .

First, of our running the race that is our Christians life. Then as a picture of both aspects of our baptism by water and by the Spirit. And finally as a negative pattern regarding the possibility of the genuine, redeemed children of God could ultimately failed to overcome in their Christian life and missed the prize of the reward that is typified by the good land. This is a strong word, a word of warning, which we, like the Corinth believers should heed.

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Exodus (Program #131) – The Sanctification of Aaron and His Sons to be the Priests (2) Sin Offering and the Way to Feast on Christ

Many items of the Old Testament are later associated with Christ in the New Testament.  Among the most frequently discussed items are the offerings that became part of the service in the tabernacle and later the temple.  What do these Old Testament animal offerings have to do with our Savior Christ and with our own experience of His divine life in us?

We are in the section of the life study of Exodus now that touches the offerings.  The offerings of the Old Testament have long been connected to, or associated with Christ.  The New Testament does make it clear that Christ on the cross was the real fulfillment of many of these offerings, like the sin offering and trespass offering that we will see today.

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John (Program #51) – Life in Resurrection (2)

We should treasure the way the Lord has ordained to be present with us now. May the Lord really open our eyes: that what is precious to God, that is the invisible, indwelling, pneumatic Christ, would also become precious to us.

In John 20 as in the Gospel of John as a whole, we see the Trinity both in His essence and in His economy. The Divine Trinity is a trinity of essence eternally that is the Father, Son, and Spirit coexist and co-inhere in the Godhead eternally. This is the Trinity in essence. But in order to have the fulfillment of God’s economy, the essential Trinity must function as the economical Trinity to pass through the process in order to, on the one hand, enter into God’s people, and on the other to bring God’s people, now redeemed and regenerated, into God. By the time we reach chapter 20, we have at least the initial completion of this process in which the very God who became a man and died for our redemption, in resurrection became the Spirit, so that, economically speaking, the Father, Son, and Spirit may indwell us.

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Luke (Program #20) – The Ministry of the Man-Savior in Galilee (11)

In the gospel of Luke, the Lord Jesus initiates His ministry with a visit to the synagogue in chapter 4 as He reads from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. He proclaims that His ministry is the fulfillment of the hidden but marvelous prophecy in the Old Testament regarding the Jubilee.   Chapter 4:14-19 “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee. And reports about Him went out through all the surrounding region. And He taught in their synagogues and was glorified by all. And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and according to His custom He entered on the Sabbath day into the synagogue and stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to announce the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to send away in release those who are oppressed, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of jubilee.” As we fellowship now beyond just a proclamation, declaration of the Jubilee we come to its application in chapter 9.

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Nehemiah (Program #4) – The Reconstitution of the Nation of God’s Elect (2)

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah bear a strong intrinsic significance for the Lord’s recovery today. We should not think that the Old Testament is unrelated to us. The Bible is written in two sections – the Old Testament and the New Testament. The first section contains pictures while the second section contains the fulfillment of what is signified by the pictures. Without an intrinsic understanding of the Old Testament types, it is not easy to understand the fulfillment of God’s economy in the New Testament.

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We thank the Lord for His Word and His faithfulness. We have now concluded the life study of both the Old Testament and the New Testament in the Bible. It has been three years since we first started the broadcast on this web site. It is our earnest desire that this open, interpreted Word would be available to all the seeking believers around the world, to know and experience the deeper truth in the Bible.

Revelation 22:21 says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.” Only the grace of the Lord Jesus can enable us to live and walk according to the visions and prophecies. The entire Bible closes with this grace, the grace that enables us to experience the all-inclusive Christ and participate in the Triune God that we may become His eternal corporate expression for the fulfillment of His eternal purpose, that He and we may enjoy absolute satisfaction and complete rest mutually for eternity. Amen.

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