Tuesday, April 20, 2010

"On Every Page, and In Every Word"

In a recent reading of the opening chapters of I Kings in the Old Testament, I was fascinated by the intricate detail that went into the building of Solomon's temple (I Kings 5-8).


"Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life. And they are they which testify of Me" (John 5:39).


The intricacies of the temple point to the intricacies of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. "They testify of Me" declared the Lord Jesus of the Old Testament, and thus the entire Bible offers to us the possibility of seeing the glorious wonder of the God who is man, and the man who is God (John 5:39).


Our hearts and minds were made for this, and our fulfillment hinges upon devotion to the centrality of Christ in Scripture, and in all things.


"He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence" (Colossians 1:18).


To know who God is, we must know the Lord Jesus. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." To know who man is intended to be, we must know the Lord Jesus. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who... was made in the likeness of men." The second Person of the triune Godhead is also the "second man" who redeems the trusting heart from the spiritual and moral disaster of the first man Adam. Christ is both the Son of God and the son of man, and thus in Heaven and earth, there is no one like our blessed Lord (John 1:18; Philippians 2:5-7; I Corinthians 15:47).


The Bible, God's perfect Word formed and written through human agencies, exists for the purpose of revealing the Divine/human Lord Jesus. The intricacy of Solomon's temple and the entire Old Testament reveal the ineffable wonder of Christ in countless ways. Many lifetimes of study would not be adequate to understand how all point to the person and work of our Savior. Our main objective in reading the Bible must therefore involve the searching for the Lord Jesus in either the diffused light of the Old Testament, or the direct light of the New. Rich veins of God's Spirit and truth will bless our pursuit, and we will be increasingly changed into the spiritual and moral image of the glorious One who dwells on every page, and in every word of the Bible...


"Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
(II Corinthians 3:18)

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