GOD

GOD
I. His Being
II. His nature
III. His character
IV. His will
V. His subsistence
VI. His Fatherhood

MAN

WOMAN

FALL OF MAN

MAN
a. Man in nature
b. Man’s destiny
c. Man ‘s structure
d. Man’s sin
e. Man in God’s image

WOMAN

There are 7 steps of obedience required to inherit the kingdom. These have applied from the very earliest of times, for God's pattern never changes.

Its implementation has changed however, as God has revealed Himself in a greater and greater way, culminating in the persons and works of Jesus and the Holy Spirit being made available to us.

Over these next several weeks we are going to look at how these 7 steps were worked out, or not worked out, as the case may be, in 6 instances over more than 3500 years of recorded history. We will start with the life of Moses, look at both the generations of Israelites born in Egypt and after Egypt and finally, the lives of Jesus, the apostles and ourselves.

These steps of obedience are;

a. MOSES AND THE STAFF: Reconciliation has always required 'a life for a life'. This has been represented by blood, for to get the lifeblood of a living thing, it has to be killed.

In this first instance, upon the second plague visited upon the Egyptians by God through the staff of Moses, when the Nile river was turned to blood, the blood was supernaturally created by God.

b. ISRAEL - OLD GENERATION: The sacrifice of the lamb (picture of Jesus, the 'Lamb of God' dying on the cross) identified the people who were under God's protection (ie. reconciled to God) and whose houses the angel of death 'passed over', at the time of the escape of the Israelites from Egypt.

d. JESUS' LIFE: Jesus did not need to be reconciled to God in His life as He was perfect. However, on His death He took on our sin and was reconciled to the Father on our behalf on the cross.

e. THE APOSTLES: Received reconciliation with the Father through the death, the shed blood, of Jesus on the cross, along with all mankind, including us all today.

f. OURSELVES: The same reconciliation as for the Apostles.

a. MOSES AND THE STAFF: Reaching Horeb, the Israelites were very thirsty and wished they had not listened to Moses and had stayed in Egypt. They were restored to physical health when Moses struck the rock with the staff. This is a picture, in the spiritual, of the resurrection of Jesus.

b. ISRAEL - OLD GENERATION: Crossing the Red Sea provided a lifeline to the Israelites when the Egyptian army was rapidly closing in upon them. Symbolic again, of resurrection.

d. JESUS' LIFE: Restoration was symbolised by His baptism.

e. THE APOSTLES: The apostles, and our, restoration to the Father, is found through the resurrection of Jesus.

f. OURSELVES: The restoration for all mankind, including the apostles, is identical, the resurrection of Jesus, as above.

... as we look at the next two steps of obedience we must follow in order to come to maturity in Christ.

I never cease to be amazed how the patterns of God were set out from the very beginning of time. Of course, God never changes!

The death of Jesus on the cross and His resurrection was set in place before time began!

'Thank you Lord, for your sacrifice for me.'

JERUSALEM - GARDEN TOMB

In the 19th century, a number of scholars disputed the identification of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with the actual site of Jesus's crucifixion and burial. In 1842, Otto Thenius proposed that a rocky outcrop outside the walls was Calvary (Golgotha), the place of the skull.

The Garden Tomb itself was discovered in 1867, and was soon identified as the burial place of Jesus, mainly because of its location in the area that had been identified as Calvary. Another factor in its favor was the recent discovery the tombstone of the deacon Nonnus in the nearby Church of St. Stephen, which mentioned the Holy Sepulchre.

The Anglican Church committed itself to the site as the place of Jesus' burial and "Gordon's Tomb" became the "Garden Tomb." The Church has since withdrawn its formal support, but the Garden Tomb continues to be identified by popular Protestant piety.

AUTHENTICITY

It is easy to see why the Garden Tomb is a popular site for Protestant piety — it is clearly located outside the walls, it is next to a place that looks like a skull, it conforms to what one imagines when reading the Gospel accounts, and it is far easier to pray and contemplate here than in the crowded Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

But is the Garden Tomb really the tomb of Jesus? The main reason some people think so is that early accounts of the burial (e.g. Hebrews 13:12) describe it as occurring outside the city walls. And today, the Garden Tomb is outside the walls while the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is within them.

However, the city walls were expanded by Herod Agrippa in 41-44 AD and only then enclosed the site of the Holy Sepulchre, so both sites were outside the walls at the time of Jesus.

However, scholars are generally agreed that the Garden Tomb is not the actual site of Jesus' burial. According to Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, "there is no possibility that it is in fact the place where Christ was buried." Holy Land specialist Dr. Carl Rasmussen comments, "it is my opinion that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher preserves a more accurate tradition."

One problem with the Garden Tomb is that, based on its configuration, it dates from the late Old Testament era (9th-7th century BC). Thus it was not a "new tomb" (Matt 27:60; John 19:41) at the time of the crucifixion.

In addition, the burial benches were cut down in the Byzantine period (4th-6th century AD) to create rock sarcophagi, radically disfiguring the tomb. This clearly indicates that early Christians did not believe this was the burial place of Christ.

The site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the other hand, seems to have attracted Christian devotion since before Constantine. (See under "Authenticity" in that article for more information.)

The wardens of the property (the UK-based Garden Tomb Association) stress that it is the resurrection of Jesus, not the issue of finding the exact spot of his burial, that is important. Regardless of its authenticity, the Garden Tomb is a fine place for contemplating the death burial of Christ and certainly more readily identifiable with the Gospel accounts than the dark and urban scene of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.