Closer To Heaven
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This video is produced by the South Pacific Division Discipleship team.
(0)The post 12: Deuteronomy in the New Testament – SPD Discipleship Video appeared first on Sabbath School Net.
Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/12-deuteronomy-in-the-new-testament-spd-discipleship-video/
You can view an in-depth discussion of Deuteronomy in the New Testament in the Hope Sabbath School class led by Pastor Derek Morris. Click on the image to view:
With thanks to Hope Channel – Television that will change your life.
(0)The post 12: Deuteronomy in the New Testament – HopeSS Video Discussion appeared first on Sabbath School Net.
Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/12-deuteronomy-in-the-new-testament-hopess-video-discussion/
The book of Hebrews, in all its depth and sublimity, was, in many ways, just one long exhortation to Jewish believers in Jesus. And what it exhorted them to do is: Stay faithful to the Lord!
This faithfulness, of course, should stem from our love of God, of who He is and of His character and goodness, most powerfully expressed at the cross of Christ. Sometimes, though, human beings need to be reminded of what the terrible consequences of falling away will be.
Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com
That is, we need to remember that, in the end, if we don’t accept what Jesus has done for us in having paid the penalty for our sins, we will have to pay that penalty ourselves, and that means “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13) followed by eternal destruction.
How interesting that in order to exhort Jewish believers to stay faithful to God, Paul quotes Deuteronomy, an earlier exhortation to Jewish believers to stay faithful to God! Paul quotes Deuteronomy 17:6 in regard to the fact that someone deemed worthy of death would face that death only after at least two people testified against that person.
But Paul did this to make the point that if unfaithfulness could lead to death under the Old Covenant, how much “worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy [of] who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Hebrews 10:29). In other words, you have more light and more truth than they did, and you know about the sacrifice of the Son of God for your sins; thus, if you fall away, your condemnation will be greater than theirs.
Then Paul immediately goes back to Deuteronomy, now to Deuteronomy 32:35, simply to buttress his argument. Considering what they had been given in Christ and their knowledge of the great provision made for them, the Lord, who said, “vengeance is Mine,” will “judge His people” (Hebrews 10:30) for their apostasy and unfaithfulness. After all, He had judged their forefathers, who didn’t have what these New Testament Jews did, the fuller revelation of God’s love revealed at the cross. Thus, basically, Paul was saying: Be warned.
| “The Lord will judge His people” (Deuteronomy 32:36. NKJV). What’s our only hope in that judgment (see Romans 8:1)? |
(0)The post Thursday: A Fearful Thing appeared first on Sabbath School Net.
Over and over, the Lord had warned Israel not to follow after the practices of the nations around them. On the contrary, they were to be witnesses to those nations (Deuteronomy 4:6-8). In Deuteronomy 18:9-14, Moses again warns them about their specific practices, which were an “abomination to the LORD” ( Deuteronomy 18.12-13).
Image © Pacific Press at Goodsalt.com
In reference to the covenant at Sinai, Moses talks about how the children of Israel, at the revelation of God’s law (Exodus 20:18-21), wanted Moses to act as a mediator, an intercessor between them and God. It is then that Moses promises them, twice (Deuteronomy 18:15, Deuteronomy 18:18), that the Lord will raise up a prophet like Moses, the idea being, given the context, that this prophet, like Moses, will among other things be also an intercessor between the people and the Lord.
Many centuries later, both Peter and Stephen quote the text in reference to Jesus. For Peter, Jesus was the fulfillment of what had been spoken of by “all His holy prophets” (Acts 3:21), and that the leaders need to obey Him and what He says. That is, Peter uses this text, which the Jews knew about, and applied it directly to Jesus, with the idea that they needed to repent for what they had done to Him (Acts 3:19).
Next, in Acts 7:37, when Stephen, though in a different context than Peter’s, was proclaiming Jesus, he, too, referred back to that famous promise, and he, too, claimed that it pointed to Jesus. He was saying that Moses, in His role in history and leading the Jews, had prefigured Jesus. That is, as Peter had done, Stephen was seeking to show the people that Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy and that they needed to listen to Him. Contrary to the charge against him, that Stephen had been speaking “blasphemous words against Moses and God” (Acts 6:11), Stephen proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, a direct fulfillment of what God had promised through Moses.
| How do these verses show us just how central Jesus was to the entire Bible, and why all our understanding of it must be Christ-centered? |
(0)The post Wednesday: A Prophet Like Unto Thee appeared first on Sabbath School Net.
Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/wednesday-prophet-like-unto-thee/
Unfortunately, it’s common in Christianity to use this letter as some kind of justification for not keeping the law, the Ten Commandments. Of course, that argument is really used as a reason not to keep the fourth commandment, as if keeping that one commandment, as opposed to the other nine, is somehow an expression of the legalism that Paul was dealing with here.
Image © Steve Creitz at Goodsalt.com
Yet, Paul was not speaking against the law, and certainly nothing in this passage could justify breaking the Sabbath commandment. The key can be found in Galatians 3:10, where he writes that “All who rely on the works of the law are under a curse,” and then he quotes Deuteronomy 27:26. The issue isn’t obedience to the law, but “relying on the law” — a tough position, if not an impossible one, for fallen beings like ourselves.
Paul’s point is that we are not saved by the works of the law but by Christ’s death on our behalf, which is credited to us by faith. His emphasis here is on what Christ has done for us, at the cross. And to help make this point, he refers back to Deuteronomy again, this time Deuteronomy 21:23. Like Jesus, Paul says, “it is written,” showing the authority of the Old Testament, and now he quotes from a text dealing with someone who, having committed a capital crime, and having been executed for it, was then hung on a tree, perhaps as a deterrent to others.
Paul, though, uses that as a symbol for Christ’s substitutionary death in our behalf: Christ became a “curse for us” in that He faced the curse of the law; that is, death, which all humans would face because all have violated the law. The good news of the gospel, however, is that the curse that should have been ours became His, at the cross, “that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:14).
Or, as Ellen G. White said it: “None but Christ could redeem fallen man from the curse of the law and bring him again into harmony with Heaven. Christ would take upon Himself the guilt and shame of sin — sin so offensive to a holy God that it must separate the Father and His Son.” — Ellen G. White, Patriarch and Prophets, p. 63.
| Think about what you would face if you were to receive the just punishment for whatever wrongs you have committed. However, because Christ bore the punishment for your wrongs in Himself, so that you don’t have to, what should your response to His sacrifice be? |
(1)The post Tuesday: Cursed on A Tree appeared first on Sabbath School Net.
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