Published: October 17, 2024 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology 1 - The Arc of Revelation - Part 9 | Scripture: Galatians 4:21-26; 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
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do not know of whom the Immaculate Conception refers I actually asked my mother and she said Jesus no Mary no no
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no no said I had to get the catechism out I had to show her the imprimatur and say this was approved by Joseph Cardinal ratzinger Pope Benedict the 16th okay
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this is their official Doctrine and the Immaculate Conception was Mary not Jesus in fact Jesus's conception was Immaculate because Mary's was all right
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so H how many Protestants don't know what they believe this is not the Catholics don't have a monopoly on biblical ignorance so um so what we're
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getting at here is really um we're kind of coming in like this we're we're not we're not raised in the Old Testament especially the the last couple of
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Generations earlier generations of of Western civilization was were still heavily immersed in the Old Testament was part of their uh learning of the
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language but we're not there anymore and many many modern professing Christians have no idea what the Old Testament says so they have very little
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understanding of what the New Testament says even with the quotes they might get what Peter was doing in his argument he was denying that these people were drunk because that was the charge that was
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just leveled right some were saying that they were drunk with new wine Peter even says he doesn't say that they're not drunk because they never get drunk hopefully they don't but what does
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he say it's only 9 o' in the morning which I always thought was a funny answer it's like give them some time you know they're not going to be drunk at 9:00 in the morning um I
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thought always thought that was funny when I read it so you know he's denying that they are under the influence of spirits and he's claiming they're under the influence of the Holy Spirit but in
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doing so from Joel he is nailing the scribes and the Pharisees right between the eyes because they know what Joel 2 means that all of
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this would take place on the day of the Lord okay all right so that that's that's an example of the first one another example is in Romans 3 and again this one is easy to find and
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clear to clear to understand so number two on category one would be Romans
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3 um verses 10- 18 and we can call this Pauline anthropology
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or Paul's doctrine of total
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to toe from tongue to feet including the hands and the Heart
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and he describes man's complete um separation from God and His willful disregarding of God there is none that seek after God know not one he
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is as he says in the context he is inditing both Jew and Gentile under sin he's shutting up all men's mouths in the
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face of God's righteousness and he's saying that because of this the wrath of God has been revealed against ungodliness and wickedness in all places he's not
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letting the Jews off the hook for their knowledge he's not letting the the Gentiles off the hook for their ignorance so he he slams everybody
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including himself but where do we find this passage in the Old Testament it is actually the joining together of many different
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Old Testament Old Testament quotes it's a concatenation of Old Testament passages each one of which we can find but Paul has pulled them
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together right here and there Psalms Isaiah right yes and that has a certain power to it as well these are clear Old Testament
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quotations and when you read them in the context of the Old Testament they're also clearly understood because they are talking about man in his wickedness and his Rebellion against God throughout the Old
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Testament so what he's doing here first of all uh a little bit unusual it is a
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quotes it is not as as Justin was saying there there is no passage in the Old Testament that repeats Paul's Romans 310 through 18 but each one of these verses
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comes from some place in the Old Testament and you can find it and you can read it and say yeah that that makes the same sense as Paul's making the connection like in Acts 2 and Joel 2 the
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connection between the various quotations in Romans 3 and he doesn't use the introductory formula in each case in fact I'm not sure he uses it at
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all it wouldn't really make sense to use it except in a very general way now verse 10 as it is written okay so
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there's the introductory formula as it is written but he doesn't quote Hosea Isaiah Psalms David he doesn't give credit to any particular writer he just
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simply bang bang bang bullet points and he's drawing from the Old Testament in each one and basically what he's doing then in a very powerful biblical way is he's
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basis of man's sin and God's justice which itself is is the foundation of any gospel
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preaching you preaching you can't you can't raise man up or bring God down and still be preaching the biblical
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gospel you can't say that man has something within him that God is trying to fan up into a fire you can't say that man has a spark of divinity and is essentially good but his environment has
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corrupted him and and he follows after ignorance instead of truth but he really could follow after truth if you just give it to him more okay um you can't
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say that God grades on a curve that God looks at the sincerity of the heart and that's what counts see the one is to raise man up the other is to bring God down and each step is is an athema to
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Paul and even if an angel were to say that Paul would say let him be a cursed he establishes and if you get into a discussion with an Armenian and the the
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question and I I've had someone sit in my living room at a small group and say I just will not accept the doctrine that man is a worm well he's not a worm he's the image
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of God but without understanding he is as the Beast it perishes we are worms by our own responsibility we were not created
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worms but this particular fellow would not accept the doctrine of total depravity and you could go to Romans 3 and say where do you weasel out of total depravity after Paul has just nailed you
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with all these passages
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right my God wouldn't be that way he would not elect some and not all he would not send Jesus to die only for the elect and not for all men and what they're doing is they're they're rejecting those attributes of God that they find reprehensible it it disturbs
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their sense of fair play um but and then there's others who who claim that the doctrine of to Total depravity is misanthropic that it it is a doctrine
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that hates man but all they need to do is turn the page of their Bible in Romans and read that
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um but God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us the doctrine of total depravity is
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the least misanthropic Doctrine you can imagine because it is the doctrine that most magnifies the love of God in the Salvation through Jesus Christ if you
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grant man any measure of Merit or worthiness of that love you diminish the Majesty of that love if there is any way that man deserves that love that love
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has lost all its Glory because it's lost all its Grace but Paul doesn't do that so it's not it's not a Doctrine people think that Calvin was
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misanthropic well I mean he might have been a sourpus I don't know his picture looks like he was um but it was cold then they didn't have central heat you
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know I don't know they all looked kind of frigid to me very D yeah they all looked they all looked rather severe to me but I I think that was part of the era or something I don't know there the
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church goes through ears of of of um uh temperamental severity and he might have been in part of that of an era but when you read about his life you could see
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that he was very concerned about the orphans and about the the the Exiles from Maran persecution in England and that he apparently wasn't as nasty a misanthrope as people make him out to be
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okay people don't think Luther was a misanthrope because he would go to the tab bur and drink with everybody that's not a good sign either I mean U he was pretty misanthropic when
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it came to the Jews and to The Peasants you know so we we're all in a sense misanthropic but the doctrine isn't because it's only the doctrine that total total depravity that fully
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magnifies the love of God and grace through Jesus Christ Romans 5 okay so um that's that's a sidebar of course but the doctrine itself is pretty well
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established there in Romans 3 and Paul is not leaving any room from Escape and I really think I I I can't prove this of course but if you just read the the
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various parts of the human body the poison of asps is in their tongues their feet run to to shed blood it's it's like okay their hands um you're you're
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thinking man is corrupt from head to to aren't you it's it's as if he's saying as God said concerning man his thought is only evil
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always right but Paul is kind of adding to that it's implied in what we read in um in Genesis in the the noic account
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but he's being specific in Romans 3 that we don't just think evil we speak evil and we do evil in fact we rush to do it
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so so he concludes that it's such a central part of his argument it's a central part of the Gospel that we we're we're not simply presenting man with a
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better way of living or a way of saving their marriage or your business or or the your relationship with your children no you have to present man as fully
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alienated by his own deeds and his own will from God he is without hope and without God in the world he abides under the wrath of God so that's that's all
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part of the Gospel okay and Paul is laying it out and he's using all these different passages and in order to fully understand Paul's mind then you would go
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back to each one of them and you would read them in their context and see that Paul was not letting anybody off the hook Jew or Gentile so those are the
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those are the first category clear uh you can you can hear you can find the reference refence and even when you find the reference it say okay that I understand that that's not a
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problem now we start to get into some of the more difficult ones beginning with the second category clear citations of the Old Testament passage or verses but with an unclear application
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to the current situation now the connection between the Old Testament the New Testament the Old Testament in Category 2 is pretty easy
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to establish L the meaning of that connection is not so easy to discover and that's where it takes a
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little bit of work on the reader part the example I'm using is from Matthew Chapter 2 where Matthew is talking about
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talking about herod's uh conference with the
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would do it was absolutely destroy the nativity scene industry because it does not appear that the Magi showed up the night of Jesus's
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birth and we know that there were more than one than three Magi we say three because there were three gifts gold frankincense and myrrh
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right so one of them had gold one of them had no there there were probably quite a few of them um it's a very interesting side study these Magi came
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from the East and they were aware of the prophecy of the one promised during the reign of the fourth Beast these Magi were probably
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functioning off of lessons teachings and whatnot handed down by the chief Magi of Babylon whose name was
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Daniel Daniel was the chief wise man of Babylon that's what a magi is so these men may not have been converts to
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Judaism but they were aware of the prophetic Ministry of Daniel and probably that is what guided them to seek out the one who was called King
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born King of the Jews now the reason why this will destroy the nativity scenes is because as they did the math and as the Jewish Scholars consulted with Herod and
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told him well he's supposed to be born in Bethlehem the best they could come up with would be he would be somewhere around two years old or less right I mean we can affer that from what
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Herod then ordered he ordered all boys two years and old and under to be murdered okay so chances are the Magi didn't show up the night of Jesus's
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birth which probably a blessing for Mary um so category
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two Matthew writes and I I have I have to read it from the text um not just what I put in the notes U but he's quoting from Jeremiah
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uh Jeremiah uh Jeremiah 31 but so it's easy to find his quote
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verse 17 of Matthew Chapter 2 then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was prophet was fulfilled okay Matthew is really particular in his quotation
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formulas he gives the name of the prophet he gives the the direct statement of fulfillment
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and he links the event that he's writing about with the Old Testament reference as not just an analogy but
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analogy but fulfillment does that make sense okay so the Matthew is very very unique and the others do that but Matthew is very much so Matthew 2 17 and
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following and following and Jeremiah 31
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so this is the quote that he's pulling from then that which was spoken through the Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled saying a voice was heard in Rama weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for
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her children and she refused to be comforted because they were no
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more when you go back to Jeremiah 21 and read the actual reference it gives a little bit more um geographical
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explanation okay where is it it refers directly I didn't write it down the the verses uh it refers directly to
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Ephraim and here it is verse 15 thus says the Lord a voice was heard in Rama lamentation and bitter weeping Rachel is weeping for her children she
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refuses to be comforted for her children because they are no more and the reference here is God's judgment against Ephraim the northern
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tribe now in in Jeremiah's day Ephraim had already been taken off into Exile by the Assyrians so this is not a
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prophecy as it is a lamentation that fits Jeremiah he is considered the Lament prophet and he's the author of Lamentations itself so again like Hosea
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11 this is not a prophecy it is actually a historic statement but the reference here in
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which is in the northern kingdom Rama is is in the north okay so this is
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Ephraim Bethlehem is in Judah not only are these different tribes they're different nations at this point and one of those Nations is in jerem ia's day already dispersed into
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Oblivion the the northern tribes so we have that connection then we have
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Rachel Jacob's Jacob's wife right the wife that Jacob loved right um and the the mother of only two of the tribes Joseph and Benjamin so from
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Rachel we have Joseph oops and from Joseph we have
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and manessa right so there's a connection between Rama and Rachel and Ephraim see what Jeremiah is saying is making sense but Bethlehem is the city of
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David that's why Joseph and Mary went there to be registered in the census at their ancestral tribal home which was
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Bethlehem so Bethlehem is the city of David who is of the tribe of Judah whose mother
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was Leah
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sister what you doing Matthew what what have you ever wondered that when you read that passage I mean if you do any research at all you
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all you realize this is not geographically or genealogically aligned we're in the southern Kingdom we're in the the region of
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Judah whose mother was Leah so it's a different wife of Jacob right and and and Rachel uh weeping for
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her children that's that's prophetic The Poetry um Rachel died in Benjamin's child birth so what happened to Joseph
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later and his disappearance right and is apparent debt Rachel would have known nothing of nothing of that so what Jeremiah is doing is he's
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projecting the lamentation and the the misery of the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom and he's doing it through the familial line of Ephraim
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Joseph Rachel okay and Ephraim was the leading tribe of the northern kingdom Samaria the capital of the northern kingdom was the capital of Ephraim and when the prophets spoke of Ephraim they were
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generally talking about the 10 tribes that broke away from Judah and Benjamin Judah was the primary tribe of the Southern Kingdom and that is where the House of David was found okay so you
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know the the geography and the genealogy of the Old Testament is is clear we we can understand what the prophet is referring to if we understand the genealogy from Genesis of Israel's
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family his wives and then the various Sons son and whatnot and then we follow the Exodus and into judges Joshua and judges and we see that Ephraim was a powerful tribe of the north but Judah
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was the powerful tribe of the South and they also went to war against each other so okay that all makes sense what are you talking about Matthew Herod is killing babies in
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Bethlehem of Judah and you see this as a fulfillment of the lamentation of ephraim's conquest by the Assyrians what
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Assyrians what what ties that together so I think this is a good example of where we can take what Matthew is saying in Matthew Chapter 2
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and we can find its referent almost verbatim in Jeremiah 31 so the actual reference is clear but the meaning is not necessarily
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clear how do we respond to that I will tell you that over the years one response is um fear fear that maybe the Bible isn't
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trustworthy fear that maybe I I can't really trust what it says because its writers aren't really making sense I think that fear comes from a
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very very bad hermeneutic a hermeneutic in which we expect to find an exact correlation between what we read in the New Testament and the new testament's reference to an Old Testament passage
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and we ought to be able to go back and say oh that makes perfect sense I can see what he's doing there well most of the time we can't see what he's doing there because we're not looking at what God has been doing throughout the Canon
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of scripture what happened to Ephraim in the Assyrian uh Conquest is not a captivity it was an absolute Conquest what happened s
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there is a reflection it's an event that then becomes a symbol of God's judgment against his
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rebellious children so what's going on here is twofold Matthew's
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purpose the Jeremiah reference can be applied to to all all acts of divine retribution that the situation will come
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to the point of human sin where the loss and Calamity will be similar to the destruction of the northern tribes by Assyria the reference
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again to Rachel's children is is simply a poetic prophetic way of referring to the tribes that were surrounded by or not that surrounded Ephraim Ephraim was
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the heart of the northern kingdom so the first thing that we get here is
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people now you go back to Matthew 2 and you say well how is that why why is it why is it that these babies these toddlers two years
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and under are being slaughtered by Herod well yes herod's trying to kill Christ but why did God allow
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this yeah that's that's a common question that we face as Christians is if God is such a good God why would he allow the slaughter of babies well we really can't answer that
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because we don't know the mind of God in every act that he performs except we can say that nothing happens apart from his will and that even
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Herod was doing God's will but who was Herod was Herod a legitimate ruler of
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Israel Herod was a half breed he was descended from Jacob but also from Esau he was an Idan which was the modern
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the Roman phrase for Edom he was an Edomite the prophecy was that the older should serve the younger but also that Esau would throw
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off Jacob's yoke and rule over him harod was the Fulfillment of that harod was himself a judgment Jud on
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Israel a judgment by God on Israel does that make sense how what so herod's actions first of all were all about Herod I'm not
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saying Herod had any understanding of God's Will and what he was doing all Herod Augustus said of Herod that I would rather be his Pig than his son because as a Jew he wouldn't kill a
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pig but to be herod's son was one of the shortest life expectancies in the ancient world he was was a vicious and horrible man so I'm not justifying him but he was also the punishment of God
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you've you've you've heard it said about our elections that that God gives us what we deserve you know and in a sense you know he does give the people the ruler that they deserve he did that in
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Israel's history where he gave them Kings according to their own rebellious hearts and those kings LED them even further astray so Herod was a an emblem
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of God's retribute Justice there's Jeremiah 31 but also we have the
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that we we may pull we might have pulled in from Psalm 2 why do the Nations rage and why do the kings devise a vain thing against the Lord and against his anointed Matthew doesn't use that verse
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but what is Herod but a king of the earth plotting a vain thing against the Lord's anointed okay so this this this reference brings
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you got to go back to Jeremiah 31 and and so the reference here is to the
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Kings and their vain schemes did Herod succeed no through Angel God warned
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Joseph to get out of town and they went down to Egypt and Jesus of course survived why did Herod think that if this child born was the
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Son of God the king of the Jews why did he think that he would be able to kill him because he imagined the vain thing against the Lord and against his anointed and God sits in the heaven and
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laughs and what does he say I have set my anointed on Zion so one king of the earth is trying to remove one who going to be sit upon Zion by God himself
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there's the futility of it and all of that comes out of the picture of Jeremiah that Matthew Taps into when he refers to that passage the Fulfillment
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when he says it's fulfilled is because what what Herod was doing against Jesus was the was the culmination of what the kings of the Earth have done against the people of
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God that's the Fulfillment of it it's not the Fulfillment that has any any geographical or genealogical reference to Rachel and Ephraim no it's the
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Fulfillment of the enmity of this world's rulers to God's rule including and first of all Israel herself so
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there's a lot packed into that passage that that Matthew intends to bring out but in order to bring it out you got to go back to Jeremiah 31 and what is
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Jeremiah 31 most famous for what do we find in Jeremiah 31 the the New Covenant I will make a New Covenant with
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Israel and with Judah in that day okay so it that that's all part of the context of Matthew well everything that Jeremiah is saying there of course it
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wasn't chapter 31 at the time but everything within that context is being referenced by Matthew's quote of Jeremiah 31 back
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oh I think there's definitely a correlation there that's more of an echo though absolutely um and we'll get to that that's one when you see what Herod is doing to the to the children to the male children your mind goes back to
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what Pharaoh tried to do to the to the Jewish children right but there's no quote or even marker that's an echo okay and I yes
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that that's definitely and it's a it's a fairly loud one um but it it's it's it comes into that third category because of the literary form that doesn't have
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any direct connection with the story of of The Exodus but it is there absolutely okay so going on then to the third type and now we're going to get into a
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little bit um you know more more difficult um because these are passages uh in the New Testament so the third category
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enters into the more difficult realm of introduced quotations as the citation listed does not then correspond to any passage in our Old Testament
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um okay here's one Matthew 2 but when he heard that archelus this is a kind of keeping in the context because Joseph is bringing uh Mary and Jesus back into Palestine from Egypt and
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when he heard that arus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod he was afraid to go there and being warned by God in a dream he turned aside
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into the region of Galilee and he came came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets he
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shall be called a Nazarene some actually say he shall be called a called a Nazarite okay what was a
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Nazarite everybody remember can you name a famous Nazarite Samson yeah someone who would not drink wine would not cut their hair it was a vow um and it was to
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be a lifelong vow but it could also be a temporary vow that was then um an olded by payment and and sacrifice but the the Nazarite vow is something that we'll be
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looking into in Leviticus when we return to that study but here's a here's one of Matthew's more difficult ones frankly there is no such Prophecy in the
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Hebrew scripture whether from the prophets or from any other portion of the text in other words there is no passage and and actually this is probably more of category 4 than Category 3 now that I
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think about it um but there there is no um Old Testament passage that refers to the Messiah as being a
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Nazarene and certainly not as a na Nazarite some think that Matthew is employing a play on words associating the word for
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Nazarene with the Hebrew word for branch which we do know that the Messiah is called the branch one possible passage however that
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could be referred here and this is why I have it in category three but I think you can hopefully understand that Matthew is saying that this be fulfilled
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quote he shall be called a Nazarene what does that refer to well Micah is a
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Micah um where is
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where does it speak of Galilee of the Gentiles Zebulon and naph is that Micah or Isaiah because they're they're actually contemporaries and I may
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um I may be confusing Micah is the one of course who refers to Bethlehem but oh I think I did confuse but the passage that I'm thinking of and I apologize that I didn't I did not write it down I didn't even use it in
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the notes Isaiah 9 thank you okay where the territory of Na Nazareth is referred to
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shouldn't okay but there will be no more Gloom for her who was in anguish in earlier times he treated the land of zebulun and the land of napali with contempt but later later on he shall make it glorious by the way of the Sea
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on the other side of the Jordan gallilee of the of the Gentiles there's no me mention of Nazareth there but it is possible that that in
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the rinic teaching and in the teaching that is one possible reference is Isaiah 9 another possible reference
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is the general consideration of a Nazarene and that is what uh who was it that said was it uh Philip or Thomas who said can anything good come out of
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Nazareth again a reference to Isaiah 53 where it is said of the Messiah that he had no form that we should consider him that he was despised and rejected of
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men it may be that Matthew is referring to the to the contempt that would associate itself with the Messiah a contempt that was in
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that day attached to Nazareth Nazareth was apparently uh the wrong side of town and and there was nothing good that came out of Nazareth
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the point being is that we really don't know what was in Matthew's mind when he referred to the scriptures as saying that the
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Messiah would be a Nazarene okay um I I can't give a definitive answer on that one only that there are some references to the territory and also to the
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possibly the the the reputation the stigma that attached to Nazareth but I don't think that's very strong personally okay so um another example as
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I mentioned earlier was John 7 this one is a little bit clearer I'm going not going in order on the last day
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the great day of the feast and this is the Feast of Tabernacles Jesus stood up and cried out saying if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink now that is
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an illusion to Isaiah come to me without money without and buy without money if you are hungry if you're thirsty okay um come unto me
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all the ends of the Earth that that idea of come unto me that's isaianic but it's an illusion because there's no quotation formula okay so there's an illusion but
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he goes on he who believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow rivers of Living Water but this he
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spoke concerning the spirit whom those believing in him would receive for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet
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glorified okay um again as the scripture has said streams of Living Water will flow out of him who believes in
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Jesus well there is no such passage in the Old Testament that says that streams of Living Water will flow out of individuals but the presence of Living
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Water rivers of Living Water streams of Living Water form a motif that begin in the Garden of Eden and end in the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 and
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22 okay so this is a reference that is actually bookending the whole Bible the river but in in Ezekiel in for chapter
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47 where you have the the vision of the new Temple which again dispensationalists think will be actually built in Jerusalem but it has nothing to do with a physical Temple at
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all it it has a river flowing out of it well the Tabernacle nor the temple neither had a river flowing out of it okay but this river flows out of it and
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it it Waters the Nations it gets deeper and broader as it goes okay without any other tributaries as far as we can tell coming in which is
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kind of weird okay so what are we dealing with here well we're dealing with the Salvation going forth from Zion Isaiah chapter 2 what we're dealing with
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here is is the johannine association with Jesus and the true Temple you you pick up the reference not
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from the actual quote like like it's a quote but rather Jesus has already said tear down this Temple and I will rebuild it in 3 days and John explains to us as
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he does here about the Holy Spirit he explains back in John is that John Chapter 2 he explains to us that Jesus was speaking of his body and that after
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his resurrection his discipled remember what he said and so for the the person who understands John's point that Jesus is the true Temple when Jesus Cries Out
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streams of Living Water will come out of them he's referring to Ezekiel 47 but he might also be referring to
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Zechariah 14 or he might be referring to Genesis chapter 2 that the point is there is no clear single reference but there is or are a
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number of possible reference and instead of saying it's this or this or that it's better to understand it in the canonical context it's this and that and
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that it's the overall motif of the meaning of the River of Life that that River of Life is not a physical stream that we all go drink
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regularly so that we live forever that's how Hollywood treats it no the river is the holy spirit John tells us he's speaking of the Holy Spirit and the Holy
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Spirit is not just poured in but as Paul says the love of God has been poured out through Us by the Holy Spirit which he has given and so the idea you know we
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tend to think of the Holy Spirit I'm I'm I'm falling behind on my notes um but we tend to think of us you know ourselves as a cup and we're being told to to be
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filled with the Holy Spirit okay so the Holy Spirit you know we're we're reservoirs collecting the Holy Spirit that's not
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the biblic IAL image at all the biblical image through Eden through the the spiritual Temple of Ezekiel 47 also Ezekiel 36 where he
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talks about the new heart that he will give us Zechariah 14
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um we we're conduits not buckets and that living water is to flow out of the believer but as Paul will develop it more fully
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it is especially to flow out of the church which is the body of Christ the Temple of the holy spirit in um 1 Corinthians uh chapter 6 you we are the
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temple Peter says we are living stones being built into a holy habitation so you you you see that Matthew I'm sorry John sees the Fulfillment of Jesus as
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the true Tabernacle which he's establishing in his gospel that's that's one of his major themes is that Jesus is the true Tabernacle but in that he sees
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in Jesus crying out on the on the Feast of Tabernacles streams of Living Water he says oh that's that's that's Ezekiel 47 that that's Zechariah 14 and now I
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understand that it wasn't talking about water now keep in mind that that that the Middle East is a very arid land but we're not thinking much about water
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lately because we've had copious amounts of it you know so and we don't generally worry about water here in Greenville we've got plenty of it and in in the
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United States we have plenty of water but to this day the Middle East is not that way so that the whole idea of streams of Living Water and flowing and
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getting broader and deeper as it goes most of the rivers in in the Middle East are seasonal for much of the year they're called Wades they're empty they're dry
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riverbeds and only certain times of the year when the floods come or the the Mountain snow melts do these rivers flow so the idea of of streams of Living
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Water that that was a lifegiving concept to people who lived in the desert now we're we have to kind of modify our understanding not we have to
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use that fact that climatological that climatological fact in order for us to appreciate the metaphor that's being used now we're being told of course that climate change
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will turn us all into a desert so maybe we'll get the scripture better if if that happens but that's not the point the point is that place was arid then it is arid now and water was has always
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been a commodity the commodity that is dearest to Human Society if you look even today at a satellite image like Google Earth in the nighttime you can
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find the bodies of fresh water on the planet by the lights congregated around them you can trace for example the Nile because that's the only place lit
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in that whole quadrant of Africa so pretty much anywhere you could trace the Euphrates and the Tigris you can find the Black Sea you can find not the Black Sea you can find the different bodies
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the Great Lakes for example you can find the largest population of humanity and when you do you found a body of fresh water so there's so much in this metaphor but we have to move beyond the
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literal and realize that no this was always referring to the Holy Spirit who is the River of Life even back in Eden so it's not the New Testament writer
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changing the Old Testament he is recognizing in Jesus Christ the Fulfillment of what the Old Testament always meant so there's the third
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category where you have some optional references but nothing that is perfectly clear um I I mention here in John 38 um the
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reference when when GE I shouldn't have put this because this is really an illusion but I wanted to to show the contrast Isaiah 55 ho everyone who thirsts come to the waters and you who
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have no money come buy and eat eat yes come buy wine and milk without money and without price why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for
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what does not satisfy listen carefully to me and eat what is good and let your let your soul Delight itself in abundance incline your ear and come to
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come to me hear and your soul shall live and I will make an Everlasting Covenant with you the sure mercies of David that's Isaiah 55 that's what Jesus is
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alluding to when he stands up and and cries out all who are thirsty come to me and drink and so everybody who heard that
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around the The Temple at the time their mind would have gone to Isaiah 55 Isaiah 55 is the last chapter of the book of comfort that begins in Isaiah 40 and
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that whole passage is talking about the promised coming of the servant of Yahweh who is the Messiah so I mean Jesus is basically saying in Isaiah 55 it's
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Yahweh who's saying come to me and I will give you drink Jesus stands up in Jerusalem and says you who are thirsty come to me and I will give you
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drink liberal Scholars claim that Jesus never claims to be God what's he doing there he's either committing a
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blasphemy or he's making himself equal to God saying that he is the source of that water that is Promised in Isaiah so okay that's the third one very quickly
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um the fourth category where let me see where do I
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my yeah it's further on I have a lot of examples of of the third category because there are some subcategories um involved in that
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okay this is the one where um they might not really be quotations at all except for the use of the introductory formula if if they if
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the writer did not use that introductory formula we would not consider it a quotation we would consider it an illusion or an echo one example 1 Corinthians 15 moreover Brethren I
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declare to you the gospel which I preached to you which you also received and in which you stand by which also you are saved if you hold fast to the word
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which I preached to you unless you believed in vain for I delivered to you first of all that which I also received that Christ died for our sins according
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to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was again ra rose again on the third day according to the
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well again Christ's death for our sins and his resurrection on the third day are not explicitly stated anywhere
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in the Old Testament so what we're dealing with here is what we might call use the word Omnibus Paul when he says according to
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the scriptures he's not saying as it is written in Isaiah or as the prophet Hosea says or this is in fulfillment of Joel no he's not saying anything like
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that he saying according to the scriptures in other words the entire testimony of the Hebrew Bible was that
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the Messiah would die for the people's sins isn't that what Isaiah 53 teaches he is wounded for our transgressions right and for our for our
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healing he is it pleased the Lord to crush him okay so so there you have a is that the quotation no it's not a quotation it it is the teaching of
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scripture and and again this is why it is so important to recognize how the New Testament writers read their Hebrew Bible and then the Resurrection on the
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third day well that's another tough one but we have a number of references in the Old Testament to the third day in Amos there's a reference to the
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third day um I believe also in habach there are a number of different references to the third day so I think what we're dealing with here I'm not going to spend a great deal of time on this one because of the time of the
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night but what Paul says at the beginning of Romans in his introduction again remembering that Romans itself is Paul's self-introduction to the Roman
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Church and so he says Paul Paul a bonder servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle separated to the gospel of God which he promised before through His
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prophets in the Holy scriptures concerning his son Jesus Christ Our Lord who was born of the seed of David according to the Flesh and declared to
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be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of Holiness by the resurrection of the
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Dead what Paul is saying there and I've mentioned this in the the Sunday morning sermon series on Romans is that his gospel is in his mind fully in accord with the Old Testament
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scriptures he did not need to quote chapter and chapter and verse he did it but he could also simply refer to the
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scriptures as a whole and I think that's what he's doing in 1 Corinthians 15 he's simply saying that Christ died for our sins that's the consistent teaching of
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all that we read in the Old Testament concerning the seed of woman who would how would he crush the Serpent's head well he would reverse the curse and he would rise from the dead
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and so you have both the dying for the sin and the rising from the dead are according to the scriptures without having to find a literal
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reference and without having to manipulate any Old Testament passages like Isaiah 53 to become that reference and you you read this in the commentaries and it's very easy to to
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fall into this trap I think we all do it and that is trying to think what was in Paul's mind when he wrote that and the answer in this case is probably the
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whole revelation of God through Jesus Christ was in Paul's mind when he wrote that well let's close in prayer father
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we do ask that you would guide us by your Holy Spirit we thank you that you have given us the streams of Living Water we pray that we might enjoy their refreshments and also pass it on and we
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pray that you would bless our reading of your word to our understanding and to our obedience and to our service for we ask in jesus' name and for his glory