TRUTH OF HIS WORD – 3b

Surely the question will arise: If at the end of Christ’s ministry, "they understood none of these things…," of what value were those three and one half years that Jesus taught them? This true that they did not understand Christ’s gospel and message during His ministry, and during this mentoring, but it was not for naught. Three things were to happen:

[3b.1] "But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, you will REMEMBER that I told you of them" (John 16:4). This is how the gospel accounts could be written 30-40 years later, because God caused them to "remember" all these things. "These things understood NOT His disciples at that time: but when Jesus was glorified, then REMEMBERED they that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things unto Him" (John 12:16).
"Then REMEMBERED I the word of the Lord, how that He said…" (Acts 11:16).

[3b.2] "And He said unto them, These are the words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you… Then opened he their understanding, that they might UNDERSTAND the Scriptures" (John 24:44-45).

[3b.3] "I have yet MANY THINGS to say unto you, but ye cannot hear them NOW" (John 16:13).

And so the disciples understood many things [1] after they came to pass, [2] again when Jesus opened their understanding, and [3] many more things as they progressed and grew in their faith and ministry.

Peter learned to not call the Gentiles common or unclean. He preached to them the gospel, and they received God’s Holy Spirit. Paul learned the truth about being baptized by God’s Spirit rather than by water. The whole Church learned that Circumcision and the Law of Moses was not required for salvation at the Acts 15 Jerusalem Conference. And many more such things.
But primarily in this Truth, we are dealing with Christ’s opening of their understanding of the Scriptures after His resurrection.

Before Jesus opened their understanding of the Scriptures on the evening of His resurrection, no New Testament writer could have quoted Scriptures from the Old Testament and applied them to Christ as we find in our Bibles today. And why is that? Because many times the Scriptures that they quote in reference to Jesus Christ are taken completely out of their context, where they did not have reference to Jesus at all. Notice Matt. 1:23, "Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel." Now go back to Isa. 7:14 and you will see that this verse has nothing to do with Jesus Christ, if we insist that it be IN CONTEXT.

In Acts 1:20 we see Peter putting into practice the "Scriptural understanding" that Jesus gave him the evening of His resurrection. Let’s notice what Peter says: "For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let His habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take."

Peter took half his statement from Psalm 69:25, but changed the word "their" to "his," and the other half of his statement is from Psalm 109:8, and neither Psalm appears to have anything to do with selecting a new Apostle to replace Judas. What is going on? "Then opened He [Jesus] their [the eleven Apostles] understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures" (Luke 24:45).

But what was it about the Scriptures that caused them to understand the Scriptures? Just what did Jesus teach them that they didn’t already know? Back up a few verses for the answer.
Earlier that same day Jesus met with two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus. For the next seven miles Jesus explained to them the Scriptures. What did He teach them that in a few hours they were able to understand the Scriptures? "Then He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, , and to enter into His glory. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning HIMSELF" (Luke 24:25-27).

Are we to believe that in a few hours Jesus read to them the entire 39 books, 929 chapters, 23,145 verses of the Old Testament, with commentary and explanations? No, of course not. He taught them a principle, a spiritual truth, whereby they could understand all the Scriptures that pertained to Him.

The spiritual resurrected Jesus Christ does not represent the physical house of David, or the physical Tribe of Judah, or the physical nation of Israel. Jesus Christ is Spirit and His words are spirit. "As Jesus is, so are we" means that those who are spiritually (composed of almost exclusively Gentiles in this Church era) are the true Jews—not national Israel and Judah. National Israel and Judah are going into the Great White Throne of Judgment in the second resurrection during the period of the Lake of Fire. They will NOT be grafted into Jesus, the Tree of Life, before then. Jesus fulfilled all that is written in the Law of Moses and all the prophets—it ALL pertains to Jesus, and thus it all pertains to us (‘upon whom the ends of the ages are come,’ I Cor. 10:11).