John 12:48-50: The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father - Yehovah who sent me has Himself given me a commandment – what to say and what to speak. And I know that His commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father - Yehovah has told me.
First-century Jews desperately waited, prayed
for, and sought God’s – Yehovah’s voice that He might bind up the broken and
give hope and strength to the weary. They waited for the long-foretold Messiah,
who would be God’s – Yehovah’s prophet, king, and savior to the people of
Israel.
That period of waiting finally came to an end
with the turn of the first century. While there were many prophets during this
time, only one prophet was the perfect voice of God - Yehovah: Jesus of
Nazareth.
The Prophecy About a Prophet
The lord Messiah Jesus reflects many roles in
God’s – Yehovah’s plan of salvation: he is called the Son of God, the Son of
Man, the King, the Savior, and the High Priest. He’s also called a prophet.
This role sometimes involved foretelling the
future, but for the lord Messiah Jesus, it more often meant speaking on behalf
of his God and his Father - Yehovah.
While many prophets faithfully followed God’s
commands, the lord Messiah Jesus’ ministry as a prophet stands apart in a class of its own. In
fact, he is the fulfillment of a prophecy about one prophet in particular.
Moses spoke this prophecy to the newly minted nation of Israel in Deuteronomy
18.
Deuteronomy 18:18: “I will raise up for them a
prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his
mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.”
For over a thousand years, Israel held onto
this promise. Note that this promise from Moses connotes a prophet whose very
words would be the voice of God - Yehovah to the world. That promise was
fulfilled in the lord Messiah Jesus.
The Perfect Prophet
Why were the lord Messiah Jesus’ words so special? Because they
were the perfect reflection of God’s – Yehovah’s words.
Everything the lord Messiah Jesus did was a
perfect reflection of God’s – Yehovah’s character, God’s – Yehovah’s
instruction, and what God - Yehovah would do.
Notice John 5:19: The Son can only do what he
sees the Father - Yehovah doing.
Consider the authority the lord Messiah Jesus exercised.
When the lord Messiah Jesus taught in the synagogues, he amazed his audience
with the authority with which he spoke. This is because the lord Messiah Jesus’ authority was
not his own but the authority that came from his God and his Father - Yehovah alone.
In John 12:48: The one who rejects me and does
not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge
him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the
Father - Yehovah who sent me has Himself given me a commandment; what to say
and what to speak. And I know that His commandment is eternal life. What I say,
therefore, I say as the Father - Yehovah has told me.
The lord Messiah Jesus clarifies that his
authority is not his own. He reveals that every ounce of authority he has is,
in fact, God’s – Yehovah’s authority. This means his ethics, instructions,
commands, teachings, and everything he did and said came from the authority of
God.
Note: The Jewish Law of Agency: The agent acts
with the same authority as the principal, and their actions are legally binding
on the principal. A common phrase in Halachic – Jewish Law is "The
agent of a person is like the person himself."
Jesus was the agent, or ‘shaliach’ of God - Yehovah
to act on His behalf in all He told him to do or say.
This is perhaps the
primary purpose of John’s opening in his gospel.
In John 1:14, he calls the
lord Messiah Jesus: “the Word became flesh.” This word in Greek is logos, and
the Strong’s concordance defines it as “word, statement, or speech” (Biblehub).
Logos carries a deeper meaning than our use of
“word.” It can be the very message or principle of a person.
It is used to describe the gospel (Matthew
13:19), God’s – Yehovah’s commandments (Matthew 15:6), narrative (Acts 1:1),
and message (Acts 4:4).
To say that the lord Messiah Jesus is the logos
of God - Yehovah as a man is to say that he is the complete walking
expression of everything that God - Yehovah has said and done for humanity. He
is the fulfillment of a millennia-long promise to restore humanity and redeem
them from the curse of the Fall. He is the clearest expression of God’s – Yehovah’s
character and commands to a people who are lost without them. Simply put, the
lord Messiah Jesus is the voice of God - Yehovah to the world, acting as His
agent!
The lord Messiah Jesus made it clear that he
served a primary purpose: to herald the Kingdom of God. In Luke 4:43, this is
what Jesus says about his purpose:
Luke 4:43: “but he said to them, ‘I must preach
the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent
for this purpose.’”
The primary purpose of the perfect mouthpiece -
word of God - Yehovah was to “preach the good news of the kingdom of God”.
Everything Jesus did flowed out of this primary
purpose. His ethics reflected the ethics of the kingdom of
God. When he performed miracles, it was to show the presence of the kingdom of
God to bring a foretaste of the coming kingdom of God. When he challenged
corrupt leaders, it was because they lost sight of the original intent of the scriptures of God's - Yehovah's plan. Finally, when Jesus died on the cross as a sin-offering sacrifice,
it was to purchase our entrance into the shared inheritance of the Kingdom of
God. After his resurrection, he spent forty more days talking about this
Kingdom:
Acts 1:3: He presented himself alive to them
after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and
speaking about the kingdom of God.
Consider, once more, the first-century Jews.
They had waited for many centuries to hear God’s - Yehovah's voice speak into their broken
world order and to confront the oppression, tyranny, and suffering under which
they sat. The author of Hebrews comments on this with words that are just as
relevant to us today:
Hebrews 1:1-2: “Long ago, at many times and
in many ways, God - Yehovah spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these
last days He has spoken to us by His Son.”
God’s voice is recorded clearly through His
perfect and sinless Son, the lord Messiah Jesus. Jesus’ words are equally
relevant to us today. They are hope for the hopeless and comfort for those in
despair. They give answers that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The lord Messiah Jesus’ words are the voice of God - Yehovah to a people who need to hear the good news of soon coming Kingdom of God: the restoration of all things, and eternal
life with the Father and His Son, for those who believe in the message about the
kingdom of God and the name of the lord Messiah Jesus.
We must see this as a personal invitation to
study the lord Messiah Jesus words closely and see them as God’s – Yehovah’s
voice to us today.
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