May 25: In today’s three passages, I see the central theme of God’s hero, of which all our most selfless and courageous men are poor shadows. God reveals His holy arm for us in winning our salvation by the obedient life and vicarious death of our Second Adam, the Son of God, the King of Kings, the King God will set upon His Holy Hill and give all the nations for an inheritance. By His cross, He triumphed over the powers and authorities, disarming them and making a public spectacle of them. “Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing: Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same, And He must win the battle.”
1 Samuel 14: In light of the other two passages, I started wondering, is Jonathan a type of Christ, in his (essentially) solo campaign against the Philistine garrison here? I remembered v. 45, “Shall Jonathan die, who hath wrought this great salvation in Israel?” And, yes, the word is Yeshua. “He hath wrought with Elohim this day.” I have a feeling that if it weren’t true that “time would fail me” (Hebrews 11:32), we’d be reading how that by faith Jonathan reckoned that God was able to deliver by one just as by many and considered it service to God to ransom the people by giving his own life.”
Psalm 98: This is yet another Psalm that New Testament revelation helps us understand better. “The LORD hath made known His Yeshua” parallels “His holy arm (Isaiah 53:1) hath gotten Him the victory.” Verse 3 reads that the ends of the earth (Romans 10:18) have seen Yeshua Elohim. God craves a new song, and does He not give it? As the hymn says, “and when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song, ’twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.”
Romans 5: I feel very confident I understand Romans 5:1-12, and I think it’s given to us very plainly so that we have confidence. It’s for vv. 12-21 that I’m concerned about my ability to accurately explain. There’s the basic level that points out that the sin nature passed down to us is because of one man, Adam, and the free gift of salvation is also by one man, Christ. How far can the analogy be pushed, though? After all, the sin that brought judgment and condemnation passed to us all, willingly or unwillingly. (v. 18) But what does it mean that “sin is not imputed when there is no law?” (v. 13) This is the same language as Romans 4:6,8. It was not necessary to insert that verse, and it leads off a parenthesis of 4 verses. The Calvinists enjoy making much of the word “many” in passages like Romans 5:15b, but if we compare the earlier part of the phrase with 5:18, we see it’s not so simple. Perhaps the key is “access” in v. 2. Sin came upon all men, and condemnation because of it, but through the obedience of one Man, many are made righteous and all have access.
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