Life of Christ
The Life of Christ is, for our chart study and for all humanity, the pivotal connecting event in God’s process to restore fellowship. During the life and ministry of Christ much doctrine was expounded and revealed plus many signs and wonders were performed. This chart study will not exposit all of these wondrous works, but rather to identify information that is important to our understanding of God’s dispensations. The life of Christ was designed to do many things, as a process, to:
- Establish himself to God’s chosen people
- Deliver the New Covenant
- Fulfil prophecy regarding Himself
- Fulfil the elements of the law
The life of Christ is one of the most misunderstood and misplaced teaching as to Jesus’s purpose. Many New Testament churches are quick to run to the gospels to impute the elements of Jesus’s message to His people unto themselves, however the Bible Student will soon realize:
Jesus came to His OWN
Matthew 1:21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
When Jesus came, to fulfill those items identified, He came to the Jew. This is an important distinction in dispensational study. Note how Jesus viewed this woman in the coast of Tyre and Sidon in Matthew 15:21-28.
Matthew 15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.
27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.
Note these instructions that Jesus gives to His disciples:
Matthew 10:5 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:
6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Then we see the beginning of a different direction that Paul expounds on in Romans
John 1:11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
These verses and more go to show that God’s purpose was for Jesus to come to the Jew, His chosen people. The gospel of the Kingdom was for the Jew, the new covenant was for the Jew… it was then to be the responsibility of the Jew to bring the Gospel to all the world:
Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
The New Covenant is Given
Part of Jesus coming to His own was to give the nation of Israel a NEW Covenant. This was God’s desire, which would trigger a change away from the law. Note where God said He would establish it:
Jeremiah 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
Practically all of Hebrews Chapter 8 expounds on the New Covenant.
Hebrews 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
In the New Testament, after the ceremonial and civil law were made of none effect by the covenant we learn of those who would be false teachers:
1 Timothy 1:7 Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. (read more)
NOTE: God’s plan was to make a new covenant with His people, then to have His people present this new covenant to all the world through salvation in Jesus Christ. However the Jew rejected Christ and the new covenant. For this reason god raised up Saul/ Paul to present the new covenant to the rest of the world:
Romans 11:10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway.
11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
We will see as we go further through our chart how God did not cut Israel off, but rather postponed the inevitable.
Christ came to fulfil and end the ceremonial and civil law.
Part of what the life and death of Christ was to achieve, in the presentation of the new covenant, the end of the need for the ceremonial and civil law. (As the law of God was to be written in their heart)
Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
Note: Jesus did not come to destroy the law, Paul said specifically that we had not know sin except for the law (Romans 7:7)… but to rather fulfill the law and present that new covenant and end the need to use the law as a path to righteousness.
Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
It is now through Jesus alone that we attain righteousness. Not by the law, not by works, not by ceremonies, not by nationality, not by affiliation; it is through Christ alone.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Additional Information:
The Old Testament sacrifices were not good enough!
Hebrews 10:1 For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.
3 But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.
4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
DEEPWATER
Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
John 3:13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
Led Captivity Captive
Ephesians 4:8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
Prophetic reference directed and fulfilled
Psalms 68:18 Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them.