The God of the Living
Bible Study Time 4-16-06
Church links:
Bible Study Time 4-16-06
In Mark, Chapter 12, the Sadducees came to the Lord Jesus with some of their trick questions. As unbelievable as it may sound, the Sadducees were religious leaders, and they did not believe in the resurrection from dead. How can you be a religious leader and not believe in life after death? Obviously, they did not have much to offer the people in terms of hope, and if you’re like me, your probably wondering what on earth even possessed them to get involved in religion in the first place?
That question seems to be answered for us in passages like Mark, Chapter 12. These men were not interested in helping people find God, and they were not interested in helping people find salvation. They were interested in only one thing, and that one thing was power. They loved the power that religion gave them to control the lives of the people.
Well, when Jesus came along teaching the scriptures with authority, they felt threatened, and they hated Jesus. So they came to Jesus time and time again trying to trap Him with their questions. In Mark 12, they said:
Mark 12:19-27 (NKJ)
19 "Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies, and leaves his wife behind, and leaves no children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.
Then they described a hypothetical situation in which a married man died with no children. Each of his six brothers in succession married his surviving wife, but each of his brothers also died without children, and then the woman died. The question for Jesus was this:
Mark 12:23 (NKJ)
23 " . . . in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be? For all seven had her as wife."
The Lord Jesus, of coarse, knew that they did not believe in the resurrection, and so He could see their hypocrisy and their ignorance concerning the issue of the resurrection. Drawing upon His divine wisdom, the Lord said:
Mark 12:24 (NKJ)
24 . . . "Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God?
25 "For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
26 "But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?
27 "(God) is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken."
What a beautiful answer! They quoted Moses in their question, and He answered them with Moses. He said, “Have you not read the book of Moses? In it God said, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” and that means that God is not the God of the dead, but He is the God of the living.”
Just think about that. Isn’t that a powerful statement? God is the God of the living. Even in the first chapter of Genesis, it’s clear that God is the God of the living. On the fifth day God said:
Genesis 1:20,21,24 (NKJ)
20 "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, . . ."
21 (And) God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves . . .
24 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind
Our God is the not the God of the dead; He’s the God of the living. He is the life giving force of the universe. By the word of His mouth, He created all living things. But notice what happened when man was created in Genesis 2. Verse 7 says:
Genesis 2:7 (NKJ)
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Certainly, we have to agree with the psalmist when he spoke to the Lord and said, with You is the fountain of life (Psalm 36:9). Life, itself, flows from God as easily as the water flows from the snowed capped mountains in the spring. God spoke the word and all living creatures came into being. He formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Our God is the God of the living and with Him is the fountain of life.
He is the God of the living because He is the living God. We do not serve a God made of wood or stone. We serve the living God. The heart of fallen man has a hard time with this. Human reasoning resists the idea of a living God because that implies that man is subject to a power that is higher than he.
Today, we idolize wealth and power and those who have wealth and power, but in ages past, people made idols of wood or stone. After they carved them to suit themselves, they declared them to be god. In this way they could create a God who was subject to them. This infuriated God, so when He gave the Law, the very first commandment He gave was:
Exodus 20:3-6 (NKJ)
3 "You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Again, the point is clear, man is indeed subject to the living God. He is not subject to our authority, but we are subject to His, and He has His own standard of righteousness which is different from our own. In Isaiah 55, He says:
Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJ)
8 " . . . My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," . . .
9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
Man’s natural inclination is to resist God’s authority, but God says, remember, I am a jealous God, and I will punish your iniquity. However, I am a merciful God, and I will show mercy to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Through the ages, God has demonstrated for Jews and Gentiles alike that He is the true and the living God by His judgments and also by His mercy. He destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but He revealed His mercy by sparing the city of Nineveh when they repented. The God of the Bible is the true and the living God, and He has the ultimate authority over the affairs of the earth.
When Jesus Christ came to the earth, He revealed to us the true and the living God. John spoke of Jesus and said:
John 1:14,17,18 (NKJ)
14 . . . the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
The Lord Jesus came as the very expression of the true and the living God, and with Him came the life giving force of God. John said:
John 1:1,4 (NKJ)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Jesus said,
John 6:48-51,47 (NKJ)
48 "I am the bread of life.
49 "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50 "This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.
51 "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."
47 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.
Over and over again the Old Testament writers spoke of the death, burial and resurrection of the Christ. In amazing detail, David spoke in Psalm 22 of the crucifixion. In the first verse, he utters the very words of Christ upon the cross, saying:
Psalms 22:1 (NKJ)
1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
In verse 16, he elaborates, saying:
Psalms 22:16-18 (NKJ)
16 . . . dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet;
17 I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me.
18 They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.
David saw the cross of Christ, but he also saw the resurrection of Christ. Psalm 16 says:
Psalms 16:9-10 (NIV)
9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure,
10 because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
As Peter said on the Day of Pentecost:
Acts 2:29-32 (NIV)
29 "Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.
30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne.
31 Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay.
32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.
What a beautiful message for this Easter Sunday! It’s just as beautiful now as it was when Peter spoke it 2000 years ago. Jesus Christ is alive. He is risen from the dead.
Even today, those of us who know the Lord as Savior can stand up with Peter and say that we, too, are witnesses of the fact that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. We have not seen Him as Peter and the other apostles did, but we have experienced the resurrection life that He gives us by His Spirit. Jesus Christ is the fountain of life, and He says:
John 7:37-38 (NKJ)
37 "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
38 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."
John 4:14 (NKJ)
14 "whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
This resurrection life, however, is just a down payment on the glory which shall be revealed in us. Someday, Jesus Christ will change these mortal bodies of ours and give them immortality. Whether living or dead, we shall all be changed.
Paul said that the first man, Adam, became a living being when God blew into him the breath of life, but the last Adam, who is Christ, became a life giving spirit. We have borne the image of the man of dust, but we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man, who again is Jesus Christ. Already, we are citizens of heaven from which we look for the Savior who shall change our lowly body and make it like unto His glorious body.
As you celebrate Easter today, I hope you will rejoice with me in the fact that our God is not the God of dead, but He is the God of the living.
1 Corinthians 15:55-57
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning, it’s been a pleasure studying with you. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
That question seems to be answered for us in passages like Mark, Chapter 12. These men were not interested in helping people find God, and they were not interested in helping people find salvation. They were interested in only one thing, and that one thing was power. They loved the power that religion gave them to control the lives of the people.
Well, when Jesus came along teaching the scriptures with authority, they felt threatened, and they hated Jesus. So they came to Jesus time and time again trying to trap Him with their questions. In Mark 12, they said:
Mark 12:19-27 (NKJ)
19 "Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies, and leaves his wife behind, and leaves no children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.
Then they described a hypothetical situation in which a married man died with no children. Each of his six brothers in succession married his surviving wife, but each of his brothers also died without children, and then the woman died. The question for Jesus was this:
Mark 12:23 (NKJ)
23 " . . . in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be? For all seven had her as wife."
The Lord Jesus, of coarse, knew that they did not believe in the resurrection, and so He could see their hypocrisy and their ignorance concerning the issue of the resurrection. Drawing upon His divine wisdom, the Lord said:
Mark 12:24 (NKJ)
24 . . . "Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God?
25 "For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
26 "But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?
27 "(God) is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken."
What a beautiful answer! They quoted Moses in their question, and He answered them with Moses. He said, “Have you not read the book of Moses? In it God said, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” and that means that God is not the God of the dead, but He is the God of the living.”
Just think about that. Isn’t that a powerful statement? God is the God of the living. Even in the first chapter of Genesis, it’s clear that God is the God of the living. On the fifth day God said:
Genesis 1:20,21,24 (NKJ)
20 "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, . . ."
21 (And) God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves . . .
24 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind
Our God is the not the God of the dead; He’s the God of the living. He is the life giving force of the universe. By the word of His mouth, He created all living things. But notice what happened when man was created in Genesis 2. Verse 7 says:
Genesis 2:7 (NKJ)
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Certainly, we have to agree with the psalmist when he spoke to the Lord and said, with You is the fountain of life (Psalm 36:9). Life, itself, flows from God as easily as the water flows from the snowed capped mountains in the spring. God spoke the word and all living creatures came into being. He formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Our God is the God of the living and with Him is the fountain of life.
He is the God of the living because He is the living God. We do not serve a God made of wood or stone. We serve the living God. The heart of fallen man has a hard time with this. Human reasoning resists the idea of a living God because that implies that man is subject to a power that is higher than he.
Today, we idolize wealth and power and those who have wealth and power, but in ages past, people made idols of wood or stone. After they carved them to suit themselves, they declared them to be god. In this way they could create a God who was subject to them. This infuriated God, so when He gave the Law, the very first commandment He gave was:
Exodus 20:3-6 (NKJ)
3 "You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Again, the point is clear, man is indeed subject to the living God. He is not subject to our authority, but we are subject to His, and He has His own standard of righteousness which is different from our own. In Isaiah 55, He says:
Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJ)
8 " . . . My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," . . .
9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
Man’s natural inclination is to resist God’s authority, but God says, remember, I am a jealous God, and I will punish your iniquity. However, I am a merciful God, and I will show mercy to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Through the ages, God has demonstrated for Jews and Gentiles alike that He is the true and the living God by His judgments and also by His mercy. He destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but He revealed His mercy by sparing the city of Nineveh when they repented. The God of the Bible is the true and the living God, and He has the ultimate authority over the affairs of the earth.
When Jesus Christ came to the earth, He revealed to us the true and the living God. John spoke of Jesus and said:
John 1:14,17,18 (NKJ)
14 . . . the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
The Lord Jesus came as the very expression of the true and the living God, and with Him came the life giving force of God. John said:
John 1:1,4 (NKJ)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Jesus said,
John 6:48-51,47 (NKJ)
48 "I am the bread of life.
49 "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50 "This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.
51 "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."
47 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.
Over and over again the Old Testament writers spoke of the death, burial and resurrection of the Christ. In amazing detail, David spoke in Psalm 22 of the crucifixion. In the first verse, he utters the very words of Christ upon the cross, saying:
Psalms 22:1 (NKJ)
1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
In verse 16, he elaborates, saying:
Psalms 22:16-18 (NKJ)
16 . . . dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet;
17 I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me.
18 They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.
David saw the cross of Christ, but he also saw the resurrection of Christ. Psalm 16 says:
Psalms 16:9-10 (NIV)
9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure,
10 because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
As Peter said on the Day of Pentecost:
Acts 2:29-32 (NIV)
29 "Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.
30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne.
31 Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay.
32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.
What a beautiful message for this Easter Sunday! It’s just as beautiful now as it was when Peter spoke it 2000 years ago. Jesus Christ is alive. He is risen from the dead.
Even today, those of us who know the Lord as Savior can stand up with Peter and say that we, too, are witnesses of the fact that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. We have not seen Him as Peter and the other apostles did, but we have experienced the resurrection life that He gives us by His Spirit. Jesus Christ is the fountain of life, and He says:
John 7:37-38 (NKJ)
37 "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
38 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."
John 4:14 (NKJ)
14 "whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
This resurrection life, however, is just a down payment on the glory which shall be revealed in us. Someday, Jesus Christ will change these mortal bodies of ours and give them immortality. Whether living or dead, we shall all be changed.
Paul said that the first man, Adam, became a living being when God blew into him the breath of life, but the last Adam, who is Christ, became a life giving spirit. We have borne the image of the man of dust, but we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man, who again is Jesus Christ. Already, we are citizens of heaven from which we look for the Savior who shall change our lowly body and make it like unto His glorious body.
As you celebrate Easter today, I hope you will rejoice with me in the fact that our God is not the God of dead, but He is the God of the living.
1 Corinthians 15:55-57
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning, it’s been a pleasure studying with you. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
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