Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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(Today’s Reading)
The Implications of the Second Coming as Accomplished Fact
(Book Installment 42)
The Scope of the Second Coming
Chapter 3 – Themes of the Second Coming
Inheritance
The theme of inheritance runs quietly but consistently throughout the Bible’s description of the Second Coming. Note the little seven-word phrase buried in the middle of this forty-four word sentence from Paul.
Hebrews 1:1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,
Hebrews 1:2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
Those seven words are a mouthful! Think about it!
During Paul’s first missionary journey he had been proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection from the dead as fulfillment of Psalm 2:7. But notice what the very next verse in that Psalm says.
Acts 13:32 “And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers,
Acts 13:33 that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ‘YOU ARE MY SON; TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU.’
Psalm 2:7 “I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD:
He said to Me, ‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
Psalm 2:8 ‘Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance,
And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.
Jesus believed the Old Testament, saw Himself as God’s heir, and made reference to this role in many different ways, including these:
Matthew 11:27 “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father…
Matthew 21:38 “But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’
John 5:22 “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son,
Jesus was to inherit all that was the Father’s, just as Isaac inherited all that was Abraham’s.
Genesis 25:5 Now Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac;
The church was Jesus’ initial inheritance from the Father – it was spiritual Israel. That is, those 1st-century Jews who were truly devoted to the God of Israel found themselves drawn to Jesus. It’s like there was spiritual tractor beam that had pull in the visible world…and Jesus spoke of its effect as follows:
John 6:37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.
John 6:45 “…Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.”
John 6:65 “…no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
The church, however, was only the down payment on Jesus’ inheritance. Israel was just one nation. Recall from the promise above in Psalm 2:8, that Jesus’ full inheritance was to be “the nations” (plural) – that is all of them! That would happen at the Second Coming. But then what would there be for God the Father to do? Come to think of it, how is a full inheritance going to pass without there being a death? You’ll find out when we get to “Implication: God Is One.”
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