Monday, November 3, 2008

God's Promises Bigger


I'm in the book of Jeremiah in my OT reading. In Jeremiah 33 it says, 14 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’ 17 “For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, 18 and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.” The thing that particularly caught my attention was the double promise: a king on the throne and a priest to offer sacrifices. Who would have imagined in Jeremiah's day that one person would keep both of these promises? The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek 6.19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The book of Revelation and elsewhere shows us that Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords.
But there is another surprise. Not only is Jesus both King and Priest, he is also this for a much larger "nation" than Israel. He is King and Priest for Jew and Gentile alike. God's vision turns out to be so much larger than the vision that people would have assumed from Jeremiah's words. It leaves one to wonder how much larger God's vision is than we assume.


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