Epiphany Week 2

Epiphany #2- Baptism of Christ; the Fulfillment of God's Law

Matthew 3:13-17

Baptism is a setting apart as unique and to be used by God. The washing goes back to the priest washing before the sacrifice. 

New creation established

1) Christ is identified as their sin bearer. It was for a remission of sin. Jesus identifies with sinners, He is their represented head of His people, sinners. He had no sins, but He was made sin for our behalf that we might have salvation. He is standing in the place of the Church and taking the role of chief sinner so that though He was blameless throughout His life, He might take all sins and crucify them with Him on the cross. Christ is our righteousness to God. 

2) The Lord identifies as our chief High Priest. He fulfills all righteousness. We as sinners cannot bring about any righteousness. We are brought into that righteousness as we follow the Law, and because Christ came to fulfill the Law, He also fulfills the righteousness demanded. Through baptism He goes from a private person to a public person who fulfills the ultimate will of His father. He provides sacrifice to the Father for the salvation of sin. 

3) Christ is our sacrifice. Christ is taking upon Himself the role of sin bearer, the priest who petitions the Father, and the lamb who is the sacrifice for sins. The Father is well pleased with that sweet smelling sacrifice. In Him, He is well pleased. The sacrifice has pleased Him to look past our sins. God is pleased with Christ and has turned away His wrath so that now He is pleased with us. Christ is the suffering servant for His people. 

4) In Christ is found the new creation. In Genesis 1:2 we see the Spirit hovering over the earth, God's creation. And now in this Matthew passage we see the Spirit again hovering over this new creation of God, the fulfillment of the new creation. The promised new kingdom. In Christ the new kingdom and creation have come. Christ is now anointed for His public, taking on our federal headship. Christ took up our burden and now we take up our own burden to follow Him. He bore our burden then, and now we take up His burden of following Him, a much lighter burden by any means. Bear one another's burdens is a theme that runs through Scriptures and now displayed through the cross. We like Ch

The 10 Plagues

The 10 Plagues:

The Egyptians were polytheistic - they had multiple gods. While the plagues seem to have random meanings, it is really a play of power. Our God vs the gods of the Egyptians. 

First plague: the river turning to blood. The Nile to the Egyptians was a major thing. The agriculture and water and lifeline it created was absolutely essential to them. They had gods of the water and fish everything else. God made this plague to show His dominance over those gods. To God, all gods are beneath Him and they are nothing. The rising of the Nile was seen as the resurrection of Isis and the blood river was God's way of saying "Isis does not rise again, she is dead, I am the only God." This would have been catastrophic. 

Second plague: the plague of many frogs. Frogs were another symbol of a god. The goddess of the frogs was a sign of fertility and of child bearing...an image of the water coming up in spring and leaving behind nutrients. The idea of a frog was so revered that there was capital punishment executed on any who killed a frog. It was turned from fertility to an image of disgust. 

Third plague: the plague of lice/gnats. This was targeted at all the gods. Their priests had to be perfect without any blemish. Now due to the lice and such the priests are covered with blemishes and declared unclean and could not perform their priestly duties. So all the duties were cancelled and the rituals of the gods were at a standstill. 

Fourth plague: plague of flies. Beelzebub literally means "Lord of the Flies." They descend and God says to Pharaoh and the Egyptians "I am the God to be over you." God shows He still has dominance over any other god, even Satan. 

Fifth plague: the death of the livestock. These were not only signs to the Egyptians, but also a reminder to the Hebrews to remain faithful to their sovereign God. It was Aaron and Moses' job to be the minister of God's power. The livestock dead was a death to their agrarian culture. They had gods of many livestock. God showed dominance over their gods for multiple things- life, beauty, fertility, ect. They had one bull that was sacred and had anything it desired. It represented a god. The killing of all the animal livestock was the killing of this god. 

Sixth plague: the covering of the boils. The boils were another sign of extreme blemish. They had a priesthood that was dedicated to a goddess who took care of epidemic and diseases...she could start and stop them. If you had something wrong in your family you would implore this priesthood to have them plead to the goddess to heal them. It was also an attack to the god of medicine and the goddess of healing. 

Seventh plague: the presence of hail. God brought Pharaoh up so that He could bring him down low. Pharaoh was the black cloth to the diamond of God. God is the God over the sky goddess, the agricultural produce god and goddess. 

Eighth plague: the attack of locusts. This was also an attack on the gods of the land, the gods of produce, the gods of agricultural. This proved that even their greatest source of income or life. 

Ninth plague: plague of darkness. This was an attack on the god of the son, the top god. Three days of darkness ...three days for Jonas in the whale, Christ in the grave. Three hours of darkness was Christ as He died on the cross. This showed dominance also over the god of the setting sun. God takes out their major gods. 

Tenth plague: death of the firstborn son, even the Pharaoh. This showed dominance over the son of the son of the god of Amanra, the greatest god of all since Pharaoh was deemed the son of the god, one of the gods even. 

Be sure your sin will find you out. You may get away with it for 400 years, but it will happen. Kiss the Son lest He be angry and you perish in the way. The Pharaoh never got that down and tried to do militarily what he could not so otherwise. And he perished in his own precious Nile, his original source of life. Only those under the blood (of Christ) are saved from the plagues (of sin).