ULDAH MINISTRY

No,65　　March. 2001

　【 THE BRIDE OF CHRIST 】

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priest and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!" Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters-one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. "Get up," he said. "Don't be afraid." When they looked up, they saw no-one except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, "Don't tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead." The disciples asked him, "Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?" Jesus replied, "To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognise him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands." Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.
Matthew 16:13~17:13

After being overwhelmed by great disappointment, because of the utter blindness of the religious leaders about the understanding of "the kingdom of God" and also the dullness of His disciples' spiritual discernment, Jesus took them to the region of Caesarea Philippi, which was the most northerly town Jesus reached. Caesarea Philippi was situated near Mount Hermon, formerly called Paneas (called Banias today) after the Greek god Pan. Jesus intentionally chose this particular pagan town to ask His disciples who both the people and they thought 'the Son of Man' was. Contrary to popular interpretation, Jesus' preferred expression, 'the Son of Man' portrayed, according to Jewish scholars, more supernatural divine figure than 'the Son of God', which was one of the implicit expressions of His Messianic claim. However, the majority of Jews in His days could not see Jesus as their long-awaited Jewish king, their Messiah and instead, they had casually taken Him as a reincarnated John the Baptist or Elijah, or Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Under such an unbelieving spiritually dull atmosphere of the Jewish community, Peter's confession of Jesus' Messiahship was an epoch-making declaration. When Peter declared Jesus as 'the Christ, the Son of the living God,' he had in mind a much more advanced perspective, that Jesus was the Messiah of the Jews, who would sometime in the future reign over the whole world, and whom the Hebrew prophets had prophesied as the king of kings. What Peter declared concerning Jesus in confidence, did not ironically come true at that time as not only he but also all the others had anticipated enthusiastically. Nevertheless, he had the correct answer.
Jesus responded to Peter's inspired faith confession with a commendation; 'you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it'(16:18). In Greek, Peter is 'petros'(stone or pebble) and rock is 'petra'(rock or boulder). In Aramaic, both 'petros' and 'petra' are one word, Cephas. Accordingly, it is reasonable to conclude that blessed are those who recognise Jesus correctly as Christ in faith like Peter, upon whose confession Christ would build His church, to put it more precisely, 'the bride of Christ'.
As His bride is to comprise of the resurrected saints who will live eternally with Jesus at His Second Coming, 'the gates of Hades' i.e., the powers of death will no longer overcome her. Although it is possible to interpret this rock to be Peter himself, there seems to be no implication in the passage that this rock is referring to others succeeding him in office. Having said that, it is highly possible to take 'the rock' as Christ Himself. The rock is a biblical emblem of God and Christ throughout the Bible. Among many, Christ is symbolised in various ways as 'the stricken rock' in the wilderness(a type of His crucifixion), 'the rejected stone', 'the tested stone', 'the precious cornerstone for a sure foundation', 'the stumbling-block to Jews', and 'the smiting stone' of his judgment upon the world at His Second Coming. There is another teaching of Jesus, which is able to help us to identify the meaning of 'the rock' and consequently, also 'the church'.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!" "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."
Matthew 7:21~27 Lines added

In this parable, Jesus taught that only those who built their lives upon the rock of Christ and practically followed His teachings would survive all the trials and temptations of this world and thus, would enter the kingdom of God. In any case, it is apparent that Jesus used the term, 'my church' to mean His really faithful followers alone, who would submit their lives to Christ's authority and control. For the bride of Christ, i.e., the true church, be it of very small numbers, entrance to the coming kingdom with the redeemed resurrection body is an assured promise. In addition, another privilege given to her, even in this side of the world, will be 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven' for binding and loosing. Both Hebrew words for 'bind' and 'loose' appear with more than one meaning in the Hebrew Bible and above all, Jesus used them somewhat differently but in the way which often appeared in Rabbinic literature. In other words, the bride will be given the authority of prohibition and permission of certain activities. Thus, it was the bride of Christ alone that had been given the authority backed by God to make decisions to regulate the flock of Jesus' followers and also to find biblical solutions in times of crisis that were to follow Jesus' death on the cross.
Having warned His disciples not to publicise Peter's correct confession before the right time, which would only have caused an unnecessary stimulation to His enemy, He started explaining the true meaning of being His bride that should be built on the rock. From the preceding Jesus' rebuke against Peter, whose utterance revealed that his desire was not centred on God's will, it can be concluded that Jesus had never meant Peter himself to be 'the rock'. Jesus' concern was always that His followers would change from their old selves, only seeing things from a worldly point of view, to a revived spiritual condition, as 'a new man in Christ'. To become the bride of Christ, a complete and wholehearted surrender to Christ is required, in which she is to progressively die to self and to the flesh and to take up her cross day by day and to faithfully follow Him to the end, even to death. Jesus encouraged His disciples assuring them of the reward in the coming kingdom for the sacrifice of their lives and even suggested to them that some of them would soon witness with their own eyes a foretaste of the glorious future kingdom. At that time, they were to foretaste the reality of the coming kingdom and hence, their faith and hope were to be strengthened.
What Jesus implied materialised six days later, when He took His three disciples Peter, James and John to a high mountain, Mount Hermon. Only three of them were given this great privilege to see the kingdom of God in type form, while they were still alive. The transfigured glorious Christ was talking about His imminent 'exodus', i.e., deliverance of sinners out of the bondage of sin and of death through Jesus' own death on the cross with Moses, the lawgiver and deliverer and also Elijah, the prophet and restorer. It might have been an exceedingly fearful experience for the three disciples to see Jesus in His glorious state and to hear words spoken from heaven about Jesus' Sonship. Desiring to make such an extraordinary experience last, or just out of utter perplexity, Peter offered to build three shelters for each of the three; lawgiver, prophet and Messiah, to celebrate one of the Feasts that had been prophesied to be continually observed in 'the World to Come', the coming kingdom as well. Their experience was also something that no-one could understand properly except the three, to whom alone the Father in heaven had inspired revelation, until a series of events leading to Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection, were completed. Despite having recognised the revelation of Christ's transfiguration as a messianic fulfillment, the disciples also remembered Malachi's prophecy: 'See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes', and so they asked Jesus 'Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?' The reason for this question may also lie in their Rabbinic understanding of Micah 2:13: 'One who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate and go out. Their king will pass through before them, the LORD at their head.'(Lines added). In this passage about the promised deliverance, the rabbis interpreted that there were two separate persons; 'the breach-maker' and the king and that the first figure should be Elijah and the latter, the Messiah. In reality, John the Baptist had come as a witness, however, no Elijah had come yet. In response to their question, Jesus' answer was very clear that John the Baptist appropriately came as a type of Elijah and could have been the prophesied Elijah if the Jews would have accepted the teachings of 'the kingdom of heaven', which Jesus had inaugurated. However, because of the Jew's rejection of their Messiah at His First Coming John had to become the other messenger that had also been prophesied by Isaiah and Malachi as 'a voice of one calling'. Indeed, John the Baptist was introduced to the Jewish community as such a voice in the wilderness and he faithfully lived up to his role as a humble servant of the Lord until he was beheaded by Herod. The death of John made Jesus realise that His own time left was also short and at the same time He almost acknowledged the fulfillment of His First Coming. The new phase of the age leading up to His Second Coming was about to start. And again, shortly before His Second Coming, Elijah will come, or someone in the spirit and power of Elijah as one of the two witnesses to devote themselves to the last evangelism in human history.
The passage that has been dealt with above, shows that after the Jew's rejection of Christ' Messiahship and Lordship, 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven' have been passed on to the bride of Christ who is called-out to submit herself to His Lordship. The cost of being His bride is to enter through the narrow gate that leads to life and rewards are promised for those who deny themselves and take up his cross and follow Him. This teaching of the kingdom is apparently something beyond the primary salvation by God's one-sided grace. All Christians are now being invited to make an effort to enter in the process of sanctification of their souls so that they will be able to enter the coming kingdom and their utmost goal is to be rewarded as the bride of Christ.

Thought of the Month……….

Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes-joy and gladness from the house of our God? … How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering. To you, O LORD, I call. For fire has devoured the open pastures and flames have burned up all the trees of the field. Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the open pastures.
( Joel 1:15~20 )
Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it…. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no-one will rescue them. ( Deuteronomy 28:31 )
The current epidemic of "foot and mouth disease" in Britain has spread to France and Holland. The strain is now endemic in many countries in the Middle East and Asia and is feared that many more countries will be affected. As BSE was caused by feeding meat and bone to herbivorous cattle, so the current spread of the disease is suspected to be caused by feeding pigs with virus contaminated swill-waste food collected from hotels, schools and restaurants. Why do man feed cattle with such alternatives to natural grasses? It is because it is the cheapest way to make animals fatten to gain more profit. Aren't animals being victimised by man's greed? Surely no-one can bear witnessing the burning flames of slaughtered animals like a blazing fire of altar hearth in the dark sky.