Salvation By Grace

How to be a good example for others:

1. We can only be a good example for others when we are in partnership with God
2. Only by practicing the love of God in our lives
3. Only by persisting to obey God

• ichthys (fish) is an acronym for Iesus Christos Theo Huios Soter (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior)

Pg 23

• From Jesus’ youth, indeed from His birth, the cross cast its shadow ahead of him
• His death was central to the mission
• Holman Hunt: The Shadow of Death
• The woman is implied to be Mary, his mother
  • She has caught a glimpse of the shadow on the wall and paused her search within the chest. Is she contemplating the foreshadowing of her son’s crucifixion? Is she remembering what Simeon said to her and Joseph when they presented her baby in the temple?
• The fine linen in the lower left draws the eye up to Mary’s hand on the chest
  • Are those the gifts of the Magi inside?
  • She knew the prophecy that her son would be king, and she is looking at the gifts for a king, but the juxaposition of the shadow of death and suffering—is she recalling the servant songs in Isaiah?
  • Is she recalling the words of her Magnificant?
• The Christmas Star, not a Star of David, is above the pillar between the windows, a reminder of his name Emmanuel, “God with us.”
• See how the window creates a nimbus or halo effect around his head.
• The pomegranates on the right side, just below the window
  • Pomegranates are often depicted in images of Jesus and Mary.
• Next to the pomegranate is the scroll with Isaiah’s prophecy.
  • It is also an allusion of Christ as the Word of God.
• I wonder if the tree in the window is an olive, fig, or pomegranate tree?
• Are the spindles in the window an allusion to the pillars in the Temple in Jerusalem?
• In the lower right-hand corner, at the foot of the sawhorse lies a scarlet fillet that is part of Christ’s head-gear.
  • Foreshadowing the crown of thorns?
• The reeds and cane in the corner on the left.
• Within the shadow on the wall, the loop around his neck alludes to images of the brazen serpent that Moses held up to heal the Israelites.
• The curls of wood shavings appear as a snake with its head being crushed under his right foot, victory over sin and death.
• Shadow cast on the wall?
  • The tool shelf on the wall looks like the cross, and the tools are hammers and nails.
• Pg 2
• Crucifixion seems to have been invented by “barbarians” on the edge of the known world and taken over from them by both Greeks and Romans
• It is probably the most cruel method of execution ever practiced, for it deliberately delayed death until maximum torture had been inflicted

The Sign and Symbol of the Cross

• Pg 30
• Roman citizens were exempt from crucifixion except in extreme cases of treason
• The Jews also regarded crucifixion with horror, but for a different reason
• They made no distinction between a tree and a cross, and so by hanging and crucifixion
• Deut 21:23
  • 23 anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.
  • They could not bring themselves to believe that God’s Messiah would die under his curse, strung up on a tree

The Perspective of Jesus

• Pg 31
• Lk 2:41-50
• Even from a young age Jesus had a sense that He had come to complete a mission, he was sent for a purpose
• Mk 8:29-30 Messaniac Secret
  • His Messiahship had been kept secret because its nature was misunderstood
  • The popular messianic expectation was of a revolutionary political leader
  • Jn 6:15 – the people tried to make him king by force
  • Now that the apostles had clearly recognized and confessed his identity, however, he could explain the nature of his messiahship and do so openly
  • Peter rebuked him, but Jesus’ reply has been called the first “prediction of the Passion”
  • Mk 8:33
  • 33But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
• Jesus makes two other predictions of his passion in Mark