Easter

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

by John C. Whitcomb, Th.D.

At the dawn of the millennial kingdom on earth, our Lord Jesus Christ will reveal Himself in bodily form to all glorified and non-glorified believers. Just as He revealed Himself and His true identity to His astonished disciples for 40 days after His resurrection, often at mealtimes, so also will be His self-revelation at the inaugural kingdom banquet.

At the second coming of Christ in glory, probably culminating at this banquet, the nation of Israel will experience a transforming confrontation with their Messiah God. The Apostle John said that at His coming “every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him” (Rev. 1:7, KJV).

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

by John C. Whitcomb, Th.D.

The greatest banquet in the history of the world will occur at the beginning of Christ’s 1,000-year kingdom in the Holy Land. The menu was announced 2,700 years ago (Isa. 25:6), and our Lord confirmed that the beverage would be the “fruit of the vine” (Matt. 26:29, KJV).

Not only the menu but also the actual timing of the banquet seems to be indicated in relation to other prophetic events. Seventy-five days after the second coming of Christ to the earth, the final purging and cleansing of the earth will have been completed. It was in 536 B.C. that the pre-incarnate Christ told Daniel the prophet: “Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days” (Dan. 12:12; cf., 10:1; 12:7).

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

by John C. Whitcomb, Th.D

As we have seen, it was during mealtimes with His apostles after His resurrection that our Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated most convincingly that He was the same person as the One who had died on the cross. But the greatest recognition and appreciation meal with our Lord is still in the future. On that occasion, at the beginning of the millennial kingdom on the earth, He will partake again of the juice of grapes. He announced to His apostles, “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29, KJV).

Pointedly, He assured them, “That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom” (Luke 22:30). But who else will be invited? Unbelievers will be excluded—by their own choice. Nevertheless, there will an enormous number of participants, including, “Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets… . they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God” (13:28-29).

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

by John C. Whitcomb, Th.D

In the early years of church history, there were men who denied the true humanity of Jesus. They were the Docetics, a significant branch of Gnosticism. They considered it blasphemous to imagine an infinite, holy, transcendent God contaminating Himself by assuming human flesh. This attitude reflected Greek philosophy, which held that matter is evil and that only the mind and spirit are good.

The Holy Spirit confronted this deadly heresy head-on in the New Testament Scriptures, especially in the writings of John. Note, for example, this statement: “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God” (1 John 4:2, KJV). And “many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist” (2 John 1:7).

Read Part 1.

by John C. Whitcomb, Th.D

We have already contemplated the stupendous miracle of the incarnation of God’s Son by virgin conception. By this absolutely unique act, He became the “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5, KJV).
This is the only way He could give “himself a ransom for all” (v. 6). Only by becoming a 100 percent member of the human race could He be our representative, our substitute, our kinsman-redeemer (Hebrew—goel) on the cross. “Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation [i.e., expiation, the full removal of sin] for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17).

During the 33 years our Lord walked on the earth, no one really doubted that He was a genuine human being. The overwhelming question was His deity. Even the apostles struggled with this issue from time to time (i.e., John 16:29-33). His enemies hurled this accusation at Him as they prepared to stone Him: “Thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (John 10:33).

by John C. Whitcomb, Th.D

The Lord Jesus Christ, the second person of the triune God, who became the God-man by virtue of His virgin conception and incarnation, is the only human being in the universe who possesses a glorified body.
The raising of Lazarus from the dead was one of the most spectacular sign-miracles the Lord Jesus performed at His first coming. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Jews were astounded by what Jesus did that day in Bethany near Jerusalem. John tells us that “many of the Jews which … had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on Him” (John 11:45, KJV). In fact, “much people of the Jews knew that He was there (in Bethany): and they came not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom He had raised from the dead” (12:9).

But the leaders of Israel were terrified: “Then gathered the chief priests (i.e., the Sadducees) and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let Him thus alone, all men will believe on Him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation” (11:47-48). So they not only “took counsel together for to put Him to death” (v. 53), but “the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus” (12:10-11).