The term ‘docetism’ (from the Greek dokeo, meaning ‘to seem’) covers a range of speculations concerning the person of Christ. The common feature of the Docetists was an insistence that God could not become man.
At the time of the early church, its main representatives were Cerinthus, Ebion, Marcion and Valentinus. Their teachings were examined and rebutted by men such as Irenaeus (Against Heresies) and Tertullian (On the Flesh of Christ; Against Marcion).…
‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matthew 27:46)
Here is a summary of Ch. 33 of John Flavel’s great work, The Fountain of Life.
Here, says Flavel, ‘are words that might rend the hardest heart.’
The manner of the complaint
Note what our Lord complains of. ‘It is not of the cruel tortures he felt in his body, nor of the scoffs and reproaches of his name; he mentions not a word of these, they were all swallowed up in the sufferings within, as the river is swallowed up in the sea, or the lesser flame in the greater.’…
Matthew 26:57-68
This sermon was preached in two parts. The first part was followed by a time of sung and spoken confession.
This Powerpoint presentation was used:-
Part 1 – Four portraits
(a) Caiaphas – perverted justice.
‘Looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death,’ v59.
Looking for the expedient solution – Jn 11:49f “It is better that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”…
Mark 15:34 ‘At the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”‘
Six hours after he was nailed to his cross, the dying Jesus shouted out these awesome words.
The cry is also recorded in Matthew 27:46. Mark’s quotation from Psa 22:1 is in Aramaic; Matthew’s mainly in Hebrew.
The difficulty of this saying
According to Hard Sayings of the Bible,
…‘this is the hardest of all the hard sayings.
‘Diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ are today’s great buzz-words.
Jesus, it is claimed, accepted everyone ‘just as they are’, and so should we.
But, actually, it’s not quite as simple as that.
Certainly, Jesus preached (and practised) inclusion. His invitation was astonishingly wide: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). …
‘The lack of reference to the historical Jesus [in Paul’s writings] has often been exaggerated.
The Gospels are about Jesus – his coming, his earthly ministry, his cross and resurrection. The preacher should remember this for the following reasons:-
How can we preach Christ from all the Scriptures? Tim Keller outlines how each of the major themes of the Bible gives an opportunity for pointing to our Lord and Saviour:-
‘All the major figures and leaders of the Scriptures point us to Christ’, writes Tim Keller. Consider the following:-
Jesus is the true and better Abel, who, though innocently slain, has blood that cries out for our acquittal, not our condemnation (Hebrews 12: 24).
Jesus is the true and better Abraham, who answered the call of God to leave the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void “not knowing whither he went” to create a new people of God.
Tim Keller, in his recent book, Preaching: Communicating Faith in a Sceptical Age, has this fine quote from Calvin, showing how the great characters of the Old Testament point forward, in different ways, to their fulfilment in Christ:-
