John 2:13-25 – When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” 20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. 23 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. 24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. 25 He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.
“When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” The Apostle John identifies the Passover as a Jewish holyday for the benefit of gentile believers who were not familiar with the Jewish sacred days. To Christians today the Passover is a reminder that the blood of the Paschal Lamb marked the Israelites as separated and saved children of God. This is a type of the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, saves us from the Second Death that is eternal separation from God. (John 1:29)
The Passover is a celebration of the Lord God freeing them from Egyptian slavery. It is celebrated on 14 Nisan at the March/April full moon. It was immediately followed by the week-long festival of Unleavened Bread (15-22 Nisan). During this feast the Israelites ate no bread with yeast in it in remembrance of their hurried departure from Egypt. To us we understand yeast as a type of sin. So to us today, we can understand that when the Lord sets us free from this world through salvation (John 8:36), we are to turn from the sin (yeast) of this world and to live pure lives unto God. (Exodus 12, 1 Corinthians 5:7, Hebrews 11:28) Sensible people who are rescued from swamp of filth don’t jump back in.
Whether a Jew was traveling North, South, East or West to get to Jerusalem it was said they were going “up to” Jerusalem. Jerusalem was on a hill. Jerusalem the city of God. (Psalm 87:3) Hebrews 12:18-29 shows that the physical Jerusalem is a type of our God, or being in His presence. Jerusalem was a place people went to seek, be obedient to and to honor God. Now people who seek God must go to Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:5) He was the one who died on the hill of Calvary, He was the one who was risen up as Moses rose the serpent pole (in obedience to God) to save the people. Jerusalem, like the serpent pole of Moses, are shadows of the future pointing to Jesus. There is One to look to for Salvation and that is Jesus. There is One to look to and live in love and obedience with, the Lord Jesus. As Jerusalem was the place to seek God, so is Jesus the only one to seek and find in order to gain eternal salvation. As Jerusalem led to God, so, ultimately, will Jesus present us all to the Father as His brothers and sisters of Christ, as God’s children who are washed clean by the blood of Jesus. (Jude 1:24-25)
Anyone and everyone who declares that the Bible is a book written by men is merely declaring their ignorance of the Word of God. They don’t see that the Word of God is alive, how it is interconnected from the beginning to the end. They are ignorant that it is from an eternal God who knows the last and the first and is creator and keeper of all. No one who knows God states that the book of man’s invention. It is not possible. It only shows that what they say they know they do not.
What does understanding the Bible is a book of divine inspiration mean to us? It means that it has been and remains inviolate. That God, who is good and has no evil within Him, and who loves us, and by that cannot lie to us (He is not a man who can and does lie) (Numbers 23:19). He has given His Word to us that we may know Him and His ways. His Word is filled with words that come from the omniscient and omnipotent one who knows all things, the one who is never wrong. We have a Holy Book that testifies of itself and those who know God grow in that knowledge as they grow in God. Those who want to change what it clearly states err, to their own harm. The Word of God has no error and He who wrote it left nothing out that we need to know. What is in the Bible was purposely included and what is not in Bible was purposely excluded. How wonderful our God who has blessed us so! He has not left us stumbling in the dark, blind and reaching for what we know not. He has loved us. We need not reach up in search of Him, He has reached down draw us to Himself. We need only to respond to His call and He leads us to Him and having found Him, continues to teach us what we need to know. Yes, praise God, yes! God is good all the time and He loves us. Praise God! Thank you Lord God! Praise God!
John 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will Hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown you, Oh man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
Numbers 6:24-26 The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.