Category:Walking in the Spirit

With an understanding of how sensus plenior was created we see a new dynamic of communication with God.

God manipulated circumstances such that everything that was recorded in the Bible is a lesson for the boy Jesus to discover who he is and what he was to do. During the life of Christ, each circumstance that was presented to Jesus was used to see if he recognized his role as Messiah, and was a pre-test of the cross. As he stepped into each partial shadow, it was his to take the next step of faith in completing it, whereupon the Father often rewarded his step of faith with a miracle.

Each shadow of the cross in which Jesus participated, helped increase his faith and resolve to face the cross.

The wedding at Cana

The wilderness

Zaccheaus

Cleansing the Temple

Cleansing the ten lepers

Raising Lazarus

Calming the storm

Feeding the four and five thousand

For thought:

Priest acted out dinner theater in the temple ritual that painted pictures of Christ.

Judges and kings did what judges and kings did and God used them in their ignorance to paint pictures of Christ.

Prophets were instructed to act out dinner theater which prophesied of Christ even though they did not understand the Christological import.

When Jesus saw shadows unfolding around him, he acted out dinner theater to practice facing the cross.

1. Does God still paint pictures of the cross with the brush of human history and circumstance?

a. What of the destruction of Jerusalem

b. What of the Reformation?

c. What of the Holocaust?

d. What of a future tribulation?

e. What of individual salvation?

2. How then should we act if we see the circumstances around us painting a picture of Christ?

a. Do we participate in completing the shadow which points back to Christ or merely stand by and observe?

b. What if it requires that we do something that will make us look ridiculous?

c. What if it requires us to do something immoral?

d. What if it requires great cost?

3. In light of Jesus's proclamation "It is finished!" what prophecy still needs to be fulfilled?

4. Were OT prophecies fulfilled in the literal way that Israel expected them to be?

5. What is the genre of most OT prophecy?

6. Why do we expect literal fulfillment of presumed futurist prophecies?

7. Is Jesus kingdom of this world?