Crash Course 8
(No, not
the Beatles. Not that Fab Four. I mean the Fabulous Four Gospels.)
The Gospels
are not the only place to read about Jesus. The New Testament epistles tell lot
about him, too. Peter and John, both disciples and eyewitnesses, wrote five
letters between them.
In his
first letter, Peter calls Christ a “lamb without blemish or defect…chosen
before the creation of the world… " (1:19 – 20). Only a lamb used in Israel’s
sacrificial system would warrant the phrase “without blemish or defect.” Peter
understood the significance of Christ’s substitutionary death. Peter also
speaks of the resurrection and coming return of Christ (1:3 and 1:7).
Peter
reveals two intriguing facts about Christ that I haven’t found elsewhere in
scripture. (Illuminate me if I’ve missed them.) He says the Spirit of Christ
indwelt and guided the prophets who wrote about him in the Hebrew Scriptures
(1:11). He also writes that after the Lord’s resurrection, he preached to spirits
of the disobedient Noah-era people “in prison.” (3:19 – 20)
That’s
something coming from a fisherman.
I always
imagine Peter excitedly exclaiming, “I was there!” Fifty days after the
crucifixion and resurrection, Peter told a Jerusalem crowd, “God has raised
this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of this fact.” (Acts 2:32) Some
years later when Peter wrote his second letter, he said, “We ourselves heard
this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain”
(1:18).
I was
there! I was there!
John writes
in the first few verses of his first epistle about Christ’s incarnation (taking
on human flesh). “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we
have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked at and our hands have touched—this
we proclaim concerning the Word of Life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim
to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has
appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we
have seen and heard…(1:1 – 3)
In less
than 75 words, John manages to say in 7 different ways (highlighted by me) that
he was an eyewitness, an earwitness, a handwitness of Christ.
Handwitness?
Sure. Years ago in Fort Worth, Texas, I was beyond excited to shake hands with
presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and his wife. I was an eyewitness,
earwitness, and handwitness of the future president.
How much
more memorable for John to have rubbed elbows with the Messiah in a fishing
boat, to have passed him the bread at a meal, to have leaned against him as the
disciples all reclined in Jewish fashion around the Passover table. To those
who were beginning to deny the Incarnation, John could say, “Hold it right
there. I touched him. He was really here.”
And
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth. John 1:14, NKJV
