GETTING TO KNOW YESHUA AS GOD THE SON
Your life just changed because you have met the Person of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). You can’t see Him in the natural realm but He’s there with you in the spirit realm. Though He came and lived as 100% Man on the earth, He is also 100% God. The mystery is that all the fullness of God was resident in a single human being. Yeshua was all God and all man at the same time. God manifested Himself (made Himself known) by sending Yeshua as His Son into the earth in order to bring mankind back to Himself. This does not mean, as some have erroneously thought, that Yeshua and God are two Gods. The most often prayed prayer by Jewish people since Moses’ time is called the Sh’ma: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:3). This prayer is called the Sh’ma because sh’ma means “hear” or “listen” in Hebrew, the word the prayer begins with. The word for “one” in Hebrew is echad, which means “one with several parts,” such as one bunch of grapes, or one class of many students. We could say, then, that God gave Moses this prayer to remind Israel that God is a compound or many-faceted One. It also means that He is the only God, there is no other God.
YESHUA IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
The Bible makes some very strong statements about Yeshua that tell us that the pre-incarnate Son of God was involved in creation. The writer of the Book of Hebrews give Him praise and says, “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands” (Hebrews 1:10). John saw Him this way: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:1-3). Yeshua is the word of God because everything He said and did was in exact compliance with God’s Word. He is the embodiment of law and the prophets of the Old Testament. This may all sound outrageous but if Yeshua is God, how could He not be eternal and if eternal He would have been involved in creation. Prophesies of Messiah and glimpses of Him are found in the Old Testament but are hidden to us until we know who Yeshua is. Proverbs gives us one such poetic glimpse.
The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old. From everlasting I was established, From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, When there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, Before the hills I was brought forth; While He had not yet made the earth and the fields, Nor the first dust of the world. When He established the heavens, I was there, When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep, When He made firm the skies above, When the springs of the deep became fixed, When He set for the sea its boundary So that the water would not transgress His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth; Then I was beside Him, as a master workman; And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him, Rejoicing in the world, His earth, And having my delight in the sons of men.” (Proverbs 8:22-30)
God manifested Himself in different ways to Israel, for example, in fire and thunder on Mt. Sinai, as a pillar of fire at night and cloud by day for forty years while Israel wandered the Sinai desert, and in a glory cloud of His awesome presence in the tabernacle and later in the temple which we refer to as His Shekhinah glory. Also each time the “Angel of the Lord” appeared to Israel, He spoke in the first person, as only God could speak, as Creator and the One who causes miracles to happen, like when He promised Abraham that his wife Sarah would give birth to a child at age 90! God has also chosen to manifest Himself in the Person of Yeshua. Though our English translations of the Bible call him the “Son of God,” it would actually be more accurate to address Him as “God the Son.” This is not two Gods. As Yeshua said, “I and the Father (God) are one” (John 10:30). God is only and ever one and Yeshua is God manifested in the flesh. One translation of the opening verses of the letter to the Hebrews, speaking about Yeshua says so beautifully that “He is the out-raying of God’s glory” (1:3), meaning that though the sun is far brighter than what we are able to look at directly, the rays of the sun bring the reality of the sun to us in warmth and light. So Yeshua brings the reality of God the Father to us.
While Israel was aware of God’s care for them, it is through Yeshua that we really come to know God as Father. As a Man, Yeshua’s relationship with God when on earth was as a Son to His Father. Yet it is clear that Yeshua is God just as His Father is God, there really being only one God. The Hebrew prophet Isaiah declared one of the major Messianic prophecies God gave to Israel: “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on His shoulders. And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6.) So we see how God declared that the Messiah would be born as a baby boy – “a son” – who would also be “Mighty God (and) Eternal Father.” No wonder He is also called “Wonderful!”
WHY DID YESHUA COME TO EARTH AS A MAN?
The Bible tells us that we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Yeshua came to earth as the only sinless man by the fore-ordained plan of God to bring mankind back to God. But how did we get into all that sin in the first place? God created the first man, Adam and his wife Eve, to be perfect and innocent. However, they succumbed to temptation and soon found themselves living in the consequences of separation from holy God. Mankind has been living with the result of that separation and loss of holiness ever since. We refer to this as “The Fall,” meaning a fall from the innocence and purity with which Adam and Eve were created. From that time forward, because each generation carries the nature of their father, our sin nature is passed down through our generations through our fathers. God knew about this “Fall” before He even created the earth and prepared ahead of time for a solution. The solution was Yeshua, God Himself coming in the flesh. That was the only way to bi-pass the sin nature of the fathers, by God being the Father of the sinless One who would come to restore mankind back to Himself.
WAS YESHUA REALLY BORN OF A VIRGIN?
When God wanted to send His Son Yeshua to earth, God through His Holy Spirit miraculously caused a virgin named Miriam (Mary) to conceive a child. The Hebrew prophet Isaiah prophesied about the coming Messiah’s birth saying, “The Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). Some Old Testament translations have used the word “maiden” instead of “virgin” for the Hebrew word “alma,” but it would be no sign from God if a young woman had a son. That Miriam (Mary) was a virgin when Yeshua was both conceived and born, is a definite fulfillment of this verse that contributes to validating Yeshua’s Messiahship. God sent the Angel Gabriel to Miriam to tell her what was about to happen. Here’s the conversation. Let’s listen in:
“And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High…. Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:31-35).
The Bible tell us that God is the Supreme Creator of all that exists: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters,” (Genesis 1:1,2). If God could speak all of creation into existence while His Spirit interacted with what was being created, then surely He could cause a fetus to be implanted into the womb of a woman. And since all He created was “good” (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, etc.) and entirely without sin or evil, then we see how this Son could be altogether “good” and without sin. Isaiah had prophesied that this Son was to be called Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14) which in Hebrew means “God is with us.” It wasn’t Yeshua’s literal name but it was who He was – God with us. Yeshua was born just like any other baby is born – only He was the Son of God. And He was without sin, having no sin nature because He had no sinful father. Being free of sin which brings separation between people, He grew up “in the favor of God and men” (Luke 2:52).
WHAT WAS YESHUA’S LIFE ON EARTH LIKE?
Yeshua grew up in a very Hebrew (Jewish) environment in a large family. We know about His mother and earthly father Joseph who was a carpenter. Scriptures says that after Yeshua was born several siblings were born. When He began doing miracles, the townspeople questioned, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Miriam (Mary), and brother of Yacov (James) and Yosef (Joseph) and Yehudah (Judah or Jude) and Shimone (Simon)? Are not His sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:3). We have included their Hebrew names to make the point that Yeshua was born into and was raised in a wholly Jewish family rather than what the anglicized names found in our English Bibles seem to present. Extra-Biblical writings speak of Miriam’s mother being named Ann, which in Hebrew was more likely to be Hanna. Did you ever think of Yeshua as having siblings, and a grandmother? A normal family, it would seem. Along with all the other people in His family and around Him in the town He lived in, Yeshua believed in and lived His life before the God of Israel.
They would have faithfully observed all the Jewish holidays and the Sabbaths and obeyed all that God had commanded Israel. So, you can see that Yeshua grew up in a thoroughly Hebrew culture, religion and lifestyle, exactly the environment God wanted His Son to be brought up in. Yeshua followed in the footsteps of Joseph as a carpenter. Since the Bible tells us, “He did all things well” (Mark 7:37), most likely He was a pretty good carpenter at that. When He was thirty years old, the same age that a Hebrew man could enter service of the priesthood before God, He began His ministry. Shortly before that, God sent a man named John (in Hebrew: Yohanan), who was actually Yeshua’s cousin, to begin to preach a message to Israel to turn away from their sins and to turn to God. Most of Israel was following God, but their leaders taught them to observe the “traditions of the elders” which put legalistic requirements upon them that far exceeded what God had intended for Israel when He gave them His commandments through Moses. These added “laws” resulted in a misinterpretation of what God is really like and what he expected from them as His people.
He wanted them to love Him in response to His love for them, not to be preoccupied with lawkeeping in minutia. It’s why the most important commandment He gave to Israel says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might ” (Deuteronomy 6:5). God sent John ahead of Yeshua to begin to call Israel back to Himself. As he did so, John baptized (immersed) people in the Jordan river who wanted to be cleansed of their sins and to turn back to God. These washings were called a mikveh by the Jewish people and were done in order to be clean before the Lord. (We will talk more about baptism, or mikveh, in a later article.) Though Yeshua had no sin, He came to John to be baptized “in order to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15), that is, to obey all that God has said to do. So Yeshua was immersed in the water in baptism. At that time a voice was heard from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). God Himself spoke from heaven to acknowledge how pleased He was with His Son Yeshua, even before He did any miracles or preached one message.
At that time, John saw the Holy Spirit of God coming down from heaven in the form of something like a dove and settling upon Yeshua. The Holy Spirit is not a dove for He is a Spirit, without a physical body. But the dove symbolized that something directly from heaven came upon Yeshua that enabled Him to enter into His ministry empowered by the Spirit of God. Yeshua’s whole ministry was to bring mankind back to His Father. For three and a half years He taught people about the Kingdom of God, demonstrating God’s love and power by healing the sick, raising the dead, and setting people free of all that held them bound. As He taught them of how the Kingdom of God is so far greater than Rome or any government of men, He gave them hope to live in an overcoming way so that in their new-found faith in God, they no longer feared the Romans.
WHY WAS YESHUA CRUCIFIED?
You would think that since He brought such good to so many, that everyone would love Him. And thousands did. However, as the people flocked to Him to listen to what He had to say, and many were healed of diseases, quite a number of the priests and leaders in the Temple saw Him as a threat. Many of these were men who were working in collaboration with the Romans and they wanted to keep their positions of power. Actually, the high priest at that time was no longer a descendent of Aaron, Moses’ brother whom God had made high priest, designating his sons to continue the priesthood for generations to come. Now the title went to the highest bidder with payment going to the Romans who ruled over Israel at that time. These priests saw Yeshua as disrupting the status quo in which they had favor with Rome and also exercised control over all that transpired in the Temple, including the Temple funds.
The priests, Pharisees and Scribes were so concerned that their laws be observed that they reacted to Yeshua’s non-compliance to them. In reality, these were additional laws that had been added to the Commandments which God gave to Moses. They knew that Israel had been exiled to Babylon in 586 B.C.E. because they broke God’s commandments as a nation and worshipped other gods. So they decided they had better not only learn the laws but add “fences” around them, to be sure they weren’t violated. Now the fences had become as binding as God’s commandments. It was these fence-laws that Yeshua called “the traditions of men” which He saw as keeping the people from God’s true words to Israel. This conflict set up a good bit of the animosity that the priests had for Yeshua. Consequently, these leaders accused Him of breaking the laws (of the Sabbath, for instance) when it was their traditional and burdensome added laws which He did not follow.
He always kept the commandments God had given to Israel. Of the men who most violently opposed Yeshua were the Sadducees, a sect of priests who did not believe in life after death, nor in angels nor anything supernatural. And they evidently did not fear God’s judgment in wanting to have Yeshua murdered. And so they plotted against Him to have him killed. It may look like all the Jewish people were against Him as you read the Gospel accounts but in fact, it was only some of the leaders and a group they stirred up against Yeshua who came against Him. Not even all the priests or Sanhedrin (governing body of seventy elders) were against Him, some even vocalizing that He might be the Messiah. The ordinary people, the “am ha eretz,” the people of the land, loved Him. After all, He healed their sick, raised their dead and set people free from demonic oppression. Of course, they would love Him. But what none of them knew was that God had planned from the foundation of the earth that Yeshua would be crucified for the sins of mankind.
However, who would be involved in His murder and who would choose to follow him was each person’s individual choice. God had told Israel through Moses that sin had to be paid for by blood. An animal had to die to pay for the sins in order for the person to be forgiven. A significant part of Israel’s existence before God had to do with the sacrifice of sheep and goats and other animals that were required for God to forgive the sins of the people. Sin is so terrible that blood had to be spilled in order for sin to be atoned for and washed away. The Bible tells us, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I (God) have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11). Much of what took place in the Temple was the blood sacrifices. The animals had to be pure, without any blemish or spots. Perfect, in other words. Not just any animal would do. A holy God demands a holy and perfect sacrifice. Yeshua was to be that final holy and perfect sacrifice. He would die once and for all, meaning one time for all people, though it is for each person to accept what He has done for us. We are talking about God the Son, the One who created the world, the One in whom all authority and power exists, the One who is altogether holy and altogether pure, the One whose nature and character is altogether good and good only.
Can we even imagine what these words mean? This One came into the earth like all other men, as an infant, lived a sinless life and then God condemned Himself (in the Person of His Son) to death for the payment of other people’s violations of the commandments He gave them! He is love unending, love unselfish, love fully committed and complete. It is without reservation or limitation. Being the All Powerful One He humbled Himself to the point of death on our behalf. Humankind would never have envisioned that kind of selfless love. Only God would have. His death on the cross reveals all this to those who have spiritual eyes to see it. Not everyone does. “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). It was God who set the standards in the first place for righteousness and holiness. And it was God in the Person of Yeshua who took the punishment for our violation of those standards. No one else could have. No one else was without sin to qualify as the Perfect Sacrifice. Yeshua lived His life to show people what God was like and how He loved them. The ultimate reason for His becoming a Man was to die as the sacrificial “lamb of God” (1 John 1:29, 36), to show us the ultimate expression of the love of God for mankind. He so loved us that He went to these lengths to bring us out of sin and back to Himself. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). If you have accepted His sacrifice for your own sins, you have become one of His friends!
WHY YESHUA IS CALLED “THE LAMB OF GOD”
In order that people would know later, when they figured out that this was God’s prophetic doing, Yeshua died at the exact time that the sacrificial lambs were being slain in the Temple for Passover. Passover is the celebration of the power of God, through a series of miracles, to set Israel free from 400 years of slavery to Egypt, the most powerful nation on earth at that time. God also showed Pharaoh that he was not a god as he and Egypt thought he was. Only Israel’s God is God; there is no other. Each year since, for some thirty-five hundred years, Jewish people have commemorated the deliverance by God from slavery to freedom at the same time of year, in the Spring, at Passover time. The year of Yeshua’s death, God was at work to bring about the ultimate freedom – releasing the world from the greater slavery to sin and death. By God’s great divine hand, Yeshua died on Passover, at the exact time the Passover lambs were being slaughtered. Like the lambs that were inspected for purity before being deemed perfect for the sacrifice, Yeshua too was being examined to determine His sin.
He was found without guilt, yet even so, condemned to die so that, unbeknown to the men who condemned Him to death, His perfect and sinless life enabled Him to pay the price for the sins of the whole world. That’s why John (Yohanan) had announced prophetically to the people when he saw Yeshua, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Though Yeshua had the power to call ten thousand angels to come to His rescue, He willingly gave up His life on our behalf. No one could have taken His life from Him. Here’s what He had to say to His disciples about His life when He knew His death was approaching: “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:18). That does not mean it was easy for Him. He suffered greatly when the moment finally came upon Him as his struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane to submit to the crucifixion. He could have called legions of angels to come and rescue Him, but no.
He “began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them (the disciples), “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.” And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” (Matthew 26:37-39) In one of the major Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah described what would take place: “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Yeshua willingly submitted Himself to being misunderstood, mocked, ridiculed, beaten unmercifully and crucified which is the most torturous form of death imaginable.
He endured the worst of what mankind has done to each other since the beginning of time. Yet He still never sinned. Instead of becoming bitter against those who inflicted the suffering upon Him, He asked God to forgive those who brought this upon Him. By that forgiveness, He forgave us all. His cry was, “Forgive them, Abba (Father), for they know not what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Had they realized that He was “the Lord of Glory” and the “Holy One of Israel,” they never would have crucified Him (See 1 Corinthians 2:8). His is Omnipotent Mercy! It was predetermined by God that He would die as He had to become the atonement (though only God knew it) in order for the sin that separates mankind from God to be done away with, once and for all. This one final sacrifice would extend not just to Israel but to all mankind.
As He died, your sins and my sins were supernaturally drawn into His Being. Because sin causes us to be separated from God, when our sin was upon Him, Yeshua was left with only His humanity and in complete identity with the separation from God that mankind has lived with since sin first entered the world with Adam and Eve’s first act of disobedience. Never having known it before, having always been in union with His Father, the separation Yeshua experienced shocked Him. Because He could not sense His Father with Him for the first time, He cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Psalm 22:1; Mark 15:34). This was the first time He didn’t call God “Abba” (Hebrew for Father). We cannot imagine the agony and possibly the terror He went through. It seems that He experienced the absolute abandonment men experience when they are found eternally separated from God at the point of death.
But even so, He still did not sin. He did not get angry with God whom He thought abandoned Him, He didn’t lapse into resentment or bitterness against the men who arranged His death, or against those who tortured Him. He remained faithful to God to the end, breathing with His last breaths the forgiveness that was in His heart. We remain forever grateful for His obedience and His atonement on our behalf.
WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HIS RESURRECTION?
If you would die while still in your sin, you would remain eternally separated from God, and therefore you would go to hell. So did Yeshua, instead of us. Hell is real. It is a horrible place, intended for the devil and his rebellious angels, but people who choose rebellion against God and make the choice that they do not want God in their lives, will spend eternity away from God there. What He experienced in that horrific place we do not know. But we do know that because He was sinless, death and hell couldn’t hold Him and through the power of God, He was resurrected from the dead into a newness of a life never to die again.
After three days of being dead, suddenly Yeshua came alive again! Just as He was crucified on Passover, Yeshua was resurrected three days later on the Jewish holiday of “First Fruits” (Hebrew: Hahg Habikkurim) which immediately follows Passover three days later. Everything took place exactly as God had planned it on the calendar of events He had given to Israel centuries before. The synchronized calendar events tell us we can be sure that God had it all under control and that it all happened just as and when He intended. This does not mean that Yeshua didn’t suffer, He did. And it doesn’t mean that God wanted Yeshua to suffer, He didn’t. But it does mean that God Himself in the Person of Yeshua submitted to the suffering in order to rescue us from an eternity of suffering! The resurrection of Yeshua from death to life confirms that He was sinless because death could not hold Him in its grip. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), but since death couldn’t keep Him dead, the resurrection proves that He is God, for only God is sinless.
He was entirely and completely alive! His “old” body was not resuscitated, nor did He now have a spirit body but He had a new and eternal form of body, so that He could eat with His disciples and also walk through walls since it was not limited to time and space as our natural bodies are limited. Since this body will never die again, it is not subject to dissipation or deterioration in any way. This is the same bodily form of flesh and bones (notice, no more blood) that God will give to those of us who are born again when we die physically. We no longer need to fear death because Yeshua has made the way to eternal life with God. Yeshua’s life shows us not how God would live on earth, but how any man or woman under the Lordship of God and filled with His Spirit can live. He was not able to live a holy life and do miracles because He was God; He did so because He was operating under the anointing of the Holy Spirit as a Man.
He has given to us the same Holy Spirit so that we are able to live as He lived. Indeed, He has commanded us to do so, expecting that we will. The way to heaven and eternity with God is assured to all who put their faith and trust in Yeshua having paid the price for their sins, and who continue to trust in Him and live accordingly throughout their lives. His pain has become our healing, His agony our freedom, His separation from God became our way to being united with God, and His death has become our eternal life. Wonderful God! Glorious God! Beneficent God!
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1. The most explicit Old Testament prophecy of the Messiah came from the prophet Isaiah 700 years before Yeshua was born. It almost reads like it came out of the New Covenant. Would you please read Isaiah chapter 53. It tells you about the Suffering Messiah and the reason for His suffering. Take it line by line. What does it tell you would take place? From what you’ve believed about Yeshua already, how does this match what you are learning about Him now? Does it tell you anything you didn’t know before? If so, what?
2. Read Acts 10:43. Yeshua’s name in Hebrew means “God is Salvation.” What does it say all the prophets of Israel bore witness to? Read Micah 5:2. Where does it say Messiah would be born? Read Isaiah 7:14. What would distinguish Messiah’s birth? (Note: The Hebrew word “alma” is sometimes translated as young maiden; but the correct translation is “virgin.” It would be only be a sign if the word meant virgin.)
3. Following is one of the most beautiful and explicit verses that reveal the nature of Yeshua and His relationship with God, His Father, and for that matter the universe. Inserted is who each pronoun is referring to. “And He (Yeshua) is the radiance of His (God’s) glory and the exact representation of His (God’s) nature, and upholds all things by the word of His (Yeshua) power. When He (Yeshua) had made purification of sins, He (Yeshua) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty (of God) on high” (Hebrews 1:3). You may want to read that a few times to let it sink in. What does it mean that Yeshua is the exact representation of God’s nature? What do you envision upholding “all things by the word of His power” means? How powerful is that power? How did Yeshua affect the purification of sins? Where is He now?
4. Read John 8:28; 14:10; 5:19. How dependent was Yeshua on His Father? What did He initiate on His own? From where did His teachings originate?
5. Read Acts 10:36-38. What does Peter (:31), who was an eye-witness, tell us about Yeshua? Who anointed Yeshua to heal? Do you think He could have healed on His own without the Spirit? How extensive was His healing people? Read Luke 5:21-24. Is Yeshua’s ability to heal people connected to His power to forgive people’s sins? If so, in what way? Read Hebrews 13:8. What does this tell you about whether God still heals people today?
6. Read Acts 10:40-42. What is being spoken of here? Have you ever seen someone dead? How dead is dead? Could Yeshua have accomplished His resurrection from the dead on His own? (That’s an obvious answer. But the next question shows He was validated by the God of Israel.) Who was responsible for raising Him from the dead? Read John 20:11-20. This is an abbreviated account of His friends seeing Him alive after seeing Him die. What do you think they experienced? Can you project yourself into that scene? Describe it. How do you think you would feel seeing Him again? What would you want to do or say to Yeshua if you were in that room?
7. Read Hebrews 5:7-9. What does this tell you about Yeshua’s stress and obedience in facing crucifixion? What did He have to learn as we do, even though He was God’s Son? What do you see in the relationship between suffering and obedience? What was the result of His obedience? Do you believe that your obedience to God and His word can affect other people for God too? In what way?
8. Read Hebrews 4:14-16. What does this say about how Yeshua relates to our weaknesses and suffering? Is this what you expected from God regarding your own temptations and weaknesses? So where are we to go for help? How assured can you be that you will receive help from God when you go to Him for it?
9. Read Matthew 16:13. You have heard much about Yeshua from other people and from the world around you. What have you learned about Him in the past? Who did you think He was before now? Even people who don’t “believe in Jesus” still have some idea of who He is or was. What has yours been?
10. Now please read Matthew 16:15. If you’re doing this study it’s because you have probably had an encounter with Yeshua yourself. Does your experience with Him recently, even through this study, differ from the way you saw or thought of Him before? In what ways? Did you have any expectations of Him interacting in your life before? What are your expectations now? Are there any things about Yeshua that you have just come to know of which you were entirely unaware of before? (Note: An increased revelation of Yeshua is not something that only happens to new believers. It goes on and on. There is so much to know of Him, that unfolding revelations of Him are an ongoing marvel.)
