Tuesday, June 28, 2011

"Worship in Genesis: Two Classes of Worshippers"

Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic

Worship
Lesson 1: "Worship in Genesis: Two Classes of Worshippers"

The shape of things to come is being more sharply focused day by day--just as the Bible predicted. Two world movements are aligning themselves for the last great conflict: those who worship old covenantself-righteousness, identifying with the "beast" and his "image"; or those who worship clothed in the righteousness received by faith in the crucified Lamb's promise of the new covenant (Rev. 13:4, 15; 14:4, 7). Those who accept the latter will worship the Lamb, the Christ of the cross who by His sacrifice "tasted death for every man," and those who worship the beast and his image will worship self.

This final crisis of earth's history will be a challenge to "worship the Lamb" alone, or to worship Baal (all worship of self, which is disguised as the worship of "Christ," is Baal-worship). One group will have faith in the promises of God, the other in the "righteousness" of human promises. One will appreciate the breadth, depth, length, and height of "the agape of Christ, which passeth knowledge" (Eph. 3:14-21), while the other will believe a false view of the cross, a counterfeit misrepresentation of the gospel which will be the worship of a false "christ." One will believe God's one-sided promise: "I will put My law in their inward parts" (Jer. 31:33), while the other will believe the old covenant bargain with God to do everything just right: "All that the LORD hath spoken we will do" (Ex. 19:8). So clever will the deceptions be that "if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect" (Matt. 24:24).

The worshipers in Genesis represent the shape of the future. Two brothers attended the same church. On the one hand, the farmer worked hard, obeying God's commandment, "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" (Gen. 3:19). He expected God to reward him for his labor ["man can depend upon his own efforts for salvation" (Patriarchs and Prophets [PP], p. 73), "self-dependence" (ibid., p. 72)]. Cain felt rejected and angry when God "had not respect" for his worship (Gen. 4:5).

What Cain missed was a simple heart-appreciation for the shed blood of the Lamb of God; his problem was "unbelief," a failure to appreciate what it cost the Son of God to save him. On the other hand, Abel the shepherd was convicted as a sinner to worship God through the merits of Christ's blood represented by the lamb (Gen. 4:4; PP 72).

Another example of true worship is Abram who believed God's most precious one-sided new covenant promise, "thou shalt be a blessing" as well as receive a blessing from Him (Gen. 12:1-3); by getting "out of [his] country, and from [his] father's house, unto a land that [God] will shew [him]" (vs. 1); in other words, he got out of "Babylon." God did not ask Abram to make a promise of obedience. Believe God's solemn promise and you will be happy and will always bring happiness to someone else.

Abram established the Old Testament gospel by "moonlight." He worshiped God at the altar of sacrifice morning and evening (Gen. 12:8; PP 128). Daily two lambs were offered on behalf of sinners worldwide, whether they believed in the Saviour to whom they pointed or not. "God has encircled the whole world with an atmosphere of grace as real as the air [we breathe]" (Steps to Christ, p. 68). Much later the New Testament gospel by "sunlight" was proclaimed by John the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).

So that Abraham might know the fullness of God's love, He asked him to sacrifice his only beloved son Isaac as an act of worship (Gen. 22:2, 5). Abraham didn't actually kill Isaac with his knife--but he made the full commitment to make the sacrifice. "'You have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me,' said God" (vs. 12). It reflected Christ's cross. Christ didn't go into the literal lake of fire, but He made the full commitment, and thus He died the equivalent of our second death.

The Father and the Son are equal in their giving the sacrifice of atonement for sinners. "We are not to entertain the idea that God loves us because Christ has died for us, but that He so loved us that He gave His only-begotten Son to die for us" (Signs of the Times, May 30, 1895).
Jesus' words in John 3:16 were inspired by Abraham and Isaac's sacrifice. Isaac was Abraham's one and only unique son of God's covenant promise (Gen. 13:16). When you see Jesus' love for the world at the cross you see the Father's love for the world.

The good news that we are learning about the atonement from the 1888 message is that Jesus identified with the whole race of sinners. He took our fallen selfishness and He satisfied the full justice of the law by choosing to die the second death as a demonstration for all time of His victorious unselfish love. "The death of Christ was expedient in order that mercy might reach us with its full pardoning power, and at the same time that justice might be satisfied in the righteous substitute" (Ibid.). His self-denying love compels us to identify with Him by "follow[ing] the Lamb whithersoever he goeth" (Rev. 14:4). To "worship Him" is to "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus" (vss. 7, 12).

Another example of worship in Genesis is Jacob. After cheating Esau out of his birthright and lying to his father Isaac, Jacob fled home feeling himself the most God-forsaken man on earth. Worshiping God was the last thing on this guilty man's conscience. With a stone for a pillow the agonizing young man was given a vision by God of a ladder upon which angels ascended and descended (Gen. 28:12). The ladder represented Jesus (PP 184). "Ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man" (John 1:51).

Jacob was such a deceptive, self-centered person that his name meant supplanter. But God loves good people as well as bad people. It is not possible for us to do good and make Him love us better than others. God does not forsake either the good or the bad. When you make a mistake you feel guilty and polluted and you feel that God no longer loves you.

Why does God love good people and bad? When Jesus gave Himself on His cross, He bought you. God the Father "chose" you to be His child "through Christ." He made you "His son." He adopted you (Eph. 1:4, 5). An adopted child is just as much loved as one who was born in the family. If an adopted child makes a mistake, the new parents never disown him. So, when you feel guilty, when the Holy Spirit convicts you that you have sinned, remember that the Father loves you just the same.

Now, let Him clean you; accept His forgiveness. Thank Him that He still has "adopted" you into His family. Be glad for His love that never can fail. That's what it means to "overcome" like Jacob of old.

Jacob worshiped God at Bethel by anointing his stone pillow with oil as a memorial of the ladder-gateway to heaven (Gen. 28:17, 18). Jacob sometimes had trouble remembering that dream, just like sometimes you have trouble remembering God's goodness to you. Jacob had plenty of disappointments and sorrows, and he had to spend a whole night wrestling with the Lord in prayer (Jacob's time of trouble). But his name was changed from Jacob to Israel (overcomer).

Everyone who enters heaven will be a child of Jacob. The Lord addresses His people as "O house of Jacob" (Isa. 2:5). Both now and during the future time of Jacob's trouble all self-centered relationship-worship will be purified of its motives for a hope of reward with a faith-worship motivated by agape. And so will your name be changed! Accept some encouragement from the story of your "father" Jacob.

--Paul E. Penno

Note: Pastor Paul Penno's Sabbath School class on this lesson can be viewed on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N85hKAucJTw(in three parts).
You may also access the videos at: http://www.1888mpm.org/
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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe.

"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888mpm.org

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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Clothed in Christ

Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic

Garments of Grace: Clothing Imagery in the Bible
Lesson 13: "Clothed in Christ"

Couples in love buy clothes for each other. They like to see their companion in garments that are appealing and attractive, yet do not suppress the personality. Jesus loves His chosen ones. He purchased beautiful garments for us to wear, and yet they do not make each one look militaristically uniform. He wants to see us clothed in His righteousness.

Clothing imagery is of profound consequence in Paul's writings. The imagery relates to the entire Christian life, as it speaks of a baptismal change in his identity, an ethical change in his practical life, and the resurrection transfiguration of his mode of existence. The meaning of "putting on Christ" surely points to adoption of His mind, character, and conduct.

It is at baptism that we are completely identified with Christ. "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27). It is often said of one who has been converted, "He is so changed you would not know him; he is not the same man."

By faith the heart or the mind is converted, but "the old man," the love of self, is never converted (Eph. 4:22). It is well to remember this. The love of self is the source of all our addictions to sinful habits: anger, gambling, cigarettes, alcoholism, gluttony; you name it. The "captives" are legion, and most are content to die in their compulsive idolatry. Also, the love of self is the source of our legalistic attempts to save ourselves motivated by the fear of hell and the hope of reward. Satan invented the love of self. It is paganism.

The good news is that it's easy to be saved and hard to be lost when Christ's self-denying love constrains your heart. By faith you choose God's gift of deepening repentance and closer fellowship with Christ, which involves the crucifixion of "the old man" of self-love with the Lamb.
"... Ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness" (Eph. 4:24). The clothing-with-the-new-man metaphor signifies the believer's restoration from the love of self which we are all born with as an inheritance from Adam, to the rebirth produced by a new motivation: the love of Christ constraineth us--the essence of which is righteousness and holiness.

But why does the author of Ephesians describe this thought by means of the metaphor of changing garments? There is a decisive aspect in changing clothes. Changing garments points to parting from the old clothes and being united with the new, so "the old man" nature is replaced in a rapid way with the new Christ-like nature. Further, Paul portrays a garment as always being at one with its wearer.

Christ's righteousness is likened to "the armour of light" (Rom. 13:12). Government issue for Roman soldiers consisted of a helmet and breastplate. Before putting them on each day they were cleansed and burnished so that they glistened as light. You might on any part of the armour of the Roman soldier have seen some mark or stamp of the Roman authority and ownership.
We are likewise admonished to "put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof" (Rom. 13:14). Put on the "new man". Put on the Lord Jesus Christ daily. Put Him on as a robe of righteousness (Isa. 61:10). Put Him on in your practical walk and conversation, as the whole habit of your life. There is a continual solicitation to sin both from without as well as corruption from within. There is a crowd with us, saying, "Come with us, enjoy yourselves with us," and there is a crowd of sins within ready to lend an ear, and to go.
So the believer should say, "Let me yield my tongue to God. Let me yield my eyes to God. Let me pray."

Put on the new man means a change of mind. But can we shake ourselves by our shoulders and just do it--reconcile ourselves to Him? It means a change of mind (Greekmetanoia) which actually is repentance. Now wait a moment: do we have a self-start button to press for "repenting ourselves"? Acts 5:31 says it's a "gift" from our "Prince and Saviour." A "gift" is not what you work for.

What is the real meaning of the cross? The heart-warming truth is that God has "declared" the whole world adopted in Christ. God "predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus" (Eph. 1:5). Christ removed the guilt of sin from everyone of us so that we stand as it were neutral before the Father. "He restored the whole race of men to favor with God" (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 343). He justified us. "In Christ" "all men" have received a "judicial ... verdict of acquittal" (Rom. 5:15-18, NEB).

This is not some "cold and legal" dry theory. It means that God loves each soul so much that He imputes to us the full benefits of His righteousness so that we now stand before the Father with "the mind of Christ" (Phil. 2:5). This is God's love that generates the new birth experience. God's justifying love if it is not resisted will produce a genuine heart-reconciling response. "The sinner may resist this love, may refuse to be drawn to Christ; but if he does not resist he will be drawn to Jesus" (Steps to Christ, p. 27). This is genuine faith.

Christ's amazing righteousness is far more than mere holiness. The unfallen angels are never referred to as righteous, but holy. Righteousness is holiness that has met the fiery test of temptation and overcome. Christ is the only righteous One. His self-emptying love purchased His garment of righteousness. "The true faith--the faith of Jesus--is that, far off from God as we are in our sinfulness, in our human nature which He took, He has come to us just where we are; that, infinitely pure and holy as He is, and sinful, degraded, and lost, as we are, He in Christ by His Holy Spirit will willingly dwell with us and in us, to save us, to purify us, and to make us holy" (A. T. Jones, The Consecrated Way, p. 45, Glad Tidings Pub ed.). He met sin head-on in the lair in which it had taken up residence, by taking "our" "old man"--the love of self. He outlawed it there. He crucified the "old man" consigning it to eternal death.

Both Apostles Peter and Paul are concerned with our "flesh" which we all have by natural birth, and "the mind" of Christ which we have to acquire. The latter is to rule over the former. "The mind of Christ" is far and away the stronger; the lusts and passions and depravity and selfishness that "the flesh" would impose on us are more than cancelled by a "new mind" that we are willing to receive--the process is that simple.

The good news of the 1888 message has alerted us to this. Peter says "arm yourselves" with that "mind" (1 Peter 4:1). Paul says, "let [purpose] this mind" come in when it knocks at your door. It's as though God stands by you like a valet holding this "armor" for you to put on like a policeman "arms" himself with a bullet-proof vest.

Millions around the world have been studying about the special garments which our Heavenly Valet gives us to wear,--"the mind of Christ,"--His character of self-denial. This is the greatest joy you can have to be totally at-one with Him.
--Paul E. Penno
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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. 

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Notes From Clothed in Christ by Pastor Paul Penno

Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic

Garments of Grace: Clothing Imagery in the Bible
Lesson 13: “Clothed in Christ”

Couples in love buy clothes for each other. They like to see their companion in garments that are appealing and attractive, yet do not suppress the personality. Jesus loves His chosen ones. He purchased beautiful garments for us to wear, and yet they do not make each one look militaristically uniform. He wants to see us clothed in His righteousness.

Clothing imagery is of profound consequence in Paul’s writings. The imagery relates to the entire Christian life, as it speaks of a baptismal change in his identity, an ethical change in his practical life, and the resurrection transfiguration of his mode of existence. The meaning of “putting on Christ” surely points to adoption of His mind, character, and conduct.

It is at baptism that we are completely identified with Christ. “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). It is often said of one who has been converted, “He is so changed you would not know him; he is not the same man.”

By faith the heart or the mind is converted, but “the old man”, the love of self, is never converted (Eph. 4:22). It is well to remember this. The love of self is the source of all our addictions to sinful habits: anger, gambling, cigarettes, alcoholism, gluttony; you name it. The “captives” are legion, and most are content to die in their compulsive idolatry. Also, the love of self is the source of our legalistic attempts to save ourselves motivated by the fear of hell and the hope of reward. Satan invented the love of self. It is paganism.

The good news is that it’s easy to be saved and hard to be lost when Christ’s self-denying love constrains your heart. By faith you choose God’s gift of deepening repentance and closer fellowship with Christ, which involves the crucifixion of “the old man” of self-love with the Lamb.

“... Ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:24). The clothing-with-the-new-man metaphor signifies the believer’s restoration from the love of self which we are all born with as an inheritance from Adam, to the rebirth produced by a new motivation: the love of Christ constraineth us—the essence of which is righteousness and holiness.

But why does the author of Ephesians describe this thought by means of the metaphor of changing garments? There is a decisive aspect in changing clothes. Changing garments points to parting from the old clothes and being united with the new, so “the old man” nature is replaced in a rapid way with the new Christ-like nature. Further, Paul portrays a garment as always being at one with its wearer.

Christ’s righteousness is likened to “the armour of light” (Rom. 13:12). Government issue for Roman soldiers consisted of a helmet and breastplate. Before putting them on each day they were cleansed and burnished so that they glistened as light. You might on any part of the armour of the Roman soldier have seen some mark or stamp of the Roman authority and ownership.

We are likewise admonished to “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:14). Put on the “new man”. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ daily. Put Him on as a robe of righteousness (Isa. 61:10). Put Him on in your practical walk and conversation, as the whole habit of your life. There is a continual solicitation to sin both from without as well as corruption from within. There is a crowd with us, saying, “Come with us, enjoy yourselves with us,” and there is a crowd of sins within ready to lend an ear, and to go.

So the believer should say, “Let me yield my tongue to God. Let me yield my eyes to God. Let me pray.”

Put on the new man means a change of mind. But can we shake ourselves by our shoulders and just do it—reconcile ourselves to Him? It means a change of mind (Greek, metanoia) which actually is repentance. Now wait a moment: do we have a self-start button to press for “repenting ourselves”? Acts 5:31 says it’s a “gift” from our “Prince and Saviour.” A “gift” is not what you work for.

What is the real meaning of the cross? The heart-warming truth is that God has “declared” the whole world adopted in Christ. God “predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus” (Eph. 1:5). Christ removed the guilt of sin from everyone of us so that we stand as it were neutral before the Father. “He restored the whole race of men to favor with God” (1SM 343). He justified us. “In Christ” “all men” have received a “judicial . . . verdict of acquittal” (Rom. 5:15-18, NEB).

This is not some “cold and legal” dry theory. It means that God loves each soul so much that He imputes to us the full benefits of His righteousness so that we now stand before the Father with “the mind of Christ” (Phil. 2:5). This is God’s love that generates the new birth experience. God’s justifying love if it is not resisted will produce a genuine heart-reconciling response. “The sinner may resist this love, may refuse to be drawn to Christ; but if he does not resist he will be drawn to Jesus” (SC 37). This is genuine faith.

Christ’s amazing righteousness is far more than mere holiness. The unfallen angels are never referred to as righteous, but holy. Righteousness is holiness that has met the fiery test of temptation and overcome. Christ is the only righteous One. His self-emptying love purchased His garment of righteousness. “The true faith—the faith of Jesus—is that, far off from God as we are in our sinfulness, in our human nature which He took, He has come to us just where we are; that, infinitely pure and holy as He is, and sinful, degraded, and lost as we are, He in Christ by His Holy Spirit will willingly dwell with us and in us to save us, to purify us, and to make us holy” (A. T. Jones, The Consecrated Way, p. 39.) He met sin head-on in the lair which it had taken up residence, by taking “our” “old man”—the love of self. He outlawed it there. He crucified the “old man” consigning it to eternal death.

Both Apostles Peter and Paul are concerned with our “flesh” which we all have by natural birth, and “the mind” of Christ which we have to acquire. The latter is to rule over the former. “The mind of Christ” is far and away the stronger; the lusts and passions and depravity and selfishness that “the flesh” would impose on us are more than cancelled by a “new mind” that we are willing to receive—the process is that simple.

The good news of the 1888 message has alerted us to this. Peter says “arm yourselves” with that “mind” (1 Pet. 4:1). Paul says, “let [purpose] this mind” come in when it knocks at your door. It’s as though God stands by you like a valet holding this “armor” for you to put on like a policeman “arms” himself with a bullet-proof vest.

Millions around the world have been studying about the special garments which our Heavenly Valet gives us to wear,—“the mind of Christ,”—His character of self-denial. This is the greatest joy you can have to be totally at-one with Him.
—Paul E. Penno

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Friday, June 17, 2011

More Clothing Imagery (Notes) by Pastor Paul Penno

MORE CLOTHING IMAGERY
Every other person who will someday walk through the Pearly Gates will do so as “in Him.” In a purely legal sense, the entire human race is “in Him,” but no one could be happy entering heaven in that purely legal sense, for he would be miserable there, feeling totally out of place. He would run for the nearest exit. It’s in an experiential sense that we can want to be “in Christ.” Only then could we be happy there. But how does one experience this “oneness” “in Christ”? Jesus tells us, “Abide in Me . . .” (Jn. 15:4). He put us “in Himself” by virtue of His identity with us, His sacrifice. Now stay where I put you, He says. I put you in the Father’s hand, He says, and “no man is able to pluck [you] out of My Father’s hand” (Jn. 10:29). But be warned: the Calvinist idea of “once saved always saved” is a distortion of the truth. “No man” can pluck you out of that Hand, but you can jump out on your own! “Esau” enjoys the possession of a priceless “birthright,” but at any time he can sell it for “a mess of pottage.” You identify with Christ by entering in to His experiences all the way through His life, even up to His cross. And in that final point of identity your soul is welded to His soul as by a white hot flame of shared experience. “I am crucified with Christ,” says Paul; and “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ” (Gal. 2:20; 6:14). Christ’s point of self-humiliation becomes yours. You kneel with Him in Gethsemane; you join His prayer, “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt”; you yield your arms to be nailed to the bars “with Him”; you endure the taunts and abuse of the leaders and the people “in Him”; you cry tears with Him, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” You are no longer a thoughtless child, for you are sentient now, you taste the bitter cup He drank “with Him.” On His cross, He died the death of the sinner; He died as an AIDS victim, a cancer victim; He is on Death Row; “as He hangs on the cross, bleeding, battered, powerless and forsaken, the last thing He looks like is God. Indeed, He scarcely looks human. He looks like nothing but a hell-bound, hell-deserving derelict,” says one thoughtful writer. He is “made to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). You join the royal family by identifying with Him there.
Thus Jesus defined it as the clearest demonstration of what the word faith means: “Go in peace,” He said; “thy faith hath saved thee” (vs. 50). Thus Jesus nailed down for all time to come a clear definition of faith: it is a heart-appreciation of what He has done for us in saving us from hell itself. When faith is so understood, it can do nothing else than “work” (Gal. 5:6).
Many are indifferent either to the suffering in the world or the suffering in the heart of God. If it is difficult for us to grasp that kind of identity with Him, that would indicate that we are immature, childish, the little flower girl at the wedding rather than the mature person the Bride is to become (see Rev. 19:6-9). In order to learn to identify with Christ, begin identifying with Him as He hangs on His cross. Read about it in Psalm 22 and Psalm 69. To read those two chapters with even a beginning of understanding stretches your spiritual muscles. Then “graduate” to identify with Christ in His high priestly ministry today in the Most Holy Apartment; sense His concern for the multitudes of people on this planet and His yearning for His church to cooperate with Him in ministry for them. Sense His disappointment; enter in to His message in Revelation 3:14-21, not to criticize His church, but to sense how He feels. When you finish a thoughtful study of the Book of Revelation, you will cry out with John, “Even so, come Lord Jesus!” (22:20). Instead of praying self-centered prayers, you will begin praying prayers for Christ to receive His reward.
It’s useless talking about following Christ unless we too, in principle, take up that same cross on which self is “crucified with Him” (Lk. 9:23; Rom. 6:6). (4) For self to be “crucified with Christ” appears terribly difficult for us, unless we understand how His “yoke is easy, and [His] burden is light,” as He says (Mt. 11:30). The answer: we identify with Christ; He is our new “Adam,” the new Head of our human race; not by works of obedience but by faith we “comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the agape of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that [we] might be filled with all the fullness of God,” that is, prepare for translation at His second coming (Eph. 3:18, 19). (5) Faith therefore is re-defined as “heart-work,” to borrow someone else’s definition, a heart appreciation of what it cost the Son of God to save us. The true definition of “faith” therefore is what Mary Magdalene experienced when the Lord cast seven devils out of her and she washed His feet with tears. He said to her: “Go in peace,” “thy faith hath saved thee” (Lk. 7:50). In other words, “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,” not with the cold, calculating head only that figures that 2+2=4 (Rom. 10:10). “We love, because He first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19).
The Saviour knew of this woman far in advance of their encounter in the midst of the throng. He made Himself available to her if not overtly, yet coming within her vicinity. “He came near where she was” (DA 343). She felt this was her opportune moment to connect with the “Great Physician”.
Mark 5:25 “And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years.”
5:26 “And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.”
The “good news” about Jesus had reached her ears and she had listened attentively. Earlier “she came to the seaside where He was teaching” (DA 347).
5:27 “When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched His garment.” She knew Him to be the Saviour of the world, but she wanted to make a personal connection with Him in a way that only the present circumstances would permit.
5:28 “For she said, If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole.” For her to touch His clothes was an act of identifying with Christ. It was not some sort of superstitious connection with garments that magically healed her. For her this touch meant a heart-union with the Saviour that would effect wholeness not only physically, but mentally and spiritually. Her life was draining away. She was staring death in the face. Her state of mind was depressed. Indeed, she was motivated out of personal need, but her restoration to wholeness could only be effected through identification with Christ.
5:29 “And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.” Instantaneously the hemorraghe ceased. The slow inexorable march of death had been staunched—stopped in its tracks. Death had been reversed by the Saviour’s life-giving virtue.
5:30 “And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that virtue had gone out of Him, turned Him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?”
5:31 “And His disciples said unto Him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?”
“A nominal faith in Christ, which accepts Him merely as the Saviour of the world, can never bring healing to the soul. The faith that is unto salvation is not a mere intellectual assent to the truth” (DA 347). All the people around Jesus wanted to be associated with Him. They believed Him to be “the Saviour of the world”. They wanted a personal assurance of salvation. Indeed, they did have a one-sided connection with the Vine. They were receiving their temporal life-blood or sap, if you please, as branches, from Him. All the blessings of life such as food, air, water, health, filial relations, community, security came to them as a very effective gift from Christ. However, there was no grateful acknowledgment on their part, nor any recognition whatsoever, that He was their Benefactor. Such is “a nominal faith in Christ”. “It is not enough to believe about Christ; we must believe in Him.”
5:32 “And He looked round about to see her that had done this thing.”
5:33 “But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truth.”
Her faith was no craven fear motivated by a self-centered insecurity. Genuine faith does manifest a healthy “fear” which is motivated by agape. It was gratitude arising from a diseased and rebellious heart that had now been fully reconciled to the Saviour. Her personal humiliation of a blood-flow was no longer concealed. There was “no guile” on her lips. She spoke the truth about her own case. Her confession of the truth regarding her own case was in agreement with God’s assessment. She manifested true repentance and a changed life. “Saving faith is a transaction by which those who receive Christ join themselves in covenant relation with God. Genuine faith is life. A living faith means an increase of vigor, a confiding trust, by which the soul becomes a conquering power” (DA 347).
5:34 “And He said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.”
He said to Mary: “Go in peace,” “thy faith hath saved thee” (Lk. 7:50). In other words, “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,” not with the cold, calculating head only that figures that 2+2=4 (Rom. 10:10). “We love, because He first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19). When Jesus said to the woman, “Go in peace” He removed her sins and restored her alienated heart to God which alone brings the peace. This is what is meant by his words to Mary, “And He said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven” (Luke 4:48). Anyone who true recognizes his sins are forgiven knows that peace with God has come. Hostilities have ceased. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:10).
John 13:3 “Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God;”
13:4 “He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a towel, and girded Himself.”
The custom of the East is for a servant who performs this function is to lay aside all his garments which are above his tunic, or body-coat. He lays aside all his looser robes which might impede his ease or freedom, in order to serve the disciples. The common people of the East wear a loose shirt, large trowsers, long jacket, and a girdle round the loins. Others add a waistcoat and a flowing robe, under the girdle. Over all is a losse mantle (the coat of Scripture) with short but wide sleeves, and open in the front, though capable of being wrapped round with the arms in cold weather. It is very inconvenient to work in the wide under garment, and hence the peasants and servants do not adopt it. But in taking it off, the girdle must be first removed. Our Saviour then girded himself with a towel, and after washing his disciples’ feet, took off the towel and wiped them with it. He girded Himself with the towel. We know from the classical writers that the servant whose duty it was to attend to the washings of his master or his master’s guests, girded himself with a long piece of linen cloth, the end or both ends of which being left hanging loose, supplied the towel with which being left hanging loose, supplied the towel with which the hands were wiped after being washed. The towel around the waist was a proper and essential part of the equipment of the servant who discharged this office.
13:5 “After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded.”
Feet-washing is a social custom we never do today. But it was common in ancient times. The people wore sandals, or went barefoot. Feet got dusty, muddy, How could you enjoy a cup of tea in the house of your host or eat at his table if your feet were uncomfortable? So he had a slave ready to wash them for you. Always it was an inferior who washed the feet of a superior. Never the other way around! Careful search reveals that there is absolutely no record in all the literature of antiquity where any superior washed the feet of an inferior, until we come to the story in John 13 where Jesus laid aside all His clothes except His underwear and washed the feet of His disciples. And He was the Son of God!
When Peter refused, He told him, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me” (vs. 8). That’s backwards from what we think is appropriate for Him to say! He did not say, “Unless you wash My feet or the feet of others, you have no part with Me.” No; unless you let me, your Superior, wash your feet, you the inferior, you have no fellowship or identity with Me. That has always puzzled me. Why must we let Jesus wash our feet? And what does it do to us when we let Him do it? He said to the disciples that now that they had let Him wash their feet, “ye are clean,” that is, all but Judas.
What was it about His washing their feet that made them “clean”? I’m way over my head in trying to reason this out, but I have an idea: your heart is humbled when the Son of God lowers Himself to the plane of a slave and performs the most menial task for you. Gives you a bed-pan when you’re sick; you can never be the same afterwards, unless you steel your heart like Judas did against the overwhelming sense of wonder and humiliation that floods your selfish human heart. In a few hours the disciples were to watch transfixed as He hung naked on a cross. Please take a good long look, and let the miracle happen.
Matt. 27:27 “Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers.” 
27:28 “And they stripped Him, and put on Him a scarlet robe.”
Public abuse of prisoners, even adorning one as a king and beating him, occurred on other occasions. Games of mockery included the game of king. The “scarlet” robe is undoubtedly a faded red soldier’s cloak, which Mark (15:17) and John (19:2) apparently independently describe as “purple,” reflecting the color of garments worn by Hellenistic princes, hence the soldiers’ mockery. The soldiers provided Jesus with this “purple”, a scepter (probably from a bamboo cane used for military floggings), and a crown of thorns (probably woven from the branches of an available shrub like acanthus). The crown recalls the garlands worn by Hellenistic vassal princes, since only the highest ruler wore a diadem with white wool. The long thorns may thus have turned outward to imitate contemporary crowns rather than inward to draw blood, and the soldiers probably removed it along with the other mocking regalia before leading him to crucifixion.  The reed provides “a mock staff or scepter”.
27:29 “And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head, and a reed in His right hand: and they bowed the knee before Him, and mocked Him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!”
Good News doesn’t tell you what to do in order to be happy; it tells you what to believe your Savior has already done, that makes you happy. And what has He done? He has saved you from hell itself. And what is hell? Oh yes, it’s terrible fire in the last day; but there’s also a hell on earth. Revelation 16:15 gives a glimpse of it: “Blessed [happy] is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.” Do you want some hell right here and now? Let the natural you that you are, with all your natural-born lust and selfishness, be exposed publicly so that your reputation for honesty, decency and fidelity is “shattered,” so that even your family, friends, supporters, work-mates, feel betrayed. And no, you can’t mercifully go to sleep or chase off to some desert island alone—you have to stand naked before the world and endure the excruciating shame.
The Good News? Your Savior has saved you from having to endure that. Why do I say this? (1) Honestly, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10). The real test of our character is how could we handle alluring temptation if we were fully exposed to it without a Savior. The little shrub in the calm valley shouldn't snicker when the giant oak on the mountain top goes down in the crushing fury of an awful storm; he should say thankfully, “There but for the grace of God go I.” (2) The “garments” that cover your natural nakedness of soul are not your righteousness, but Christ’s righteousness imputed and imparted to you as a gift given solely by grace and received solely by faith (Rev 19:8). (3) Isaiah 54:17 tells us that we have no righteousness of our own: “their righteousness is of Me, saith the Lord.” (4) If you receive the gift of Christ’s righteousness by faith, that means that your natural sinful heart is melted by a realization of the love that has saved you, the love that led the Son of God to endure the hell that would have been yours. Not only was He “made to be a curse” for you when He died on His cross; He was exposed there naked, so that today you might be “clothed.” Reason enough to sing Hallelujah! And be humble from now on.