December 19
“Thus the law for the presentation of the first-born was made particularly significant. While it was a memorial of the Lord's wonderful deliverance of the children of Israel, it prefigured a greater deliverance, to be wrought out by the only-begotten Son of God. As the blood sprinkled on the doorposts had saved the first-born of Israel, so the blood of Christ has power to save the world.”
Desire of Ages, page 51 from the chapter, 'The Dedication'
Can we note something special here?
There is a noticeable link between an Old Testament incident, the sprinkling of blood on the doorposts, and a New Testament teaching about the meaning of the blood of Christ. We come to understand the Old Testament because we take note of the New Testament teaching.
We don’t take the Old Testament and use that to interpret the New Testament.
There is another point to make. We are reading from an Ellen G. White book. We would claim her writings as prophetically inspired, a voice from God. We will then have to realise that if that is so, what is written has authority. Where does the authority come from? We would have to recognise that the authority comes from God.
How do we recognise that? A major sign of the source of the teaching is that we need to see that the Bible provides the heart of the message. In the above passage we recognise this by noticing two features. The thoughts in the passage are drawn from the Bible. We notice that the prophet is not focussing on the prophet but on God and God’s teaching. The heart of the message is – Jesus is the one who saves the world.
There is another key. The Bible is used sensibly by the prophet. When Ellen White gives us the explanation of what is happening in the symbolic picture of the first-born she uses the interpretative rule we are so familiar with. Not only does the Bible explain itself, the New Testament is used to explain the Old Testament.
So what? We are using prophetic writings to give us daily spiritual sustenance. Those writings need to be reliable lest we be misled. Thank God that we are able to read writings that give us spiritual guidance which we can see come from a reliable and testable source.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Housekeeping details for you
The point of this short blog will become clear if you decide to use this reading in the way we intend it. Netherfield Seventh-day Adventist Church believes in healthy churches. You can see what that means if you head to the relevant Healthy Churches page of the website. We also want other churches to be healthy. That means you can join in our campaign to create healthy churches, with healthy people serving the people in those churches.
A healthy church is one where Jesus comes first. A healthy church is one where the people work together to put Jesus first. One thing we are doing is to join people together to spread that news. I would like you to look at our prayer partners page. This will explain how we want you to use this short devotional. Very basically we want you to find a like-minded Christian friend who you will join with to : choose to pray together every day, decide together on a way to serve other people together, to help them grow as Christians - and to invite the Holy Spirit into your life every day. This blog that you will receive every day simply gives a common spiritual purpose. If you are a newcomer and want to join the blog with this object in mind click here
