John 19:16b-27 "THE KING ON THE CROSS"

 

We now come to the last part [Chapters 19- 21] of John’s Gospel. 

The hour has come (see Jesus’ high-priestly prayer in John 17:1[1]). 

This is what Jesus was born for and for this truth Jesus came into the world (John 18:37). His 33 odd years of life now come to a climax. “For this purpose I have come to this hour…” (John 12:27) Here we find the grand purpose of Jesus’ earthly life. It is here that we find the heart of the gospel – the sum and substance of the Christian faith. Here we find all our hope. Here we find the solution to man’s greatest problem, ever since the fall in Genesis 3. Here we find the King on the Cross.

The apostle Paul writing to the Corinthian church, says that these events, the crucifixion, the death and burial, the resurrection are matters of first importance.

“3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day pin accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 

Today we shall consider the first -the crucifixion 

OUTLINE

(i)                  Vv. 17- 22 The King is enthroned on the cross. Jesus is lifted up

(ii)                Vv. 23  - 24  The King is  dis-robed.

(iii)               Vv. 25- 27 The King’s care for His own.

 (i)       Vv. 17- 22 The King is enthroned on the cross. Jesus is lifted up

16. He (Pilate) delivered him over to be crucified. So they took Jesus, 17 and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.

Jesus is delivered over (handed over) to be crucified by the Roman soldiers. The grand truth here is that those that handed Jesus over are in reality handed over by God (see Acts 2:23). They are doing what they want to do, but only because God allows them to do it. We shall see this when we come to verse 24.

John doesn’t repeat all of the details that you have in the other Gospel accounts. He says nothing about Simon of Cyrene[2], who, at some point carried the cross because Jesus had become simply too weak from the pain and loss of blood. The explanation for this lies in John’s focus.  His focus is now entirely on the King and His work of the cross.

18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. 

Again, John bypasses the dialogue[3] between the two other men (robbers) crucified with Jesus.  His focus is on the inscription:  

19Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” 20 Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. 21 So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” 22 Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

The Jews were offended by this inscription. They had  opposed Jesus  claims to divinity[4], His claims to be the Son of God,  and  his claims  to possess a kingdom  not of this world (John 18:36-37). But since this in itself provided no proof of guilt in the Roman system they framed the charge in terms of  Christ being a king[5], in opposition to the Roman Caesar.  Pilate knew their hypocrisy (see 19:15,16 – “We have no king but Caesar”),  and so, to  irk the Jews  he  had  the charge, written in the   Aramaic (language of common use in Judea), and in Latin (the language of the Romans) and in  Greek (the Lingua Franca or street language of the Roman empire).  The Jews wanted to change the inscription, “This man claims to be the king of the Jews”, but Pilate obstinately refuses to oblige and says, “What I have written I have written.” 

And so the inscription bears the truth. The one on the cross is the King of the Jews. He is the long awaited Messiah and Deliverer of the OT, but in so many ways  He is profounder than  Jew and  Roman were  able to understand. 

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life….”  (see John 3:16-21). Here on the cross, Jesus is lifted up (see John 12:32). Here is the beginning of the exaltation and the enthronement of Jesus the King! The King who is the Lamb and the Good Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep (John 10). He frees them from bondage  and makes them subjects of His kingdom. Look to Him!

(ii)        Vv. 23 - 24 The King’s is dis-robed.

23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, 24 so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.”This was to fulfil the Scripture which says, “They divided my garments among them,  and for my clothing they cast lots. ”So the soldiers did these things.”

Now we read of the division of Jesus’ clothes as He is left to die a slow agonizing death on the cross. Prof. F.F Bruce   says that the clothes of an executed man were legally made over to the executioners[6]. His outer garment/cloak (the himation), they divided into 4 parts, along the seams (4 soldiers crucified him). His inner garment/ tunic (the chiton) was seamless.  Such a garment was difficult to divide, and instead of tearing it up, they cast lots among themselves to see who would get it.  Now please see this. At the beginning of Jesus’ trial they robed him mockingly in a purple robe, with a crown of thorns (John 19:2), but now they disrobe him.  Now do you remember in John 13, in the upper room, when the disciples were arguing as to who would be the greatest? Jesus disrobed  Himself. He took a towel and wrapped it around His waist, and He washed the disciples’ feet as a symbol of what He was going to do on the cross. Well here we are! John sees here the fulfilment of Scripture with reference to Psalm 22:18[7] - a Messianic Psalm, which begins with the cry of forsakenness from the cross[8].  In fact, we observe that the closer  John gets to the cross,  the more  ‘that the Scripture might be fulfilled’  passages he inserts[9]. 

All is foreknown by God. Nothing catches Him off guard.  The humiliation of His Son, the cross is all part of God’s plan for our salvation. Jesus, on the cross, is disrobed and exposed for the purpose of our redemption- that we may be clothed in His righteousness.  Chris Anderson  has written a hymn that  illustrates  this truth,

“His robes for mine: O wonderful  exchange! 

Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered ‘neath God’s rage. 

Draped in His righteousness, I’m justified. I Christ I live, for in my place He died.”   

And as for  the  Jews and their priests and Judas  and  Pilate and the soldiers we must ask – what  does all the dress  and cloth matter in the world  if  they and we are not dressed in the righteousness  of  Jesus  when we must appear before the  throne of the Judge of all the earth?  

(iii)  The King’s Care for His Own (19:25-27)

25… but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

This section forms a huge contrast to the previous scene of the executioners - the soldiers, who had to do the actual horrible job of killing Jesus.  The focus now shifts to those that deeply care for Jesus. They are gathered before the cross, and they are watching this horrible scene. In his excruciating pain Jesus does an extra-ordinary thing. He says to Mary, His own mother, “Behold your son!” And to John (the beloved disciple), the writer of this gospel, he says “Behold your mother.” He is now speaking to her and  John as the King. He has completed the work on earth, and now He must finish the work of the cross. He must die, be buried and rise again … and after that ascend back to the Father. He must finish the work which His Father has given Him to do (John 17:4). Things will change from now on.  He must leave behind that very personal relationship that He had with His mother. He must leave His mother behind in the care of others, and He commends her to John, His beloved and trustworthy disciple: “Behold your mother!”

You may remember Mark 3:31-35. There Jesus was told that His mother and brothers had come to see Him. He then took opportunity to explain the nature of true family ties and bonds. You will remember that Jesus answers the question, “Who are my mother and brothers”, by pointing to those sitting around Him on that occasion. He said, “whoever does the will of God… is my brother and sister and mother”.  And here is the great l truth. In and through the cross the King creates a new family - a new set of brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers. He creates the church – the forever family of God.

CONCLUSION

Dear people. We are living in days of great distress.  We have lost 1414 people in 28 days[10]. Much is said about medical solutions, and these will be a part of God’s answer. The greater truth is that our Creator is speaking to this sinful world. I don’t think that there is much said about this, because people do not like to connect God and pain.  

But every pestilence and plague in the Bible is ultimately sent from or permitted by God.  A great illustration is found in Numbers 21:4-9. The people grumbled for the umpteenth time against Moses and God. “And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people… so that many people of Israel died.” After the people had been thoroughly afflicted, they confessed their sin and asked Moses to pray that God might remove this plague. In response Moses made a   serpent and lifted it up on a pole. The promise was that everyone that looked to the serpent would live.

Jesus uses this picture when He speaks about being lifted up on the cross.  Let us lift our eyes to the King on the cross. It is to God that we must turn and forsake and confess our great sin which translates in all sorts of ways: stubbornness, pride, idol worship (replacing God with man- made things and solutions)…

God has spoken in His Word. He has told us what our sin accomplishes – eternal death and separation from God. And He has  spoken again. In His mercy and grace He has offered us a solution. In the cross, in the death and in the resurrection of Christ, God offers those that look to Him and trust Him   full pardon from sin  and eternal life. 

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[1] The hour has not yet come:  7:6,8,30 ; 8:20  ; The hour is coming 16:25,31; The hour has come : 12:23, 13:1; 17:1

[2] Matthew 27: 32;  Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26

[3] Matthew 27:44 ;Luke  23:39-43

[4]

[5] Luke 23:2

[6] FF Bruce : The Gospel of John, Eerdmans,p.369

[7] All 4 Gospels record the division of the clothes :  Matthew 27:35;  Mark 15:24; Luke 23:34; John 19:23,24

[8] Psalm  22:1   cf. Mark15:34 ; Matthew 27:46

[9][9]  John 17:12; 18:9,32; 19:24,28,36

[10] President’s speech , 30^th July 2021

Genesis 39 Joseph - Kept by God against many Odds

 

Joseph is the leading character of this last section of Genesis.   Last time we looked at  Genesis 38, which  was a  short digression and  an uncomfortable reflection on the  life of the 4^th born brother, Judah.   We are now back with Joseph, our leading  character.

OUTLINE

1.      39:1-6  Though a slave  now, God was with Joseph him  and gave him favour.

2.      39:7-19 Joseph’s temptation  and trial

3.      39:20-23  Joseph in prison: God’s favour and providence   yet again

                         

1.                  39:1-6  Though a slave  now, God was with Joseph him  and gave him favour.

In Chapter 37 we saw that Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery. They had actually planned to kill him, but he was rescued by  brothers Reuben (37:21)  and Judah (37:26,27)  and instead they  sold Joseph into slavery. We shall later learn that  this was all due to the hand of God. The brothers meant this for evil, but God was in the detail, and He overruled for their good (see Genesis 45:5).  Sold into slavery  Joseph  then was bought by Potiphar[1] an Egyptian officer (39:1). 

What is evident in this entire passage  is that God was with  Joseph   in this situation – see  39:2,3,5,21,23  Please note: God did not deliver  Joseph from slavery, but He proved Himself to be his God in this unpleasant ordeal of being a slave. Here is a truth that we do not  easily  appreciate, accept or understand.  We know that slavery is a moral evil, but the Bible does not  deal with the moral issue  of slavery. It focuses on the sufficient grace of God who is with His people  in  the midst of their ordeal. In the most unfavourable  circumstance, God  shows favour  and  gives  success. We see this too in the account of  Daniel and his three friends. They were essentially slaves of the Babylonians, but in the midst of this ordeal they found favour with God and men.

An interesting  commentary  on the plight of Joseph is found in  Psalm 105:16-22: 17… he had sent a man ahead of them,  Joseph, who was sold as a slave.18 His feet were hurt with fetters; his neck was put in a collar of iron; 19 until what he had said came to pass,  the word of the Lord tested him.20 The king sent and released him; the ruler of the peoples set him free; 21 he made him lord of his house   and ruler of all his possessions,22 to bind his princes at his pleasure  and to teach his elders wisdom.

Did Joseph suffer?  Yes. 

Did he experience pain? Yes. His feet were hurt… his neck was put in a collar of iron….  

But is the focus on pain and slavery? No! The emphasis is on the word of the Lord and His testing of Joseph.  The emphasis throughout is on the fact that the Lord was with him in this experience.  We have seen that at  least five  times  in Joseph's  unhappy experience here. The  God of his fathers, the God who is faithful to His covenant promises  is with him, just as God was with the three friends of  Daniel in the  heat of the furnace.  He was the 4^th man present  in the fire (Daniel 3:8-30). 

In the same way He was with Daniel in the den of very hungry lions (Daniel 6). 

He was with his people in their desert wanderings (Exodus). 

He was with Jonah in the belly of a whale.  

He was  with Paul and Silas in their Philippian  prison experience (Acts 16:16-40). 

He was with Paul in his many shipwrecks, beating and stonings (2 Corinthians 11:23-12:10). 

But He was not  so with Jesus as He hung on the cross. There He was forsaken for our sake. God allowed Him to suffer my sin and your sin, unaided by divine grace. He bore the full wrath of God. 

Back to Joseph.  God keeps His people in the midst of  their strong trials and testing.  Now there is  something worth thinking about in this. We have already seen that Potiphar’s name means 'he whom Ra (the Egyptian sun god)  has given'. Joseph was not given into the hands of him whom Ra has given. Joseph was not at the mercy of the sun god of the Egyptians. He was in the hands of the one true God! And it was this God that was with him. It was He that caused Joseph to succeed. It was because of Joseph’s God that the Egyptian Potiphar  was blessed and prospered, and therefore he trusted  Joseph exceedingly.

39:7-19 Joseph’s temptation and trial

Just when we think, “well there is Joseph’s lucky break”,  there appears another strong trial for Joseph. This section begins with these words, “Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time the master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph…” (39:6,7). It is at this point that Joseph distinguishes himself from  his brothers Reuben (see Gen. 35:22)  and Judah (Genesis 38). Both men   proved to be men of loose sexual morals – men who did not fear God.

Joseph’s response to Mrs Potiphar’s advances is found in 39:8,9. Firstly, in 39:8 he tells her, “I can’t do this. Your husband trusts me.  He has given freedom in his house”, and by implication he is saying to her, “I don’t want to disappoint my master by abusing that one thing which is forbidden – to touch you, his wife” (39:9). He says, “how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?“ Joseph knows that this is sexual immorality. He knows, that by doing this,  he would primarily sin against God. Later in the law given through Moses this  would be made  more explicit:  “You shall not commit adultery” (Ex.20:14) and  “you shall not covet  your neighbour’s  wife”…  (Ex. 20:17). This law was already written on the tablets of Joseph’s heart before Moses, under God  gave this law to the Israelites. When David sinned with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11), his confession ultimately steers in this direction, when he confesses to  the Lord, “Against you, you only, have I sinned  and done what is evil in your sight”  (Psalm 51:4).

Let this sink  into our thick skulls: All sin is primarily  an act of defiance against God !  We see here very clearly that, that which motivates Joseph, is the fear of the Lord.

In 39:10  we learn that this  became a daily battle for Joseph, and he has our admiration, as day after day he resists  this temptation. But, the  moment  comes  in 39:11 when she  corners him  alone, and  Joseph did what he had to do in such a situation. He fled!  This  is what  the apostle  Paul  speaks about  in  2 Timothy 2:22  when he tells Timothy to flee youthful passions.

Obeying God  here  carries a heavy  cost  for Joseph.  There is a saying, “hell has no fury like a woman scorned”. This is a shortening of William Congreve's[2] famous saying  in his work,  “The Mourning Bride” (1697), "Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn'd".

The truth about such  passionate desires as this woman had for Joseph  is that  they   very quickly turn to hate  when scorned. We have seen this before in the case of the rape of Tamar by Amnon in  2 Samuel 13. Following  his  rape of her  we read, “then Amnon  hated her with very great hatred…”. And  so it is that  she  turns on  Joseph with a viciousness  that leaves him utterly vulnerable. There are no witnesses, and she has the proof of the shirt  that she ripped off his body when he fled.  Things could not be worse for poor Joseph.  But, thankfully,  there is One that has seen. And  so Joseph  landed in prison. nd God was there  with him.

3.         39:20-23  Joseph’s prison experience:  God’s favour  yet again

We have noted the  doctrine of  God’s providence  in Joseph’s turbulent  life.  From being his father's favourite, he became a  hated brother, and then a  slave, to successful servant,  and now  an  accused as a sex offender  and now  a prisoner. But once again, in 39: 21  we are assured  that  the LORD (Covenant Name)  who sees  the truth was with him.  He is with him in that he does not receive the death sentence, customary for servants /slaves in his position. And of course, God has him in that prison for a reason. It will be a while before that reason will become apparent.  That is always a very difficult dilemma. What is God doing? Well, with what we have learned already, we know  that  God is doing a work in Joseph. So, although he  was in the Refiners  fire ( like Daniel’s 3 friends), he was not going to be destroyed there. Quite on the contrary!  God was going to bless him there (see  39:21,23). What unusual providence!  

This reminds me of that great hymn by William Cowper (1731-1800).. . particularly verse 5

1.      God moves in a mysterious way  His wonders to perform: He plants His footsteps in the sea,  And rides upon the storm.

2.       Deep in unfathomable mines  Of never-failing skill,He treasures up His bright designs,  And works His sovereign will.

3.      Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;  The clouds ye so much dread; are big with mercy, and shall break  In blessings on your head.

4.      Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,  but trust Him for His grace; behind a frowning providence  He hides a smiling face.

5.      His purposes will ripen fast,  Unfolding every hour: The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower. 

6.       Blind unbelief is sure to err,   And scan His work in vain;God is His own Interpreter,   And He will make it plain.

Now, dear friend I do  not  know  about  your trials and temptations. But  from biblical teaching and personal experience I know, that God  works out all things  for the good of those  that love Him and are called to his purpose (Rom. 8:28ff).  In and through our trials He blesses  us  and  He moulds our character into greater  Christlikeness. Every believer needs to recognize that in God's providence, God has a purpose for His people – even  the  dark mysterious  providences.  I remind you again of Cowper's words :

“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,  But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence  He hides a smiling face."

The way you respond in the context of God's dark providences is an opportunity for you to bring glory to God. Every time you face a crisis,  and whenyou bear up under it  and demonstrate real  faith in God, you are a great encouragement to the rest of us. 

The unfolding story makes it  clear that  God’s unseen hand brought Joseph  to Egypt  for the task of preserving His people. All this was for the good. But we will have to leave that  thought for the chapters to come.

May God enable you to believe that  all that happens to you is a part of His goodness.

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[1] Lit. 'he whom Ra has given'

[2] William Congreve (24 January 1670 – 19 January 1729) was an English playwright and poet of the Restoration period. He is known for his clever, satirical dialogue and influence on the comedy of manners style of that period ( ource : Wikipedia)

Genesis 38 "Judah's Destructive Love for Canaanite Women and Culture - and the Grace of God"

   From Genesis 37 until  50 the book deals and concludes with the story of Joseph. The story of Joseph tells us how Jacob- Israel ended up in Egypt. Ultimately this was in fulfilment of God's word to  Abraham in Genesis 15:13ff where God said to Abraham:  “know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years.”  The story of Joseph also tells us how the promises of God in Genesis 12:1ff would be fulfilled. There God had promised Abram that he would become a great nation. In the days of Joseph Israel had indeed become a big nation.

Although Joseph occupies the centre stage in the closing chapters, there will be a brief digression in Chapter 38. Here we will consider what Judah, the 4^th born son of Jacob, and brother of the 11^th born Joseph was up to. This chapter does not make nice reading, and if it were up to me I might have been tempted to circumvent it. But we cannot do that. This too is God’s Word, and it forms part of the whole, and God will bless this reading and meditation to our heart.

This chapter is very important in determining the succession of the line of Judah, and we shall see in conclusion that the  line of Judah eventually is going to pass through Perez instead of Zerah. Perez will be one of the forefathers  of  our Lord  Jesus. And that is going to be important for God's redemptive plan in the long run.

OUTLINE

(i)                 38:1-11: Judah’s Canaanite wife and the crisis arising in the line of Judah.

(ii)               38:12-26: Tamar’s plan to get her rights as wife and widow of Judah’s firstborn.   

(iii)             38:27-30: Tamar gives birth to twins – and again we see the second son taking  primacy  in the line of Judah.

(i)         38:1-11: Judah’s Canaanite wife and the crisis arising in the line of Judah.

The chapter begins with these words, “it happened at that time…”, with reference to chapter 37, when Joseph, hated by his brothers   was sold to an  Egyptian.  At that time  his older brother Judah “went down  from his brothers and turned aside to a certain  Adullamite”. He went from his father’s home in Hebron (37:14) which is one of the highest points in southern  Canaan down to  the  foothills northwest of Hebron (37:14) to Adulam[1]. He went down in more ways than one.  He left his covenant community and fraternised with a Canaanite family. He fell in love with a Canaanite girl- the daughter of Shua (38:2). This story is somewhat similar to the story of Esau (26:34,35) who deliberately went to look for a  wife  from among the Hittites, much to his parents  dismay. The same thing also happens to Samson, who deliberately goes after a Canaanite wife (Judges 14:1-3), and incidentally from the same place – Timnah.

We read that  this woman (only known as the daughter of Shua) bears Judah three sons. Er (v.3), Onan (v.4), and Shelah (v.5). The story moves very quickly. In v.6 Er, the oldest son grows up and his father finds him a wife called Tamar (contrary to his own example). We are told that Er was wicked in the sight of God and God put him to death (v.7). This left Tamar as a widow and childless. Things could not be worse for a woman in her day. Judah then commands his second son Onan, to fulfil the duties of a husband to her in what is called a levirate marriage. The term comes from the Latin ‘levir’, which means brother-in-law. Such marriages are also found in Deuteronomy 25:5-10 and in Ruth 4.  The idea behind this was that if a man died leaving his wife without a son to propagate his family line, then his brother had a responsibility to enable her to bear a son who would propagate the deceased brother’s family line. Onan doesn't want to do this and we are told in 38:8-9 that God put him to death also. 

Having lost two sons now, Judah’s third son, Shelah who is still very young, becomes the next possible option. But Judah is afraid that he too would die, and so he suggests that Tamar should move back to her father's home to wait. When Shelah is ready,  arrangements for marriage will be made.  But it doesn’t look good for Tamar.

2.38: 12-26 Tamar’s  Plan

Tamar’s father in law, Judah now  becomes a widower (38:12). After his time of mourning he and his old Canaanite friend Hirah the Adullamite visit his sheepshearers at Timnah. Tamar who obviously lives in the region  receives no indication that  she will receive  Shelah as husband. It seems as if  Judah conveniently forgets  her, and because of this he will get himself  into  a greater mess.  

But what is going on in Tamar’s mind? Apart from being a widow, and having no prospects of a family line, she knows that the answer would lie in having a baby from this family.   Moreover , since she was the wife of Judah’s firstborn she had the right to be the mother of the heir to Judah’s line! With this in mind she made a plan. It is a horrible plan, and we shall have to read this at face value. The purpose of this account is not to make a moral judgement, but to report  as to what happened.  Having said that  we must  take note of the  difference of the sexual ethics of  a man like Judah and a woman like Tamar when compared with a man like Joseph,  our main character at the end of the book of Genesis. In fact, in   the next chapter (39), he refuses to fall for the advances of Potiphar’s wife. He flees, and we admire him for his fortitude.  We learn of the sexual ethics of Scripture  as we read  the Bible  in general.   

And so we read  that as Judah is on his way to Timnah during  sheep shearing time. All the time he is in the presence the Canaanites, a pagan people whose lives werethoroughly immoral. At the heart of their practises lay a fertility cult,  which was associated  with their  pagan temple cult.  In this  temple, (cult ESV)  prostitutes (38:21,22) were used  to   invoke the Canaanite  gods to cause one’s flocks and lands to be fruitful.  And so temple prostitutes were used in ritual fornication. The time of sheep shearing was such a time in which this kind of thing happened. Tamar takes advantage of that moment, knowing that Judah is on his way  to sheep-shearing season.

As Judah makes his way up to Timnah, he finds this temple prostitute along the road, not knowing that this was his daughter in law.  And so Judah does a wicked thing in Israel. He again engages in a sexual act with a foreign woman. It tells us something about where Judah’s heart was rooted. He certainly did not fear God. He had no thoughts of keeping the terms of the covenant which God had made with his fathers. Judah has thoroughly compromised himself.

We need to make this a vital lesson to the Christian church. The church lives in the world, and the danger for the church is that she is easily attracted to it and absorbed into the culture of the world. I am saying this at a time when the Christian church has had much favour in our African context. The church has been a powerful voice in Africa. But in the midst of this favour, the church has been too much at peace with our world. The church has fed upon and absorbed the prevailing values of our world system, and many Christian preachers and church members  have intermarried with this system, especially when it comes to the sexual values of  the world and our nation.  Here are a few reflections:

1.      The matter of marrying in the Lord  is  disregarded  by many   young Christians.

2.      The matter of living together or having a number of sexual partners outside of the context of Christian marriage is increasingly accepted in  the church.

3.      Marriage is no longer a sacred bond. It is entered into and dissolved at will.  We do not see marriage as God sees it. The church has given into this spirit and does not fight to preserve marriages.

4.      The free availability of pornography on the internet and in every other movie  causes  our people to become less vigilant   about the dangers of  sex outside the boundaries  of marriage.

5.      An area of sexual deviation not addressed here in our passage is the increasing acceptance in the church  of homosexual practise (Sodomy), as found in Genesis 19.

Judah did not look for a wife that shared a God centred perspective on marriage.  Judah had no scruples when it came to engaging a prostitute.  His heart and his mind had become blunted because the soil of his heart was not carefully cultivated by cultivating the presence of God and keeping the Word of God.

Where you spend your time and affections does matter. It makes you who you are. If you share a lot of time with those who do not share your faith, you are going to find yourself where Judah found himself.  And coming from where he came from, namely the tribes of Israel, God’s own people, a people blessed with the presence and knowledge of God, we see the hypocritical behaviour which He now reflects. Upon hearing that Tamar was three months pregnant (38:24-26), he was ready to have her killed and burned. But Tamar had the trump card: “As she was being brought out, she sent out word to her father in law, ‘By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant’.” (38:25). Judah had to confess that she was more righteous than he (38:26). In fact, Tamar was in one sense more concerned to preserve the covenant line than Judah.  From his example and from David’s example with Bathsheba we are reminded that we can be very self- righteous, and in condemning other we often condemn ourselves. This is the   kind of judgement that Jesus refers to in Matthew 7:1, when he says, “Judge not, that you may not be judged.”

3. 38:27-30: Tamar gives birth to twins - and the  grace of God 

Tamar gave birth to twin sons.  A strange thing happens here. There is a struggle between Perez and Zerah, somewhat similar to the struggle that we have described in Genesis 25:22- 26 between the twins of Isaac and Rebekah- Jacob and Esau. As it stands, even though Zerah made first appearance – his hand showed, and then he drew it back (38:28), somehow Perez was born first. And so it is that Perez becomes the one to continue the line of Judah. 

In Matthew 1:3 (Luke 3:33) Tamar and Perez appear in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus. Perez who has Canaanite blood becomes a father to the Lord Jesus. Truly, God loves to turn that which is twisted and warped by us people to His own grand purposes.  

The entire Bible shows us that our human inclinations and character, unaided by the help and grace of God, lead us but one way – down, down, down.  Our human nature is intensely bent on hypocritical behaviour, even as believers, and that is why God must humble us, time and again. The closer we remain to God, the more we shall understand His holy nature and his abhorrence of sin, and the holier our inclinations will be. We can be more like Joseph than Judah

But at the end of the day, when we shall appear before Him, we shall confess: Not my righteousness  oh Lord, but yours. I am in heaven entirely on the merits of my Lord Jesus. Amen.  

 

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[1] Cf.  1 Samuel 22:1. David hid in a  cave at Adullam