Series: Finding Jesus in the Old Testament #1
Jesus is God – the Angel of the LORD
John begins his unique gospel with the monumental statement, “No one has seen God at any time” (John 1:18). Later, in John’s first epistle, he repeats verbatim, “No one has seen God at any time” (1 John 4;12).
The book of Revelation, a book filled with figures and imagery, was written by the apostle John to the seven churches of Asia (1:4). These early Christians saw the things in the book play out in their time, as evidenced by the fulfillment timestamps found in the book itself (1:1, 3; 22:6, 10). By no means was everything in the book fulfilled in the first and second centuries AD (ie. final judgment, casting of Satan & his hosts into hell; glorification of God’s people in heaven), but in our approach to the book we cannot ignore the original recipients or the timestamps provided.
JOHN HAINS (1958-2022)
In 2 Samuel 1, David wrote “the Song of the Bow,” a lamentation for Saul and his son Jonathan who died in battle against the Philistines. David mourned the loss of these two great heroes of Israel. Saul and Jonathan were very different men, one a valiant and powerful king, yet unfaithful to the Lord; the other, David’s best friend, a kindred spirit, and most importantly, a faithful man of God. David eulogized these two important figures with the phrase, “How the mighty have fallen” (2 Samuel 1:19, 25, 27).
The author of the book of Jude identifies himself as “…a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James…” (1:1). Mentioning James in this way infers that he was widely known to the brethren. There are four men named James in the New Testament, but only one James whom we know had a brother named Judas (a.k.a. Jude). Jesus’ brother James was a prominent man in the church at Jerusalem (Acts 12:17; 16:13; 21:18; 1 Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19; 2:9, 12). Jude is likely the Lord’s brother, though it seems perhaps our of humility, he identified himself as the brother of James and the Lord’s bondservant.
These three epistles are all associated with the apostle John, brother of James, and son of Zebedee, who was in Jesus’ inner circle of friends. Though he is not named specifically in the books, the internal evidence logically leads to John being the writer.
Prior to being a disciple of Christ, Peter was a fisherman working on the Sea of Galilee working with James and John, the sons of Zebedee (Luke 5:10). Peter and his brother were originally form Bethsaida (John 1:44), but they eventually moved to Capernaum along with Peter’s wife and mother-in-law (Luke 4:31, 38).
James identifies himself as “a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (James 1:1). There are three men named James in the New Testament:
As per the name, the book of Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians. In his commentary, Robert Milligan summarized the purpose of the book in this way:
While Paul was in prison in Rome, he wrote three letters to churches (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians) and one personal letter to a beloved friend – Philemon (Philemon 1:1). There are several commendable things about Philemon.
Titus was a young Greek man (Galatians 2:3) whom Paul called “a true son in our common faith” (Titus 1:4). This description would indicate Paul had brought Titus to the Lord (1 Corinthians 4:15). We do not know where or when Paul met him, but after Paul’s first missionary trip had ended, Titus was among those who went with Paul to Jerusalem (Galatians 2:1-2; Acts 15) to confront the Judaizing teachers who falsely taught the Gentiles must be circumcised to be saved. With Paul’s support, he did not yield to the pressure of the false teachers (Galatians 2:3-5).
