JANUARY 1 READING FROM THE ONE
YEAR BIBLE
Genesis 1-2:25; Matthew 1-2:12;
Psalm 1:1-6; Proverbs 1:1-6
What a great way to start the New
Year! I want to encourage you to give sufficient time this year to read, study,
memorize and meditate upon God’s Word.
The Psalmist had the right attitude
towards reading the Scriptures:
Psalm 119:162 I rejoice at Your word, As one who finds great
spoil.
Psalm 119:18 Open my eyes, that I may behold Wonderful things from Your
law!
Psalm
119:11 Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin
against You.
Psalm
119:130 The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives
understanding to the simple.
Psalm
119:133 Establish my footsteps in Your word,
And do not let any iniquity have dominion over me.
As we read through the Bible together, let us read to
worship!
Worship the Living Word, Jesus
Christ as Creator, the Image of God, the perfect Adam, the God-man, the Bridegroom,
the Promised Seed of the Woman, the Promised Redeemer, the Lamb of God who
takes away the Sin of the World, the Greater Abel, the Greater Ark of Noah, the
Blessed Man, the Anointed Son, our Shield, Glory, Lifter of our Heads and
Salvation! And that is in just the first three readings of the One Year
Bible!
We would do well to remember what
Jesus said to the Bible interpreters of His day: "Woe to you
lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not
enter, and you hindered those who were entering." (Luke 11:52) What had
the lawyers done to deserve such a reprimand from Jesus? They had taken
away “the key to knowledge” which is the revelation of Himself as God’s
Promise, the Messiah.
The key to knowledge is the revelation
of the Christ. To give people the law without the One who was promised to
fulfill the law is a crime. To interpret the Old Testament without the Promise
of the Messiah at the core is a false interpretation. Jesus is the key to the
Scriptures. Jesus said “they testify of me” (John 5:39). “Moses wrote
about me” (John 5:46); “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me
in the law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44)
The Bible is the written Word of God
and Jesus is the Living Word of God. In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge (Colossians 2:3)
So we read the Scriptures to see
Christ and know His gospel.
Here are some pictures of Christ in
the first few readings in the One Year Bible. I pray that it will encourage you
to read and worship!
GENESIS 1
In Genesis 1:1 Jesus Christ is Creator (John
1:3; Colossians 1:16; Psalm 33:6).
Jesus is the Light of the World (John 9:5);
He is the Great Separator of things of earth and heaven (John
3:19-21)
God, the Son, operates in one resolve with the
Father and the Spirit (Genesis 1:26)
Adam was the first man, the prototype man, all that Jesus as
God designed man to be, as the express image of God. (Jesus is the
perfect image of God- Hebrews 1:3)
GENESIS 2
In Genesis 2 we see the first man, Adam, in the state of
untried innocence; not yet in perfect obedience. He is a picture of all that
Jesus would be as man, except that Jesus is the perfect man in
the state of perfect obedience.
In the New Testament we learn that Jesus is referred to as “the
second man” (1 Cor. 15:47) and “the last Adam” (1 Cor
15:45)
A bride was
taken from Adam’s side to be His co-regent, one appointed to reign together
with him in oneness. (Gen 2:21-22)
Adam, the first
bridegroom was put into a deep sleep. (The word ‘sleep’ is used in the New
Testament for a believer’s death; death, no longer as “the wages of sin”
(Romans 6:23), but transition to new state).
The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called
Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." 24 For this
reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife;
and they shall become one flesh. (Gen 2:23-24)
A bride was
taken from Adam’s side to be a partner he could perfectly correspond with. She
would complement him and be his co-regent.
Jesus fulfills
this prophetic picture as the second man, the heavenly bridegroom.
He was put into the deep sleep, His death on the cross. His shed blood and
sacrificial death not only provided atonement for our sin but made possible the
formation (the Hebrew word is ‘building’) of a bride, the church as His eternal
companion.
Paul writes of
this mystery in the Book of Ephesians.
30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His
bones. 31 "For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one
flesh." 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak
concerning Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:30-32, NKJ)
Jesus left His
Father’s house to gain a bride at the price of His own life. In this prophetic
picture, Jesus, like the first man, Adam, must be put into a deep sleep, a
picture of His death.
We can see how
the wounded side of the first man points to the wounded side of the second man:
34 But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and
immediately blood and water came out. (John 19:34)
We can also see
here in His wounded side a portrait of our purchase as the bride, the church,
the Eternal Companion of the Lord, destined to reign with Him in wedded oneness
in the ages to come. From His side redemption flows. The church is purchased
with His own blood. (Acts 20:28)
AS
YOU READ THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
The Gospel of Matthew
presents Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies regarding the
Promised Messiah. He is "born King" (Matt 2:2). He is the King
of Kings, the prophesied Son of David whose kingdom rule would be without end.
He is the promised seed of Abraham who would bring the blessing of salvation to
all the people.
The genealogy
that Matthew gives for Jesus of Nazareth demonstrates to the reader that Jesus
legally qualifies for the Messianic title as a descendant of David. Matthew
records the ancestry of Joseph, the step father of Jesus, to whom Jesus was
legal heir. Luke demonstrates that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was also a direct
descendant of King David. The prophecies for Messiah could not be fulfilled by
just anybody. The Messiah must be a descendant of Abraham through the line of
David (2 Sam 7:12; Psalm 89:3).
We see God's
sovereign mercy in the genealogy of the Messiah. Jesus' ancestors made many
foolish mistakes recorded in the Old Testament narrative. But God was at work
throughout history to preserve His purpose of bringing forth a Savior.
Matthew
1:21 (NASB) 21 "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name
Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."
Worship Jesus
(Yeshua): His name means “God to the rescue!”
AS YOU READ THE PSALMS
Psalm
1 Jesus is the Blessed Man!
And
we will be blessed as we meditate upon the Word both day and night.
AS YOU READ PROVERBS
Proverbs
1- Jesus is our Wisdom from God (1 Cor 1:30; Prov 4)
ADDITIONAL
NOTES:
Today
we start reading Genesis, the Book of Beginnings.
In
this book we have an account of the origin of man, marriage, family, human
disobedience, murder and the development of government and culture. We see how
God and man are intimately related. We see the inherent dignity in man in that
God made him in His image and after His likeness. We see the equal status of
the sexes in that “in the image of God He created him; male and female He
created them (Gen 1:27).
Although
it is not written as a science textbook, the book contains the foundational
truths of theology (the science of God), cosmology (the science of the cosmos),
anthropology (the science of humankind), sociology (the science of society,
hamartiology (the science of sin), and soteriology (the science of salvation).
Jesus referred to the Genesis account as being
the authoritative Word of God (Matthew 19:4-6). So should we.
We
start with a declaration of our origin- the introduction of the uncreated
Creator, the One source of all- Genesis
1:1
1 In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
In this first chapter the Godhead has revealed Himself as a
plurality of persons in a singularity of substance and essence. We have the
subject of the sentence in the plural ‘Elohim’ with the verb ‘created’ in the
singular form. This plurality in unity
is seen also in verse 26: “Let US make man in OUR image, according to OUR
likeness..”
As we read through the Bible there will be a progressive
revelation of the mystery of the Trinity,
God as a holy ‘echad’; ‘Echad’ is the
Hebrew word that describes a composite oneness, or, a community of Oneness
(Deut 6:4; Genesis 2:24; Ezek 37:17; Ezra 2:64).
The God of Genesis 1:1 is the God of the Gospel of John Chapter 1,
verse 1. In the Gospel of John we see the Creator God defined as the Word of
God, the Son of God, who is Jesus Christ (John 1:14). As you read through the Bible you will see
that He is the second person of the
Trinity. The apostles also refer to Him as the Creator (Colossians 1:16).
The third person of the
Trinity,
the Holy Spirit of God, is introduced in verse 2.
With
the heavens, God created the heavenly beings- the angels (Gen 1:1)
This
is followed by the account of six days in which various parts of the creation
are brought into manifestation:
DAY ONE- The Light; and He separated it from the darkness.
DAY TWO- The atmosphere; He separated the waters creating an expanse in between
called ‘sky’ or ‘the heavens’.
DAY THREE- The land appears as God separated the waters into the seas. God said, “Let the earth
sprout with vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind.
DAY FOUR- God says “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens.” The greater light (the sun)
and the lesser light (the moon) and the stars are revealed.
DAY FIVE- God says, Let the waters teem with
living creatures and let the birds fly above the earth. (Marine life and birds).
DAY SIX- God says, “Let the earth bring forth
living creatures after their kind.” God also says, “Let us make man in our
image.” Male and female He created them.
Some
observations:
·
The second day is without any commendation
that the expanse of sky was ‘good’,
nor the darkness. The likely cause is that Satan, ‘the prince
of the power of the air’ (Ephesians 2:2) was already present as one who had
usurped authority as an enemy of God. We learn about the “rulers of the
darkness of this world” in Ephesians 6:12.
·
There
is no record of a morning or evening on the
seventh day in which God rested from His work of creation. This will speak
prophetically of the ‘ETERNAL REST’ we will enjoy in the sufficiency of Christ’s
perfect work of salvation. It is eternal. It is not a 24 hour REST, but it is a
FOREVER REST that we find in Christ, our true Sabbath (Matthew 11:29)
