What The Bible Says.

Fortnightly bible study.

Episode 93 - 27/02/25

Led by Tim Clark

This week we continued our WTBS session on “What the Bible Says About the Rejected Messiah,” returning again to the question of why many Jewish people—both in Jesus’ day and now—do not recognise Him as Messiah, even with the New Testament’s testimony and the historical claim of the resurrection.

We briefly recapped the main objections we’d already covered: the expectation of an earthly, kingdom-establishing Messiah (which we understood through the framework of one Messiah with two comings), the objection that God cannot become man, the claim that the New Testament contradicts Torah (set against Jesus fulfilling the Law rather than abolishing it), and the grievous reality of historic persecution carried out “in Jesus’ name,” which we distinguished from genuine biblical Christianity.

From there we focused on the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 and what that meant for sacrificial worship. We traced how, without the Temple, Mosaic practice became impossible in its original form, and we discussed how rabbinic Judaism developed around synagogue and rabbi rather than Temple and priest—necessarily re-framing atonement away from blood sacrifice, often appealing to passages such as Hosea 6:6.

We then pressed into the biblical necessity of substitutionary atonement. We grounded it in Leviticus 17:11 (“the life…is in the blood”), traced the principle back to Eden (God clothing Adam and Eve with skins), and then moved forward to the prophets, reading Isaiah 53:4–6 as unmistakably presenting a personal substitute—one who suffers for “our transgressions” and bears “the iniquity of us all.”

We linked that Old Testament framework directly to the New Testament witness. We noted how John 1:29 (“the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”) only makes full sense in light of Leviticus, and we read Hebrews 9:11–14 as a clear explanation of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice—greater than bulls and goats, cleansing the conscience, and securing eternal redemption.

We then addressed the objection that the Trinity is polytheism. We explored how the Old Testament itself contains plurality within God’s oneness: we looked at the Shema (Deut. 6:4) alongside “one flesh” (Gen. 2:24) and “unity” (Ps. 133:1) to illustrate “compound oneness,” and we gathered several passages that show personal distinction without abandoning monotheism (Gen. 1:26; Isa. 48:16; Gen. 19:24; Prov. 30:4; Ps. 110:1). We then confirmed the triune pattern in the New Testament through Matt. 28:19 and 2 Cor. 13:14, and we noted how Hebrews 1 speaks plainly of the Son’s deity.

We finished by returning to Paul’s olive-tree picture in Romans 11: we, as Gentiles, have been grafted in by grace, we must not boast over the natural branches, and we’re called to live in such a way that Israel is provoked to jealousy for her own God and Messiah. We closed with hope and humility—trusting God’s covenant purposes, remembering that the veil is removed in Christ, and seeking to hold the truth with love, reverence, and faithfulness.

#scriptureexplained #jesus #gospel #salvation #biblestudy #sounddoctrine #discipleship #church #christianliving #gracealone #holiness #eternallife #gospelofhope