Tuesday, December 22

He is guarding all the bones of that one; not one of them has been broken.Ps. 34:20.

When the lamb was slaughtered for the Passover meal, the Israelites were not to break any of its bones.  What of “the Lamb of God” who came to provide the ransom? He was impaled with a criminal on each side. The Jews asked Pilate that the bones of the impaled men be broken. This would hasten their death so that they would not be left on the stakes into Nisan 15, a double Sabbath. Soldiers broke the legs of the two impaled criminals, “but on coming to Jesus, as they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.”  That matched what was done with the Passover lamb, so this lamb was in that sense “a shadow” of what was to come on Nisan 14, 33 C.E.Moreover, the way things worked out fulfilled the words of today’s text, which should strengthen our confidence in prophecy.

COMMENTARY

There were numerous prophecies that related to the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. At the time, though, the disciples did not understand. It was only afterward that their minds were opened up to grasp the deeper truth.

For example, on one occasion after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to a few of his disciples and he said to them: “‘O senseless ones and slow of heart to believe all the things the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?’ And starting with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them things pertaining to himself in all the Scriptures.”

Surely, his supernatural appearance and his explaining to them the Scriptures strengthened their confidence in prophecy. 

But just as the prophecies foretold many details related to the earthly ministry of Jesus, the prophecies and patterns more explicitly relate to the second coming of Christ and the culmination of all things.

As it stands now, Jehovah’s Witnesses are in a similar position as were the disciples before Jesus was resurrected. Although Bethel’s researchers have shed much light upon doctrinal matters and even how prophecy was fulfilled in ancient times, most of what the Watchtower teaches as the supposed modern-day fulfillment of prophecy is utter nonsense. 

But, with the second coming of Christ and his visible parousia, which was foreshadowed by Jesus’ post-resurrection presence with his disciples, anointed Jehovah’s Witnesses will experience something similar to what the disciples experienced on this occasion: “And as he was dining with them, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and began handing it to them. At that their eyes were fully opened and they recognized him; but he disappeared from them. And they said to each other: ‘Were not our hearts burning within us as he was speaking to us on the road, as he was fully opening up the Scriptures to us?’”

The leadership of the Watchtower claim that their eyes are fully opened to behold the glory of the invisible parousia, which they insist began in 1914. They are simply blind. And ironically, their blindness can only be remedied by the actual presence of Christ. It is certain to be an eye-opening experience for many. 

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