Gentle and Lowly
- Type:nonfiction
- Author: Dane C. Ortlund
Notes
- John 6:37
- The high priests of Israel were sinfully weak, Jesus was sinlessly weak
- Jesus can sympathise with our struggle with sin, because he knows it’s deceiving and destructive nature even better than we do.
- “He can deal gently with the wayward” Heb 5:2
- What is Christ’s heart?
- Inspired by the 1600s Puritans, especially Thomas Goodwin
- It is one thing to ask what Christ has done, another to consider who he is
- Only in one place do we hear Jesus talk about his own heart: Matt 11:28-30. “I am gentle and lowly in heart”.
- The “heart” in biblical terms is the centre of who we are
- “Lowly”: he is so accessible
- In the Jewish system, a clean person touching an unclean one would become unclean.
- Jesus reversed that system. When he, the clean one, touched a sinner, they became clean.
- Christ receives more joy from us coming to him for healing and comfort than we do.
- When we come to Christ for comfort in our anguish, we are going with the flow of his heart, not against it
- Jesus is comforted when you draw on the riches of his atoning work, because his own body is being healed.
- Jesus’ intercession applies his justification work
- This makes it personal. If there wasn’t intercession, justification would be a mechanical thing.
- “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” - Hebrews 7:25
- to the uttermost, that is completely. We say we are forgiven, but we still seek to strengthen Jesus’ work by our own efforts
- The doctrine of justification assures us of what Jesus did in the past, the doctrine of intercession tells us of what Jesus does now.
- Advocacy: like a “reserve” for us. Jesus always intercedes for us. He is our advocate, if we sin.
Old Testament
“The Lord will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim, he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon— to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task.” - Isaiah 28:21
“for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.” Lamentations 3:33
God brings, or permits, affliction but it is unnatural to him. It does a certain violence to him. But when he brings mercy, he does it from his full heart. Mercy is natural to him. Punishment is unnatural to him.
Exodus 34:6-7
- Short of the incarnation, the most supreme of divine revelation
- Referenced much throughout the OT
- God’s glory here is his goodness
- God is “provoked to anger”, but never provoked to love. His anger needs provocation, but his love gushes forth.
- Retributive justice is mentioned, but almost as an afterthought. Grace in a 1000 generations swallows but justice to the 3rd generation.
- Perhaps Satan’s biggest success in your life in not the sin in your life but the dark thoughts about God’s heart that cause you to go there
- Mark 6:45 is a mirror of Exodus 34
- Jesus meant to ‘pass by’ (same word) as God with Moses