Jesus
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Jesus answered, “It is written: ’Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”105
N. T. Wright has isolated the point, saying, “The story of God’s people is being encapsulated, recapitulated, in his [Jesus’] own work.”106 Indeed it is. Out of Jacob’s struggle with God came “Israel” in the First Testament.107 Out of the wilderness struggle came the new Israel, the Messiah who saves and propagates the new covenant of the Second Testament.
When Jesus orders satan to leave, he must leave. The wilderness scene closed with satan leaving and angels coming to minister to Jesus. This reinforces that Jesus was the new Israel.108 The ministry of angels to Jesus reminds us of the stairway that Jacob saw connecting heaven and earth, from which angels descended and ascended.109 Jesus identified Himself to be that very stairway in John 1:51. Psalm 91:11–12, a psalm written to Israel, promises that the angels of God will keep charge over you, preventing you from dashing your foot against a stone.
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If you want to understand the Scripture in the spirit in which it is written, you have to attend to the content and to the unity of Scripture as a whole.
—JOSEPH RATZINGER 110
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Israel was to be the corporate Adam, fulfilling the commission God gave to Adam—to be “a kingdom of priests.” Adam was called to bear God’s image and to exercise His dominion in the earth. Israel was called to do the same.
Regrettably, Adam failed in the garden, and Israel failed in the wilderness. But where Adam and Israel failed, Jesus succeeded. Praise His name!
For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.111
Didn’t Jesus pray, “Do not bring us to the time of trial”?112 If so, did Jesus’ prayer go unanswered? After all, at the beginning of His ministry, He was tempted. At the end of His ministry, He was brought literally “to the time of trial.”
Christians believe that because Jesus freely accepted this time of trial and dreadful death on our behalf, he himself became God’s answer to the plea in the Lord’s Prayer “deliver us from evil.” He taught us to ask that we might be delivered from evil, but he himself knew the price of that deliverance would be his own blood. He was willing to pay that price as an act of love for all humanity.113
FROM NAZARETH TO CAPERNAUM
After John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus moved from His hometown of Nazareth to the city of Capernaum, fulfilling the words of Isaiah the prophet.114 Unlike the obscure town of Nazareth, Capernaum was a fishing center on the shores of Lake Galilee. It was also a tax collection station containing a Roman garrison of one hundred soldiers. The population was estimated to be between six hundred and fifteen hundred, making it one of Galilee’s larger villages.115
Apparently, the city had no paved streets or channels for running water or sewage. The streets were irregular, narrow, and packed with earth and dirt. The construction of houses was of low quality, and it seemed to lack public buildings, such as shops, a theater, and storage facilities. There were no signs of wealth there.116
After He moved to Capernaum, Jesus began to preach that the kingdom of God was at hand.117 From that point on, He regarded Capernaum as His “own city,”118 and He taught in the synagogue there,119 not always to applause.120
Why Jesus made Capernaum the new base for His mission is anyone’s guess. James D. G. Dunn suggests that He may have been given a room in a house by one of His followers.121 Because Capernaum was close to the edge of Herod’s territory on the lake, living there would have allowed Jesus to slip out of Herod’s jurisdiction when the need arose.122 Jesus would travel widely throughout Galilee,123 even returning to Nazareth to preach.124 Josephus reported that there were 204 villages in Galilee. They ranged in size from a few inhabitants to large towns of several thousand.125
After Jesus was baptized, He was on a constant road trip. He was, so to speak, God in motion, moving all throughout Galilee, Judea, and even Samaria. Even to places where He wasn’t invited. The Gospels present us with a Jesus who was a living, speaking, and moving God. A person who was anointed by the Spirit of God to accomplish the will of God and bring forth the kingdom of God. A person who met people where they were, but who never left them the same. A person who constantly breaks out of our expectations.
The heavens opened at Jesus’ baptism. And Jesus continued to live under an open heaven and hear His Father speak in and through Him.126 This, in fact, became the source of His fruitful ministry. Let’s continue the story by looking at whom Jesus chose to be His disciples and why.
CHAPTER 8
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Jesus Chooses His Disciples
This dirty dozen became his chosen people.
—STEPHENM. MILLER 1
IN FIRST-CENTURY PALESTINE, THE WORD DISCIPLE DIDN’T MEAN what it means today. It did not refer to a pupil in school who learned from notebook to notebook via a credentialed teacher. Rather, it meant apprentice. A disciple was someone who learned a skill or way of life from a teacher. With respect to Jesus, a disciple was a follower—not just of a set of teachings but of an entire way of living.2
Throughout His short ministry on earth, Jesus called many people to follow Him. The Gospels tell us that Jesus ministered to multitudes.3 He had a countless number of disciples,4 as well as some close friends who supported Him.5 However, at some point during His ministry, Jesus specifically selected twelve men out of all His disciples to live with Him and eventually carry on His ministry.6
Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.7
Notice that Jesus selected the disciples He wanted to apprentice. This ran against first-century custom. The word “designating” in Mark 3 is similar to the word used for the appointment of priests to the priesthood in the First Testament.8 In Jesus’ day, disciples chose their masters (teachers). As the famous rabbi Gamaliel admonished those who wanted to become schooled in spirituality, “Find a teacher and lose your ignorance.”9 Jesus reversed this order and chose His disciples. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.”10 To follow Jesus was a matter of personal invitation. It was a call.
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Even cursory glances through the Gospels confirm that the work Jesus did in the lives of his disciples occurred because the disciples were in relationship, not simply with him, but with one another.
—RICHARD LAMB 11
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Jesus didn’t pick anyone until He “went up on a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night. At daybreak he called together all of his disciples and chose twelve of them to be apostles.”12 Since Jesus acted only when the Father directed Him to act, the choice of the Twelve was the Father’s choice as well.13 Luke refered to these twelve men with the shorthand phrase “the twelve.”14
THE NEW ISRAEL
Why not thirteen disciples? Why twelve disciples and not fifteen, twenty, thirty, fifty, or three hundred? Because in calling twelve disciples, Jesus was symbolically reconstituting the kingdom of Israel.
This answer becomes obvious when we look at Jesus against the backdrop of the First Testament. Jesus is the New Israel, the new Jacob. The twelve disciples correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel—the twelve sons of Jacob. Jesus was establishing the new Israel; He was restoring the true people of God.15
Jesus made this explicit at the Last Supper.16 John made this explicit at the beginning of his gospel. John 1 and 2 are unique in all the Bible. We have already seen how John 1 begins very much like Genesis 1: “In the beginning.” John 1 and 2 present us with the new creation in the
midst of the old creation. As such, John 1 and 2 are the new Genesis.
Jesus found Nathanael and told him, “You shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”17 This is a replay of Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28. Jacob was the first Israelite (his name was changed to Israel in Genesis 32). Before his name change, Jacob was full of deceit. When Jesus met Nathanael, He said to him, “An Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”18
The stairway Jacob saw in his dream finally made its appearance on earth. That which Jacob called “the house of God” arrived on the planet in the person of Christ. Jesus is the One who connects the heavenly realm with the earthly realm. He is the One who joins God with humanity. He is Emmanuel: “God with us,” where God’s space and humanity’s space intersect. Jesus is the temple—the gateway connecting the invisible with the visible. He is the house of God (more on this later).
In John 4, Jesus met a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. The entire chapter is an echo of Jacob’s encounter with Rachel at the well in Genesis 29. Strikingly, Jesus met this woman at noon, the same time Jacob met his wife Rachel. And the well was named after Jacob.
But there is so much more. For example:
• In Hosea we read the words, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son.”19 Matthew applied those words to Jesus.20
• God called Israel to be a light to the nations.21 Jesus declared Himself to be the light of the world,22 and so are His followers.23
• In Isaiah 49:3 (gw), we have the words “my servant Israel,” and the entire chapter is a prophecy about the coming Messiah. Jesus is God’s servant, Israel, and He fulfills the prophecies in Isaiah 49, one of the servant songs that is developed famously in Isaiah 53.24
• When Paul called Jesus the “Seed” of Abraham, he was effectively saying that Jesus is the real Israel.25
• Paul stated that all of God’s promises are inaugurated and fulfilled in Jesus, God’s “Yes.”26 This, of course, would include the promises for and about Israel.
Bible scholar Christopher Wright has astutely remarked that “the New Testament presents him [Jesus] to us as the Messiah, Jesus the Christ. And the Messiah was Israel. That is, the Messiah was Israel representatively and personified. The Messiah was the completion of all that Israel had been put in the world for—i.e., God’s self-revelation and his work of human redemption.”27
To be sure, the Twelve were the Lord’s agents to free Israel with the message of Jesus. But they were also called to embody the new Israel. Jesus is the true Israelite, and the Twelve gained their status and identity in Him. Bible scholars have emphasized this in boldface. Here is N. T. Wright: “Jesus came as the true Israel, the world’s true light, and as the true image of the invisible God. He was the true Jew, the true human.”28 And G. K. Beale writes: “Israel was not faithful and disobeyed, and . . . God raises up a true Israel. I think that Jesus is the true Israel.”29
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It is the most important thing in life to understand the Lord Jesus.
—T. AUSTIN-SPARKS 31
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In chapter 2 we showed how Adam was the first priest-king. Israel was called to be a “kingdom of priests.”30 In a sense, then, Israel was the corporate Adam. The story of the First Testament is how both Adam and Israel failed in their tasks. However, Jesus Christ came to embody the new Adam and the new Israel. Jesus, as it were, is the real priest (He bears God’s image in the earth and serves Him) and the real king (He exercises God’s dominion).
AN UNEXPECTED BAND OF YOUNG MEN
It was radical enough that Jesus chose His disciples. But then look at the disciples He chose. Not the best scholars, the best leaders, the movers and shakers, those who would make Him look good, or the ones with the most promise. The people Jesus chose to be part of the Twelve were not what anyone could have predicted. They were “unusual suspects.” But then again, when you understand how Jesus Himself failed to meet virtually all Jewish expectations about the coming Messiah, it begins to make sense. Consider this motley mix of chosen ones:32
1. Andrew—a fisherman and Peter’s brother: he was originally a disciple of John the Baptist.
2. Bartholomew (also called Nathanael): we have no knowledge of his background or trade.
3. James, son of Zebedee—a fisherman and John’s brother: Jesus nicknamed the brothers the “Sons of Thunder,” probably because of their fiery tempers and undisciplined zeal.33 Being a fisherman, James (along with John, Peter, and Andrew) did better than most financially.34
4. James, son of Alphaeus: he was the brother of Jude (though some scholars believe he was Matthew’s brother).
5. John, son of Zebedee—a fisherman and James’s brother: some scholars believe he is the unidentified disciple of John the Baptist mentioned in the gospel of John.35
6. Judas Iscariot (Matthias later took his place36)—a Jewish nationalist: Judas was possibly part of the fanatical Zealots movement. The Zealots were prepared to resort to violence and terror to restore Israel’s freedom.
7. Jude (also called Judas, Lebbaeus, and surnamed Thaddaeus): he was a Jewish nationalist.
8. Matthew (also called Levi)—a tax collector: tax collectors colluded with Rome in oppressing the Jewish people. Thus Matthew was viewed as a traitor by his own people, a turncoat who decided to suck the blood out of his fellow Jews. Also, as a tax collector, Matthew would have had the ability to write (a rare commodity in the first century).
9. Peter (also called Simon)—a fisherman, Andrew’s brother, and likely a disciple of John the Baptist:37 he partnered with James and John in the fishing business.38
10. Philip—probably a fisherman: He is believed to originally have been a disciple of John the Baptist.39
11. Simon Zelotes (also called Simon the Canaanite)—a Jewish nationalist: Simon was part of the fanatical and violent Zealots movement.
12. Thomas (also called Didymus): we know little about his background or trade.
These were the Twelve whom Jesus chose to be His closest friends and interns: four fishermen, one tax man, a couple of freedom fighters, and a significant number who met while they were apprenticing with John the Baptist (Andrew, John, Peter, James, and maybe even two more, Philip and Nathanael), which Jesus gathered on the shore of the Jordan when He was staying with John. He chose ordinary folk with no special training in the Scriptures40 from His native neighboring villages in Galilee. There is one singular exception and one striking omission. Judas was from Iscariot, a Judean village in southern Israel.41 Jesus chose no one from His hometown, no one from His first thirty years.
People from diverse walks of life. Fishermen and tax collectors would have been economically mobile, but they weren’t part of the elite.42 A raggedy, rugged bunch. Again, none were priests, rabbis, or scholars. In fact, Jesus underscored why He didn’t select His closest disciples from the religious establishment:
Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”43
New wine cannot be put into old wineskins. The Twelve were the new wineskins for the new wine Jesus was bringing. They were the foundation stones of the church He was building.44
When the Lord found them, the Twelve were all observant Jews waiting for the deliverance of Israel. But their views on how Israel would be restored to salvation were at opposite ends from each other (tax collectors w
orked hand in glove with the Romans, while the Zealots wanted to slaughter them).
It must be understood that life in the first century was short. It wasn’t unusual if a Jewish man died before he reached age thirty.45 People entered into adulthood at puberty. Jewish females married around thirteen or fourteen years of age, males a little older. In the Greek world, vocational training began in the midteens. Bible scholar Craig Keener surmises that most of Jesus’ disciples were in their midteens. Peter, having a family, may have been older—perhaps eighteen.
Beginning with the Twelve, Jesus was creating the renewed people of God, “the renewed remnant of Israel.”46 His way of bringing in the kingdom ran contrary to that of the Zealots or the Essenes. Jesus taught we are both of this world, and a world apart. Or as He put it in definitive form: we are to be “in” the world but not “of ” the world, but not “out of it” either.47
Unlike his cousin John the Baptist, Jesus was called a glutton and a “winebibber” by His critics.48 He did not separate Himself from the mainstream. But His kingdom-come mission was antithetical to a nationalist revolution. His agenda was subversive but in an extraordinary way. In His meals with sinners (including tax collectors), Jesus showed that when God is in charge of the world, it means radical embrace and forgiveness. It means turning the other cheek, giving away the second coat, walking the extra mile, and taking up one’s cross. This is how the new Israel was to live, breathe, and have its being. This is how the renewed people of God would reveal the true nature of their King.
Jesus was announcing that He was the real Jubilee, the One who would bring deliverance to God’s people. He was telling all who would listen that He was the real Joseph, protecting and caring for His people while they were living in the land of oppression. He was proclaiming to Israel that He was the real Moses, delivering them from bondage. He was announcing that He was the real Joshua, bringing Israel into the fullness of her calling—a calling the nation had lost sight of. He was revealing that He was the real David, acting as prophet, priest, and king to God’s people and gathering the building materials for His living house. He was announcing that He was the real Solomon, demonstrating the wisdom of God and building the Lord’s true temple. Jesus was declaring the end of Israel’s long exile and the coming to pass of God’s promise of shalom. But not in a way that anyone expected.