The Gospel According to God By John MacArthur – Chapter 4-6 Reflection:
How did God speak to you in these three chapters?
Chapter 4
I think my major takeaway from these three chapters comes out of chapter 4. I’m seeing Israel’s rejection of Christ a bit differently than before. Of course, like many people, I’ve always attributed their rejection of Christ to misplaced expectations. Israel was expecting a conquering king, and instead, they got a suffering servant. And while I still hold to this truth, after reading this chapter, I can see that there was more going on.
The Jews had more or less twisted God’s law into a works-based religion. Legalism led them to believe that they could achieve atonement through their actions. Therefore they saw no need for a Messiah that would suffer and die for their sins. Instead, they became focused on their physical, worldly condition. Their self-righteousness blinded them to their spiritual condition. As a result, they completely overlooked the prophecy of Isiah 53.
Chapter 5
Chapter 5 is all about substitutionary atonement. One of the major themes is that of total depravity and our inability to achieve atonement on our own. This has interesting links to both chapters 4 and 6.
In chapter 4, we saw how the self-righteousness of the Jews ultimately lead to their blindness and hardening of their hearts. Given the fact that man is totally depraved (Rm. 3:10-18), we can see how putting their hope in themselves, rather than trusting God to provide atonement, was always doomed to fail.
In chapter 6, the interesting link is in MacArthur’s explanation of willful sin requiring a willful sacrifice. Substitutionary atonement was nothing new to the Jews. By the time of Christ, they had already been practicing this for several centuries. However, as the writer of Hebrews points out, the blood of sheep and goats could never “make perfect those who draw near” (Heb. 10:1). These animals did not willfully sacrifice themselves the way that Christ did. And only a willful sacrifice would provide atonement for willful sin. On this, MacArthur quotes commentator J. Alec Motyer who spells it out nicely;
“Because of this, no animal can do more than picture substitution: only a person can substitute for a person; only a consenting will can substitute for a rebellious will. The servant, indeed, fulfills the stated requirements for a substitute: he identified with sinners in their condemnation ([ Isa. 53:] 4– 5); he was without stain of our sin (9); he was acceptable to the holy God (6, 10). He also adds what no other ever did or could: the will to accept and submit to the substitute’s role.”
Chapter 6
MacArthur includes in this chapter an excerpt from “The Trial of Jesus Before Caiaphas and Pilate,” by M. Dupin, that paints and excellent picture of how Jesus’ trial should have looked. Before reading this chapter, I’d never heard this process explained. It was quite incredible and eye-opening to see just how far the Israelites went to see Him executed.
At least three days should have passed between Jesus’ arrest and execution. However, it would seem that it was less than 24 hours; this speaks to the corruption in the religious leadership of Jesus’ day. There were supposed to be two witnesses; there were none. There should have been a vote; we have no record of any votes tallied. Three days were required for reflection in case anyone would change his mind; they rushed Him straight to Pilate. They circumvented the law at every turn and would stop at nothing until He hung on the cross.