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"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be
perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (II Tim. 3: 16).
Many today are `offended' by the Scriptures for, for them much of the O.T. seems
"contrary to their moral feeling" and the necessity even today of "the shedding of blood
for forgiveness" (even if this took place 2000 years ago) does not agree with their "sense
of propriety".
Our Lord's gracious concern for His disciples leads Him to refer again to His
withdrawal from the world:
"A little while, and ye shall not see Me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see Me,
because I go to the Father" (16: 16).
In even plainer language He repeats the message:
"I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world,
and go to the Father" (16: 28).
The whole of this life culminates in the miracle of passing from the state of
corruptible flesh to incorruptible spirit: "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in
incorruption" (I Cor. 15: 42). God has come all the way to meet us, to help our unbelief
by (1) setting His Own Son to be the "firstborn from the dead" (Col.i.18); (2) appointing
twelve apostles who had been with Christ from the start to the finish of His ministry to
witness to His resurrection; and (3) by the mass of prophetic utterances in His Word and
their precise fulfillment concerning this historic event confirm their divine origin and
truth.
God imposed a measure of discipline on Adam and Eve and their progeny when sin
entered the world. Man was tried by the discipline of thorns and weeds (symbolic of
adversity), while woman faced pain in the accomplishment of her role in life of
childbirth. Our Lord now uses the picture of a woman enduring the ordeal of bringing a
new life into the world to reflect the immediate days ahead. They would be in anguish
and sorrow for their blessed Lord but this would be followed by that wonderful
resurrection and all the powers and hopes it would unleash, both for them and all the
world to which they would begin to minister. Truly at that time, with the delivered
mother, they would forget all that was past in the wonderful joy and possibilities that lay
in the future:
"A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon
as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man
is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and
your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you" (16: 21, 22).
May the God-appointed adversities of this life be willingly accepted so that they
temper and prepare our character for the glorious future in the world to come.