Scripture- 22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23 this Jesus,[a]delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
Observation – Attested- the Greek for for attest means show off or prove,
delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge, – the Greek here means marked out or bound, literally the horizon. the word for foreknowledge is prognosis
it was not possible. – this phrase literally means it did not have the power to hold him under.
Application – Jesus was a man, He was a human but yet God ‘showed off’ by miracles and wonders done through Jesus in order to prove that He was special and in order to attract attention to Him so that God’s purpose or decree for the world could be fulfilled in Him. God had determined to ‘give Jesus up, to surrender Him, but God did not crucify Jesus, we did that, sinful human hands took it upon ourselves to crucify the saviour,
It was Satan who was the mastermind behind it all but all of this happened according to the prognosis. God was able to see the future, beyond the horizon. He knew where sin would ultimately lead, it would lead to death, not just of sinners but indeed of God Himself and therefore the entire universe. Seeing the prognosis God decided on a course of action. He decided he would surrender Himself, one member of the Godhead, to become human, to become able to die and to be killed by sinners. Sin and Satan didn’t fully understand the reality that God is a mysterious union of three persons in one. Distinct and yet united. Jesus had warned that He and the Father were ‘one’ but no-one knew what would happen if you wounded one member of the Godhead, if one of them was ever to be killed. It had never been possible before the Son became a human being. When Satan killed one member of the Godhead there were two leftand since every member in the Godhead is omnipotent and had life in themselves, then there was more than enough life and power left in the Father and the Spirit to bring Jesus back to life. In other words God healed himself of the deadly wound inflicted by Satan. He regenerated the part that had be cut off.
This is wonderful enough but the text also says that death was unable to hold Jesus under. God the Son in Hs Divine form would not have been able to die on the cross, however Jesus was a human it was possible for Him to be killed. The bible teaches us in Romans 6:23 that ‘the wages of sin is death’ in other words death only has a right to keep sinners under. So although it was possible for Jesus to be killed as He was sinless (Hebrew 4:15) it was illegal for him to die and not possible, should He in fact die, for death to hold Him under like ti does the rest of us. Until Jesus died death had been obeying God’s law by claiming every sinful child of Adam as its rightful prisoner. Death sinned that day by braking God’s law which defined its remit as being those who had sinned. Now that death itself is a law breaker, by its own admission, it too must eventually be put to death, it is no longer fit for purpose.
But how can the balance be restored, how can God be compensated for the wrongfully killing of His only Son? How can Jesus be recompensed for enduring the pains of death? How can the Spirit be repaid for being rob of the sinless vessel He was given unlimited access too (3:34). God is compensated by having the right to resurrect Jesus and to exalt Him above everything and eventually put death to death. Jesus is payed damages out of the earnings of sin, i.e death. Since Jesus was wrongfully deprived of an infinite existance He is entitled to an claim an unlimited amount of sins earnings (those whom death is rightfully holding under) as His settlement (the only caveat being they must consent). The Spirit received the right to unlimited access to inhabit all who Jesus has claimed. The writing is on the wall for sin, death and the Kingdom of Satan.
In order to be eligible to benefit from the resurrection of Jesus we must be able to show that we died in Jesus. According to the rule laid out in Hebrews 7:9-10 (where it is stated that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek because he was still in Abraham’s loin (use your imagination) when Abraham met Melchizedek) is Jesus is our creator and our life comes from Him then whatever happened to Him can be applied to us. Sp then if we were in Him when He was killed unlawfully then we too were killed unlawfully and are therefore death is not able to keep us under either. We are in Christ, when we put our faith in Him. We may wonder why, if this is true, do those who put their faith in Jesus still die and those who have died have not been resurrected yet? The answer is because Jesus is putting together a class action law suit against Sin, Satan and Death to get all his compensation at one time.
When it is discovered that a company or a government has done something illegal that has effected many people you don’t prosecuit case by case and get the payouts one by one. You first bring one or maybe just a few cases before the court to get a ruling, and once the courts have set a precident of finding in your favour then you bring a class action where you try to find as many eligible plaintiffs as possible and you sue the company at one time on behalf of all those who have been affected and who are willing to be a part of the lawsuit.
God is putting together a class action against Satan, Sin, and Death, Jesus and a select group of individuals have already been resurrected and have set a precedent, that all who trust in Jesus can indeed have eternal life. Now Jesus is recruiting as many eligible people as possible who want to be included in the class action lawsuit. How does a person become eligible? The only requirement is that they must be a human. If you have died or are going to die at some point then you qualify. How does a person sign up to be a part of this lawsuit. This is a two step process, there is an internal and external requirement. Acts 2:38 says ‘Repent and be baptised’ Romans 10:9 says ‘declare with your mouth and believe in your heart’. Basically they both describe the same thing, an internal decision plus an external action. A private conviction and a public commitment.
God has given us Baptism as a way to showing publicly what we have first decided in our hearts that we want to be a part of Jesus compensation, that we want to add our names to the law suit. Baptism is literally an enactment of the key points of the case. Jesus as death put Jesus under but could not keep Him there, so in baptism we go under the water but are not kept there.
Satan, Sin, and Death realise that this lawsuit has the potential to absolutely bankrupt them. Sin might lose all its wages. So they have put together a plan to try and keep people from signing up to the law suit before they die. If a person dies and they are not in Jesus then it is very difficult to include then in the law suit. Sin does all they can to prevent people from believing in their hearts repenting through temptation and addiction. If the Spirit of God does manage to bring internal conviction to the a person then Satan tries his best to prevent the person from making any external commitment. He will use guilt to remind us of our sin and therefore deaths right to keep us under. He try to get us to put off making a public commitment by saying we are too young, too old, we don’t know enough, we aren’t good enough, we still have bad habits. All the while death is trying to snatch away our lives at any opportunity. For those who have put their names on the list Satan will try to get them to doubt in their hearts in order to nulify their public commitment. We are not saved by faith in our baptism!
But we ought not take advice on eternal life from Satan. We get it all back to front, you see the only people who the lawyers can work with and prepare for the trial are those who have already signed up to be a part of the case. If is after accepting Jesus, after coming to Him, after being baptised that the work of transformation begins. If we wait for the transformation before we decided to sign up we will never sign. Sure we spend some time going over what we are committing to (bible studies etc) before signing up but the real work comes afterwards.
Satan and his legal team will constantly try to remind us that Death has a legal right to us because we are sinners. They will encourage us to sin and then as soon as we are done they will bag it up and use it as evidence against us but we must remember who is on trial in this case. It is not us, it is Satan, SIn and Death for killing and attempted keeping of an innocent man. Whether we are sinners nd therefore whether death has right to keep us is NOT the issue. The issue is was Jesus a sinner and did death have a right to keep HIm. Since this part of the case has already been decided 2000 years ago when Jesus got up the last question is, was I in Jesus at the time?
Prayer – Lord help me by my internal faith and external actions to be a part of the great class action You are bringing against Satan, Sin and Death. Lord help me to keep my eyes on You and your perfection and off my own performance, knowing that you will do the work necessary to prepare to give evidence at the trial and to be ready to inherit eternal life with freedom of choice and screw it up. Be with those of us who are struggling to believe in their hearts or turn away from sin. Be with those of us who are struggling to make that public commitment to be baptised and those who struggle to declare their faith with their mouth. Help those of us we are considering removing our names from the class action even though we made a public commitment in the past but now are struggling to believe or repent. And Lord come quickly to claim the compensation that is rightfully Your but not so soon that any miss out who could be a part of it, Amen
Heart Meditations 
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