02/01/2020 – Day 260 – John 19 – 21 – Everybody’s eighth day!
That was to quick! We have come to the end of eight week Monday night study of the Gospel of John.
So I start with my own question that I don’t recall from the readings and reflections on the book of John:
19: 38-42 recounts Jesus burial in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. I wonder if Josept of Arimathea and Nicodemus became Christians. I have read or seen in movies suggesting strongly that Nicodemus was well on his way to becoming a believer, even when he visited Jesus in the middle of the night. But these two in particular were going to be well aware of the empty tomb.
And in 20:27 we revisit the scene where Thomas, after the other ten disciples, finally sees His risen Lord, a proposition that he had proclaimed to his disciple brothers was a prerequisite to his believing in Jesus’ resurrection. I wanted to share this verse footnote, a sublime connection between physical circumcision to spiritually “circumcision”:
“Babies are circumcised on the 8th day because this is the day that the coagulating factor in the blood, called prothrombin, is the highest. Medical science has discovered that this is when the human body’s immune system is at its peak.
Just as the eighty day was the God-given timing for circumcision (Genesis 17:12), there is a God-given timing for every person who is “circumcised with the circumcision made without hands” (Colossians 2:11) Jesus appeared to Thomas on the eighth day. What Thomas saw cut away the flesh of his unbelieving heart. (Romans 2:29) Thomas bowed his heart to Jesus of Nazereth as his Lord and his God. He needed a miracle and God graciously gave it to him.
Each of us is dealt with individually by God, some get incredible spiritual manifestations at conversion. Others quietly trust the Lord’s promises, and God reveals Himself to them through faith rather than feelings of great joy. What matters is not how each of us came to Christ, but that we became new creatures in Christ, because that is the real miracle that proves the reality of salvation. This is what Paul meant when he wrote, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.” (Galations 6:15)
Indeed, Soli Deo Gloria!