The Earthly Ministry of Jesus
Some may wonder why the earthly ministry of Jesus is included as a difficult subject area of the Bible. After all, the sequence of events in the life of Christ seem fairly easy to understand. But what is not so easy to understand is why He taught the way He taught, why His teachings were so limited, and why He avoided teaching many important issues entirely. For instance, many Christians do not understand why Jesus placed such an enormous emphasis on discussing "the Kingdom" or even understand what the Kingdom meant, and this subject represented a significant part of His teachings. It is also difficult to understand why He used so many parables to teach and why He often answered questions indirectly. And He never discussed the Church Age or its principles even though the disciples would become part of the Church just a few short weeks after the cross and would need to establish the Church and write the Epistles. Since eleven of the future Apostles spent three and a half years with Jesus, it might seem odd that Jesus never taught or even mentioned a single Church Age principle or doctrine to them during that entire time. In fact, Jesus kept the Church Age hidden from the disciples. Wouldn't it have been a good idea to prepare the disciples for the Church Age since they would very shortly be required to change from being followers to being leaders, and lead those who had put their faith in Jesus Christ? And why was the Church Age hidden from them? Of course, there were very good reasons for all of this, so these questions have answers.
Understanding these issues requires an examination of the limitations placed on Jesus during the First Advent by God the Father, which required Jesus to teach within fairly narrow boundaries for His earthly ministry. Those narrow boundaries are the primary difficult issues which must be addressed, and is the focus of this chapter. A reasonable question would be why such limitations were placed on the God-Man, and why He was not allowed by the Father to teach whatever He wanted to teach. This is where the word "mystery" is used by the Bible itself to explain the reasons for the limitations on the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. But why all the mystery? As we will discover, the issues involve one of the biggest mysteries of all time, which even Jesus Christ was not allowed to reveal while He was on earth. But first some background information is required to set the stage for these rather complex discussions.
Jesus lived on earth for just over 36 years from 4 BC to AD 33. In case it is news, the early calendar folks got the birth date wrong when they set the start of AD 1 incorrectly, and we have lived with that calendar error ever since. The first 33 years were preparation since He had to learn most of what He came to know. As previously discussed Jesus' humanity did not have access to the omniscience of His own deity. Then the last 3 1/2 years was the time of His ministry and accomplishment of His main mission which was highly focused on two issues: 1) removing the sin barrier between God and mankind allowing salvation to be offered through Him to all, and 2) offering the promised Kingdom to the Jews.
In the last chapter we discussed how Jesus Christ was born true humanity and also deity. His deity existed eternally as God the Son and became part of the union at birth. His human soul and mortal body were just like any other person except He had no sinful nature. This was essential for Jesus to be an acceptable sacrifice for the sin of mankind, that He must be born true humanity but without a sinful nature, and must never sin during His life. The sinful nature of man is passed down from Adam to all his descendants, however Jesus Christ was miraculously conceived so He did not have a sinful nature, and therefore He had no temptations from within. But He could have sinned and fallen just as Satan and Adam had fallen previously. This was the purpose of Satan’s temptations of Jesus at the beginning of His earthly ministry, to see if Jesus could be externally tempted into sin even though He had no sinful nature. But since He remained sinless He never acquired a sinful nature, making Him qualified to be the sacrifice for sin and therefore the Savior who would remove the sin barrier between God and mankind through His sacrificial work on the cross.
The early life of Jesus was one of continual study of Old Testament scriptures. This was a time of intense focus on preparation for His ministry, and He was kept out of the spotlight until He was fully prepared and the timing was right. He is only mentioned one time during His early life when He was twelve years old and impressed the spiritual leaders in the Temple in Jerusalem with His great knowledge of the scriptures. The previous chapter covered the issue that Jesus had to learn everything He knew from birth onward, and that His deity never provided Him with any information. So the Scriptures were learned just like any other person learns and becomes an expert, by intense study.
At the beginning of His earthly ministry Jesus was announced by the herald John the Baptist when John saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus “like a dove” at the Jordan River. John had known Jesus personally all his life since Jesus was John’s cousin, and they were the same age. But John never knew that Jesus was the Messiah until the Holy Spirit revealed it to him that day at the Jordan River. This is the point where the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ began, and it would last about three and a half years.
After Jesus was baptized, not due to sin but as a sign He was leaving the preparation phase behind and changing roles to take on the ministry of the Messiah, God allowed Satan to throw his three best temptations at Jesus. Jesus was first put into a severely weakened state due to lack of food so He would be most vulnerable. God made this a very lopsided test, giving Satan every advantage and opportunity to lure Jesus away from His mission.
Matthew 4:1 “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” 7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.”
Jesus was severely weakened by lack of food, making Him close to starvation and both physically and mentally very weak. God the Father wanted it this way to allow Satan to have his best shot at tempting Jesus so there could be no question that God had given Satan maximum opportunity to support the appeal of his sentence to the Lake of Fire. Satan was trying to show that Jesus would fall into sin when tempted just like Satan and Adam had done, and that Jesus was no different. Satan hoped that even the perfect Jesus Christ would sin if given the right opportunity and motivation, which in turn would show that Satan should not be put into the Lake of Fire even though God had already judged and sentenced him. This would also stop the salvation ministry of Jesus by preventing Him from going to the cross to be the sacrifice for the sins of mankind, and these temptations were part of that plan. It was no matter to Satan that this would result in all mankind being condemned eternally as long as it enabled him to escape his own sentence.
The temptations of Satan were pure genius, as one might expect. Give the devil his due. The test for Jesus to turn stones into bread was more subtle than it appears on the surface. Jesus was very close to starving to death, so He was near to delirium and very weak. Beyond the surface level of the test related to extreme hunger, Satan was trying to get Jesus to ignore the will of God regarding what power He would use. As discussed in the previous chapter, the humanity side of Jesus was not allowed to access the power of His own deity to eliminate His suffering. Instead, He had to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit, and that power was being withheld for the purpose of this test. So the real test was to see if Jesus would ignore God's plan and go to His own deity and perform a miracle apart from God's will for Him, which Jesus was prohibited from doing during His entire earthly ministry since the power of His deity was "emptied" from use. Jesus was therefore tempted to not only deal with His extreme hunger to prevent starvation, but also was tempted to show Satan that He was more powerful than Satan. If Jesus had used His own divine power to feed Himself to eliminate His extreme hunger and also show Satan His real power it would have been a sin since it would have violated the Father's requirements placed on Jesus during the First Advent. Essentially, the "emptied" deity side would have needed to be "unemptied", which was not allowed by the Father.
In the second test Satan tempted Jesus to throw himself down from the top of the Temple and show how the angels would save Him from harm. Satan even misquoted a Bible verse to try to induce Jesus to jump off the Temple. The misquoted verse from Psalm 91:11-12 actually says: "For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." Satan left out the part in italics. In this temptation Satan was implying to Jesus that since He had come out of obscurity and looked and acted like any other human, He would need to show in some spectacular way that He was the real Messiah, unlike many fakers who had come before Him. The prophesy said the angels would protect the true Messiah, and Jesus certainly wanted to be accepted as the Messiah. Satan was essentially asking Jesus "Don't you have enough faith to trust God and His angels?" So Satan questioned the faith of Jesus, and also suggested He must do something spectacular to distinguish Himself from other people, and why not do it at the Temple with a large crowd watching? Satan taunted that this would jump-start the ministry of Jesus and prove who He was, and short cut all the time that would be required otherwise; and wouldn't that be good for His ministry? Wouldn't more people believe in Him and be saved? But Jesus saw through this, that God does not allow us to engage in reckless behavior in order to test God regarding His faithfulness. So Jesus replied “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’" Additionally, this was a second attempt to get Jesus to use His own divine power to save Himself if the angels did not, which was likely since Jesus would have been outside the will of the Father if He had jumped.
The third test struck at the heart of Jesus' ministry regarding salvation. Jesus understood that He as the Messiah would need to bear the punishment and suffering for the sins of all mankind as the Old Testament revealed. This was something Jesus desperately wanted to avoid if at all possible, even though it was prophesied by Isaiah. Just over three years later on the day He was to be arrested and sent to the cross Jesus prayed intensely about bearing the sins of the world: "Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39) Jesus did not want to pay the price required to save mankind since it would be the worst punishment anyone would ever endure. Additionally, the Old Testament foretold that the Messiah would rule the earth during the Millennial Kingdom. Satan's ingenious temptation was to offer Jesus world rulership without going to the cross to achieve it. It was a legitimate offer since Satan gained rulership of the earth at the fall of Adam, so it was Satan's world to offer. The temptation was that Jesus could accept Satan's offer and avoid the cross, and become world ruler right away. No cross, no suffering, just instant power and rulership over the earth. But the catch was that Jesus would be required to worship Satan, and become part of his evil kingdom. Jesus rejected the offer in spite of full knowledge that He would be required to suffer horribly for the sins of the entire world in order to eventually become world ruler during the Millennium under God's plan.
These three temptations from Satan were subtle and ingenious. They hit Jesus at His presumed weak points at a time when Jesus was physically and mentally in a severely weakened state, literally very near to death from starvation. In fact, angels needed to nurse Him back to health after the temptations were complete, as Matthew 4:11 says "Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.” Jesus passed each test by relying on His knowledge of Scripture and His faith in the Father's plan. And He did all of this without the help of His own deity. That was the real test, to see if Jesus would turn to His deity and use His own power in a manner prohibited by God's plan. He was tempted to use His deity in several ways, first to end His extreme suffering from hunger, then to show Satan He was more powerful while also proving to the people gathered at the Temple that He was the Messiah, and finally to take rulership of the world immediately instead of going to the cross.
After the temptation issue was resolved, Jesus began His earthly ministry. It was almost AD 30 and He had only 3 1/2 years before He must provide salvation by offering Himself as a sacrifice on the cross. Time was short, and there was much to do. The ministry of Jesus was therefore compressed and intense. This brings us to the primary point of this chapter, which is to understand what He taught, why He taught the way He taught, and why He avoided teaching many important issues entirely. In our overview we touched on these issues, and are now ready to explore them in detail. For instance, why did Jesus place such an enormous emphasis on discussing "the Kingdom," and what is it? Why did He use so many parables to teach, and why did He not discuss Church Age principles since the Church would begin just a few short weeks after the cross? Why didn't Jesus prepare His disciples to be leaders in the Church Age since He was leaving them behind and these disciples would become Apostles to the Church?
Understanding these issues begins with an examination of the limitations placed on Jesus during the First Advent by God the Father, which required Jesus to teach within fairly narrow boundaries for His earthly ministry. Those narrow boundaries are a difficult issue which must be addressed first. It is also where the word "mystery" is used by the Bible itself to explain the reasons for the limitations on the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. It was one of the biggest mysteries of all time, which even Jesus Christ was not allowed to reveal while He was on earth. The 3 1/2 years of Jesus' ministry and accomplishment of His main mission focused on two specific issues, namely 1) removing the sin barrier between God and mankind allowing salvation to be offered through Him to all, and 2) offering the promised Kingdom to the Jews. The earthly ministry of Jesus must be viewed in the light of these two rather narrow purposes since they defined how He would teach, and what He would teach while on earth. It also defined what He was restricted from teaching, which is where the mystery comes into play. The plan of God the Father remained laser focused on these two parts of the mission of Christ, and as a result His teaching ministry was also narrowly focused on these two components of His mission. He therefore left the other teachings to those who remained after He was gone, namely the Apostles who would write the epistles of the New Testament which outline the new covenant to the Church, which are the Church Age doctrines and principles believers now live by. But these were never taught by Jesus during His ministry for a very important reason.
The unraveling of these issues first requires a deeper understanding of the mission of Jesus, which we have noted was primarily to provide salvation, which He would accomplish on the cross, and secondly to offer Himself as the King of Israel and institute the Millennial Kingdom promised in the Old Testament. And that was the "Kingdom" Jesus discussed over and over again, namely the Millennial Kingdom which is a 1000 year Age of history when Jesus Christ will rule under perfect environment. The Millennium will be discussed in detail in a later chapter. But everything Jesus did during His earthly ministry must be viewed in light of the two overarching goals for His life on earth, which is the key to understanding why Jesus taught the way He did, and why He never mentioned the Church Age which followed the cross, or taught any Church Age doctrines. Jesus was required by the Father to provide salvation, and His earthly ministry offered Himself as the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. His miracles and teachings therefore showed Him to be the one promised in prophecy. Jesus was also required by the Father to offer the Millennial Kingdom to the Jews of His day, whereby God would implement that Kingdom with Jesus Christ as King. We know that the offer was not accepted by the Jewish leadership, and Jesus was rejected as the King of the Jews, but the Father required the offer to be made in a manner which could have been accepted by the Jews of that day. Therefore Jesus could only teach what supported Old Testament prophesies about the Millennial Kingdom as the next step in history, but only if accepted by the Jews. He therefore presented the offer of the Kingdom to Israel as a legitimate offer which could have been accepted by them at that time, rather than in the future, and did not ever discuss the alternative which would be the Church Age. Teaching anything other than the Kingdom would have led to a contradiction in God's plan, which is not possible.
Therefore Jesus taught the way He did for several reasons. The time during Jesus’ earthly ministry was a special time on its own, but still during the Age of Israel. Jesus had to stick with the Old Testament Mosaic Law, and could not teach the new covenant to the Church which was not yet given, and could not be offered at the same time the Kingdom was being offered since the two are mutually exclusive. This is an extremely important point worth repeating, that the Millennial Kingdom and Church Age could not be offered at the same time, only one or the other. Since His ministry was during the Age of Israel He had to legitimately offer the Jews the Kingdom in a way they could accept without creating a disparity among prophecies, and the Church was never mentioned in any prophecy. Therefore God needed to enable Jesus to be accepted as the King by the Jews, and if accepted, proceed into the Kingdom in short order. Because of this, Jesus could only teach what lined up with the possibility of the Jews accepting Him as their King. The Millennial Kingdom was, in essence, the primary plan of God, and was legitimately offered to the Jews of Jesus' time. So the de facto backup plan which was the Church Age could not be discussed or taught until after the Jews had fully rejected Jesus as their Messiah and King, and that rejection was finalized on Palm Sunday during the week of His crucifixion. After the final rejection of Jesus by Israel, the Church Age became the new plan, which was "the mystery" and best kept secret in all the Bible. When that rejection was etched in stone Jesus began to provide a few clues regarding what was coming next, but still never mentioned any details about the coming Church Age which was to be instituted only if the Kingdom was rejected. But after Palm Sunday in AD 33 He was then free to prophesy about the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem by the Romans, since the 490 years promised to Israel in Daniel chapter 7 was complete as of the week of His crucifixion. That started an interim period of time from Palm Sunday until Pentecost which was 50 days after the crucifixion when the Church Age would begin.
We know historically that after Jesus was crucified, resurrected, and ascended to heaven, the Church Age began. But during His entire earthly ministry Jesus never mentioned the Church Age or any of its doctrines since He was required to act and teach as if the Church Age would not happen. The Father required this to remain a mystery, meaning it was never revealed in the Old Testament or by Jesus even though the later times including the Tribulation and Millennial Kingdom had been revealed in prophesies. Jesus could only teach Old Testament principles and offer the Kingdom, which was what was prophesied in the Old Testament. It was only after His death, resurrection and ascension that the Holy Spirit instituted the backup plan, the mystery Age which was the Church Age. Eleven of the disciples became Apostles, and Paul was added, then the Holy Spirit gave those Apostles the Church Age principles and doctrines to write down and teach. But during the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ He offered the main plan until it was rejected, and could not discuss the Church because that would have been incompatible with the legitimate offer of the Millennial Kingdom, and incompatible with Old Testament prophesies. This provides the main reason why Jesus taught the way He did, why He taught what He taught, and why He did not prepare the disciples for the coming Church Age or teach any of its concepts or doctrines.
Since Jesus could not and did not take on the task of revealing the Church Age He told His disciples before His crucifixion “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things...” (John 14:6) meaning the Church Age doctrines, even though they did not understand what He meant. Therefore Jesus’ earthly ministry stuck to the issues He was sent to offer, first salvation, and secondly the Kingdom. Jesus taught the Kingdom in everything He preached to the masses and to the disciples. This explains why the disciples were so confused when the Kingdom did not occur. It is also why Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus, because he felt that Jesus had betrayed the disciples by not instituting the Millennial Kingdom, and by not making them Princes in the Kingdom at that time, but instead seemed to depart from the promises of the Kingdom they had heard for the preceding several years. But the Jewish leaders had rejected the Kingdom which Jesus had offered, a fine point which Judas missed. As a result Judas betrayed Jesus out of a sense of bitterness over what he viewed to be a bait and switch message from Jesus. Judas and the other disciples did not understand the difficult and narrow message of Jesus' earthly ministry, that He must only offer the Kingdom, but that the Jews could reject it. And once it was rejected, a backup plan had to replace it. But Jesus stuck with the Old Testament prophesies no matter what the Jews decided, and He did so right up to the end even though it thoroughly confused His disciples. It was necessary to ensure the prophecies of the Bible were not compromised in any way.
The great "mystery" was that the Church Age was not God's primary plan, but rather God wanted Israel to accept Jesus Christ as King and have Israel serve as His chosen people once again in a regathered nation of Israel under the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the Millennial Kingdom. But either way the cross had to occur first, so even if Israel had accepted their King, salvation had to be provided first, then the Kingdom could follow in the proper prophetical order. If the Church had been revealed in prophesy in the Old Testament, that would have made the offer of the Kingdom to Israel at the time of Christ an empty promise since only one or the other could be fulfilled at that time. But once Christ was rejected as King the Millennial Kingdom was significantly delayed but not canceled since it is revealed in prophesy. And the Church Age, which had been the ultimate Biblical mystery of all time, was revealed in the New Testament, and the new covenant to the Church was launched as an Age of expanded grace. The Apostle Paul discussed the mystery in several passages, including:
"We declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began." (1 Corinthians 2:7)
"God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people." (Colossians 1:25-26)
"In keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past." (Romans 16:25)
"This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus... 8 Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, 9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known..." (Ephesians 3:6-10)
"Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith" (Romans 16:25-26)
"The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery..." (Colossians 1:26-27)
If the Jews of Jesus' day had accepted Jesus as Messiah, the Millennial Kingdom would have commenced soon after the cross. But since the Jews rejected their Messiah, the Millennial Kingdom was delayed and the Church Age inserted instead, delaying the Millennium by thousands of years. The Holy Spirit then put this backup plan into effect and supplied the Church Age principles and doctrines to the Apostles under the new covenant to the Church. This is the part of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ which is most difficult to understand, namely that He was required to offer only what was prophesied, and not what was actually going to be instituted. Again, the offer of the Kingdom to Israel had to be a totally legitimate offer fully capable of being accepted by Israel. We must remember that even though God knows the future, He must act in ways that are consistent with His own perfect character, so an offer from the Messiah had to be legitimate, not a sham offer.
Which brings up the interesting point, namely, because the offer of the Kingdom (Millennium) was legitimate to the Jews of AD 30-33, what would have happened if those Jews had accepted the offer, as they could have done? Since the Church was a backup plan never mentioned in prophesy, and therefore would not have occurred, what would have happened next? As we have noted, Jesus only taught salvation (as the Messiah), the Kingdom (as the King), and the Tribulation (since it was an Old Testament prophesy) during His earthly ministry. These three issues were all prophesied in the Old Testament, and therefore had to be fulfilled exactly as presented in Scripture. So these all would have occurred, however the Church Age would have been left out if the Jews had accepted Jesus' offer of the Kingdom with Him as their King. The time line would therefore have been as follows: The cross would have occurred on the same date, as would have the resurrection after three days and the ascension after 40 days. Jesus had to pay for the sins of mankind no matter what else happened, so the cross would have occurred either way. But this is where the time line would have changed. Instead of the Church Age beginning when it did after the Ascension of Christ, the seven year Tribulation would have started immediately after the Ascension since it was prophesied in the Old Testament and also had been reconfirmed by Jesus as stated in Matthew 24. Jesus had said the Temple and much of Jerusalem would be destroyed, but instead of occurring in AD 70 during the Church Age it would have occurred during the seven years of the Tribulation which would have followed after the cross during AD 33 - 40. At the end of the seven year Tribulation the Second Advent of Christ would have occurred in AD 40. This would have been followed by the start of the promised Kingdom (Millennium) in AD 40 with Christ ruling for 1000 years. At the end of the Millennium in AD 1040 Satan would have been thrown into the Lake of Fire along with all unbelievers from human history, and huma