Hebrews in Light of Grace (Part 12): The Proclamation and the Cross
When the gospel accounts bring us to the ministry of Christ, we find ourselves standing right at the edge of the prophetic timeline. The message echoing across Judea was clear and urgent: the kingdom of heaven was at hand. John the Baptist came declaring it, Jesus Christ walked among the people proclaiming it, and the twelve disciples were sent out to announce that very message to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This was not a message about a spiritual state in men's hearts, nor was it the mystery message preached to us today. It was a direct, literal offer of the Davidic kingdom promised to Israel.
The prophets had long foretold that one of David's own descendants would sit upon a throne in Jerusalem, establishing that throne with judgment and justice forever. To authenticate this offer, miraculous signs accompanied the preaching. The blind received their sight, the lame walked, lepers were cleansed, the deaf heard, and the dead were raised. When John the Baptist sat imprisoned in Matthew chapter 11, he sent his disciples to ask if Jesus was truly the coming one. Christ pointed directly to these exact miraculous works as the proof. The nation of Israel required a sign, just as God had confirmed Moses with signs and wonders in Egypt, and those signs authenticated the presence of the King and the nearness of His kingdom.
The Turning Point at Caesarea Philippi
Everything changes approximately six to seven months before the cross. Gathered in the region of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus puts a direct question to His disciples: Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? After recounting the various popular opinions—whether Elijah, Jeremiah, or John the Baptist—Christ asks what they themselves believe. Simon Peter steps forward with a profound confession: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Jesus pronounces him blessed, noting that flesh and blood had not revealed this truth, but His Father in heaven. Yet, immediately following this high point of revelation, Christ gives them a strange instruction: tell no man that He is the Christ. His prophetic hour had still not arrived. From that moment onward, Jesus begins showing His disciples something entirely new—that He must go up to Jerusalem, suffer many things of the elders and chief priests, be killed, and rise again the third day.
Up to this point, despite knowing He was the Messiah, the disciples had zero concept that the Messiah was supposed to suffer, die, and be raised. The shock of this revelation is so intense that Simon Peter—who had just confessed Him as the Son of God—actually takes the Lord aside and rebukes Him, declaring that such a fate should never be unto Him. Peter understood the glory and the reigning kingdom, but he knew nothing of the necessary suffering. Christ corrects Peter sharply, setting the stage for the deeper lessons yet to come.
The Glory of the Transfiguration
To anchor their faith against the coming darkness of the cross, Jesus reveals a glimpse of ultimate glory just six days later. Taking Peter, James, and John up onto a high mountain, He is transfigured before them. His face shines, His raiment becomes dazzling, and they behold Him standing with Moses and Elijah.
Confused by the sudden appearance of these monumental figures and the weight of what they are witnessing, Peter suggests building three tabernacles—one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. Luke's account reveals that Moses and Elijah were discussing the very death He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter, having just been told about the impending suffering and death, essentially proposes staying up on the mountain to avoid the valley of suffering altogether.
At that exact moment, a bright cloud overshadows them, and a voice from the cloud declares: This is my beloved Son, hear him. Peter is silenced. God visually demonstrates to those three disciples the exact glory that Christ would inherit only after He had suffered, died, and risen again. They were privileged to see the end from the middle, understanding that the crown could only come by way of the cross.
Setting the Face Toward Jerusalem
Armed with this vision of glory, Jesus makes a profound turning point in His earthly ministry. When the time comes for Him to be received up, He steadfastly sets His face to go to Jerusalem. He sets His resolve like a flint, fully knowing the mocking, the spitting, the Roman scourging, and the agony of the cross awaiting Him.
Even when passing through Samaria, the villagers refuse to receive Him because His face is unmistakably set toward Jerusalem. The disciples James and John, seeing this rejection, ask if they should call down fire from heaven to consume them, much like Elijah of old. Jesus rebukes them, reminding them that He did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. From this point forward in the Gospel narrative, Christ continually forewarns His followers of what awaits Him in the holy city. Yet the disciples simply do not understand; the reality of these things remains hidden from them until after the resurrection.
As the Good Shepherd, He walks willingly toward the ultimate sacrifice. He is true God and true man, feeling every ounce of the emotional and physical weight ahead. In the garden, His soul becomes exceeding sorrowful, yet He endures it all because it is His great joy to accomplish the will of His Father.
As Jesus and His disciples travelled onward toward Jerusalem, passing through Jericho, Zacchaeus was called down from the sycomore tree, and salvation came to his house. Yet, the crowd and the disciples still clung to a fundamental misconception: they believed the kingdom of God should immediately appear. They anticipated that Jesus would march into Jerusalem, overthrow the occupying Roman forces, purge the enemies of Israel, and establish the visible earthly throne right then and there. They understood salvation through a political and national lens, missing the vital necessity of the cross to pay for sins.
To correct this immediate expectation, Jesus spoke a parable concerning a certain nobleman who went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. This parable served as a profound structural correction. Christ was signaling that He was not going to establish the kingdom immediately; rather, He had to go away into a far country—ascending back to heaven—receive that kingdom, and return at a later time. This pattern is precisely what Daniel witnessed in vision centuries earlier.
The Heavenly Ascension and Daniel's Prophecy
In Daniel chapter 7, amidst visions of four great Gentile beast-kingdoms exercising dominion over the earth, Daniel sees one like the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days. No human figure had ever ascended before the Ancient of Days in this manner until Jesus Christ. When Jesus died, resurrected, and ascended into heaven, a cloud received Him out of the sight of His disciples. He took His seat at the right hand of God, exactly as prophesied in Psalm 110:1, expecting and waiting until His enemies are made His footstool.
When the Son of man was brought near before the Ancient of Days, there was given Him dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. This everlasting dominion is the direct fulfillment of the Davidic covenant made in 2 Samuel chapter 7. Yet, as the writer of Hebrews notes, we do not yet see all things put under Him. Christ received the title deed and the legal right to the kingdom while in that far country, but His public seizure and execution of that authority over the earth remain future.
Taking Possession and the Heavenly War
The actual process of taking repossession of the heavens and the earth unfolds progressively in the book of Revelation. In Revelation chapter 5, no man is found worthy to open the sealed book containing God's war and judgment plan to cast out Satan's wicked usurpation. Only the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David—the Lamb who was slain—is found worthy to take the book and loose its seals. The redeemed, the angelic host, and every creature in heaven and earth join in declaring the absolute worthiness of the Lamb.
Positional possession is formally announced in Revelation 11:15 when the seventh angel sounds his trumpet, proclaiming that the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Immediately following this in Revelation chapter 12, a war breaks out in heaven. Michael and his angels fight against the great red dragon—Satan and his angels—and prevail. The devil, who previously exercised a spiritual kingdom of darkness and accused the brethren before God, is cast out of heaven down to the earth. Heaven rejoices because salvation and the power of Christ's kingdom have arrived there, but a woe is pronounced upon the earth, knowing that Satan comes down with great wrath for a final limited time.
The Mystery Interval and the Present Age
When Jesus stood with His disciples in Acts chapter 1:6, just before His ascension, they asked Him a defining question: Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? His answer was clear: it is not for them to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in His own power. Nearly two thousand years have passed since that day, and the kingdom has still not been restored to the nation of Israel.
Instead, a vast historical parenthesis exists—the mystery interval. Because of Israel's national blindness in part, the prophetic clock was paused. During this present dispensation of grace, God is not executing the 70th week of Daniel or pouring out the wrath of the Day of the Lord. Rather, He is taking out of both Jews and Gentiles a body of believers, the Holy Spirit baptizing them into Christ, and seating them together in heavenly places. This church age was a secret kept hidden since the world began, later revealed through the Apostle Paul in epistles like Romans and Ephesians. Had the princes of this world known this mystery, Paul states, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory, 1Cor.2:7-8.
The Triumphal Entry and the Future Return
Before His crucifixion, Jesus presented Himself explicitly to Israel as their promised King. Fulfilling Zechariah's prophecy, He entered Jerusalem riding upon the foal of an ass while the crowds shouted Hosanna, quoting the 118th Psalm: Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. They were crying out for the immediate fulfillment of Psalm 118—for Him to save them and set up the kingdom.
Yet, because the nation rejected Him, Jesus pronounced their house left unto them desolate, declaring they would see Him no more until they welcomed Him with those exact prophetic words. Two days later, He went to the cross, accomplishing the necessary payment for sins that no political revolution could ever achieve.
The future climax of this divine timeline is unveiled in Revelation chapter 19. When heaven opens, Jesus does not come back to receive a kingdom—He already has it. He comes out riding on a white horse, clothed in a vesture dipped in blood, with many crowns upon His head and the name written: King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. He comes to judge, make war, crush the beastly world systems, and establish the literal, visible, everlasting kingdom on earth. Understanding this clear distinction between Israel's earthly kingdom promises and the present heavenly mystery of the church protects every Bible student from theological confusion, keeping the word of truth rightly divided.
An adapted lesson from Paul Lucas here.
