Gospel Glimpses in Ezra: Christ & Faithfulness

Session 1 Recap – Fulfilment

So, in our first session, we saw how the story of Ezra shows us that God will fulfil whatever promises he has made to redeem and restore us to whatever he desires for us to be and to do. God promised to redeem and restore his Old Testament people to their land after 70 years in exile and he fulfilled that promise. That’s the first of our three F’S – fulfilment.

Session 2 – Faithfulness

In this second session, we’re going to reflect on how the story of Ezra shows us that it is Christ through the Holy Spirit who empowers us to demonstrate the faithfulness that is required of each of us in the work that God has assigned to us. That’s the second of our three F’S – faithfulness, faithfulness. Ezra whose name means help proved to be a faithful, humble and obedient priest and scribe whose whole life was dedicated to helping to fulfil God’s plans and purposes for his people.

It is Ezra’s faithfulness to his role that points us to Christ’s faithfulness to his role – restoring lost and sinful human beings back into a relationship with God.

Old Testament characters that point us to Christ

The same thing is reflected between Moses and Christ as the apostolic writer of Hebrews compared the faithfulness of Moses with the faithfulness of Christ in Hebrews 3:5-6. By stating that Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house but Christ is faithful as the son over God’s house. We see this reflected in almost all the major Old Testament characters. For example, as one Bible scholar has noted from the story of Abraham, we discover that Christ is the true and more faithful Abraham who answered the call of God to leave the comfortable and familiar and go out not knowing whether he went to create a new people of God.

From the story of David, we discover that Christ is the true and more faithful David whose victory becomes his people’s victory though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves. From the story of Joseph, we discover that Christ is the true and more faithful Joseph who at the right hand of the King, forgave those who betrayed and sold him and used his new power to save them.

Ezra’s Faithfulness Points us to Christ

In this same way, the faithfulness of Ezra the priest points us to Christ Jesus – our greater and more faithful high priest in heaven whose perfect one-time sacrifice of himself on the cross for us forever secured our forgiveness and our reconciliation with God.

One of my favourite verses in the whole book of Ezra is, Ezra 7:10 which tells us that, “… Ezra (being the faithful scribe he was) devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.” In Bible days, the scribes were very learned men whose primary work was; to study, to interpret and to expound the law of God as the rule for the daily life of God’s people. Because Ezra was a faithful scribe, he studied the word of God, he applied it to his own life, and he taught others to do the same.

This is a picture of Christ, the ultimate scribe who is himself the living word of God. Christ is predicted in the Old Testament, he’s revealed in the gospels, the Epistles explain the implications of his life, his death and his resurrection. His return to this world is announced in the book of Revelation.

As the ultimate main character in the written word of God, Christ is the faithful Lord of the word in the word of the Lord. Ezra 7:10 tells us that, Ezra taught God’s decrees and laws in Israel to the Old Testament people of God, who were in the old covenant.

For you and I today, who are in the new covenant, Hebrews 8:1 tells us that, God has put his law in our minds and written them on our hearts through Christ the faithful living word of God who lives in us by his Holy Spirit. Because the life of Christ is thus imparted to us by the Holy Spirit, we too in his strength can be as faithful as Ezra was in the role he played in the return and restoration of God’s Old Testament people back to their land.

Session Summary

For this second session, we can summarize our second F by saying that, in our own Christian lives today, it is Christ through the Holy Spirit who empowers us to demonstrate the faithfulness exemplified by Ezra and the faithfulness required for the work that God has assigned to us. We cannot do this in our own strength. We need to rely on the strength of Christ every single day of our Christian lives.