Session 2—Learning Christ 101, Jesus, John the Baptist, & the Messiah's Purpose

In this session, Prof. Fred Long walks through the 3-Step process of formation found in Eph 4:20–24, that correlates with Jesus's call to (1) deny oneself, (2) take up one's cross, and (3) follow Him (Mark 8:34//Matt 16:24//Luke 9:23). This same process, in fact, is described in Psalm 1, Isaiah 1, and many other places in Scripture (Rom 12:1-2; Heb 12:1-3, etc.). In Ephesians, furthermore, Jesus is the "standard [Gr.= μέτρον metron] of maturity"—an idea that related to a philosophical discussion of what was a suitable "standard" or "measure" for humans—man or God? Socrates/Plato argued that "God was the measure of all things." Paul would say Christ is the measure of all things (Eph 4:13). Then, Prof. Long hard pivots to look at Malachi's prophecy in relation to Elijah and the coming day that will bring a "curse" on the land (Malachi 4:6), the very last word of the Prophets' section of the Hebrew Bible! This is correlated with John the Baptist in the Synoptic Gospels as coming "in the spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke 1:17) or as Elijah, as Jesus affirmed (Matt 11:14). Further consideration ensues looking at Jesus's genealogies and the Prologue in John's Gospel (1:1–18). Dr. Long ends by reflecting on John the Baptist's call to repentance and warning of the "wrath" to come (Luke 3:7), which is related to the fall of the temple (Luke 21:23). Jesus came in part to save His contemporaries from this tragedy!