Life of Jesus
The Mosaic Age Pt. 3

In one of our earlier lessons we mentioned that Jesus lived under the Law of Moses. Some people think that He lived under the new covenant [Hebrews 8:13] because His life is recorded in the New Testament. When we study the scriptures we learn that He did not live under the new covenant. It was at Jesus’ death that the old law or the Law of Moses, was done away, [Hebrews 9:16]. In lesson number two we studied about the two wills. When Christ died the old will, or old law, was taken away and the new brought into effect.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The place of the birth of the Son of God was foretold by the prophet Micah several hundred years before He was born. [Micah 5:1-2] Also see Matthew 2:1-6. While Jesus was a young child, His parents took him to Egypt because Herod wanted to have him killed. The prophet Hosea prophesied that God’s Son would live in Egypt for a time. [Hosea 11:1] After the death of Herod, Joseph and Mary took Jesus to a city called Nazareth. It was there that Jesus grew up. [Luke 2:51-52]

Jesus was baptized by John the baptizer in the Jordan River to fulfill all righteousness. [Matthew 3:15]. God was pleased with Jesus, for He said in Matthew 3:17 just after Jesus was baptized “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”.

Jesus performed many miracles and told many parables during His ministry. His first miracle is recorded in John the second chapter. The first miracle was in Cana of Galilee where He turned water into wine. A Bible miracle is something that was unnatural, something that could not be done just by anyone like the example above. It is not natural to turn water into wine. This was a miracle.

A parable is a story told by someone to explain something he is teaching. Jesus told stories about things that people knew about [like the planting of seeds] to teach them that they did not know [such as teaching the word of God is like planting seeds]. Jesus told them the story [parable] of the seeds in Matthew 13:3-9 to explain how the word of God falls in good hearts or bad hearts, etc. Jesus learned that the seed fell on good ground it would bring forth much fruit; some thirty fold, some sixty and some a hundred fold. Jesus said that he who heard the word and understood it and brought forth fruit was like the good ground.
 

While on the earth, Jesus chose twelve apostles. These men had the power to perform miracles and could give this power to other people. [Acts 8:14-17]. However the people to whom they gave this power could not give it to others.

Miracles were for a purpose. The miracles that Christ performed were to prove to people that He was the Son of God. [John 20:30-31] The ones the apostles performed were to confirm the word or to prove that what they were teaching was true. [Mark 16:20]. The apostles and the ones they gave this power continued to perform miracles until the word was confirmed. This was when the perfect law came or when the New Testament was completed. We have no need of miracles today because we have the Bible and it has been confirmed [or proven to be true] by miracles. In those days the New Testament was still being written.

Jesus had the apostles and disciples while on the earth. His apostles were the first twelve [Matthew 10]. Later Mathias took the place of Judas [Acts 1] and after this Paul was appointed to be an apostle. [I Corinthians 15:7-9] There were never any other apostles appointed by God.

Disciples were followers of Jesus. Today anyone who follows Jesus [does exactly as the Bible commands] is a disciple of Christ. The apostles were also disciples as they surely followed Christ, but all disciples are not apostles.

In Matthew 16:18-19 Jesus told His disciples that He was going to build His church. He also told them that He would give Peter the Keys to the kingdom, or the church. In a later lesson we will learn this through and find where and when the church was established or started. We will also see Peter using these keys that Christ have promised to give him.

This lesson briefly covered the life of Christ and some of the ways He taught. In our next lesson we will study the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.