Jesus called people out for their sin and their lack of belief. He didn’t make excuses. He called on people to take responsibility. And then, Jesus took responsibility for our sin. Jesus took our sin and shame and punishment. No excuses. 

I am an expert excuse generator. It is part of my nature. Not my spiritual, redeemed nature. Excuse-making comes from my sinful, flesh nature.
We offer excuses because we do not want to take responsibility. Just consider the way that they are explained. You give an excuse. You take responsibility.
An excuse is that which you offer others to hide your sin, your shame, your insecurities, your weaknesses, your guilt. Responsibility is the mantle that you take upon yourself so that you can relieve others of the burden.
When we make excuses, we work to shift blame. We work to burden someone else. When we take responsibility, we own the blame. We carry our own burden.
Adam was the first excuse-maker. When God questioned Adam in the garden, “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” Adam answered,
The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate.
Adam, unwilling to own responsibility for his failure to protect his wife and for his failure to obey the Lord, seeks to shift blame. Who does Adam blame? God and his wife.
Since that time, we have all imitated our first father. We are not only sinners, we are excuse-makers and blame-shifters.
Like Adam, we look for someone else to blame. We avoid mirrors and point fingers.
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By powerfully saving Israel from danger and their enemies, God points us his greatest work of salvation (Luke 24:27; see John 1:19-27). Israel was waiting, expecting a Messiah to save them. But what many of them missed was that he came to deliver us from our sins (Matthew 1:21). Many make a similar mistake today.

Looking across the landscape of churches in Nigeria, excluding the relatively new churches that have sprung up in the last decade or so, the vast majority of these churches, which are mostly denominational, have something of a common denominator. The common denominator is what I would refer to as an excessive fixation on the Old Testament, with wrong intent.
What I mean is this: the reason for this fixation on the Old Testament, and this is evident in the focus of the teachings in these denominations, is that it most appeals to the underlying cultural beliefs here especially around generational curses, enemies and spiritual warfare. And I think that the Old Testament appeals more because it speaks in a similar way to many African folklores that have been taught over many generations.
Consider a few examples. The Old Testament is crammed full of dramatic stories depicting God’s power, or his presence with the people of Israel; there’s the Mount Sinai, the burning bush, Elijah and the prophets of Baal, along with many other stories of God defeating his people’s enemies.
Of course, I believe and affirm that God performed all these wonderful acts. However, the question is: to what end did he do them? What do these miracles and signs tell us? What do they point to? These are important questions. Because if we don’t know what God’s ultimate intent was in writing the Old Testament, we’ll fail to see how it culminates in the person and work of Jesus Christ (John 5:39). So my simple purpose for this article, is to work through some examples of these glorious Old Testament events and show how they point us to salvation in Christ.
The Passover Lamb That Dies (Exodus)
In Exodus 12, we pick up the narrative of the Passover. The Lord God Almighty is about to exact judgment on the land of Egypt, his most intense judgment yet: the tenth plague. This plague will take away all the first borns in the land of Egypt, from cattle to king. As a way of escape for his people, the Lord commanded them through Moses to prepare a Passover lamb, eat it and then use its blood to cover the doorposts and lintel of the houses where they are. And God says, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt” (Exodus 12:13).
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Written by Jason G. Duesing |
Monday, November 20, 2023
In tumultuous times, communion with God, is both “perfect and complete” and “initial and incomplete.” It is perfect and complete, Owen explained, “in the full fruition of his glory,” and initial and incomplete “in the first fruits and dawnings of that perfection which we have here in grace.” Thus, contemplation on fellowship with God strengthens those anxious about the earthly world seemingly turned upside down all around them.

For the first time in centuries, England had no King.
What started with saber rattling led to a fractious civil war. After years of conflict during the 1640s, the anti-royalists terminated the war with a celebratory sabrage of the monarchy. Many declared the end of the world had come.
For students at Oxford University, this political instability brought anxiety. Where would they serve after graduation? In what state would they find the country? Could one find a job with any kind of financial security or projected path of safety and success?
These were uncertain times.
To address the concerns of the students, one theologian brought help and comfort by, believe it or not, teaching theology.
John Owen was an intellectual giant in the seventeenth century. As a Puritan who advocated reform within the Church of England, Owen saw his influence grow during the time when there was no King. When Oxford University needed leadership, the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, appointed Owen to serve as dean.
Owen’s role at Oxford also meant he had significant influence over the teaching of undergraduate students—and the students loved him.
Owen’s propensity to challenge formality in dress, no doubt, contributed to his large following among the students. He wore unconventional ribbons around his knees with Spanish leather boots. On top of his powdered hair, he wore a hat tilted, for effect, to one side.
Yet, it was Owen’s homiletical approach that had a lasting effect. Anthony Wood recounted that Owen’s “graceful behaviour in the pulpit” could move “the affections of his admiring auditory almost as he pleased.”1 As a regular practice during those years of country-wide instability, Owen and his fellow Puritan, Thomas Goodwin, each preached in the local university colleges on Sunday morning. Then they preached a schedule of Sunday afternoon sermons for undergraduate students in the University Church “St. Mary’s.”
These sermons were orthodox and precise, true and clear, but were more than a right ordering of facts—they were meant to ground and encourage the students to grow in their relationship with God, especially in uncertain times. Crawford Gribben notes that these university sermons “combined the theological mode with the devotional.”2 That is, in an era of tumult, Owen chose to give students theology with a fixed aim: to edify and point them to God.
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