Steve Conover: Thank you so much for joining us for The Friends of Israel Today. I'm Steve Conover, executive director of The Friends of Israel. With me is our host and teacher, Chris Katulka.

Chris Katulka: Steve, we got a great episode. It's one of my favorites. It's our IMG In-Depth episode where we look at our most recent issue of Israel My Glory, and actually we're going to have Tom Simcox on. Tom is a church ministries representative with The Friends of Israel and he wrote a fantastic article called The God-Man's Symphony. Looking at how Jesus orchestrated like a symphony, like a conductor would, all the events that would lead up to his death. They were not by accident. Jesus had planned them all out. In fact, in conjunction with that, we want to share with you a fantastic resource that we have because not only do we want to talk about the fact that Jesus orchestrated everything leading up to his death, burial and resurrection, but in light of all of those events, Passover was happening and Passover is right around the corner for us here as Jewish people are preparing for the Passover season this April, and so we want to provide for you a fantastic resource that gives you everything that you need in order to run a Passover or host a Passover right in your home, so you can go to foiradio.org and there you can download our Haggadah and all of the various recipes and tips in order to run a fantastic Passover for your family and friends all pointing to Jesus our Passover Lamb. It's a great resource for you and your family to have.

Steve Conover: And we do look forward to having Tom Simcox with us. But first in the news, Hamas has reportedly begun cracking down on Gazans who participated in recent protests against its rule, executing six individuals and publicly beating others according to Palestinian activists and local residents.

Chris Katulka: Well, Steve, here's my take.Recently, Mahmoud Khalil was deported by ICE for promoting pro-Hamas rhetoric and inciting violence on Columbia University’s campus. Some argue that this violated his First Amendment rights. But isn’t it ironic? Khalil wants the protection of U.S. free speech laws while supporting Hamas—a group known for killing Palestinians who dare to protest against them.

Chris Katulka: Hi everybody. I'm Chris Katulka, host of The Friends of Israel Today radio program, an editorial writer for Israel My Glory Magazine. Today we're going to be talking about our most recent issue of Israel My Glory, which is called, The Hour Has Come: Tracing the Messiah's Path to the Cross. Now, we're going to share with you in a moment how you can get a one year, free subscription to our award-winning Christian magazine, Israel My Glory, but you got to hang around to the end. Today we have Tom Simcox with us. He wrote an article here, a fantastic article called The God-Man's Symphony, like a composer conducting a score he wrote himself, Jesus orchestrated all the events of his death, and so Tom's going to share with us about his article. Tom, great to have you.

Tom Simcox: Good to be here.

Chris Katulka: Hey, Tom, you and I were talking before we went live here and we were talking about our shared passion for the symphony and orchestra and we were even talking about John Williams, our mutual hero when it comes to being a composer. There's something to be said about the symphony, the orchestra, and what Jesus was doing throughout the gospel, something that you really take to heart.

Tom Simcox: Yeah, it really hit me when I've read through the Bible and I try to do that each year. Jesus was like a John Williams. He scored the New Testament. If you look at the New Testament as if it was a musical score, everything was pointing to the cross and it's like musically when you would hit that you are hitting the crescendo of the orchestration because that was the focal point of human history. The entry into Jerusalem that last week leading up to the cross and Jesus wrote that he was the composer of all of that. He knew exactly when he was going to be born, where, how he was going to die, why he was going to die, when he was going to die.

Chris Katulka: Even when you go back and you think about Matthew chapter 16 in Caesarea Philippi when Matthew's with the disciples and he's telling them, “I must die,” and you heard Peter go, “No, it can't happen.” He said, “Get behind me, Satan!” Even then he was orchestrating the plans that he had already predestined before the foundation of the earth. This was all to be lived out, like you said, like a symphony, like an orchestra.

Tom Simcox: There was a cantata that I remember being a part of years ago when I was young and they had a couple of notes that they used to represent. It was called God Gave the Song, and as you're building towards this, that particular melody just kept increasing and increasing until you get to the cross when it's like total everything, that song, and then the crucifixion and then it stops. But the song comes back again because three days later he arose from the dead. So absolutely, the Lord knew exactly what he was doing, when he was doing it, and why he was doing it.

Chris Katulka: And you kind of build the article that you wrote, The God-Man Symphony, around the first thing is CS Lewis, and he argued that Jesus must either be a liar, a lunatic or the Lord. But if we see Jesus as kind of a divine composer of his own life and his own death, how does what CS Lewis said reinforce the idea that he was fully in control of his destiny and not just a deceiver or a madman?

Tom Simcox: That's a really interesting question. If you think about it as the writer of the score, he purposed exactly when everything was going to happen. He knew exactly when it was going to unfold. And he made sure that everything happened exactly as it said, because the Bible says that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, saying, he gave the prophets the word so they could speak to them so that he could when the time was exactly right, Galatians tells us, in the fullness of time when time was exactly right, he was born and he did everything exactly in tune with exactly what the Old Testament prophet said. They didn't always understand because they had that mountaintop experience the First Coming, the Second Coming. He knew exactly how that was all going to play out. And I love the fact, I don't know whether we can say this, but there was a man that I love who wrote a song that said he was born to die. That's why he came. He came for this purpose. “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to me.” And CS Lewis is right. Either he was what he said he was or he is a total nutcase.

Chris Katulka: Yeah. If he's making all of these predictions, even his own death and resurrection, then they have to come true. If they don't, there have been a lot of people who have made claims and they become mad men. We've labeled a lot of people mad men. They become lunatics or deceivers, but Jesus' words, they did come true. He did die. He was buried. He was in the grave three days and he rose again.

Tom Simcox: And his followers were all Jewish and they had no question about that. Obviously, they knew enough of the scriptures. For example, we talk in here about the Last Supper. He instituted that and he said, “this is the new covenant in my blood.” The Jewish men, they knew covenants were instituted in blood. They had lived with that their whole lives. The fact that he's saying, “this covenant’s in my blood,” they didn't balk at that. They didn't rebel against it. How much they understood at that moment, I don't know, but they clearly didn't fight him on it.

Chris Katulka: I want to go to that because at the Last Supper, Jesus, he not only predicted his betrayal, but he also, like you had just mentioned, he kind of, he instituted, he didn't kind of, he did institute the new covenant, so if we think of this moment as kind of a key moment in this grand symphony that he composed, how does it show his mastery over history, prophecy, and redemption? There's a lot of big theological things that are happening with Jesus living out all of the things that were prophesied about him.

Tom Simcox: I guess you have to start in the past. In Jeremiah, Jeremiah was inspired to write Jeremiah 31 that he was going to give a new covenant like the previous covenant, which had been written in stone, but this one will be written on their hearts. Then we skip down to time. Jesus is here. He says, “If I be lifted up, I'm going to draw all men to me.” Then he says, as he's telling them, “It's time for the Passover, go make ready.” He tells them exactly where to go, how to do it, even to the donkey that was going to bring him in for Palm Sunday. All that was orchestrated. Then they make it ready. He's there. He says, “Haven't I chosen 12 of you and one of you was a devil. The one that I dipped the bread with and I give it to him, he's the one that's going to betray me.” He's clearly in charge.

I mean talk about the composer. Then they get to the point in the Seder where he's going to take the bread and he breaks it and He said, “This represents my body which is broken, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Then the cup. “This is the cup of the New Covenant in my blood.” He clearly understood, going all the way back to Jeremiah, that a New Covenant was coming. That the Old Covenant, although it was holy just and good, it wasn't going to get people to be able to have the kind of relationship with God the Father that they needed. It pointed out sin, but it was not going to do the job to redeem that which was lost.

Chris Katulka: Which is the reason why He is living out every moment that was prophesied from the Old Testament. It's the reason he's living out this orchestra moment. This symphony moment was.. in my mind, goes to Philippians chapter two where Jesus empties himself. Paul says, “He emptied himself not because he considered equality with God something to be grasped or something for himself,” but he thought about us. He's living out these moments for us. It's almost like if there's a symphony going on, we're in the audience watching it take place and being blessed by all the things that we're seeing.

Tom Simcox: Absolutely, and Philippians I think is so clear because He was in very form and nature, God. The text is telling you He's the exact same, but even though he had the right to use all those God-given abilities that were God, he set them aside. He said, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” He could do anything but he did it under the will of his Father and that's how we should conduct our lives. We're supposed to do whatever we do under the control, the Holy Spirit, like Christ. And yet he clearly understood who he was, what he came to do and he wrote that and planned for it to be that way.

Chris Katulka: Now we're talking about Jesus' divinity there and how he laid that aside. But let's talk for a moment about Gethsemane because that is a moment where you see the humanity of Jesus. It's really important for the people who are watching us right now to know Jesus was 100% deity. He was God as your article, The God-Man Symphony, says, but at the same time he was 100% man. He experienced everything that we experience in the flesh because he was 100% man and to me Gethsemane is that moment where we really see Jesus under pressure. In fact, Gethsemane is two words, Gat Shemanim, in Hebrew, which means an “olive press." And it's fitting that Jesus's literally being pressed for everything that he is in his humanity like an olive is being pressed. So Jesus is agonizing over this suffering. He didn't simply walk into it willy-nilly, oh, I got this under control. He felt the pain, he felt the suffering, the loneliness. Can you share about that and how that plays out in the suffering and also in the symphony that we've been talking about?

Tom Simcox: Well, it's interesting. If you go back to Genesis, God saw man, he created them, created them in his image, and man rebelled. From that point on, God said in Genesis 3, he was going to send someone who was going to buy back, word redeem, buy back that which was lost, which is Christ. I love the Gethsemane part because it does show the humanity of Christ. Even though he knew how it was all going to turn out, even if we understand something, we know sometimes there's going to be pain suffering to get to that point and it can be a very difficult road to face. I'm not a marathon runner, but I know that marathon running has got to be a painful sport.

I've watched my daughter do it and I know that there's a lot that's involved. But for her, even though she knows the pain, the completion of it, the euphoria that she gets from completing the marathon overwhelms the fear, but there's always going to be fear whenever you're facing it. Jesus was God, but he was still human and what he was going to face, the total absence of God, separation of the Godhead that had been together for all eternity, no one had ever experienced that. Jesus was the first to understand what it was like to be separated from God.

SSteve Conover: Are you a new listener to our program? If you are, welcome. We're glad you're here. The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry exists to fuel your passion for the Word which should overflow to a compassion for God's Chosen People, the Jewish people.

Chris Katulka: Whether you're new to our program or have listened for years, we want to encourage you with our resources to help you see why God called us to support the Jewish people in Israel and worldwide. We have a free download, a digital version of our booklet, Whose Land is it Anyway? that we'd like to send you free today. Whose Land is it Anyway? takes the Jewish and Arab claims to the land and helps make sense of the common arguments surrounding the struggle. Whose Land is it Anyway? is an easy-to-read apologetic that will give you a clear answer as you think about Israel's right to the land.

Steve Conover: To get your free digital copy of Whose Land is it Anyway?, visit foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org.

Chris Katulka: And this is really important for our discussion here because again, when you're talking about these things that have already been laid out, it almost can feel like Jesus walks right to the cross as if there is no tension whatsoever between his divinity and his humanity. But the reality is that tension is there. I always think of when Jesus is at the garden of Gethsemane and he uses those famous words, “Not my will but yours be done.” He's saying, if you can make this cut pass, if I don't have to do this, not my will, but your will be done. It makes me think of the garden moment where this is where Jesus becomes the new Adam because the old Adam would've eaten of the fruit. He would've said, I'm caving into all the pleasures, all the knowledge of the good and evil, all of it. But here Jesus is saying, this is my moment to go this way or to go this way, almost a choice and he chose the path of obedience in that tension between divinity and humanity and he said, not my will but yours be done.

Tom Simcox: I love that and I love the reality of that is, He did that because of his love for us.

Chris Katulka: That’s right.

Tom Simcox: He came because he loved us. We mentioned at the end here, and I know everybody, our listeners know John 3:16, I mean everybody knows John 3:16, “That God loved the world…” but it's also not only that God loved the world, Jesus loved us so much that he allowed all of this that had been orchestrated to happen exactly as it was written, that it would be, that he was going to suffer, that he was going to be cut off and die. I still, this side of glory, I don't think I'll ever fully grasp how much love that is that held him on the cross for me. That's a lot of love.

Chris Katulka: Tom, I was just in the garden of Gethsemane and I just walked the Via Delarosa with many people just a few days ago and every detail of Jesus's arrest his trial, his crucifixion played out according to what the prophets had promised, like notes of a symphony going up and down that were written long before. What are some of the most striking examples of this divine orchestration and what does it reveal about God's sovereignty when we think about his arrest, his trial, his crucifixion in relationship to prophecy?

Tom Simcox: That's an interesting question. When I think about the arrest, I'm reminded of the fact that the Bible says he came into his own, his own received him not. There was so much evidence, even in the garden, he heals Malchus’ servant's ear. I can't imagine, they're coming with clubs. They're coming thinking that they're getting a robber and he heals one of them that was injured. I can't begin to fathom that and yet that plays out with what we see in the scripture that the Messiah was going to be like. Remember we're told in there that he would be led as the lamb to the slaughter, as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Jesus never said or did anything to get him off the hook.

Chris Katulka: That's exactly right.

Tom Simcox: All he did, he said, Lord, if this could pass, I'm good with that, but not my will but yours be done. That was the extent of the opportunity that he ever indicated that he would be open to another way. He marched into the trials. He even was condemned against Jewish law by condemning himself. They couldn't get anybody to testify against him. He was betrayed by a friend, the scripture tells us that. He was sold for 30 pieces, the scripture tells us that. The scripture just really laid everything out. I mean we don't know about Pilate, that wasn't foretold. But the fact that Pilate sees him as an innocent man and wants to let him go, and then he bowed to pressure because they said, give us Barabbas. We have no king but Caesar, which was the biggest lie this side of what we have going on in the world today. I shouldn’t say things that I shouldn't say. But the point is it was all preordained because this was God's plan and Jesus knew what was going to happen.

Chris Katulka: Yeah. I've heard it before and I think it's true that when you read through the New Testament, the gospels, Jesus walks the path of Isaiah 53.

Tom Simcox: Yes, he does.

Chris Katulka: He walks the path. He identifies with the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, his arrest, his trial, his crucifixion. He knows that he's the suffering servant which gives him the faith to know that God would redeem him according to what Isaiah had promised in Isaiah 53, he walked the path of the suffering servant.

Tom Simcox: Don't you see that in John 17? “Glorify your Son with the glory that he had was with you before the foundation of the world.” The time has now come. This is the reason why I'm here. This is what this is all about, and he fully understood that God was going to glorify him, that he wasn't going to be left and abandoned even though he knew he was going to experience this total separation from God on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He knew that that wasn't the end.

Chris Katulka: It's amazing to think that even within the Trinity that there was a component of Jesus needing the faith to know that he would be redeemed on the other side of the suffering that he would go through. Does that ring true at all that he would have to know, have confidence that he would be vindicated on the other end of death knowing what the scripture had promised about who he is?

Tom Simcox: Wouldn't that be the human aspect of his humanity? In his deity, he knew, but even as humans, don't we struggle with things that we know are true? I mean, I was just reading today in my devotions where the man—when Jesus came down after the man of Transfiguration and the gentleman wanted his son healed, ‘Lord, I believe, help my non-belief.’ I love that passage. 

Chris Katulka: Me too.

Tom Simcox: He says, ‘I understand I have the faith, but please help the area where I'm struggling with that faith.’ I think in his humanity, Jesus was showing us that that's what we do. That's how we are. That's how people are. And even the God-Man in his deity, he never sinned, but it didn't mean he wasn't tempted.

Chris Katulka: I want to end with this, Tom, and it's kind of a challenge. We started with CS Lewis and this concept of the liar, the lunatic or Lord, and I always think that we don't know what tomorrow holds for us. Jesus knew what was in store for him, but we don't, but we still have a confidence to be able to know by faith that we are sealed in Christ, that we have a relationship with the Lord. I'm interested to know, how does the divine symphony, this God-Man symphony, that's Jesus' orchestrating his life, walking the path of Isaiah 53, fulfilling what the prophets had promised all the way up to the very end. How does that relate to us? How does that give us confidence to know that yes, Jesus is Lord.

Tom Simcox: I only know the old hymn, ‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take him at his word.’ I believe the words that are in this book and I believe what it teaches about Jesus, and I trust him and I know that he was in complete control of this entire situation because he wasn't going to give Satan that victory. Satan thought he had won, but he hadn't. Satan thought he had won. He nailed him to a cross. That was it. But Jesus said, ‘Lift me up. All men will come to me.’ And that's where we are today. We're still in that mode of people being drawn to him.

Chris Katulka: I believe that the Old Testament tells the entire story of redemption as well. That's why Jesus also could be so confident. We can be confident just as he was confident because he saw the beginning from the end. We have more revelation in the New Testament, but even in the Old Testament, we know that God is coming back again, that the Lord is coming back again to redeem all mankind, all those truths route back to the promises of the Old Testament that Jesus would live out in his life in the gospels.

Tom Simcox: Yes.

Chris Katulka: Tom, I want to thank you so much for being a part of this amazing discussion. Thank you for writing the God-Man symphony. Hey, listen, if you would like to get your copy of Israel My Glory Magazine, it's a one year free subscription. That's right, one year free subscription. That's six issues that'll come right to your house. You can have it mailed—our print edition or I would encourage you to get our digital edition of Israel My Glory, which would give you more than 40 years of Israel My Glory content right at your fingertips, on your cell phone, on your tablet, on your computer, all of it by just going to israelmyglory.org/subscribe. Again, that's israelmyglory.org/subscribe, and we'd love to give you a one year free subscription of Israel My Glory Magazine. Thank you so much for being with us and we'll see you soon.

Steve Conover: Thank you for joining us for today's episode of The Friends of Israel Today. Don't forget to get your free digital download of our popular booklet, Whose Land is It Anyway?, and that's on our website, foiradio.org. Chris, where are we headed next week?

Chris Katulka: Yes, Steve. We're going to have a three part series on the biblical essentials for being a friend of Israel, so what could that mean? Well, it's nothing that we invented. In fact, there's a very popular 20th century theologian named Dr. Charles Ryrie. You probably know that name. Well, Dr. Ryrie put together three essentials of how we should study and understand the Bible, and so we're going to be going through those essentials because I believe they all lead and guide us to the same place: how to be a friend of Israel.

Steve Conover: We can't wait. We hope you join us then. As mentioned, our web address is foiradio.org. Again that’s foiradio.org. Our mailing address is FOI Radio PO Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey 08099. Again, that's FOI Radio PO Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey 08099. You can call our listener line. That number is 888-343-6940. Again, that's 888-343-6940. Today's program was engineered by Bob Beebe. Edited by Jeremy Strong, who also composed and performs our theme music. Lisa Small is our executive producer. Sarah Fern is our associate producer. And I'm Steve Conover, executive director of The Friends of Israel. The Friends of Israel Today is a production of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. Passion for God's Word. Compassion for God's Chosen People.