Christ in Nehemiah

Nehemiah 1 is almost entirely a prayer, and it is the prayer of a man whose heart has broken over news from far away. Safe in the Persian palace at Shushan, cupbearer to the most powerful king on earth, Nehemiah hears that the survivors back in Judah are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire (v. 3). He could have stayed at a comfortable distance; instead he sat down and wept, and mourned cert…

Christ Connection - The Builder of the Church

Jesus says to Peter: "Upon this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18). Jesus is the builder. But He also sends his disciples to build - to "go therefore, and teach all nations" (Matthew 28:19). The work of building the church is both Christ's work and the work of His people. Nehemiah embodies this paradox: he prays as if everything depends on God, then works as if everything depends on him. He speaks with the authority God has given him, and the people rise to build…

Nehemiah 3 reads at first like a builders’ register - forty-odd crews, each named, each repairing a measured stretch of Jerusalem’s broken wall. But the New Testament hands us the pattern it quietly draws. A whole people, every family at its own section, the priests every one over against his house (v. 28), goldsmiths and apothecaries and a man with his daughters all building one wall - this is the body whose every member has a measured work: the whole body fitly joined to…

Christ Connection - The Builder Armed for Battle

The builders of Jerusalem worked with a stone in one hand and a sword in the other, trusting God to fight for them while staying ready to defend the work. Paul gives the church the same posture in spiritual terms: "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil" (Ephesians 6:11), the belt of truth, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:14-17). Jesus tells His disciples to "watch and p…

Nehemiah 5 turns away from the enemies outside the wall to a wound inside it, and the word that holds the whole chapter together is the fear of God. While the people build, the poor cry out - they have mortgaged their fields and sold their children into bondage to pay the king’s tribute during a famine, and the ones lending at interest are their own wealthy brethren. Nehemiah is angry, and the question he throws at the nobles goes past the economics to the heart: ought ye…

Nehemiah 6 is the story of a work that nearly anything could have stopped - and nothing did. The wall is almost finished; only the doors remain to be hung, and the enemies of Judah know that one well-timed distraction could undo months of labor. So Sanballat and Geshem send a courteous invitation to a meeting in the plain of Ono - four times - and four times Nehemiah sends back the same refusal: I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease…

Nehemiah 7 opens with a wall finished, doors hung, and a city that now needs guarding - and the first thing Nehemiah does is look for a trustworthy man. He gives charge of Jerusalem to his brother Hanani and to Hananiah, and the single line that explains the choice carries the whole chapter: for he was a faithful man, and feared God above many (v. 2). The gates are kept shut until the sun be hot, watches are set, and every man is posted over against his house - the city is…

Christ Connection - The Joy That Strengthens

The people’s joy springs from understanding God’s word, and that joy becomes their strength. Jesus speaks the same way to His disciples: "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (John 15:11). His own endurance flowed from joy as well, for He "for the joy that was set before him endured the cross" (Hebrews 12:2). Joy rooted in God can hold a person up under sorrow and through suffering, the same strength the wee…

Christ Connection - The New Covenant

The people respond to confession by binding themselves to covenant again, writing it down and sealing it. Yet the long recital they have just prayed shows how often written covenant met with broken obedience. Jeremiah looked ahead to a covenant written on the heart: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts" (Jeremiah 31:33). The book of Hebrews says Jesus is the mediator of that new covenant (Hebrews 8:6-10). The sure covenant the assembly sea…

Christ Connection - The Mediator of a Better Covenant

Hebrews 8:6 says of Christ: "But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises." The covenant sealed in Nehemiah 10 was written on parchment, sealed with names, maintained through tithes, offerings, and Sabbath-years. Christ is the Mediator of a covenant written on the hearts of His people, and its promises rest on His own faithfulness. He is the fulfillment of the temple…

Nehemiah 11 reads like a register, but it is the register of a consecrated people, and the New Testament takes up its very themes. The wall is built and the gates are hung, yet the great city stands nearly empty, so the lot is cast to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem the holy city (v. 1), and then the whole congregation blessed all the men, that willingly offered themselves to dwell at Jerusalem (v. 2). A tenth of the nation given up to live where the work of God was…

Nehemiah 12 reads at first like a register and then breaks into song, and both the names and the singing point beyond themselves. The chapter records the priests and Levites who came up with Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and the men set to praise and to give thanks, according to the commandment of David the man of God (v. 24), the porters keeping the ward at the thresholds of the gates (v. 25). Then the wall is dedicated: the Levites are sought out, purified, and gathered with th…

Nehemiah 13 closes the book in the unending labour of reform, and the New Testament reaches past that labour to the One who answers it. When Nehemiah finds that Eliashib has lodged Tobiah the Ammonite in a chamber of the temple, he acts with a holy violence: it grieved me sore: therefore I cast forth all the household stuff to Tobiah out of the chamber (v. 8), and they cleansed the chambers (v. 9), restoring the vessels and the offerings. That zeal for a defiled house is t…