No Hope to All Hope 
– God With Us

The inability of God's people to keep God's law at the end of the Old Testament era declares to us our need of the one Messiah who kept God's law perfectly. God wants us to have joy in that He has redeemed us from living defeated lives of condemnation under the law, so that we might receive an eternal adoption as sons, no longer miserable slaves to the law, but heirs of God through Jesus Christ (Gal. 4:4-7). The failure of God's people once again in Nehemiah points forward not for another new and improved temple made of stone but Jesus Christ as the Temple where we worship in Spirit and Truth. It points not to another imperfect priesthood but to Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest, who has reconciled us once and for all. It points not to another sacrifice of animals but to our final sacrifice, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. The end of Nehemiah makes us long for the first Christmas, the coming of the Son of God incarnate to take away our sins. Nehemiah 13 creates joy in us that God has become like us in order that we might become like Him in Jesus Christ (Heb. 2:17).