Bill Smith, Author at Kuyperian Commentary

On August 13, 2018 By Bill Smith In Culture Like

Being Holy

At the end of Revelation, John is guided by an angel to see the Lamb’s wife, which is a city (Rev 21.9). This city is what a wife should be: pure. She is, John sees, a holy city. Outside of her walls are “dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie” (Rev 22.15). They are the unholy. But the walls of the city enclose a culture that has integrity and purity. There is no weakness to compromise its strength. There is no blemish to compromise its purity. The city is holy like the God who created her.

John’s vision of the church is a bringing together of what we are, what we are becoming, and what we will be. Created in the image of God, we were created holy. Re-created in the image of God in Christ, we are holy (cf. Eph 4.21-24). As the bride, the Lamb’s wife, we are united to him, one flesh. His holiness belongs to us. In him we are holy. This is the reason we can dwell in this city in the unveiled presence of God, drawing near to him without fear of being consumed. Christ took our sins in himself, died for them, and rose again so that they might be forgiven and we might share in his holiness. At this present time, we who are in Christ by faith share in his holiness. The church is what John sees: a holy city. (more…)

On August 6, 2018 By Bill Smith In Worship Like

Discipling the Nations, Starting at Home

After his resurrection, Jesus gave the church the commission to disciple the nations (Mt 28.18-20). In fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, all the nations would be blessed through Abraham’s seed: Christ, head and body. When John sees a vision of the glorious church, the New Jerusalem, he sees kings bringing their glory into the city. The glory of kings is the realms of their dominions. Entire cultures will be brought in and made part of the city of God.

This glorious vision is overwhelming. The task seems daunting. We hear this grand narrative of “the world” and “nations” consciously arranging their cultures under the lordship of Christ, look at the task before us, and say, “How in the world do we get there from here?” We have trouble maintaining personal disciplines, ordering our own family life, and arranging local church life so that the church acts the way she is supposed to act. How are we expected to be changing the broader culture around us? The task, while glorious in its vision, seems hopeless. (more…)

On July 30, 2018 By Bill Smith In Worship Like

The Church: God’s Glory

The first sanctuary for worship wasn’t much. It was beautiful, but it was simple: a garden filled with pristine, freshly created trees. The man and the woman were themselves also in their simplest state: naked and unashamed. The sanctuary and man were glorious but not as glorious as God intended them to be. In all of his dominion taking, man was to take the materials of the world around him and make the garden a more glorious place, which would eventually include man himself being glorified with clothing. The sanctuary and man within it was to move from this pristine state of glory into the greater glory of a developed world.

We can know that this was God’s intention by looking at the rest of the story of Scripture. As the story progresses, God moves his people from making stone altars (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) to building the Tabernacle (Moses) and eventually the Temple (Solomon). Man himself doesn’t return to a state of nakedness, but is clothed with garments of glory and beauty (Exod 28.2). All of these structures include the original garden sanctuary in some form, but they are all more developed. The place where God is meeting with man is becoming more glorious. (more…)

On July 23, 2018 By Bill Smith In Theology 1

Trees of Life

As we come to the end of the Bible, there are some things that are intriguingly similar to the beginning. In the beginning, God created the man and placed him in a garden that he had planted in the land of Eden, telling him to be fruitful and multiply. This garden had a river that ran through it and split into four different rivers outside of the garden. In the midst of the garden were two trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Man was invited to come to the Tree of Life but forbidden to partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In the midst of the garden, at this Tree, God would communicate his life to man. Man would enjoy communion with God there at this Tree, being nourished in every way to be what his Father had created him to be. (more…)

On July 16, 2018 By Bill Smith In Theology 1

The Church: God’s Glory

In Revelation 21, John describes the city-bride as “having the glory of God” (21.11). She is a new Holy of Holies, the place where the glory of God is enthroned above the cherubim. God’s glory is seen in her and through her. That glory is the light by which the nations will walk (21.24). The church, being the body of Christ, is the place where the glory of God dwells on earth.

What is the glory of God? God’s glory is the revelation of himself, his person, power, and perfections. We might tend to think of God’s glory as something that is “contained” in God himself. We only stand at a distance and see the glory of God. It is true that God is glorious in himself. Men come into the presence of an all-glorious God, and they see their own deficiencies in his presence. Isaiah is but one example of this. He sees YHWH seated upon the throne in his temple, and he cries out “Woe is me!” (Isa 6.1ff.). (more…)

On July 9, 2018 By Bill Smith In Theology, Worship Like

The Church: The Holy Of Holies City

At the end of Revelation, John sees a vision of the church, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. She is a “holy city.” This holiness takes an architectural shape in this vision. John tells us that the city is a perfect cube; its width, height, and length are all the same. This cube-shaped image of holiness is not unusual. The Temple had a room that was cube-shaped: the Holiest Place or the Holy of Holies. Those measurements were distinct for this room. The Holy Place (the first room one entered in the Temple) was twice as long as it was wide. But the Holy of Holies was a perfect cube: 20 x 20 x 20 cubits (1Kg 6.20; Ezek 41.4). John’s vision is that the New Jerusalem, the church, is a “Holy of Holies city.” There are no more veils to hide us from God or God from us. No boundaries exist between the church and the throne of God. We, the city of God, live in the presence of God continually.

Understanding the architectural reference of the church being the Holy of Holies shapes the way we are to think about holiness. What is the Holy of Holies, and, consequently, what does that tell us about our own holiness? (more…)

On July 2, 2018 By Bill Smith In Theology 2

The Church: The New Jerusalem

At the end of the Revelation, John sees a new heavens and a new earth with a New Jerusalem as its principal city. The fate of the old Jerusalem has been described in the previous chapters. The first Jerusalem became Sodom and Egypt (Rev 11.8), and like Sodom and Egypt fell under the wrath of God. But out of the rubble of the old Jerusalem, God is making a new city. This new city is described in Revelation 21–22.

I have heard many a sermon at funerals as well as other venues that seek to comfort mourning Christians with this vision. It will be taught that John’s vision is that of our final resting place in heaven. While we can be comforted with many promises from John’s vision, this vision is not of heaven. This city that John sees is distinct from heaven because it comes down “out of heaven” (Rev 21.2). The New Jerusalem is also as much a people as it is a place. John sees the New Jerusalem as a “bride adorned for her husband” (Rev 21.2). Later, when the angel takes John to see the bride, the Lamb’s wife, he shows him a detailed vision of this holy city, the New Jerusalem (Rev 21.9-10). This vision is not of heaven, but it is of a heavenly city. That heavenly city is the church, the bride of Christ. (more…)

On June 25, 2018 By Bill Smith In Culture 1

Church Culture

Wherever two or three share a life together, there is a culture. Culture is an inexorable part of our human experience. Having been created as the image of a God who shares life eternally as Father, Son, and Spirit, man exists in relationships and, therefore, culture. We are not merely individual masses of flesh that happen to bump into one another. We come together and form a body that takes the forms of families, cities, states, and nations. These cultures, at whatever level, are places where we share a common language, law, morals, mores, story, symbols, and many other things. The longer we live together, our relationships are cultivated, growing and taking different, and sometimes, more formal forms. For instance, as a family grows into families, a village or city is formed that will seek to maintain the culture and pass it on to the next generation. Officials are put in place to make sure that the laws that govern the culture are enforced so that the culture doesn’t lose its fundamental identity.

The history of man is a history of cultures, good and bad. As man fulfills his image-bearing mission to be fruitful and multiply, cultures are formed. This was God’s intention. Man as individual-and-community is to share in the culture of the Divine Society. God’s own relationships, his culture, was to be the culture of the earth. (more…)

On June 18, 2018 By Bill Smith In Theology Like

Ordination

Ordination changes a man; not in a way that changes his liver into a lung, nor in a way that gives him magical powers to do sacramental tricks, but he is changed nevertheless. The change is more like when a degree is conferred upon a graduate or when a man marries a woman. In neither case is the man physically transformed nor does he receive special powers. However, he is a changed man. No longer is the man a student. He is a graduate, possibly with a title attached to his name and all the clout that comes with his new status. No longer is the man a bachelor, but he is a husband, who now has the privileges and duties of marriage. The molecular structure in his body may be the same pre- and post-ceremony, however, in many ways he is not the same person. He stands in new relationships, and those new relationships with all of their attendant responsibilities make him a new man. (more…)

On June 11, 2018 By Bill Smith In Culture 1

The Conspiracy

I’m not a “tin foil” hat kind of guy. I don’t believe that there are conscious, concerted, deliberate government conspiracies behind everything that goes on in our society. However, the Western church has been the victim of a well-orchestrated conspiracy from at least the sixteenth century. The philosophical and cultural seeds that began to be sown almost five hundred years ago are bearing fruit in abundance today. This conspiracy was, no doubt, orchestrated by unseen forces; not merely the kind that meet in smoke-filled back rooms, but the demonic kind that empower those principalities and powers that pull the levers in government structures. All of these powers worked together to tame the church. A church that believes that the kingdom of Christ extends over every area of human existence–individuals as well as institutions–must be subdued. (more…)