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On January 5, 2024 By In Theology

God Revealed In Our Terms

Introduction:

Have you ever pondered the majestic imagery in the Psalms, where God is depicted with “wings” sheltering His people, or the powerful depiction in Exodus of God’s “mighty hand” delivering the Israelites from Egypt? These vivid descriptions captivate our imagination, drawing us into a deeper understanding of the Almighty. Yet, this kind of language also raises an intriguing question: How can the infinite God, who transcends physical form, be portrayed with human-like or bird-like features? This enigma brings us to the doorstep of a profound theological concept in Scripture called anthropomorphisms. These literary devices are more than mere poetic expressions; they are bridges connecting the human tactile and material experience with the vastness of the metaphysical and transcendent God. 

Defining Anthropomorphism:

Anthropomorphism, in its essence, is the Biblical attribution of human traits, emotions, or physical characteristics to the description of the infinite God as a way for finite creatures to understand Him. While indeed paradoxical, this concept does not conflict with a proper understanding of Yahweh, as described in John 4:24, which teaches us that He lacks a physical body and transcends human comprehension. Instead, it is a literary tool that God employs to convey His actions and attributes to fallible man in a relatable and understandable manner to His creation. It’s a theological bridge, helping us cross the chasm between our limited perception and the boundless reality of God.

Scriptural Examples:

In its rich and varied narrative, the Bible frequently employs anthropomorphic language to describe God, allowing believers to relate to the divine in more familiar terms. This use of human-like imagery is not an attempt to define God in human terms but rather a way to make the nature and actions of the infinite God comprehensible to our finite minds.

Imagine standing at the edge of the Red Sea, feeling the formidable power of God as described in Exodus 15:8, where His might is likened to the “blast of His nostrils” parting the waters. It’s a vivid and awe-inspiring metaphor that paints a picture of divine intervention in a way that speaks to our senses. Then, consider how Isaiah 59:1 brings us closer to God’s nature, not by depicting Him with physical attributes but through the metaphor of a “hand” and an “ear” — symbols of His ability to act and His readiness to listen. This imagery stirs the soul, bridging the human and the divine gap.

Envision further: the “eyes of the Lord” roving across the earth in 2 Chronicles 16:9, a poignant reminder of His all-encompassing watchfulness, or the “arm of the Lord” in Isaiah 53:1, symbolizing a strength that reaches out to save. In Exodus 31:18, the “finger of God” is not a literal digit but a powerful metaphor for divine authorship, as God inscribes the Ten Commandments. Then, there’s the “face of God” mentioned in Genesis 32:30 — not a physical face but an expression of God’s manifest presence. The “voice of the Lord” echoes through Psalm 29:3, not as a sound we hear with our ears but as a declaration of His sovereign will that resonates in the heart.

These are not just poetic words; they are a language that speaks of the divine in terms we can grasp. They remind us that the limitations of human form or senses do not constrain God. His “ear” hears more than we can imagine, His “hand” works beyond the bounds of human capability, and His “breath,” as mentioned in Job 33:4, is the very essence of life itself. In Psalm 17:8, being hidden in “the shadow of Your wings” evokes a sense of divine protection and comfort, drawing us into the assurance of God’s encompassing care.

However, it’s vital to recognize that these anthropomorphic descriptions are not literal. For instance, attributing a physical hand or ear to God would paradoxically limit His omnipresence and omnipotence, confining the infinite to finite dimensions. Instead, these images are intended as metaphors, communicating real truth about God’s attributes and actions in a manner relatable to human beings. They reveal aspects of God’s nature—His power, care, protection, and attention—in ways that resonate with human experience and understanding.

The Bible’s symbolic use of anthropomorphic language bridges the gap between the divine and the human mind. It allows believers to develop a more personal and intimate understanding of God. When Scripture describes God with human characteristics, it invites us into a deeper relationship with Him, one where we can connect to His divine nature through our human experience. Therefore, these descriptions are not just poetic flourishes but are essential tools in helping us grasp the incomprehensible aspects of God’s nature, reminding us of His transcendence and immanence.

Historical Understanding:

The Early Church’s Interpretation:

The journey of understanding anthropomorphisms begins with the early church fathers, who played a pivotal role in shaping Christian thought. Among them, Augustine of Hippo stands out as a significant figure. Augustine grappled with the scriptures rich in anthropomorphic language and sought to interpret these descriptions in a way that aligned with the transcendent nature of God. In his work “De Trinitate” (On the Trinity), Augustine argued that such language was not a literal depiction of God’s nature but a means to make the divine mysteries accessible to the human intellect. He contended that these human-like descriptions were symbolic, communicating spiritual truths about God’s nature and actions in a way humans could relate to and understand. Augustine’s interpretations set a foundation for later theologians, emphasizing the importance of discerning the spiritual truth underneath the literal text.

Medieval Theology and Analogical Language:

The medieval period saw further development in the understanding of anthropomorphisms, particularly with the contributions of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, a towering figure in medieval scholasticism, expanded upon Augustine’s ideas, introducing the concept of analogical language. In his “Summa Theologica,” Aquinas argued that these descriptions are analogies when Scripture ascribes human attributes to God. They offer a comparative, yet not exact, understanding of God’s attributes. For Aquinas, anthropomorphic language was a way of speaking about God that was true to the extent that it affirmed God’s actions and qualities. Yet, it remained inherently limited and could not fully encapsulate His essence. This analogical approach acknowledges that while God’s ways are vastly different from ours, there is still a correspondence that allows us to speak honestly and accurately about Him, though certainly not exhaustively. Aquinas’s approach profoundly influenced subsequent theological thought, providing a nuanced framework for interpreting anthropomorphisms.

Reformation and the Language of Accommodation:

The Reformation era marked another significant milestone in understanding anthropomorphisms, with reformers like John Calvin offering insightful contributions. Calvin, known for his influential work “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” emphasized the idea of divine accommodation. He argued that the anthropomorphic language in Scripture was God’s way of stooping to our level of understanding. By using human terms and concepts, God was accommodating Himself to our limited human capacity, making His nature and will understandable to us. Calvin stressed that these descriptions were not to be taken as literal attributes of God but as metaphors that help humans grasp something of the divine mystery. This emphasis on accommodation reflected a deeper understanding of the gap between God’s infinite nature and our finite understanding, reinforcing that while Scripture speaks about God in human terms, these terms are merely a condescension to human limitations.

Application

Understanding God through anthropomorphic language isn’t just a theological exercise; it’s a transformative experience that profoundly impacts our faith and worship. When Scripture describes God in human terms, it does something remarkable—it brings the infinite within reach of our finite minds. For many Christians, God can seem distant and abstract, a vast entity far removed from the intricacies of our daily lives. However, when we read about God’s “hand” guiding, His “ear” listening, or His “eyes” watching over us, the Divine suddenly becomes more relatable, more intimate.

This intimacy is crucial, especially in our prayer and worship, which are inherently relational. Imagine the difference in your prayer life when you think of God not as a distant force but as a loving Father who listens attentively, a Shepherd who guides with care, or a Friend who understands your deepest needs. This isn’t about simplifying God but about deepening our connection to Him. It’s about finding comfort in the idea that God cares, loves, and interacts with us in ways we understand and respond to. This understanding fosters a stronger emotional bond with God, enhancing the richness of our spiritual experience.

On the other hand, anthropomorphisms do more than make God relatable; they also remind us of His majesty and our humble place before Him. When we realize that these human-like descriptions are mere metaphors, we begin to grasp the vastness of God’s true nature. This realization leads to a more profound reverence for God. It reminds us that while He can be known, He can never be fully comprehended. This balance between intimacy and awe is vital in our spiritual journey. It keeps us from becoming overly familiar with God, preserving His majesty and otherness while inviting us into a relationship with Him.

Furthermore, these anthropomorphic descriptions serve as powerful moral guides, but within the context of the Gospel, their role is understood in a deeper, grace-filled dimension. When we read about God’s “just hand” or His “listening ear,” we’re not just learning about who God is but also about who we are called to be in Christ. These metaphors become models for our behavior, yet this is not a call to moralism or self-reliance. As Christians, we recognize that true moral transformation is not about mechanically imitating God to earn His favor or salvation. Indeed, our efforts to emulate divine attributes like compassion, justice, attentiveness, and love — qualities that these anthropomorphisms beautifully illustrate — are not what justifies us before God.

The Gospel teaches us that we cannot achieve moral perfection on our own; our righteousness is like “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6) compared to God’s holiness. It is only through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who perfectly embodied all these divine attributes, that we find salvation and are declared righteous. This foundational truth reminds us that our growth in virtue is not a means to salvation but a response to the salvation already secured for us. We emulate God’s character not to impress Him or earn His approval but as a grateful response to the grace we have already received in Christ.

Furthermore, the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is crucial to our spiritual growth. As we rest in the finished work of Christ, trusting in His righteousness and not our own, the Spirit works within us to conform us more to the image of Christ. This is the essence of sanctification — a process not of human striving but of divine transformation. The Spirit helps us to understand and apply these anthropomorphic descriptions in our lives, not as a legalistic checklist, but as a joyful pursuit of holiness rooted in the grace and love we’ve received from God.

Conclusion

In summary, anthropomorphisms in Scripture offer us valuable insights into God’s character and provide a model for Christian living, but they are always understood in the light of the Gospel. They are not a ladder to climb to reach God but signposts pointing us to the grace that is already ours in Christ, and they inspire us to live in a way that reflects our gratitude and understanding of this profound truth.

God bless you

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On December 23, 2023 By In Christmas

The Apocalyptic Christmas

INTRODUCTION

When we think about Christmas, our minds often conjure images of serene tranquility: a sleeping babe swaddled in linen, nestled in a manger under a starlit sky, surrounded by gentle animals lowing. We envision angels strumming golden harps, their melodies echoing sweetly with promises of peace on earth and goodwill toward men, heralding the birth of heaven’s all-gracious King. However, a starkly different, yet equally significant, portrayal of the Christmas narrative unfolds in the book of Revelation. Here, instead of peaceful stillness, we encounter a dramatic scene with dragons, falling stars, and a celestial war centered around a particular child. This apocalyptic vision of Christmas, far from the traditional manger scene, challenges us to expand our understanding of what Christmas means and how to apply its incredible and profound implications.

With that, let us explore the apocalyptic Christmas from Revelation 12 and discover what it teaches us.

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child, crying out in labor and pain to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. His tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; her child was caught up to God and to His throne. – Revelation 12:1-5

THE APOCALYPTIC CHARACTERS

Now… For a moment I want to examine the apocalyptic characters in this scene, look at who they are, what they represent, so that we can understand what is going on.

On the surface, the meaning seems obvious. This passage is clearly talking about Jesus. He is the male child born to the woman and delivered to us on Christmas Day. He is the King who ascended into heaven after His resurrection as Revelation 12 alludes. But, this passage also presents the familiar scene to us in a very different sort of way. The book of Revelation does not present these events in the material realm like all of the other Christmas passages, which are set in our world, where men and women observe events in space and time (with stables, innkeepers, cities, stars, and wise men or with gifts like gold, frankincense, and myrrh that could be held in the hands).

Yet, Revelation tells the Christmas story, it seems, from an entirely different dimension. Instead of communicating events in the physical world, it portrays them in the spiritual, cosmic, and apocalyptic realm, which means that if we are going to understand them, we must be careful to examine them in their proper setting, identifying what each of the characters in the drama represent and mean.

THE APOCALYPTIC WOMAN

The passage from Revelation 12 introduces us first to a woman “clothed with the sun,” which is a beautiful portrayal of a holy female, set apart by God and enveloped with God’s dazzling creative light. Now, this is not just any female. Many might want to attribute the woman from Revelation 12 to Mary, the physical mother of Christ, but this is not her. The imagery in our passage allows for only one interpretation of this woman’s identity: it is not Mary, but is instead faithful Israel.

Remember, faithful Israel was God’s Old Testament bride (Isaiah 54:5-6) as she is cast in feminine terms. But, since the church is the Israel of God, God’s bride is also the New Testament Church (Ephesians 5:25-27), who was grafted into Israel by the working of Christ (Romans 11:17-24). She, the faithful people of God, is the one whose maker is her husband (Isaiah 54:5) and who in the Old Testament was promised to be restored from her covenant unfaithfulness in the new covenant coming in Christ (Hosea 2:19-20; Jeremiah 31:31-34). At every turn, Israel, the people of God (Past, Present, and Future) are compared to a woman, which is why Revelation describes her this way. She, and by that I mean the people of God, are the ones covered in His loving light through our relationship with Yahweh (Numbers 6:24-26). His face beams on us so that we shine like a radiant lights to all the nations (Isaiah 49:6).

Thus when we see in Revelation, a shining apocalyptic woman clothed with the sun, we should immediately recognize her as symbolic of God’s bride, the people of God in both Testaments.

Our suspicions are further confirmed when we see that the moon is under her feet and that she is crowned with 12 stars, which is directly alluding to Joseph’s dream in Genesis 37:9. As you will remember, Joseph dreamed that the sun (representing his father, Jacob), the moon (his father’s wives), and the 11 stars ( all of his brothers) would all bow down to him and serve him in the future. And because of this dream, Joseph’s brothers become furious at him, selling him into slavery to a midianite caravan, which left him in Egypt, falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, eeking out a living in prison, all before God elevated him to the position of second in command in Pharaoh’s empire. In this way, he was positioned at just the right place, to deliver his family from a massive famine in Egypt, making the dream true. His father and wives, along with his brothers (all of the people of Israel) bowed down and served Him.

Now, what is pertinent in Joseph’s dream to the description of the apocalyptic woman in Revelation, is that she is depicted with the sun, moon, and stars, which in Joseph’s dream applied to the entire people of Israel. Knowing this, it is especially clear that she is the embodiment of the true covenant Israel that Joseph dreamed about all those years ago. She represents the people of God, who are called the bride in the Old Covenant, but also in the New Covenant. We know this because this passage is not just a reference to a bygone Israelite era but a vibrant, living link that connects the ancient people of God, represented by the twelve tribes, to the unfolding narrative of salvation history in the New Testament. This woman is God’s bride who brought forth the man child messiah, but she is also the bride of Christ, who while persecuted will follow her Lord to victory. We see that as the passage develops (Revelation 12:13-17; 19:7).

We see this unfolding by the apocalyptic woman’s condition, as she is besieged by labor pains, which is more than a mere depiction of her physical anguish. This pain encapsulates, not only the long travail of Israel until the messiah was born, but also the tumultuous journey of the early Church, marred by struggles and persecution, especially under the harsh rule of the Roman Empire. These pains are not just symbolic of her suffering; they are indicative of birth, of new birth, of something new and transformative emerging from the throes of the old. Which is why this woman is the perfect picture. She is the Israel by which the Messiah was born… From her very womb. And she is also the bride of Christ who was birthed by His ascension into heaven. That event, began the shift from the Old to the New Covenant, a pivotal moment in the redemption where the Law and Prophets find fulfillment in Christ and where all the types and shadows of the Old Covenant fade away to make room for what they pointed to all along… Him.

In that sense, this apocalyptic woman stands as the people of God at a crossroads. She is the people of old whose temple, priests, and sacrificial system always anticipated Him and now were fading to make room for Him, and she is the people of Christ who are welcomed into His end time Kingdom of justification and grace.

Interestingly, this transition period also aligns with the themes of Christmas, a time traditionally associated with joy and peace yet deeply embedded in a context of struggle and divine intervention. Christ’s birth, celebrated during Christmas, is a transition from prophecy to fulfillment, from expectation to realization. It is God’s intervention in human history, much like the protection offered to the woman in Revelation 12.

In essence, the woman “clothed with the sun” is a multifaceted symbol. She is Israel at a crossroads, the early Church in its nascent stages, and a beacon of hope for believers facing adversity today. She is the true people of God, past, present, and future, who find hope in the messiah… Born to die, risen to ascend, ascended in order to reign! This imagery of the apocalyptic woman, set against the backdrop of Christmas, reminds us that even in times of our greatest struggle, the promise of salvation and triumph in Christ remains our anchor and hope. It’s a message that resonates through the ages, from the dusty roads of ancient Israel to the modern-day celebrations of Advent in Christian Churches. We all with unified voice echo these enduring truths of divine providence and cling to the protection Jesus offers for all God’s people everywhere.

THE APOCALYPTIC CHILD

In exploring the depths of Revelation 12 and its connection to the eschatological themes of Christmas, we find ourselves drawn to the figure of a male child, a pivotal character in this cosmic drama of Revelation. This apocalyptic child, unmistakably a representation of Jesus Christ, stands at the heart of this narrative that connects prophecy, celestial conflict, and divine triumph all in one fell swoop.

John the revelator begins by telling us that the child would rule the nations with an iron rod (Revelation 12:5), which is.a picture of Christ we are not to oft to celebrate. But, this comes directly from the messianic Psalms (Psalm 2:9), where David tells us that the Messiah “will break them with a rod of iron; and will dash them to pieces like pottery.” This Psalm gives us a glorious picture of Christ as having an unchallengeable rule! He has unrivaled authority and power and the advance of His Kingdom totally unstoppable no matter how much earthly opposition and tumult the nations try to throw at Him. He will establish His Kingdom, and the nations will either bow down and worship this King or they will be crushed by the weight of His holiness.

The narrative in Revelation 12 reminds us why this king was born… Yes He was born to die. But death was not the terminus. He was also born to rise. And in His rising He was born to rule the nations!

This passage also mirrors the historical events surrounding Christ’s birth at Christmas, particularly Herod’s pursuit of the infant Jesus. Herod, in his attempt to thwart the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy, ordered the massacre of all male infants in Bethlehem starting with the boys who were two years old or younger. This tragic episode, often referred to as the Massacre of the Innocents, reflects a broader theme of satanic opposition to God’s salvific plan that unfolds across all Scripture.

Yet, our passage in Revelation doesn’t end with Herod’s cruel decree or even with the earthly life of Jesus. It skips everything from just after birth to death, periscoping all the way past calvary to the Mount of Olives where Jesus was ascended! By juxtaposing His birth and ascension, Revelation is symbolizing not just a physical ascension to heaven but the ultimate defeat of the dragon, who will be cast out of heaven by Jesus triumphant arrival. This passage typifies the inauguration of Christ’s eternal kingdom that began when He sat down at the right hand of God in His throne room, and cast the dragon and His angels clean out of the heavens. While indeed these events are historical, Revelation presents them in the terms of a cosmic battle. A battle the infant Jesus was born into and a battle the ascended Jesus will bring to completion.

The victory of Christ, celebrated at Christmas as the birth of the Savior, is not just about His birth but about His victory He won in resurrection and ascension. That victory grows in every age by the spread of Jesus’ Church. Now, as the body of Christ, we get the awesome privledge of participating in this ongoing cosmic drama. We get to join the male Child in the war against the dragon. We get to bring His life and light to a world still addicted to the shadows and darkness. And… serving this King reminds us that the joy and hope we celebrate during Christmas are not mere commemorations but vibrant realities, calling us to participate in the unfolding story of redemption and to witness the continued unfolding of God’s kingdom on earth.

THE APOCALYPTIC DRAGON

As we conclude our examination of the characters in this cosmic apocalyptic war drama, we encounter a formidable antagonist: the dragon, identified as Satan or the serpent of old. This character represents not just a singular evil entity but the embodiment of spiritual opposition to God’s redemptive plan throughout history.

The imagery of the menacing apocalyptic dragon in Revelation 12, poised to devour the male child, is rich in biblical symbolism. This scene echoes the constant spiritual warfare that has existed from the beginning, but it narrows the focus onto the spiritual warfare experienced by Christ. From the Herod attempting to kill Him at birth, His temptation by Satan in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11), to his many battles with the demons (Mark 1:34, Luke 4:35, Matthew 8:28-34, etc.), all the way to the cross where He bound the strong man and disarmed the cosmic powers (Colossians 2:15), Christ’s life was a series of confrontations with the forces of darkness. The dragon’s failed attempt, one after the other, to destroy the Christ is emblematic of his ultimate defeat and Christ’s ultimate victory.

To understand this imagery fully, we can turn to the Old Testament, which lays the groundwork for this cosmic conflict. Isaiah 27:1 speaks of the the Messiah punishing Leviathan, a twisting serpent, often interpreted as a symbol of evil forces opposing God’s plans. Similarly, Psalm 74:13-14 describes God crushing the heads of sea monsters, including Leviathan. These passages are not just ancient poetry but are part of a larger narrative that Revelation 12 is drawing upon.

All throughout the Scriptures, we see a pattern of the divine triumphing over evil. And by interpreting this image in Revelation 12, correctly, within all of its manifold historical and symbolic frameworks, we can see that the dragon experiences ultimate defeat in the male child’s Kingdom. This is not merely a future event, that will happen at the end of time, but an ongoing event that is happening here and now on earth, as the church follows Christ into all the nations. This is certainly made possible by the events of the ascension and Easter but it finds its roots in the Christmas story.

This ongoing spiritual warfare underscores the themes of Christmas as a time of divine intervention. In Christ the light has come. War upon the demonic realm has come. The invasion and plundering of Satan’s Kingdom has come in a babe wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. The birth of Christ was not just a miraculous event contained within the past; it was a decisive moment in the spiritual realm that broke the power of evil and inaugurated His rule of peace that will overtake the nations. Christmas marked the beginning of the end of Satan’s reign and the inauguration of Christ’s victorious kingdom.

Moreover, this narrative provides a profound assurance for believers: the Church’s ultimate victory is coming as we continue our work to expand God’s kingdom on earth to the all the nations (Matthew 28:18-10). The Church, born out of Christ’s victory, is engaged in this ongoing spiritual battle, continuing the work that Jesus started by putting satan under our feet as well (Romans 16:20). As Christians gather worldwide to celebrate these glorious truths that dawned upon us at Christmas, we are all reminded of our role in this cosmic drama. Like Israel, we are called to be bearers of light in a world that often seems dominated by darkness. And we are to herald His victory until peace on earth and goodwill toward men has reached all His blood bought people.

The story of the dragon in Revelation 12, interpreted in the light of the entire biblical narrative, is not just a tale of ancient cosmic conflict. It is a living narrative, particularly relevant during Christmas, as it reminds us of the birth of the One who came to defeat evil and restore all creation. This eschatological perspective transforms our understanding of Christmas from a mere celebration to an ongoing, victorious reality in our present and future.

CONCLUSION

In our journey through the apocalyptic Christmas narrative of Revelation 12, we have traversed a landscape far removed from the serene manger typically associated with this season. This exploration has revealed a Christmas story that encompasses not only the physical realm but also a profound spiritual and apocalyptic dimension. It invites us to see the birth of Christ not just as a historical event but as a pivotal moment in a cosmic saga that will see everything God planned and promised coming to fruition in Him.

The characters of this narrative – the radiant woman symbolizing the entire people of God, the male child as the Christ, and the dragon as the Satan – each play a crucial role in unfolding the truths of Christmas. The woman, clothed in celestial light, reminds us of God’s enduring faithfulness to His people never ends.

The male child, fulfills the ancient prophecies and initiates a kingdom that will never end. This reminds us that Christmas is not just about the birth of a baby but the inauguration of a reign that would forever alter the course of history and forever change the world.

The dragon, representing Satan, though a figure of formidable power, ultimately stands defeated in this narrative. His presence in the Christmas story deepens our understanding of the gravity of Christ’s mission. It underscores the reality that Jesus’ birth was the dawn of Satan’s defeat, which is why we scream Joy to the world!

This apocalyptic Christmas narrative reorients our understanding of the season. It’s a reminder that the peace, joy, and goodwill come through death, war, and dominion. Theses are not just sentimental ideals but realities grounded in the triumph of Christ over the powers of darkness.

As we celebrate Christmas this year, do so with a renewed sense of awe and gratitude, recognizing that in the birth of Jesus, evil has been defeated, it is being defeated, and one day will be perfectly defeated. This Christmas, do not sit on the sidelines any longer. Join the male child and work to see His Kingdom advance in your neighborhood, job, school, or wherever the Lord may call you. And this Christmas, celebrate that light has come into the world. You no longer live in darkness. You are a part of a church that is wrapped in heavenly light who is called to bring that light to the land of Shadows. This Christmas, do not merely commemorate a past event but celebrate a living cosmic reality.

May the truths brighen your hearts and propel you to serve Him Joyfully.

Merry Christmas! 

Kendall

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On December 9, 2023 By In Christmas

Merry Christmas. This Means War!

In one of the classic holiday songs, John Lennon harkens that the war is over, saying:

“And so happy Christmas, for black and for white, for yellow and red ones, let’s stop all the fight.”

John Lennon & Yoko Ono

According to Jesus, Christmas signifies that the war has just begun.

A WARLESS PEACE

One of the most significant accomplishments in antiquity, which is littered with wars and violence, was a hundred year stretch of peace known as the Pax Romana, which in English means the peace of Rome. This unique and peculiar era of warless tranquility is unmatched in any other period known to man. During this peace nation no longer rose up against nation, rumors of wars no longer leaped from the lips of women in the marketplace, and the myriad of complex personalities and cultures, usually unwilling to submit to world empires, were now contained within a burgeoning peace, that lasted from 27BC, under the reign of Augustus, to the death of Nero Caesar in 68 AD. This is the world and setting that the Savior of the world was born.

On that first Christmas morning in Judea, God did not show up for a press conference at a palace or a “Precious Moments” commercial in the big city. Instead, in a surprise attack, He stormed the beaches of Bethlehem. He blitzkrieg’d the stables of that old country barn and assembled all the legions of heaven to herald Christ is Lord to shepherds in their fields. He held His fiery star in the sky to announce kings and kingdoms would either worship Him or be put down. While under the peace of Rome, God was bringing war. 

And He was bringing war because this old world had fallen into bitter, soul-crushing slavery to an evil dragon. A serpent of great beguiling who tricked our only king into trading in his scepter for over-tight handcuffs… His crown for rusty chains. On that first Christmas morning, after legions of failed men who came before Him, the heaven-sent God-Man was born the royal Man-King. Delivered as a helpless babe to deliver and set the helpless free. 

Isaiah said it like this: 

6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. – Isaiah 9:6-7

INCARNATION AS INVASION

Every Christmastime we celebrate that the invasion has begun. The world was not left to pine away in oppression and deep darkness. The Light of the world has come! Human governments, which all have limits and ends, would be replaced by a government that knows no end. A government that would not bring a measly hundred-year ceasefire but would bring His wonderful and perfect peace forever. 

Our King is the one who put the world on notice. That babe in swaddling clothes announced to the nations you will either bow down and worship Him or be trampled underneath His glorious feet. The Son of Man, the Prince of Peace, entered brokenness and brought His Shalom. He went raiding behind enemy lines, rescuing His elect and delivering them safely back to God. He triumphed not only over the manger but also over the grave. He wrestled control of the cosmos away from the fallen serpent, disarming his authorities, powers, and spiritual forces, and began an uprising that would turn the world upside down (as far as the curse is found). And for 2000 years, this is precisely what our King has done. 

NEVERENDING REIGN

When you look at what God says in Isaiah 9, He promises nothing less than total dominion. He claims that the government Jesus inaugurates will continue until no ground on earth is left to take. He will rule until His Kingdom comes on earth as it already is in heaven. This means Christmas is about the downfall of sinful nations. Christmas is about the end of corrupt politicians padding their pockets and allowing their children to live above the law. Christmas is about the war of God that will end sex trafficking, annihilate abortion mills, and will put the world back right again. Christmas is the first fruits of the death of democracies, oligarchies, and socialism. The Christ Child in the manger signifies that the world is now under the rule and authority of a King, and His rule of total peace is coming deeper and deeper in

CONCLUSION

This Christmas, as you enjoy eggnog and figgy pudding, ham, and hot cocoa, remember that Christ was born as King. As King, He was born to reign. And in that reign, all the iniquity we see on earth will one day be put under our messiah’s feet. Instead of despair, allow the Light of hope to fill your heart. Remember, He is Lord! And He will make all things new in good time. 

Merry Christmas! 

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On November 30, 2023 By In Culture

Love the Sinner. Hate the Movement.

A MATTER OF LOVE

Generally speaking, every Christian has some level of understanding that God has called us to love. It is kind of the point of being a Christian, right? Paul says if we do not have love, we are nothing. Jesus said that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And He did not provide such a glorious and precious Son to reproduce more Grinches on Mt. Crumpit or more Ebenezer Scrooges on Business Street in London. 

God saved us and did it through the greatest act of love ever recorded to make us loving people. Jesus even said that they (the world) will know that we are true disciples of Jesus by the way that we love one another, which means how we love other Christians (John 13:35). But, Jesus also taught us that we are to love our enemies and to pray for the ones who persecute us, which means our love must extend beyond the people who attend Church with us. We must be willing and ready to love anyone, even those who hate us most ferociously. 

And this is where the confusion occurs. Just because we are to love people does not mean we are to love what they do or the sinful movements that they have ensnared them. It is my contention, and what I will be arguing here, that standing against a MOVEMENT is wholly necessary, and it is one of the chief ways that we genuinely love the PERSON. 

For a moment, pardon me for my pungency. I will grab the flame thrower to light a couple of candles, and I will do this on purpose. Sometimes, we need a mother’s soothing lullaby to help us fall gently to sleep. Yet there are other times when we need to be shaken from our slumber by the father because the house is on fire. Today will be more like the shaking. 

THE ABORTION MOVEMENT

I said above that we must love the sinners caught in sinful movements while hating the movements that trapped them. This is true. Which means we must not hate women who have had abortions. We must love them (profoundly so). This means we must love them enough to hear their stories of pain, to empathize with their struggle, but also to refuse to sugarcoat what they have done and to bid them to repent for murdering one of their children. If that language seems overly harsh, perhaps you are part of the problem.

Think about it, how many children in this country, and around the world, have to brutally die before we start taking this issue seriously? How many heartbeats need to stop for us to go beyond conservative incrementalism and heartbeat bills to flat-out abolish this disgusting, immoral practice? And let me just ask the obvious question: can our actions really be called loving if we allow this culture of death to continue? Are we really being kind to all the innocent babies who were chopped up into bloody pieces inside their mommy’s womb or chemically roasted by toxic abortifacients when we say things to the mother like: “It wasn’t your fault” or “You had no other options.” How sick and demented do we need to be to believe this garbage? Biblically speaking, abortion is the wanton sacrilege of human life, plain and simple, and total abolition of it is the only just outcome. To tell a woman anything else is to lie to her, make excuses for her sin, and allow her to believe the lie that God is not enraged over the shedding of innocent blood. He is the one who heard Abel’s blood crying out from the ground, and He is the one who hears every tortured fetus screaming from the cold metallic pan. And He will avenge them. 

From a Biblical and ethical standpoint, there is nothing morally different between a woman getting an abortion and hiring a hitman to kill her toddler. In both instances, she bought and paid for a professional to kill someone she was supposed to love, care, and protect. We must stop euphemizing our language and call this precisely what it is. Abortion is not healthcare. Abortion is the intentional, inexcusable, and unauthorized decision to terminate a precious life that belongs to God alone, who endowed it with significance, dignity, and personhood. 

And, while you may still be reeling from my descriptions, this is precisely how we love people. We love them by telling it to them straight and by pointing them to the risen Christ as their only hope. We love man and woman by exposing the lethality of sin, which is awful news, and then by providing them with the remedy, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can heal the wounds of a mother who killed her child. He is the only one who can forgive a man for pressuring his wife to let medical serial killers in planned parenthood dismember his legacy. He is the only one who can forgive the murderous doctors who have gallons of blood dripping from their hands. And the only way to truly be loving is to point everyone to Him. 

And, what I find most astonishing is how the amazing grace and tender mercy of our perfect spotless savior totally and completely buries all of our sins! As reprehensible as abortion is, and as much shame as that should induce if left to our own devices, a woman who turns to the Lord Jesus Christ is not only forgiven but her shame is also eliminated! Her sins have been washed white as snow, and He restores her to royalty in His Kingdom. She has been given a new and glorious nature that cannot be taken away from her. She is healed! She is loved! She is restored! She is no longer known by a scarlet letter. And she may well worship in eternity alongside her aborted child. How? Because He took the curse that she deserved and gave unto her the honor she could never earn! Jesus Christ, her Lord and Savior, overpowered the putrescence of our iniquities and rescued us for His glory and our great good. This is true for all sinners! Why do we hold back from declaring this message? Why do we think this is unloving? And because of that, why do we entirely pervert this glorious Gospel by avoiding nearly half of it, skipping past the bad news of sin and death, to accommodate a sinner’s fragility? If you throw out the bad news, the good news makes no sense! If you throw out the need for a savior, you no longer have the Gospel! That is not the path of love or how we ought to love anyone. 

At the same time, while I love the woman who has had an abortion, I must hate the abortion movement with every bone in my body. I will ever be at war against this modern day temple to Moloch! Why? Because it is the movement that is promoting, cheering on, and subsiding the murder of nearly a million image-bearing humans every year! This movement was dreamt up in the recesses of hell, fueled by the power of demons, and has captivated a swampy and pathetic government of fiends who would rather kill its citizens than lose political power or funding. I will love the person enough to hate such a despicable movement. And I will hate the movement enough to make war with it all my days. 

THE LMNOP MOVEMENT

We must not hate the sodomites or lesbians who are caught in nature-denying, God-hating behavior. We also must not hate transgender people who have denied one of the most basic tenets of reality: their own biological gender. And, furthermore, we must not hate human beings who are mired in such delusional confusion, that single persons now want to identify as plural pronouns, or the genetic human who now want to use a litter box instead of a toilet. This is not to mention the kind of mental disorder that would cause a homosapien to identify as a two-spirit penguin. This would be hilarious if it were not true. Being true, I am heartbroken for them. I am shocked and grieved that such an apparent mental health crisis, of this magnitude has broken out in the Western world, and the “adults in the room” are trying to cure it with identity politics and clever deceptions. This is like trying to put a fire out with gasoline or trying to plug that hole in the Titanic with bubble gum. Instead of receiving the help they need to confront such vivid and wretched delusions, people today are force-fed horse manure from a society that absolutely hates them and a medical establishment that is profiting from lopping off their genitals. 

Remember, love always seeks the best for a person. And what is best for a person is what God says in His Word. We must love men and women who are being led to the slaughter enough to point them away from these diabolical fantasies, the damned identity politics dreamt up by demons and instead bid them to turn to the truth of the Holy Scriptures. We must love them enough to call them out of their sins and perversions, leading them toward the belly of the fiery abyss. We must love them enough to call them to repent and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ before it is too late. Placating them is not loving them! A parent who gives into every demand of the child to reinforce their inner totalitarianism is not loving them!

In the same way, patting people on the head, leaving them with warm and fuzzies in their sin, while they are eternally separated from a Holy and Righteous God, is to despise them! It is to wish them doubly dead with a disturbing smile on our faces. That is not love; we must love the person enough to behave differently! 

But, simultaneously, I pray that the LGBTQ movement dies a thousand deaths. A movement that cheers on abominations mocks the living God with flags of rainbow-colored debauchery and prays upon the most insecure and impressionable minds. A campaign that calls its victims to abandon nature and reason for social clout and swelling subscriber lists. A movement that is championed by an unhinged government that will take children away from their parents for not allowing them to degrade their own bodies in the most lude, disgusting, and abhorrent ways. A movement that is weaponized by doctors who threaten body butchering as the only escape from suicide. A movement peddled by freaks on Youtube and TikTok that promise you will be well-liked, ever-celebrated, and left always with a feeling of belonging if you would only come out. I loathe that movement. And I will do whatever it takes to see it come to a total and complete end. Why? Because it is destroying men and women, and it is devouring children! It is toxifying the country my children will inherit. And it is damaging the social fabric of the nation. 

Very simply, we are called to love our enemies, love the ones who are caught in soul and body-degrading sins, and love them enough to speak the truth to them before it is too late. Yes, and amen! But we are never commanded to love the ideologies that are destroying them. We are never once called to cheer for the movements that trap humanity like fish in the net. Yet, as I said before, this is where so much confusion has occurred in the Church these days. This is where the enemy has divided and conquered in legionous ways. By leaving the Church in the West so divided on this issue, typically into four camps as it related to this issue, we have become easy pickings for the author of these Luciferian fables, the lord of darkness himself.  

For a moment, I want to sketch out three erroneous views and how those views are wrong, and then I want to end with the right approach. 

THREE ERRONEOUS VIEWS

1) LIBERALISM- THE DEMONIC LEFT 

This view barely needs to be explained. Proponents believe the sinner and the movement should be lauded, supported, and championed. This means that there is no view of sin or hell, there is no Biblical understanding of what love is and what it calls for, and all that is left is just a watered-down “gospel of tolerance,” and the twin bricks of “love is love” and the “you do you’s” that pave the path to destruction. This view is not the Biblical Gospel because it begins with the assumption that what people need most is acceptance of their sins instead of repentance from them. And sadly, this view has infected entire churches, denominations, and conventions.  

Every lumberjack lesbian pastor to every dove-award-winning male musician who now sings in dresses proves my point. This is not loving, and they are not Christians. They have abandoned Christ for hedonism and pluralism. They have abandoned the Biblical Gospel for infatuation with immorality. They have not chosen the path of love but are on a highway to hell. And thankfully, they are not very difficult to spot in the wild. Just look for the bright colors or the 6’4 muscle bound woman on the swim team who still has a cringy bulge. 

We must reject the lie of liberalism. Instead, we must love each and every person caught in sin. We must love them enough to call them to repent. And we must be at war with ideologies that ensnare them. 

2) FUNDAMENTALISM – THE HATE-FILLED RIGHT

On the other end of the spectrum is a nearly equally abhorrent view. Instead of being known for unbiblical and degenerate forms of tolerance and love, this group is known for its rigid intolerance, as well as a refusal to love anyone. And while the fundies rightly understand the need to hate the sinful movements that trap so many souls in the bogs of sin, they forget that they are also sinners and peddle a gospel that is devoid of humility or grace. They turn their pharisaical ire upon anyone and everyone who exists “out there,” and they chide them all to hell. 

Sadly, this view has also infected the Church in small but shrinking pockets that usually do not spread as quickly as liberalism since no one likes being around them enough to join them. Where does this disease show up? It shows up in every megaphone screaming street preacher who is not out there to see men and women saved but to remind them they are damned. It shows up on Sunday mornings in every Westoroesque Church where the blowhard behind the pulpit screams, “God hates fags.” It shows up wherever men and women caught in these sins become the object of our hatred instead of the mission field we have been sent to. 

We must reject the hate of fundamentalism. Instead, we must love sinners enough to get to know them, eat with them, and call them to repent. We must be at war with the ideologies that ensnare them and the pride that entangles us. 

3) EVANGELICALISM – THE MUSHY MIDDLE

The evangelical Church is always trying to land in the mushy middle, whose spine seems to be made of pudding or jello. And, before you object, let me remind you that the vast majority of squishy pastors these days will not preach on the reality of hell, the ugliness of sin, or the dire need for repentance because of the holy, righteous wrath of God. I have been to these churches. I have served on staff in these churches. Where men are so afraid of offending men that they regularly offend their God by either apologizing for God’s Word or refusing to herald it. How many sermons have you ever heard on the covenant curses in Deuteronomy 28, the list of sins that are called abominations, or any other topic that our society is struggling with in any meaningful way? If there is a potential for offense, the modern-day pastor runs like a coward from the battle. And this is not mere opinion. It is an epidemic in evangelicalism. 

This gets to my point. You cannot love someone you are lying to, and if you refuse to tell them the truth or call them to repentance, then you are lying to them. That is like knowing a man has stage 4 cancer, and instead of giving him the diagnosis so that he can begin the treatment or settle his affairs, you refuse to tell him because it may hurt his feelings. That is the opposite of love! That is to become the equivalent of a moral monster. And it was certainly not the way Christ loved people in the Gospels. Yes, He knelt down in the sand to restore a sinner, but He also said, “Go and sin no more.” In fact, there is no single account where Christ doesn’t point out the sin, call the man or woman to repentance, and extol them to holy living moving forward. To adopt an ethic that Christ will vomit out of His mouth just to save face in public is not loving. It is criminal! That is the picture of a very sinister sort of hatred that watches as a person asphyxiates when all they needed was to be turned onto their side. In this case, men and women must be pointed to Jesus Christ! He is the hope! He is the cure! To trade in the Gospel for niceties is repugnant, unloving, and something every cowardly pastor will answer for. 

Furthermore, you cannot hate a movement that is destroying human beings when you refuse to call it out. I am talking to you, pastor yellow-belly, when you sit silently on the sidelines as sexual predators fester, as women in your congregations believe the lie that it was just a clump of cells, and as diabolical trends in Hollywood disciple your people, just remember that your silence was akin to hating them. You wasted your office. You impaled your people on the post you were supposed to care for them with. And you have hated your own ministry. When you have mold growing in your home, you spray it; you don’t ignore it. And yet, your sugar and spice mentality that never rocks the boat, never calls out evil in our society, has let something far more sinister seep in and spread among your people, and you did nothing to stop it! Instead of being the salt of the earth, you have become the high fructose corn syrup that has made our society fatally unhealthy, and I am calling upon you to repent! 

Yes, you should love the person. Love them enough to confront their sin and call them to Christ. And yes, you should grow a backbone to perform the role of shepherd, who not only pets the sheep but takes out a sawed-off shotgun to take down the wolf. Repent, brother! 

THE RIGHT VIEW

4) THE BIBLICAL APPROACH 

Now, the right approach is the Biblical approach. Look at what Paul says about this: 

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. – Ephesians 6:12

Paul tells us that our struggle is not against the individuals caught in the nets of sin. Instead, our war is against the net makers, the wicked powers who are making the traps that drag men and women away to their doom (2 Timothy 2:26)! This certainly includes evil politicians, woke corporations, and degenerate government agencies who spend taxpayers money on evil. But Paul is alerting us to the power that is underneath them all and fueling them. He is telling us of the kind of power that caused Roman men to find it socially acceptable to abandon their female infants to the elements because they wanted a son. We are talking about the kind of power underneath the hubris of the Enlightenment, which captivated men’s hearts with scientific pride instead of humility before their God. We are talking about the elemental forces, the rouge spirits in high places, and the kind of power that gave birth to the bastard child named liberalism, who questions the authority and veracity of Holy Scripture. The kind of power that is underneath every godless movement, from the Freudian psychology that undermines faith in God to the Sangarian ethics inflicting genocide upon the womb to the Kinneyism that unleashed rank sexual perversions upon our populace. Paul is telling us that behind every Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, behind every pagan ideology and philosophy, and behind every movement that brings devastation and rebellion upon man are the demonic forces led by their commander Satan, who want nothing more than to destroy the masterpiece of God’s creation, man and woman. God called male and female – in covenant marriage, reproducing offspring to the glory of God, and extending His dominion to the ends of the earth – “very good,” the hounds of hell cannot keep themselves from trying to destroy us. It is in their nature, and we must resist them (James 4:7). 

LOVE THE SINNER. HATE THE MOVEMENT

I know this article may seem a tad inflammatory to you, but I make no apologies. I simply implore you not to be soft on movements like abortion and sexual deviancy. Because underneath them is the power of demons who want nothing more than to pervert, manipulate, butcher, and destroy God’s creatures. If you are soft on these movements, you are complicit with the war crimes of demons, and you are a reviler of the humanity you claim to love. 

Our job is to love the sinner enough to call them to repentance. And to hate the movements that accost them. Dear Christians, the mission Christ has called us to requires that we declare the true Biblical Gospel no matter who it offends and that we continue advancing until every sulfuric stinking gate of hell falls limply down. We aim as emissaries in His Kingdom to see all of Jesus’ enemies put under His feet. He will do that work, but He has also called us to be about that work (praying, declaring Christ, making disciples, having godly children, attending public worship, feasting at His table, etc. ). We live in the Kingdom of Christ and we pray to see abortion abolished so that no more child is decapitated in her mother’s womb. We labor in Jesus’ fields to see sodomy eliminated and a wholesome, godly, and covenantal view of sex and marriage proliferated. And as Christians, we do not bury our talents in the sand… We keep after it, worshipping, praying, seeking Him, and doing what He has commanded us to do until all two-spirit penguins are entirely extinct because we do not believe allowing people to live in their madness or delusions is healthy, proper, or holy. We labor till every family comes under the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ, as promised to Abraham, and until our enemy is put swiftly under our saviors heel. Until that day, we must love people enough to herald the one true Gospel to them and we must hate the sinister movements sufficiently enough to work for their demise. No other behavior is Biblically legitimate.  

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On October 12, 2023 By In Culture, Politics, Theology

IS ISRAEL THE CHOSEN PEOPLE OF GOD?

THIS DISPENSATIONAL MOMENT

Every time a rocket is launched from the Gaza strip, a dispensationalist gets his wings. And by wings, I mean like Red Bull, in that he will receive a rather large boost of courage, enough, in fact, to crawl up and out of the hole he has been hiding in from his last failed prediction and to flood the internet with a panoply of reasons why the end times are really here this time and happening right before our eyes. This confusion is entirely unhelpful and could be cleared up if any of my former 28 articles and podcast episodes on the topic of eschatology were seriously engaged with. Shameless plug intended.

Along with this, I have also seen a litany of social media posts proclaiming solidarity with Israel in their current war with Hamas, because they are God’s chosen people and we do not want to be on the wrong side with God. For this reason, before getting on to our topic today, I thought it might be wise to mention a few things to consider regarding the covenantal status of modern-day Israel.

STILL GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE?

Perhaps the best place to start would be with what the word Israel means. From the Scriptures, the first time the word is used is when God wrestles with Jacob and then renames Him Israel, which means “the one who wrestles with God.” Knowing this, it is obvious that “Israel” is not a genetic term that is passed through bloodlines down through families in the same way “Egyptian” would be. To be a member of Israel was a spiritual activity, of knowing God and wrestling with Him in intimate fellowship, not just merely inheriting the right DNA.

We know this is true, because God calls all kinds of ethnic peoples “Israel.” For instance, when the Israelites leave the land of Egypt, escaping from the slavery to be a free people serving their covenant God, the text tells us that a “mixed multitude” went out with them (Exodus 12:38). Apparently, there was a contingency of Egyptians who were so impressed by Yahweh, that they abandoned the empire of the Pharaohs and joined themselves with Israel, becoming followers of Jehovah. Just like the ethnic born sons of Abraham, they too were accounted as Israel.

Moses also reiterates that Israel was a spiritual distinction, when he admonishes the people to “circumcise their hearts” (Deuteronomy 10:16). All of the men of Israel had performed the physical sign of circumcision on their genitals, but there were many of them who were not true Israel in the heart (Romans 9:6). This is because being a member of true Israel was never about biology or physicality, but of spiritual allegiance to Yahweh.

Thinking also of the lineage of Christ, from the genealogies recorded in the Gospels, we can ascertain that Ruth the Moabite was a part of His lineage and was grafted into Israel. Along with Ruth, Rahab the Canaanite prostitute was a part of His line as well as Bathsheeba, who was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and could have been a Hittite herself (the text is unclear). Regardless, the Servant of the Lord, whom Isaiah calls “true Israel” was the one who assimilated people who were far off, and foreigners to His covenant promises, and brought them into Him as one people. This is why Paul says that there is neither Jew nor Greek (Galatians 3:28) because all are one in Christ, made one through His finished work (Ephesians 2:14-16), to be children of Abraham by faith (Galatians 3:29), and have been made into a new nation, the “Israel of God” which includes slaves and free, male and female, Jews and Gentiles together as one unified people of God (Galatians 6:16).

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On October 2, 2023 By In Postmillenialism, Theology

When Do The “Last Days” Really Begin? (Part 2)

INTRODUCTION

As you will remember from Part 1, a great noise exploded from the Upper Room in Jerusalem. Within those walls, a hurricane-like wind came rushing in, a torch-like flame settled onto the crown of each disciple’s head, and a crowd began forming to make sense of the confusion. Amid this pandemonium, all of the elect believers in the group, meaning everyone whom God had chosen for salvation, began hearing Peter preaching in their native language, causing wonder to come over the crowd. For the ones whom God chose and poured out His Holy Spirit, this was an exhilarating affair, watching the plague of Babel dissolve right before their very eyes. 

But, men and women were standing there that day who were not elect. There were some whom God did not pour out His Spirit and for whom this dramatic display was patently absurd. They even began hurling the accusation that the recipients of the Spirit must be inebriated from drinking too liberally of spirits. This was a terrible mischaracterization. And suggesting the Holy Spirit’s work was on the same level of foul inebriation was likely a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that Jesus previously warned about. 

Against this context, Peter began preaching from a text in Joel that perfectly fit the situation and precisely addressed both groups. Last week, we saw the situation. God was bringing the Old Covenant period of a temple, a priesthood, a sacrificial system, kosher laws, and clean and unclean statues to an abrupt halt. He ended that transitional era to bring about the final epoch of human history, where His Son, the true and better Adam, would recapture everything the first Adam lost. Because of this, that old Kingdom of types and shadows needed to go away because our Lord would not allow any rival kingdoms to become a distraction from His purposes. 

With that, Joel also declares that there will be dramatic signs in the heavens, on the earth, and among the people of God, showcasing exactly when the last days began. According to Joel, “the last days” were not a future end of human history but the final moments of the Mosaic era, and when that glorious era faded away, there would be undeniable signs proving it was happening. As we saw last week, some of those signs applied to the believers, to the ones who experienced the outpouring of the Spirit, spoke in tongues, prophesied, had visions, and dreamed dreams. These signs would confirm that the old boat was sinking and they were on the new covenant raft. Today, we will look at the five remaining symbols, the ones that are signs of judgment for all those who have rejected Christ, and we will understand how all of this proves the last days Peter, Luke, and Joel were speaking about already occurred. 

A NOTE ABOUT EARTHLY SIGNS AND HEAVENLY WONDERS

For many, Acts 2:19 guarantees that the events described concern things that have not already occurred. They will tell you that the first-century sky over the top of Jerusalem wasn’t filled with any significant wonders, the earth during those forty years was not full of various perturbations and signs, that the blood, fire, and smoke have no historical referent, and the sun and moon did not go dark and stop casting their light. Because, they say, these things have not yet happened; we cannot be living in the last days, and anyone who says so is full of malarkey. 

One need only reply to that assertion with: “Hold my beer.”

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On September 22, 2023 By In Postmillenialism, Theology

When Do The “Last Days” Really Begin? (Part 1)

SWING AND A MISS

When Christians hear the phrase “The Last Days” or “The End Times,” what images come to mind? For some, a clandestine government laboratory where a pseudo-scientist whose name rhymes with Dr. Ouchie is busily brewing the next super woo-flu that will kill a quarter of the population is well in view. For others, it could be a one-world cryptocurrency, planes falling from the sky, a maniacal and blood-lusting monarch, or the Romish pope (if you’re really old school). Whatever the case, for the vast majority of evangelicalism, we have utterly missed it. 

Now, when I say we have missed it, I don’t mean a booming foul ball ovah tha Green Monstah, kid! No. We missed it like an undersized middle schooler trying to make contact against a Randy Johnson slider. It wasn’t even close. 

Instead of the final fleeting moments at a cataclysmic end to human history, when the Bible talks about the “Last Days,” it means the last days of the old covenant era. It refers to the winding down of that redemptive epoch where priests mediated between God and us, temples were where you traveled to meet with God, and animal blood sacrifices stood between you and the almighty. The “Last Days” picture the close of that significant era and the dawning of the final chapter of human history, where the world will know God through His one and only Son. 

We are not waiting for that great eon to materialize in the uncertain future. The old covenant has been closed already, the new and final covenant era is fully here, and the events we will look at today, from Acts 2:17-21, will overwhelmingly confirm this. 

THE TEXT:

17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: 18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: 19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke: 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come: 21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. – Acts 2:17-21 KJV

TEN PROOFS THE “LAST DAYS” ARE IN THE PAST

A BIT OF BACKGROUND:

Whenever one of the three great pilgrimage feasts prescribed in the Law occurred, Jerusalem’s population would swell from a couple hundred thousand to well over a million. This is because all Jewish males were required by the Law of God to attend these three festivals every year. And, since most Jewish males were also married with sizable families, the city would balloon up rather quickly. 

Intriguingly, history reveals that numerous Jewish pilgrims embarked on journeys from the farthest reaches of the known world to partake in these festivals. While some hailed from nearby Judea and Galilee, a significant contingent had settled in the distant corners of pagan cities, towns, and nations across the vast reaches of the Roman empire. This widely scattered group bore the title of “diaspora Jews,” they arrived in Jerusalem, each carrying the rich history and traditions of their native people and the languages from their far-flung homelands.

Now, on the morning of Pentecost, downtown Jerusalem would have been packed with no shortage of extra bodies. Once-quiet city blocks, home to only a handful of families, now teemed with hundreds, even thousands, of individuals pressed tightly together. According to the account of Luke, as the Spirit descended, a deafening crescendo of sound erupted, undoubtedly piquing the curiosity of neighbors, onlookers, and the naturally inquisitive. 

They found a group of very ordinary, a run-of-the-mill assortment of blue-collar Galileans. But, with one extraordinary twist. Instead of those Galileans praising God in Aramaic, the common tongue of the Jews, everyone present heard them praise God in their native tongue. For instance, picture those from Rome hearing hymns sung in Latin or Greek while those from Egypt listened to Peter’s preaching in the elegant flow of Coptic. Even pilgrims journeying from as far as Seluecia, modern-day Iraq, were met with the disciples speaking fluently in their Parthian tongue. They all collectively saw the ancient curse of Babel being miraculously reversed before their very eyes. Well… Not all of them.

Among them stood a few who remained untouched by the Holy Spirit’s power, hearing only an incomprehensible babel crescendoing from a cacophony of gibberish. Instead of recognizing the nature of this event as a fulfillment of eschatological prophecies, they hurled derision and ridicule upon the disciples, accusing them of inebriation. 

For the one group, God had chosen to freely give them the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That outpouring caused them to praise Him, to hear His praises in their own dialects and languages, and to go on to serve Him for a lifetime. For the skeptical party, God intentionally chose to withhold His Spirit, leading them from skepticism to utter ruination, poignantly demonstrating His total sovereignty over election and regeneration. 

To clear up any confusion between these two groups and let everyone in earshot know what was happening, Peter stood up and declared precisely what was happening from the prophet Joel. Within those very poignant words from Peter, we will see ten undeniable proofs that the end times have already come. 

This week, we will look at the first five that Peter mentions, describing the situation for those who love Christ and receive Him. They are the ones who will experience the Holy Spirit’s power, inherit the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit, and they are the ones who will endure to the end, and be saved in those last days. 

Next week, we will look at the final five signs that Peter mentions from Joel’s prophecy, which concern those who hate Christ and reject Him. For them, incredible signs and wonders will demonstrate they are on the wrong side of the end-times debate. They will not make it alive into Jesus’ Kingdom; they will be buried in the ashes of Jerusalem, along with all of the other old covenant trappings and shadows. 

With that, let us look at the first five proofs that the “last days” concern the events in the first century, focusing on how that applies to believers and Christians. 

PROOF 1: PENTECOST SETS THE TIME FRAME

Peter addresses the concerns that they were drunk before the second breakfast by saying: “in the last days” God will pour out His Spirit “upon all flesh” (v. 17). Peter is acknowledging the loud sound they just heard and the miraculous gifting of this group to speak in each other’s languages, is proof that the outpouring of the Spirit had just happened, which makes this an eschatological event. Peter isn’t overlooking the scene unfolding beside Him to opine about something that will happen in the distant future. He claims that the last days had come upon them, and His chief evidence for this is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as Joel describes, just happened. Based on this, we can confidently say that the last days are not something we are waiting on but something that has already occurred. 

PROOF 2: YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTER WILL PROPHESY

Along with the loud whooshing clamor in the Upper Room and the Holy Spirit’s miraculous appointment of tongue speaking among the crowds, Peter also claims that young men and women will prophesy in the last days. According to Luke, Joel, and Peter, the onset of male and female prophets in the first century was one of the sure signs that the Old Covenant era was drawing to a close because, in these last days, God had chosen to speak through His Son (Hebrews 1:2). 

These men are clear: when you see young women and young men prophesying in the Spirit, then you will know that the temple, the priesthood, the ceremonial law, and the sacrificial system are on their last leg and the final chapter of redemption, where the world will be conquered by God’s reigning Son, will be fully inaugurated. For some time, both redemptive eras coexisted simultaneously. Meaning the new covenant era of Christ’s advancing Kingdom lived alongside the waning Herodian temple, the Aaronic priesthood, and the Mosaic system of sacrifice for about forty years (from the time of Christ’s ascension in AD 30 or 33 until the destruction of the temple in AD 70). 

That Biblical generation (about 40 years) was the God-appointed season where men and women could prophesy, which is precisely what occurred in the first century. For instance, when Jesus was born and brought into Jerusalem to be circumcised, he was greeted by an elderly woman named Anna, and an elderly man named Simeon, who were called prophets and ones with whom the Spirit of God was speaking (Luke 2:25, 36). Paul also alerts us that young men and young women were prophesying in the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 14:1-6) and needed specific instructions on how to implement this gift appropriately (1 Corinthians 11:4-5). Luke also tells us that Philip, who was one of the seven Hellenistic deacons, had daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:8-9) and that there was a man named Agabus in the Christian Church who prophesied (Acts 11:27-28 and Acts 21:10-11).

Do not miss the fact that prophets had been notably missing from Judah since the death of Malachi, the final prophet. For four hundred years, God was silent, refusing to raise up new prophetic voices to speak to the people until the birth of His Son. When Christ was born, God unleashed the prophetic tongue once more and brought both men and women to speak prophecies in the early church, which again is a sign that the last days were occurring in the incredible events described in the first century. 

There is one last point to consider before moving along. When God raises up prophets, especially female prophetesses, it is always in transitional periods during the waning of epochs. Think about it like a book with various chapters. The nation of Israel went through a chapter called slavery, a chapter about being set free and given a new covenant, a chapter about the occupation in a new land, a chapter of rule by judges, a chapter that describes the rule by various kings, an exile, a homecoming, and a period of silence that lasted 400 years. During each of these chapters near the closing moments of each, God raises a prophetic voice to bring that chapter to a close. For instance, God raised up Moses and Miriam (both described as prophets) in the waning years of the slavery period, just before a new era of communal Torah observance, called the Mosaic covenant, began. The same is true for Deborah, a prophetess before the Lord, presiding over some of the final years of theocratic rule by judges just before the Jewish Monarchy was installed. This was also the case for Huldah, a prophetess who had a significant role to play in the life of Josiah, a mere 30-40 years before the end of the Monarchy and the beginning of exile (2 Kings 22). 

As the final grains of sand in the Old Covenant hourglass fell, it is not surprising that a proliferation of the prophetic occurred. It is also clear that this was a specific prophecy given by Joel, recounted by Luke, that confirms this would happen when the last days of the Old Testament had come. All of this points us to the fact that these prophets and prophetesses were a forty-year sign to the first-century believers and us that the last days had already begun and that a new era was dawning. That era is the epoch of Christ and His Kingdom, which we live in today.

PROOF 3: YOUNG MEN WILL SEE VISIONS

In the same way that a rise in prophetic activity would signal the last days of the Old Covenant era, visions among young men would also be used by God as a powerful testimony that the changing of ages was occurring. This is precisely what we see going down in the New Testament, and we do not need to speculate whether this sign was fulfilled in the first century. We know unequivocally that it was. 

For instance, while Paul was on his way to kill the believers hiding in Damascus, he was confronted by a dazzling vision of the resurrected Christ (Acts 9; 26:18-20), where he was told to go into the city and wait for a man named Ananias to pray for him. When he arrived, the Lord also gave Ananias a vision as well, comforting the reluctant disciple that it was His will that Paul be healed (Acts 9:10-18). Beyond this, Cornelius the centurion saw a vision (Acts 10:2-4), Peter saw a vision (Acts 10:9-23; 11:5), Paul had multiple additional visions (Acts 16:10; 18:9), and John the apostle wrote an entire book of the Bible, which is the book of Revelation, based on a vision (Revelation 9:17).

Peter cited visionary experiences as critical evidence that the last days of the Mosaic period were occurring in the first century. By the Lord’s grace, we have a plethora of evidence pointing to this being true. 

PROOF 4: OLD MEN WILL DREAM DREAMS

In addition to noises, tongues, the outpouring of the Spirit, prophesying, and visions, God continued piling up evidence that the last days were happening more than 2000 years ago by citing the fact that the old men would be dreaming dreams. This also occurred in the New Testament period, with examples such as Joseph, who, like his Old Testament counterpart, had many dreams (Matthew 1:20-24; 2:13, 19, 22), the Magi (Matthew 2:12), and even Pilate’s wife, who is not a man, but was given a specific dream by God as a warning to her husband, Pilate (Matthew 27:19). Once more, we see a proliferation of these events in the first century, not so we will be confused on the timing of the last days, but so God can give us exacting clarity. 

PROOF 5: A JEWISH REVIVAL

Peter’s quotation from Joel 2 also states, in verse 18,: “On my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit.” When we realize that “my servant” is a common way for God to refer to Israel and Judah as a nation (Isaiah 41:8-9; 44:1; 49:3; 53:11; and Jeremiah 30:10), then we can understand that the prophecy of Joel is a prophecy, not just about the salvation of the nations, but also about the events beginning with a revived Jewish people who will have the Holy Spirit poured out upon them in the first century. 

This certainly did not happen in full at the events of Pentecost, nor during this forty-year window we have been describing. And, for that matter, Joel does not predict a monolithic revival in Judah where everyone is converted to Jesus. That did not happen in history, and that is not at all what Joel says. When he describes the revival of Judah, he talks about it like there is a remnant that survives while the majority of the unfaithful Jews will perish. For instance, in Joel 2:32, the prophet says: “For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.” 

Joel tells us that God will set apart a remnant of Jews to be a part of His elect people that will eventually take over the entire world. This happened most assuredly since the vast majority of the first-century church was Jewish converts to Jesus, beginning with the 3000 who were cut to the heart while listening to Peter preach (Acts 2:41). A future revival of Israel may still be coming. We pray to the Lord it does. But, it is no small matter that droves of Jewish people began worshiping a resurrected man named Jesus Christ in the first-century city of Jerusalem. Let us not take for granted how shocking that would have been at that time and in that context. 

CONCLUSION

As we have seen from this text, Joel lays out five initial pieces of evidence that the first-century people were living in the last days. These passages have proven that the “last days” are not esoteric events in OUR future but clear events within the forty-year future of Peter and the first-century church. We have seen how the glorious outpouring of the Holy Spirit caused men and women to hear Peter, who was preaching in a foreign language, perfectly and clearly in their mother tongue. We have seen how the Holy Spirit’s outpouring caused His people to prophesy, His elect young men to dream dreams, predestined old men to hear visions, and a remnant of Judeans to come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ for their salvation. 

The last days began in the first century and ended with the end of Jerusalem and her temple. That isn’t to claim that the Bible contains nothing in our future; it does. But when we consider this text and the ones that have come before, we can conclusively conclude that these events have already happened. Until next time, enjoy living in the last chapter of human history and get to work building Jesus’ Kingdom.

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On September 15, 2023 By In Culture, Theology

An Eschatology Of Pentecost

ESCHATOLOGICAL BLUE DIAMONDS

All diamonds are beautiful and rare. They are formed as a collection of carbon atoms, subjected to unimaginable heat and pressure over the space of time, melding into one of nature’s greatest crystalline masterpieces that has ever captivated the eyes of man. Some diamonds, such as the standard white diamond, are easier to find, occurring nearer to the surface of the earth in the alluvial deposits and within volcanic pipes, which makes them more abundant and affordable in the market. Other diamonds, however, such as the elusive blue diamond, are buried much deeper within the earth’s strata, making them not only harder to extract but also rarer and more costly. 

In the same way, every truth learned from Scripture is precious and essential. Some truths hang right on the surface of the text and do not take much digging to lodge them loose. Other truths, however, take a bit of digging. Yet, the reward for peeling back the layers of Scriptural strata is most definitely worth the reward for all who will venture into its depths. 

This is a good way of thinking about our passage today. Many of you will be familiar with some truths on the surface. These truths are precious and glorious, and I do not want to minimize them. But, if you will grab your shovel and pickaxe, I’d like to take you down just a bit further, below the surface and into the eschatological crust of the text, as we hunt for the Biblical equivalent of blue diamonds. 

THE TEXT: ACTS 2:1-12

1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.2 And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.5 Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” 12 And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 

To understand this text, let us first consider what eschatology is and how this text is eschatological. 

EXPANDING OUR DEFINITION 

First, eschatology is not merely about the final climactic moments of human history. That is a futurist’s perversion. Instead, eschatology is about what life will look like during the final age of man. Eschatology is about how the history of planet earth will be brought under the rule and dominion of Jesus Christ in these last days we are living in. That end-time age began when Jesus Christ rose from the dead and poured out His Spirit upon all flesh, which we will see in greater detail next week. 

But for now, it is crucial to understand that everything within the old covenant, all of the promises of God, all of the types and shadows, will either pass away under the rule of Christ or will soar to its climax in the rule of Christ. In this way, eschatology has just as much to do with fulfilling the past as it does with the future. Thus, eschatology is trying to understand how all of the old forms and norms will find their ultimate realization and transformation in the new covenant that Christ has ushered in. To say that in shorthand: eschatology is how Christ ushers in His end-time Kingdom, now in part, one day in full.

To that end, let us explore a few examples, beginning with Pentecost. 

PENTECOST AND THE FESTAL CALENDAR

Pentecost comes from the Greek word πεντηκοστή, which means “the fiftieth” or “the fiftieth day,” referring to the fact that the miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit happened fifty days after the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday. Yet, the origins of Pentecost and the other key events during Holy Week run much deeper than the first century AD. 

For instance, underneath the events of Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost are buried Old Covenant feasts that directly and chronologically correlate with what Christ is doing. Take, for example, the festival called Passover. This feast was the first among the final three feasts in the Jewish year. During that feast, a lamb was slaughtered for the people’s sins, and its blood was painted on the doorpost of every home so that the angel of death would pass over them. As Christians, we look to Christ as the final and perfect Lamb, whose blood was painted over the mantle of our own hearts, causing the angel of death to pass us over so that we may inherit eternal life in the Son. 

Likewise, underneath the events of Easter and Christ’s resurrection was a Jewish festival immediately following Passover called “First Fruits.” In that feast, the people would praise and worship God for the first sign of the harvest, that once more He had caused the seeds that went down into the earth dead to sprout and break through the ground again, symbolizing new life and resurrection from the dead. When Jesus rose from the dead, during the celebration of this festival, He was not only claiming to be God; He was fulfilling an Old Covenant rite with precision and beauty. 

In the same way, underneath the events of Pentecost was an Old Covenant norm that must be explored if we are going to understand what God is doing in Acts 2. After the Passover and the festival of First Fruits, the Israelites hightail it out of Egypt and travel ferociously towards the Red Sea. After God’s final and glorious showdown with Pharoah, the Israelites continue to Sinai, where God leaves His throne in heaven and descends upon the mountain to dwell with His people. The journey from celebrating the First Fruits in Egypt to seeing Yahweh descend upon the mountain and deliver His law to Moses took exactly fifty days (Just like Pentecost). 

To commemorate that arduous fifty-day journey, God established a feast called the Festival of Weeks (Shavuot in Hebrew), which would become one of the three mandatory pilgrimage festivals that all Jewish males were required to attend once a year in Jerusalem. Furthermore, within the ordinary annual calendar of the Jews, this feast was the last and final celebration of the year, spiritually symbolizing how God’s ultimate and final purpose in redemption was to condescend and draw His sojourning people into His presence forever. 

This is why the timing of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 is so rich and eschatologically significant. All of the events that happen during holy week and Pentecost track perfectly along with the Old Testament Festal calendar. This is not by accident or mere coincidence. God is purposefully taking His Son through each of the final feasts of Israel to show His people how His Son is the end and point that each of these feasts was pointing to. 

In the same way, God rescued His people from the Pharaoh and their taskmasters in Egypt, Heaven’s spotless Lamb came and offered Himself during the final Passover, freeing the people of God from a far worse tyrant than Pharoah. In Christ, we have been set free from the wicked rule of Satan, the slavery of our own sinful flesh, and the bonds of death that once accosted us. He is the hope the Passover was always pointing to. 

Immediately after Christ fulfilled the Passover, He fulfilled the feast of First Fruits, being the first fruit of a new creation, being the first to rise from the ground, breaking out of the earth like the first barley harvest the people were worshiping God for. In this, Christ (the bread of life) became the first one to rise in the new covenant Kingdom. And through His power, He is bringing all His people back to life and out of the grave until the entire harvest has come in. He is the hope the feast of Firstfruits was always pointing to. 

Then, fifty days later, in the same way God descended from heaven to dwell with His people in Sinai, God Himself descended again to dwell with the people of God at Pentecost. But unlike the Old Testament version, where the people needed to remain far off from God because of the finished work of Christ, the Holy Spirit of God would not remain distant but would live even within the heart of every believer. This was the chief end that the Festival of Weeks always pointed to: God living with His people forever. 

These events are not eschatological because they speak about the final moments of history. They are not eschatological because they concern modern-day Apache helicopters, Antichrists, or marks of the beast. These events are eschatological because old covenant trappings were fulfilled through Christ’s faithful work, and the final end-time Kingdom was inaugurated. Passover, Firstfruits, and the Festival of Weeks reached their glorious crescendo in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is our forever Lamb! He is our resurrection and first fruit! And in His Spirit, He is the one who ensured God’s people would dwell in God’s presence forever! In Christ, we are not waiting for these realities to come, but because of Him, they are already fully here. 

Before concluding, there are a couple of other examples of Christ doing this same thing in this passage. Let us dig a bit deeper.  

ESCHATOLOGICAL WIND

While the disciples were waiting for the Holy Spirit to come, just as the Lord Jesus promised, they were huddled together and hiding in an upper room somewhere in Jerusalem. This made sense for a variety of reasons:

  1. Jesus told them to wait, and they would have needed to stay somewhere.
  2. This room was apparently spacious enough to hold 120 of them and private enough to where they would not provoke any undue suspicion.
  3. This was so critical because waiting out in the open, in the town that just killed your master for insurrection and who was likely on the lookout for you, would not have been the best way to stay alive.

Yet, while they were in the safety and seclusion of the upper room, God brought the full fury of His hurricane-like breath, which is essential for a host of reasons.

The main reason is theophanic. When God physically reveals Himself to the people of Old Testament Scripture, He usually does so through a phenomenon called theophany. If you are not familiar with the term, it simply means God using material means to reveal Himself to people in a physical form. Notable examples include God appearing as a burning bush to Moses, a smoking pot to Abraham, a cloud to Israel, and a sparring partner to Jacob. 

In addition to those common theophanies, God often appeared physically as a wind or cloud in various places. First, since the Hebrew word for Spirit (Ruach) also translates as wind, the Holy Spirit hovering over the chaotic primordial waters of pre-creation in the first two verses of the Bible would count as the earliest example of a wind theophany in Scripture (Genesis 1:1-2). More salient to our discussion would be how the Lord appeared during the Red Sea episode, hovering over a different set of waters, blowing back the waves into walls with theophanic fury. In that scene, God delivered His people by His own breath, which indeed connects to Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit. 

Yet, another wind theophany blows closer to the point of Pentecost. If you remember a few paragraphs before, I said the Old Testament equivalent of Pentecost was the Festival of Weeks in Exodus. This festival occurred after Passover and Firstfruits, and it commemorated how the people traveled for fifty days and settled at the base of God’s mountain waiting for Him to descend. When He did descend upon the mountain, the text tells us that He came as a furious storm that shook the mountain so fiercely that the people and the mountain trembled! In the middle of that storm cloud that lowered itself down upon the mountain’s apex, the wind was so intense that it was described as God blowing trumpets with the magnitude of His breath. Is this not precisely what is occurring at Pentecost?

The twelve disciples, like the twelve tribes of Israel, are in an elevated place waiting on their covenant God to come down and make His dwelling place among them. And in much the same way that God descended upon Mt. Sinai with a breathy storm, God filled the upper room with His glorious divine breath, with one notable exception. Instead of the people being barricaded from going into the eye of God’s theophanic hurricane, Christ the better Moses ascended the mountain and made atonement for our sins. Because of that atonement, God would descend and live with us forever. In that way, the wind rushing into the upper room was the definitive sign that God was making His dwelling place, without restrictions or distance, with His people forever. No longer relocated to the tops of mountains or the back room of a Jerusalem temple, but dwelling within His people’s hearts, filling them with His life-giving windy breath. 

ESCHATOLOGICAL FIRE

You will also notice that when the Spirit comes upon God’s people at Pentecost, He came as a tongue of fire that sat aloft on each of the disciples’ heads and did not consume them. This should remind us of how God first revealed Himself to Moses, coming as a fire that did not consume the dusty wilderness bush at Mt. Sinai. In addition, when Moses led God’s people out of Egypt, wasn’t it God who appeared both as a cloud to lead the people by day (wind theophany) and as a tongue of fire to lead them by night (fire theophany)? And, wasn’t it also God, who when His divine cloud descended upon Mount Sinai (wind theophany), that He also appeared through bursts of intense, white-hot lightning at the apex of Sinai (fire theophany)? 

Without belaboring the point, when God drew His people out of Egypt and settled upon the mountain to be their God and them be His people, He used fire and wind as the physical phenomena signifying His genuine spiritual presence. This is, again, precisely what happened in the upper room. The same God who blew His wind and cracked His fiery lightning on Sinai was now inhabiting the Upper Room with wind and flame. And this time, there was no safe distance between the people and their God. He was descending with wind and flame directly onto them – and praise be the Lord Jesus Christ – for this is what our Lord accomplished. 

There is one final Old Testament reality going on in the text that Christ’s Kingdom will not only intersect with but also undo.  

ESCHATOLOGICAL BABEL AND THE TABLE OF NATIONS

The first command in Scripture is for the people of God to be fruitful, to multiply, and to spread out into the uninhabited world (Genesis 1:28). Yet, under the perniciousness of prevailing sin, the people staunchly refused the commands of God and chose rebellion instead. Rather than spreading out and carrying faithful God-glorifying living to the remotest deserts and deepest bogs, sinful man multiplied their iniquities. Then they huddled together in a single plain where they sat stubbornly in disobedience. 

Echoing their creator God, who said: “Let us make man in our image,” this gaggle of future babblers declared: “Let us make a city,” Let us make a tower,” and “Let us make a name for ourselves.” In this threefold repetition of the “let us,” this group quoted God. Yet, their hearts couldn’t be farther from His. Instead of making a name for God, the entire point of our creation, they were consumed (like Lucifer) with making a name for themselves. Instead of spreading out in obedience, they built a tower that so dominated the ancient skyline that no one could get separated from them (Genesis 11:4). They erected a mud-brick skyscraper to ensure no one accidentally obeyed God and ended up scattering.

Ironically, the tower was so slight and unimpressive from God’s vantage point that He described Himself having to come down in order to see it (Genesis 11:5). Picture God squinting and mocking their effort. Then, once God comes down and scrambles their alphabets, they all become so mired in linguistic confusion that everyone ends up scattering anyway, which is another rather humorous aspect of this narrative. Ultimately, the peoples of the earth are subdivided into seventy nations separated by many languages. 

Now, think about what is going on at Pentecost. Instead of God coming down to confuse the people’s languages, God unloosened the various tongues so the people would no longer Babel (pun intended). Instead of one people being divided into all nations on earth (as was the case on the Shinar plain), in Jerusalem that day, people from “all the nations under heaven” came back together as one people under the one true King. In both scenes, the people are confused and bewildered. Yet, in Christ, everything that afflicted the people of God before is now melting away. 

HOW SIGNS WORK

Before drawing this to a close, one additional element to this passage needs to be dug into. If you are tracking, we have dug down under the surface into the layers of Old Testament feasts to see the eschatological truths buried within. We went further down into an understanding of wind and fire theophany to find the gems embedded into the text at that level. Then, we dug further down into the typological level, seeing how Jesus was undoing one of the most profound elements of the curse at Babel by reunifying the nations at Pentecost. Now, we are ready to find blue diamonds. 

When God gives a sign to His people, He gives it to encourage us because He loves us. He uses temporary physical means like water applied in baptism, fire mounted on the apostle’s head, wind rushing into a room at Pentecost, bread and wine at the Lord’s Table to point to eternal spiritual realities that never end. While the physical manifestation of fire on the apostle’s head and wind in their chamber was a singular and non-repeatable event, the spiritual reality that each signified remains. Every time a man or woman believes the Gospel, the fire and breath of God descends upon them, igniting and fueling new life in the Spirit, which makes every believer on earth a walking, talking Mount Sinai. We do not need the physical phenomena to continue. That was only a sign that the spiritual realities had come. 

In the same way, the gift of a unifying tongue that brings the disparate nations back together in Jerusalem is a one-time physical sign from God that need not be repeated in the modern world. In this passage, God was not encouraging an ongoing physical Pentecostal-style tongue babbling because this passage says Christ has cured and will continue to cure the problem present at Babel. Instead, this passage is a physical sign from God that communicates a powerful spiritual truth. At Pentecost, God unloosed their tongues to bring the fractured world back together in His Son. And while the physical manifestation of the miraculous language speaking does not continue to this day, the spiritual consequence of God unifying the Babel-broken world in His Son does continue. In Christ, the scattered, fractured world will be reintegrated. There will one day, and I hope soon, one people, washed with the same baptism, feasting at the same table, joyfully serving their one King. Pentecost was a one-time event that showcases that God is doing that work, and He will not stop until it is finished. 

CONCLUSION

Eschatology is a much larger topic than what concerns the last and final moments of human history. Rightly understood, eschatology speaks about the entirety of Jesus’ end-time Kingdom. It includes things that happened in the very beginning of His reign, such as His Passover completing death, His Firstfruits accomplishing resurrection, His Daniel 7 fulfilling Ascension, His Festival of Weeks closing Pentecost, and His undoing of the curse of Babel. Eschatology includes events in the apostles’ lifetime, such as the Gospel going out and advancing into the Roman world, the downfall and destruction of Jerusalem, the end of the temple era, the sacrificial system, and the priesthood. Eschatology concerns what happened after the canon was closed, how Jesus’ Kingdom eventually overtook the Roman Empire, experienced a Reformation in Europe, and how that Kingdom is alive and well today. 

Eschatology concerns future events, but those events are the minority. More accurately, it is the theological discipline that examines how all the promises of God, from salvation and redemption to His worldwide Kingdom, will come to fruition under the rule and reign of His Son. And when you understand that, you will not only see that you are living in the end times but also that the final era of human history is upon us. This means that we are living under the end-time rule of Christ, and there are end-time things Christ has commanded us to be doing. The apostles were only commanded to sit and wait for a season. Once the Spirit came upon them, they sat and waited no longer.

In the same way, far too many people treat eschatology as something long into the future that is either irrelevant to where we stand or something we have to wait to arrive. Dear ones, our end-time King has come. His end-time kingdom is here. And His Spirit has come upon you, christening you for the end-time service He has commissioned you to. 

With that, do not be the kind of Christian who sits down and does not get involved. Do what the apostles did and turn your city upside down for Christ. Start Bible studies. Host prayer groups. Do some street preaching. Be present and active in your local congregations. Get married to a godly spouse. Have children and disciple them. Use your life to see His end-time Kingdom advance. 

And one last thing: remember what Jesus did at Pentecost. For a moment, He made all the peoples from all the nations in Jerusalem that day speak in one voice. Let that be an encouragement that our work is not in vain. One day, Christ will complete that work. He will make of all the nations on earth one people under God, indivisible, with perfect liberty and perfect justice for all. We labor to see that true and better nation come in full, even as our nation withers around us.

God bless you! 

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On July 27, 2023 By In Music, Worship

The Masculinity Of Corporate Singing: A Call To Christian Men To Sing

It was once common knowledge that the burliest and manliest chaps among us were the ones most interested in song. For instance, when soldiers marched into battle or were training for it, they would often march to the rhythm of a rousing tune. When rowers on old ships would drop their ores into the frigid waters, they kept time with sea shanties and other melodies. When those same men gathered together for a pint at the local pub, they sang folk songs and bar tunes. When tradesmen were on the job, they were whistling while they worked. When music was being composed, it was predominantly done by men for men. Essentially, wherever you found the strongest and hardest working men, the most aggressive soldiers, and the saltiest sea dogs, you could guarantee that they were singers. Moreover, they loved it. 

Now, one of the things I find the most peculiar, especially in the modern church, is how effective Satan has been in convincing men to remain quiet in public worship. For too many men believe that singing is a feminine action that grades against their masculinity. Even fewer have found the joy and utter manliness of participating at a rip-roaring level. 

While this does not apply to all men, many no longer feel like loud thunderous song-singing is a masculine endeavor. In fact, who can blame them? When the Church, for the last decade or 12, has adopted overly emotive self-focused songs sung by attractive hip-swaying women on stage, with eyes closed, lights turned down, and maybe a few lit candles to accompany the emergent pop vibe, is it any wonder that testosterone rich men are not clamoring to participate in this? Instead of a Biblically qualified elder leading the saints in public worship of their triune God from the book of Psalms or a Biblically faithful hymnal, far too many churches have adopted the shallow style of the entertainment complex, catering to consumer-driven concertgoers who are looking to be entertained with an experience instead of worshiping the Living God. 

(more…)

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On July 12, 2023 By In Culture, Theology

Division Is The Point

Kendall Lankford Jun 14

In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

 – Genesis 1:1-2

ORDER AND CREATION

Just moments before the “in the beginning,” nothing existed. And for limitless eternities, our God was perfectly thrilled to dwell enraptured within the inner trinitarian love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then, oh, about six to ten thousand years ago, God caused time to start ticking and space to bubble into being. The text says God first created the heavens and the Earth, which before the issuance of light, was just a collection of dark, formless, voided proto-matter that had yet to be organized into something meaningful. All of that changes in verse 2. 

Once the darkened, watery building blocks of primordial mass were sung into being, the first thing our triune God does is hover over it. This action signifies His absolute sovereignty and dominion over the matter that He will henceforth be organizing. To hover over the disordered waters of pre-cosmological substances demonstrates that Yahweh is the one who will be taming the chaos, shaping it into a cosmos, and specifying it into something orderly and useful for His purposes. Thus, in six sequential twenty-four-hour days, Yahweh calls forth light out of the darkness and then heaven and Earth out of the waters, filling everything He made with life, beauty, and peace. 

THE ORIGINAL MELKOR (1)

When God sings the universe into existence, He infuses it with purpose, life, beauty, and order. Like a master composer, He does not allow His celestial symphony to disintegrate into chaos or to lapse into an ear-jarring cacophony. He sang existential and intrinsic order into the masterpiece He fashioned and invited all of heaven’s newly created hosts to join the cosmic ballad with Him, which was very good. 

At some point in the song, and no one quite knows how long, the simple harmonies were mixed with a most bitter discord. A rival song was being sung by Earth’s original Melkor. And among the divergent notes, a contingent of heavenly beings defected from their God and followed the dragony piper’s song like rats running to their doom. At this point, the God of order damned the archangel of chaos to slither shamefully upon his belly, dragging himself across the barren Earth, until the lake of fiery chaos could be prepared for him and his minions forever. 

Unlike God, this miserable creature hated beauty, life, and order. He reveled in chaos, destruction, and disorder. He hated everything God made, especially the human beings God was so fond to sing about. From that moment on, the serpent of old would become man’s mortal enemy, seeking to extinguish his life, rob his people of beauty and joy, and fill his neighborhoods, societies, and cultures with pure unadulterated confusion and disorder. 

SATAN’S DISCORDANT SYMPHONY

This campaign of mayhem began amid the beauty and tranquility of Eden’s orderly gardens. It was there the cunning serpent sewed division between the first man and his wife, which caused discord within their marriage, division with their God, and enmity among the creation, who now lived in fear and dread of man. This, however, would not be the end of Satan’s meddlings. 

Throughout the centuries, the dragon has sewn discord, disunity, chaos, and open rebellion against God into one society after another. From a spirit of pure malevolence, this menacing entity still foments his sinister plans to topple the race of man. Lucifer, the master of discord, finds solace when unity is fractured, and harmony collapses among people. Like a twisted artist, he revels in the macabre he orchestrates, relishing the scent of bitterness, rejoicing in the notes of animosity that lingers in the air. Division is his chief weapon, his carefully hewn masterpiece, crafted to purposefully erode trust, foster disintegration, and extinguish the sweet harmonies of the Father’s song wherever it is found. With meticulous precision, he exploits the deepest fears and insecurities within the human race, manipulating the fragile strands that bind us all together, causing us to turn on our God, which causes us to turn on one another.

Satan knows that where godlessness takes hold, division thrives. And where division thrives, love crumbles, compassion wanes, and the very essence of humanity grows sick, despondent, and crippled in his schemes. In this wasteland of fractured souls, he seeks to reign as a malignant despot, gloatingly atop a pile of ever-growing human bodies. He is the architect of despair, perpetuating a cycle of anguish and suffering on everyone and everything he can catch up in his snare. That is his modus operandi, and he has done this over and over and over again. 

THE MARKS OF MELKOR IN ‘MURICA

Welcome to modern-day America. After a dramatic origination founded upon the knowledge of God and a good constitution, we find ourselves once again sick with the devil’s lullaby. A little more than a half-century ago, rampant sexual immorality became the norm among teens and young adults. For the first time in human history, people in this country were legally allowed to have their babies chopped up in agony inside their wombs, discarded like human vermin in medical-grade trash bags, and donated to universities that would perform experiments on the dead babies in the name of “the science.” 

A generation later, homosexuality and lesbianism became the rampant satanic leaven injected into society’s rotting lump. Forty years later, this has festered into an insidious rainbow-colored mold that is morally calcifying this country. Today, men no longer understand what it means to be men. Society has no answer for what a woman is. Colleges doll out gender studies degrees, so that a generation of delusional deviants can foment intellectual absurdities and outright lies. The media is gaslighting everyone. The government and our leaders are bereft of any moral decency or character to lead anyone. Our children are being perverted in indoctrination camps called public schools. And amid all of this chaos and confusion reverberating in this land, the love of God grows ever cold, and the lampstand that once shone brightly to the nations and did beat back the darkness is now in danger of being swallowed by the void as its embers flickers. 

When you look around and see a nation more divided than ever, that is undoubtedly the point. Our enemy never sleeps and is constantly roaming about like a roaring lion seeking whomever he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). We did not get here by accident; this was the point all along, transforming us from a harmonious society into a people who give hearty approval to every kind of wickedness and evil under heaven (Romans 1:32). And while this was clearly the point, there most certainly is a cure. 

THE GOSPEL THAT KILLS DIVISION

Our God has not left us to face the serpent on our own. He did not leave us in our chains and miseries to be eternally accosted by the enemy of our soul. No! 

Two thousand years ago, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came to overturn the devil’s treachery, to heal man’s virulent soul, and to reunite God’s people with their God and fellow man. The chaos of sin was silenced through the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the deep chasm of division between humanity and God was permanently healed. In a single act of the most profound love, Christ embraced the weight of our transgressions and bore the agony of our iniquities. With each agonizing breath, He conquered the chaos that held us captive, disarming the powers of darkness and offering us a pathway to redemption. Through His blood, shed in perfect atonement, He washed away the stains of our iniquities and reconciled us with our Heavenly Father. In the glorious triumph of His resurrection, Christ shattered the chains of division, restoring unity between God and man and granting us the promise of eternal life, a resounding declaration of hope. In Christ, the chaos of sin is forever vanquished, and the division is forever mended.

This has occurred powerfully and ultimately between God and us since there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Everything that once separated us spiritually from God has been abated so that there is nothing that can separate our soul from His love (Romans 8:35-28). Absolutely nothing! 

But this is not just a reality for the soul. This is not just a truth vouchsafed for us in heaven, as true as that is. In Christ, the devilish poison of division is daily being put to death by the power of the Spirit. Through the paraclete’s relentless conviction, our hearts are being stirred, and all division is being laid bare. Our minds are being rewoven with the threads of the Gospel, casting off the shackles of animosity and embracing the mind of Christ (Romans 12:1-2). Oh, the glorious fruit the Spirit has wrought already and is working now within us! Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are trickling forth in purest droplets from the soul of spiritual babes and gushing forth like a mighty river from the long in love with Christ.

Empowered now by the Spirit of grace, we extend grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation, bridging the chasms of severed relationships with the unwavering love of Christ. Guided by the Spirit’s wisdom, we discern truth and dismantle falsehoods that breed discord in our homes, neighborhoods, and society. O, let us yield to the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying fire, for under His mastery and care, all division withers and all unity begins to thrive, birthing for Christ’s Church a testimony of God’s transformative power within us.

While the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, the Church, in the name of Jesus Christ, comes to seal, heal, and spread joy. Our country is in a mess right now. The fingerprints of Satan’s sadistic schemes are everywhere. And if something does not happen quickly, this nation will be torn asunder, collapsing into the same rubble as Rome before her. But, this need not be her fate! 

If the Church would pray for revival, if we would speak the truth in love, proclaim the Gospel of peace, interject ourselves like salt into the rot, and shine forth like Christ in a crooked and perverse generation, then we may yet see this nation spared from the coming wrath of God. Perhaps if we would preach like Jonah, weep like Jeremiah, if we would repent like Nebuchadnezzar, or stand firm against God’s enemies like Samson; If we would worship as ardently as David, or employ wisdom like his son Solomon; If we would be as industrious in our society as Daniel and Joseph; if we would chase after the whoring gentiles like Hosea; and if we, who are filled with the same Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead, would live like the apostles – going from town to town declaring freedom in the risen Christ – then I believe we will see this nation turning back to God. 

Division, chaos, discord, and disunity are all symptoms of walking away from God. They are hallmark attacks of the enemy who hates humanity with a passion and wants to see us destroyed. As Christians, we know the answer. We have the remedy. We have the antidote to the serpent’s venom; the only loving thing now to do is apply it liberally wherever chaos and division are still found. 

We do not have time to hide or blend in. If we do nothing, this country will collapse. It may already be too late, which God alone knows. But while we have breath in our lungs and see the truth, let us proclaim it. Let us pray the pagans will be converted to Christ. Let us petition heaven that this nation will repent and bow again unto Christ. And let us labor with everything we have to see His Kingdom advancing in this place. 

For Christendom,

Kendall Lankfordrd

NOTES

(1) WHO IS MELKOR? – Melkor, also known as Morgoth, is a prominent character in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, specifically in “The Silmarillion.” He is a fictional character representing the embodiment of evil and the primary antagonist of the narrative. In Tolkien’s cosmology, the world, known as Arda, was created through the music of the Ainur, powerful beings who are subordinate to Ilúvatar, the supreme deity. Melkor was one of the Ainur who participated in the creation of the world. Initially, he was one of the mightiest and most talented of the Ainur, possessing great power and knowledge. However, Melkor developed a strong desire for dominion and control, which eventually led him astray from Ilúvatar’s original intentions. During the “Music of the Ainur,” a symphony performed by the Ainur under Ilúvatar’s guidance, Melkor introduced discord into the harmony. He sought to introduce his own themes and overpower the music of the others, desiring to shape the world according to his will rather than following the divine plan. This act of discord caused disharmony and tension within the music. Melkor’s primary goal was to dominate and control the world of Arda. He sought power, control, and the subjugation of all other creatures. Overall, Melkor’s modus operandi was centered around spreading chaos, corrupting others, and disrupting the harmony and order intended by Ilúvatar. His actions led to a long history of suffering and heroic struggles against his reign, making him one of the most significant and compelling villains in Tolkien’s mythology, and an apropos type of Lucifer in the Scriptures.

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