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On February 13, 2025 By In History, Theology

John’s “World”

“The world” is a prominent theme in John’s Gospel. Probably the most well-known verse in all of Scripture is John 3:16 in which Jesus tells Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” What is the world that God loves?

John sets the stage for how we are to understand “the world” in his introduction. Introducing John the Witness (he is not called “John the Baptizer” in the Gospel), the Apostle John says that the Witness was not the Light coming into the world (Jn 1:9). The Word who is the Light “was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him” (Jn 1:10). The true Light, the Word, made the world, but this same world did not know him. The word translated “world” is kosmos. Kosmos emphasizes order or how things are arranged. At the time to which the Apostle is referring, the world is the created order organized under the rule of the devil. He is “the ruler of this world” that must be cast out (Jn 12:31; cf. also 14:30; 16:11).

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On January 23, 2025 By In Culture, History, Theology

The Gospel of John: Christ the Creator

John’s Gospel opens with the unmistakable echo of Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning … God.” He fills that out a bit more than Moses, but there is no doubt that John intends to write a new Genesis. The clear allusion in John’s opening words invites us to look for patterns that parallel and retell the story of creation around the Word made flesh. John makes it fairly easy for us.

In the first eleven chapters of his Gospel, John records seven signs Jesus performed. He records these signs so that the reader or hearer might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing might have life in his name (Jn 20:30-31). John shapes his telling of the story of Jesus around these signs.

Signs are not inert pointers to something else. They are not like our road signs, for instance, that tell us the law but have no power to enforce it. Signs in Scripture are what we call miracles, God’s extraordinary providence; that is, this isn’t the way God works ordinarily on a day-to-day basis. Signs are God’s acts to save his people and destroy his enemies. When Moses was sent to Pharaoh, he was sent to perform signs and wonders that would lead to the deliverance of the children of Israel and the destruction of Egypt.

Jesus’ signs are for the same purpose, but the scale of his work is greater than that of Moses. What God did through Moses in North Africa, Jesus is doing for the entire created order.

As the world begins in water, so John’s new Genesis begins in water with the Spirit hovering and the first light driving back the darkness. After the Prologue (Jn 1:1-18), water is everywhere, surrounding the first sign of Jesus turning water to wine (Jn 2:1-11). John the Baptizer is baptizing. Jesus is baptized, and the Spirit hovers over him. Jesus tells Nicodemus that the new birth is through water and Spirit (Jn 3:1-21). Baptisms appear again at the end of chapter 3, and Jesus speaks with a woman at a well in chapter 4.

Jesus’ first sign is to take the water of the old creation and bring it to maturity in the form of wine. Wine is mature water, water assimilated into the ground, vine, and grape and then extracted and aged/matured. Jesus is making a new creation that will be the mature creation God intended. This is the first light of Jesus’ glory (Jn 2:11).

On the second day of creation, God placed a firmament he called “heaven” between the waters below and the waters above. The heaven of heavens is the place of God’s throne, his rule. The firmament heaven will eventually have rulers that govern times and seasons (Gen 1:14-18). A ruler’s son is healed as the second sign (Jn 4:46-54). The sons of Adam are sin-sick and unable to rule as God intended. Jesus is healing the firmament dwellers.

The third sign follows on the heels of the second sign with a Jewish man at the Pool of Bethesda who desires to be healed by going into the pool after it has been stirred by the angel and emerging with a new life. The third day of creation is when land emerged from the water, and vegetation appeared. Jesus is the one who has the authority to raise “the land,” men, from the abyss of death into resurrection (Jn 5:19-47).

Jesus feeding the five thousand is the fourth recorded sign (Jn 6:1-15). On the fourth day of creation, God placed the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament to rule. When Jesus provides bread as Solomon did for the nations and as God did in the wilderness, the people want to make him king (Jn 6:15), a star in the firmament-heaven. He will be there, but not yet.

The fifth sign is connected to the fourth because the people’s actions cause Jesus to withdraw. The disciples get into a boat on the sea that becomes tumultuous, and Jesus comes walking on the sea. On the fifth day of creation, God created swarms of swarming sea creatures over which man was to have dominion (Gen 1:28; Ps 8). The sea of the old creation swallows up man in death, but Jesus subdues it.

On the sixth day of the week, God made man in his image to rule as God rules. The refrain of God’s judgments in Genesis 1 is, “and God saw that it was good.” The eyes are instruments of judgment, discerning between good and evil. In John 9, we meet a man born blind who declares of himself, “I am the man” (Jn 9:9). He is the old Adam left without the ability to judge. Jesus heals him so that he can judge as he was created to do.

The Sabbath day was a day of rest and rejoicing. Sin turned into a day of mourning. Lazarus dies, and Jesus weeps. Raising Lazarus from the dead is the seventh sign. Jesus will turn the mourning of death-rest into the rejoicing of life-rest.

This entire week of signs anticipates the eighth sign that is homed in on in chapters 13—20. Jesus will be glorified through the cross and resurrection. He is crucified on the sixth day of the week, lies in the tomb on the Sabbath, and then is raised on the first day of the week, which is the eighth day in relation to the first week. Jesus re-creates the world in his work.

John’s Gospel structure is the message: Jesus has not come to give men individual private spiritual experiences as one religion among many; Jesus has come as the Creator and Re-creator of the world who defines and governs every aspect of the world’s existence. Pledge your allegiance to your Creator and King.

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On January 10, 2025 By In History, Theology

Why Four Gospels?

Why do we have four Gospels? Wouldn’t it have been a bit more tidy for casual readers and scholars alike if we had one Gospel that would clear up any apparent discrepancies? The Holy Spirit, guiding the writers, as well as the church, obviously didn’t think so. There was a need for four Gospels to give us different perspectives on the life of Christ, all completely consistent with one another so that they can be harmonized historically, but different so as to throw a different light on the Person and work of Christ Jesus.

The early church understood the number four to be Scripturally significant. Irenaeus, the second-century bishop of Lyons, summarizes the early church’s thought about why we have four Gospels:

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On December 26, 2024 By In Church, History, Theology

The Covenant Story: The New Covenant

“For all the promises of God in him are ‘Yes,’ and in him ‘Amen,’….” ~2 Corinthians 1:20

“To be continued.” This is one of the most frustrating phrases ever to be used on screen. The author immerses you in the story, takes you to the point of anxiously desiring resolution, and then leaves you hanging, waiting for all the questions to be answered in the next installment … maybe. From a marketing perspective, it is brilliant because an audience is assured for the next episode (if the story is good enough). From a viewer’s perspective, the tension is unpleasant. (And this is why we now have streaming services and “binge-watching.”)

At the end of the Hebrew Scriptures (2 Chronicles in the Hebrew order), God put a big “to be continued.” The Jews are sent back to the land to rebuild the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem. God’s people are in prominent places in the empire (such as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Esther, and Mordecai). These were golden years in some sense.

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On December 19, 2024 By In History, Theology

The Covenant Story: David & Restoration

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; And the government will be upon his shoulder … Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.” ~Isaiah 9:6, 7

From the earliest days of history, God declared his intention for his kingdom to be established on the earth and ruled by man. The original dominion mandate in Genesis 1:28 tied dominion–the establishment and maturation of the kingdom–to seed, children, being fruitful and multiplying. Men would develop and rule over God’s kingdom on earth. “The heaven of heavens are Yahweh’s, but the earth he has given to the sons of men” (Ps 115:16).

When sin entered the world, the establishment of the kingdom would have to come through the defeat of the serpent and his seed. God promised in Genesis 3:15 that he would raise up the seed of the woman to accomplish this mission. Over the next several thousand years, the story of the seed and the kingdom unfold.

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On November 27, 2024 By In Christmas, History, Politics, Theology

The Covenant Story: Creation Through Noah

In the beginning, God spoke. In his words, he revealed himself, expressing the glories of his person and his eternal Triune relationship in light, darkness, the firmament-heaven, seas, dry land, vegetation, sun, moon, stars, creatures of the land and sea, and, above all, man, who is created as the unique image of God. God’s words were his bond. They not only called into existence the world and everything in it from nothing, but his word bound him to the world. His word was his covenant.

Creation was not completed with one grand word spoken so that everything was created instantly. Rather, God progressively moved creation from immaturity–formless and void–to greater maturity over the span of six days. His creative actions set the stage for how the story of the world will unfold. Through God’s covenant words, the world will move from immaturity to maturity.

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On October 18, 2024 By In Family and Children, History, Theology

Marriage is like Purgatory

“Marriage is a lot like purgatory, not many protestants seem to believe in it.” 

&

“Marriage is a lot like purgatory, everyone seems eager to end their suffering.”

This is how I facetiously began a recent sermon on Questions 108 and 109 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which address the commandment against adultery. The catechism emphasizes the call for every believer, married or single, “to keep ourselves pure and holy.”

In the context of the 16th-century Reformation, marriage and purgatory were hot-button issues. Christian marriage was central to Reformation theology—can we tell the story of Martin Luther without Katharina von Bora or Henry VIII without his six wives? In this post I’d like to explore how these two are related in some surprising ways.

On Purgatory and Reformation 

The medieval doctrine of purgatory sought to address an important dilemma: How can we reconcile the extrinsic grace of God with the ongoing imperfection and sinfulness of individual Christians? In the medieval Roman system, God’s divine justice could purge or cleanse the souls of those who trusted in Jesus, removing their individual shortcomings in an intermediate state. However, Protestants like Luther insisted that our righteousness before God is already perfected—simul justus et peccator (“simultaneously justified and sinner”).

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On August 31, 2024 By In History, Theology

The Reformed Doctrine of the Necessity of Good Works

When the average Evangelical Christian talks about being “saved” he usually refers to the first moment of conversion, or justification by faith in Christ. He tends to reduce salvation to a past event in the believer’s life: “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8). From this perspective, salvation is something that has already been accomplished.

But this perspective is myopic. The Bible paints a far richer picture, presenting salvation as an ongoing journey that culminates in the future. Believers have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved on the Last Day: “And the Lord added to the church daily those who are being saved” (Acts 2:47); “But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Mt. 24:13).

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On June 7, 2024 By In Culture, History, Politics, Pro-Life, Sexuality

7 Reasons June is Pro-Life Month

  1. Dobbs Overturned Roe v. Wade

In an historic ruling on June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the rulings of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. America has lived for 49 years under the tyrannical bloodshed of Roe but God sent a Jubilee release for us and our children. We must not let that great answer to prayers go unnoticed. Pro-Life wins. This is the month to mark and remember God’s goodness to us.

  1. June is strategic ground to claim

The rainbow mafia has been trying to claim June for a long time. They have many corporations behind them shoving their agenda in everyone’s face. But the Dobbs ruling in June gives a legitimate and prominent way to push back. We should not let this opportunity go to waste to claim June as a celebration of life, God’s goodness to his people, God’s ordinance of marriage, and so much more. Claim June as Pro-Life Month. 

  1. Being Pro-Life cuts to the heart of the Godless agenda

Celebrating Pro-Life month is a great way to cut to the center issue of our time. The godless world is trying to claim that the autonomous self is god. They want their lusts and desires to reign supreme. They are trying to reject the way God made the world: sexuality, gender, when life begins, the nature of being male and female, God’s design for marriage. It is all connected and the godless hate it. The Dobbs ruling is a reality check on their bloodlust. God is God and you are not. Celebrate June as Pro-Life month. 

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On May 16, 2024 By In Church, Discipleship, History, Theology

Pentecostal Temple

When the construction of the Tabernacle was complete, God declared his approval by covering and filling it with his glory (Ex 40:34). Moses couldn’t enter the tent because of the glory cloud (Ex 40:35).

When the construction of Solomon’s Temple was complete, after Solomon prayed his prayer of dedication, fire came from heaven, lit the bronze altar, consumed the offerings, and the glory of Yahweh filled the temple (2Chr 7:1). The priests were unable to enter the house because the glory of Yahweh filled the house (2Chr 7:2).

When the construction of the post-exilic or restoration Temple was complete, there is no record of a historical event like the glory of God filling the Tabernacle or Solomon’s Temple. God promised that he would “fill this house with glory” so that “the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former” (Hag 2:7, 9). God’s glory fills the post-exilic Temple of Ezekiel’s vision (Ezek 43:1-12), but no record exists of a priest or king praying and fire and cloud filling the Temple … until Pentecost.

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