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On October 1, 2013 By In Theology

The Gospel of the Ten Commandments

SStill Life with Bible, Oil on Canvas [source: unknown]As American Protestants drift further from their Reformation roots…

I should stop there and try to avert confusion. Neither the sixteenth nor the seventeenth centuries contain the climax of all church history. I am not saying that all and every change since some point in the past represents a decline. The climax of church history will be in the future at the climax of human history, which I can safely promise will be over a hundred thousand years from now.

Still, in my opinion, some changes in American Protestantism have not been done intentionally nor correctly, but are rather accidents of a kind of community amnesia.

So, with that in mind: As American Protestants drift further from their Reformation roots, we see a lot of people disparaging the Ten Commandments (“Law”) and holding up the Gospel as a different form of life. The call to trust in Christ is held up as an alternative to hearing and obeying the Ten Commandments.

This is a foolish mistake that is caused by incoherent theology and which then produces even worse confusion.

The First Commandment teaches us to trust in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life.

  1. The First Commandment reads (I’m using NASB throughout): “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Obviously, trusting in someone or something else (even one’s own good works) for justification, sanctification, and eternal life” is to have another god beside the true God. It is a rejection of Jesus and his work. It is a violation of the First Commandment.
  2. As a matter of the historic record, at the time of the Reformation, that Protestants invoked the First Commandment precisely for the purpose of defending the doctrine of sola Christo and thus of sola fide. The took the First Commandment as a condemnation of Rome’s superstitions and her teaching of salvation by works. For example, consider the Heidelberg Catechism

    Q94: What does God require in the first Commandment?
    A94: That, on peril of my soul’s salvation, I avoid and flee all idolatry,[1] sorcery, enchantments,[2] invocation of saints or of other creatures;[3] and that I rightly acknowledge the only true God,[4] trust in Him alone,[5] with all humility [6] and patience [7] expect all good from Him only,[8] and love,[9] fear [10] and honor [11] Him with my whole heart; so as rather to renounce all creatures than to do the least thing against His will.[12]

    1. I Cor. 10:7, 14
    2. Lev. 19:31; Deut. 18:10-12
    3. Matt. 4:10; Rev. 19:10; 22:8-9
    4. John 17:3
    5. Jer. 17:5
    6. I Peter 5:5-6
    7. Heb. 10:36; Col. 1:10b-11; Rom. 5:3-4; I Cor. 10:10
    8. Psa. 104:27-30; Isa. 45:6b-7; James 1:17
    9. Deut. 6:5
    10. Deut. 6:2; Psa. 111:10; Prov. 9:10; Matt. 10:28
    11. Deut. 10:20
    12. Matt. 5:29-30; 10:37; Acts 5:29

    (a) Notice the prooftext for the demand that we “rightly acknowledge the only true God” is John 17.3: “And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” The other New Testament texts are interesting as well.

    (b) Notice also that this a Christian (see question #1) is told that disobeying the First Command will imperil his or her salvation. If the First Commandment does not teach us to trust in Christ alone then this would be problematic.

    (c) Finally, notice the mention of the invocation of the saints. The First Commandment was not only about never sinning; it was about trusting the true God and mediator to deal with your many continual sins. The Roman Catholics rationalized prayers to the saints and hope on their merits. The Protestants said that we should pray to and trust in Christ alone. And they used the First Commandment to prove this.

  3. Having no other gods before Yahweh meant never sacrificing animals to any other god but Him. This is not only the obvious context of Exodus and the Pentateuch, but only a few sentences after the giving of the Decalogue God gives instructions on how to properly sacrifice “ascension offerings and peace offerings.” These sacrifices pointed to Christ. The First Commandment teaches us to trust in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life.
  4. Some Christians, claiming to be loyal to the Reformed heritage insist that the Decalogue cannot command us to repent and believe because the Moral Law was imposed on both unfallen Adam and later Jesus. Since they didn’t need to repent and trust in a mediator then the Decalogue cannot contain such a command. This is bogus reasoning. The fact that neither unfallen Adam, nor Christ, needed to be forgiven is entirely irrelevant. The First Commandment tells us to trust in God alone for all that we need. For us sinners, that means that we must trust in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. For Jesus it meant trusting the Father for vindication, growth in grace (Luke 2.51), and resurrection to glory. If we need anything, then the First Commandment tells us to look for God as he has revealed his will in reference to that need. We need justification, sanctification, and eternal life. Those can only be found in Christ. Christ is true God as well as true Man. Thus, the First Commandment teaches us to trust in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life.
  5. The Ten Commandments as given at Sinai are part of the administration of the covenant of grace. They were not stipulations given to sinless beings in which they were expected to persevere in perfect obedience. They are stipulations given to sinners expected to constantly sin. When an Old Testament Hebrew sacrificed to Baal in order to receive the forgiveness of sins, he was violating the First Commandment. When a Church member decides to pray to the god of the Mormons for the forgiveness of sins, he is violating the First Commandment. The First Commandment teaches us to trust in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life.
  6. Thus the preamble to the Decalogue makes it clear that the Ten Commandments are given for the saved community to live by faith in God’s grace. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Thus, the Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches:

    Q44. What doth the preface to the Ten Commandments teach us?
    A44. The preface to the Ten Commandments teacheth us, That because God is The Lord, and our God, and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all His commandments [Deut. 11:1; Luke 1:74-75].

    The Decalogue explicitly appeals to God as Redeemer, the one who frees God’s elect from all sin and brings them into an esate of salvation (See question 20 and then 21 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism).

I can only hope this brief essay is totally superfluous for most readers. As usual, Francis Turretin’s wisdom is worth reading today:

Although faith in Christ (which is prescribed in the gospel) can be called new in respect of its object (which is revealed in the gospel alone), still it belongs to the law in respect of act and of obligation because we are bound to believe in God and all his word. Repentance also belongs to the law; not as it was made for the first man, but as repeated for the sinner and illustrated by the gospel; and materially, if not formally, because it teaches and prescribes the mode of repentance.

(Cross-Posted)<>услуги поддержки ов

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On September 27, 2013 By In Books, Theology

Why Virtue?

after-you-believe

Click to see the book at Amazon.

 

N. T. Wright has a wonderful book called After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters.   I would strongly recommend it to anyone, whether a new Christian, or one who has been in the faith for many years but wants to grow in discipleship and faithfulness.

 

WHY BE VIRTUOUS?

One of the key insights that Wright brings to light in the book—and there are many—has to do with the Why? of Christian virtue. In other words, what is the reason for pursuing holiness, discipline, character, and virtue? What is our motive? Here he offers something fresh—something that I think moves us further along than many of the common answers to this question, and it does so by inspiring the imagination.

Often the answer to such a question seems to boil down to brute command: Do it because the Bible says so. Which amounts to: “Do it because God says to.  Just obey.  Don’t ask why, just get to it.” There is, of course, a certain amount of validity to the notion that God as creator has the authority to command, and that we as creatures have a duty to obey, whether we understand or not; however, that kind of misses the point.  God is not like the exasperated parent who says, “because I said so,” in response to a sincere search for understanding. After all God doesn’t want a bunch of brow-beaten children; he wants us to grow up in doing his will and to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12.2). He wants us to know why we obey, so that we can obey with wisdom, discerning not only the letter, but also the spirit of the law of liberty. (more…)

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On September 27, 2013 By In Theology

What Is A Word Worth?

by Marc Hays

worth 1000 words william beasleyIt has been said that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but it ain’t necessarily so. This old adage implies that in the marketplace of communication pictures are far scarcer than words, i.e., it takes 1000 words to equal the value of one picture, but is that always the case? To say, to the contrary, that words are worth more than pictures would be to make the same mistake, i.e. to set up a false dichotomy. Worth is often tied to purpose, which provides the determining factor for the solution of many disputes. What are we trying to do with our words? What are we attempting to accomplish via our pictures? The answer is found in the “both/and” rather than the “either/or.”

Interestingly enough, the phrase, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” is not a picture at all, but a collection of words, logically organized into a sentence. The earliest example of this phrase in print is in newspaper advertising in the early 20th Century. The advertiser wanted the consumer to come by the showroom and see the advertised product in order to be convinced to purchase it, i.e. seeing the items will be more convincing than reading a description of them.

In a sense, pictures are empirical and words are rational. Pictures are data, not devoid of meaning, but always in need of interpretation. Words are similar in lacking inherent meaning, but interpretation is unavoidable due to the inability of any person to speak a “neutral” sentence. A photograph communicates what we can see with our eyes and nothing more. A sentence communicates a necessarily biased opinion about what we’ve perceived. So, if our purpose is to show, then a picture may be far more appropriate than a paragraph, but if the goal is to tell, then you probably need more than just an image.

One sterling example of an effective use of both pictures and words is N. D. Wilson’s bookumentary “Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl.” Here, the cinematography is amazing, stunning, breathtaking, and 997 other positive modifiers, but the message of the pictures is always subservient to the narrative. The pictures are a hand-maiden to the text, serving to enhance the presentation of the meaning, not establish it.  Many of the images would still be breathtaking without Nate’s narration, but the story could never be told if the TV was muted (with no subtitles.) Here’s the trailer as a taste of what I’m getting at.

The preeminent example of image and word kissing, is the Son of God who is both image and Word. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15). There can be no necessary dichotomy between word and image, as both are manifest in the man Christ Jesus. In Him, thousands of thousands of words will never tell all of His glories. “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). So what about pictures? Can one picture of Christ tell us 1000 times more than all these “insufficient” words? Well, one day we’ll see Him face to face (1 Cor. 13:12), but until then, only one thought comes to mind: the Bible is not a picture book.

 

Nate Wilson’s book, Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl can be purchased here.

And the DVD bookumentary here.

The featured image in this article is a mixed-media collage entitled “Worth 1000 Words” by William Beasley. Prints of this artwork can be purchased here.<>wicrack.comбренд в интернете

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On September 26, 2013 By In Theology

Does Baptism DO Anything? Is the Bible true?

baptism christLots of Evangelicals want to answer “no” to this question.

Actually, that understates the situation. Evangelicals typically look at you as if you are insane to bring up the questions, let alone to state the affirmative.

The problem with this position is that Evangelicals are bound to believe what the Bible teaches. And the Bible says inconvenient things, like

  • “baptism now saves you” (1 Peter 3.21),
  • “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3.27, 28),
  • “by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free” (1 Corinthians 12.13),
  • “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death… Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6.3, 4),
  • “in Christ you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead” (Colossians 3.11, 12).

Many people have decided that since they know the Bible could not possibly be saying such things about baptism, the baptism being referred to must be a dry “spiritual” baptism, not water baptism.

But again there are some inconvenient statements in the Bible. For example, in the book of Acts in the first sermon of the Church, Peter gives this altar call: “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2.38). Here, there is no question that normal water baptism is intended, because the text goes on to record that three thousand were baptized that day in response to Peter’s words.

Or consider Paul’s testimony about what Ananias said to get him to submit to baptism:

“And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me, and standing by me said to me, “Brother Saul, receive your sight.” And at that very hour I received my sight and saw him. And he said, “The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear a voice from his mouth; for you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.” (Acts 22:12-16, ESV)

Yet Peter’s statements about baptism are quite similar to those in the New Testament Epistles quoted above. On what basis do we claim that the Epistles must not be speaking of water baptism? Are not the quotations from Acts just as challenging? There is no evidence that readers of the apostles’ letters to them would regard there mentions of baptism as not referring to the baptism which they had undergone and which they practiced with water.

We can be sure, of course, that baptism does not absolutely guarantee that a person will inherit glory and escape condemnation at the resurrection. The Apostle Paul says amazing things about baptism in chapter 12 of his first letter to the Corinthians, but he warns them earlier that baptism does not mean they will escape the wrath of Jesus if they worship other gods (1 Corinthians 10.1-12). Likewise, Acts tells us of a man named Simeon who was baptize but then manifested an unbelieving heart (Acts 8.9-24). Also, when the Apostle Peter writes, “baptism now saves you” he compares baptism to the Noah and his family brought to safety through the flood on the Ark. Yet Ham apostatized and rebelled as both Peter and his readers must have known.

I am leaving out many possible further allusions to baptism in the New Testament. I think the way baptism is somehow kept out of such passages and Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3 (despite the surrounding context of the work of John the baptizer), or Titus 3.5, or Hebrews 10.22 is rather amazing. But I stick with the even more obvious statements so as not to quibble.

So what are we to think of baptism?

First of all, we need to remember that we ourselves can do things through signs and God is no less powerful than we are. We enter marriage through ceremonies, many cultures effect adoption by ceremonies, and the simple words “I promise” are means of doing something through a statement. The baptizer is not acting on his own, but is acting as God’s representative. Just as God is the one who marries a man and woman through human agency (Matthew 19.6; Mark 10.9), so baptism is God’s act, not man’s.

If we try to solve this puzzle of baptism without considering anything besides the ritual itself, I don’t think a solution is available. However, what if we consider the fact that Jesus established a new society, His Church?

The Church is “the household of God” (1 Timothy 3.15; 1 Peter 4.17). She is the Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5.32) and the mother of all believers (Galatians 4.26). She is a corporate priesthood and royal dynasty (1 Peter 2.5, 9; Revelation 1.6). The Church has been given Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1.22, 23) with all his benefits and gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor 12.4ff).

Here we have an angle that allows baptism to be something incredibly important and yet avoids superstition or false assurance. Baptism is how one enters the Church. If the Church is the family of God (1 Timothy 3.15; 1 Peter 4.17) and the mother of all believers (Galatians 4.26), and if baptism is how one is admitted into the Church (1 Corinthians 12.13), then naturally, baptism would be the normal way one is adopted into God’s family as one of his children (Galatians 3.26, 27).

While members of the Church are promised forgiveness, the Spirit, and many other benefits, the Bible does not say that all members of the Church will take advantage of these great things. Sadly, some do not persevere in what they have been given. They must receive God’s promises and gifts by faith. One is justified by faith, after all–a persevering faith (Hebrews 10.35-39).

But the fact that baptism and membership among God’s people does not guarantee one will inherit eternal life, does not mean that we should disregard it as of no significance. We should not be like Esau who despised his birthright and traded it for red stew. We should regard the promises made to us by God in baptism to be so precious that we would never trade them for all the treasures of creation.

The point here is that it is easier to trust Christ to save us and bring us to the resurrection in glory if one is confident that one has been entrusted to Christ. The Church is Jesus’ special trust and we receive in baptism God’s promise that we belong to him and he to us. We must respond to this in faith by following Christ all our days.

No one should presume on his baptism as a “free pass” into heaven, but neither should anyone despise his baptism in unbelief.<>продвижение а по трафику москваподобрать ключевые слова для а онлайн

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On September 24, 2013 By In Theology

Hooked

Lure 1

Recently my son brought his fishing pole into the basement.  We have rules about these types of things.  Fishing poles belong in the shed or possibly on the porch. They do not come into the house.  Fishing poles are like sticks, big rocks, snakes, and lizards. They belong outside. My son knows this.  But like all of us, he sometimes does not do what he is told.

The bait on the pole looked like the one pictured above. It was big with numerous hooks designed to snare some large fish lurking beneath the surface of a local lake or river.  Each of these hooks has a barb designed to keep the fish from getting off the hook.  These barbs make extraction of a hook only slightly easier than extracting a tooth.

What do you think happened when my son brought his rod into the house?  It would be nice if I could tell you that all went well, that the lure just slid across the tile floor and caused no trouble. But then I wouldn’t have anything to write about. No. The hooks, all three of them, eventually got snagged on our blue couch cushion. (Lures do this. They gravitate, almost like they are alive, towards the place they can do the most harm.) My son tried to remove them, but hooks are designed to embed themselves deeper the more you mess with them. By the time the cushion was laid contritely on my desk all three hooks were firmly entangled in the pillow.

After about thirty minutes of labor that included a knife, pliers, and more than one muttered word of frustration, I finally removed all three hooks. The pillow was still usable, but it was no longer whole. The hooks had left their mark.

As I sat extracting the lure, I thought how much this reminds me of my own life.  I know what God tells me to do. Do not lose your temper. Do not get bitter.  Do not be proud. Love your neighbor.  [Insert your own sin here.]  Yet I still bring sin into the house. Maybe I assume, like my son did, that the sin will not cause much trouble. It will innocently slide across the tile floor with little damage.  But that rarely happens.  Sin gravitates towards the place it can do the most harm.  Sin has barbs. When sin enters it finds a target and embeds itself deep. The unfortunate person hooked may be my wife or my children or myself.  But sin never leaves its catch whole.  It can be removed but, there is always damage.  If I am lucky the damage only takes a day or two to fix.

I am grateful for Christ and his forgiveness. He takes away my sins and gives me grace that I might be restored. The glory of this truth is beyond compare. But I do not want to just keep coming back for forgiveness. I want to learn to leave sin where it belongs.  I want to listen to the Lord with an ear to obedience.   Christ has not just given me grace to be forgiven, but he has also given me grace to overcome. When I lean on his grace sin is not given the chance to hook me or my family. It is left where it belongs, outside.<>live chat для апозиции а в поисковых системах

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On September 24, 2013 By In Family and Children, Theology

The New Testament Openly Commands the Baptism of Children

PENTECOST

Acts 2 at Pentecost provides key verses for interpreting baptism.

 

THE BAPTISM FIGHT OVER ACTS 2

When credobaptists and paedobaptists contend over the meaning of Acts 2.37-39, the baptists (credobaptists) usually have the easier time in front of the audience because most of us are ready to hear through baptistic ears – doesn’t it say “repent”? And so they posit that a baby cannot turn from idols. The paedobaptist thinks the baby is turned in heart toward God, and that the direction of heart requirement is taken care of. Hasn’t God always been “God to you and to your children”? Isn’t that enough?

The other major argument which works well as a crowd-pleaser in favor of the credobaptist view is the word, “and” connected to the apparent qualifier, “all those who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to himself.” That is, “the promise,” they say, is not for every last one of you-plural, but for as many of you-plural whom the Lord calls. It is not for your children, but for as many of your children as the Lord calls; and it is not for all those far off, but for as many foreigners as the Lord calls.

Isn’t this an obvious and simple use of the distributive property of multiplication?

(A + B + C)(X) = AX + BX + CX

We might ask: if no group is being specified, then why is a listing of groups given at all? (more…)

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On September 19, 2013 By In Theology

Life Together

By Uri Brito

Bonhoeffer’s Life Together is an apologetic for community life. But it is also a rebuke to those who take for granted the life in the community. Bonhoeffer sees community life as a privilege. The martyred prophet spoke of life together as an honor secured by the death of Jesus Christ. While many suffer the effects of aloneness, Bonhoeffer urges us not to forsake this blessed fellowship.

Life Together, life in the messiness of human existence– but the experience of messiness with other believers– is a gift of grace. The Lutheran writer spoke of community as a foretaste of the life to come. “It is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians.” a Eternal life is the beautification and glorification of life together. Eternal life is the perfection of community life.

This common life is all of grace. It is a privilege that should not be forsaken. To live separate lives is to despise grace. “It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.” b “Do not forsake the assembly” (Heb. 10:25) is not only a call to gather for corporate worship–it is primarily this–but it is also a call to live together daily, dwelling together in unity (Ps. 133:1).

Life Together is life as God intended. It is the humanification of fallen creatures. Humans are most fallen when they live separated from others. They are most redeemed when they are together. They are most God-like when they enter into the communion of saints, participating in that Spirit-led body that the Father bought through the blood of the Son.<>mobile online games rpgпродвинуть в яндексе

  1. Bonhoeffer, Life Together, pg. 18  (back)
  2. Bonhoeffer, pg. 20  (back)

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On September 13, 2013 By In Theology

What the Pope Really Said

by Uri Brito

Fellow KC contributor, Adam McIntosh, has already expressed some valid concerns regarding the pope’s words. Allow me here to deal with the broader question without delving into the specific exegetical details. Many are asserting that the pope has declared his universalistic theology, thus altering traditional Catholic theology. Is the pope a universalist? I doubt it. The pope was offering his thoughts on the Gospel lesson from Mark 9:38-40. The point of the leader of the Roman Church had to do with whether an unbeliever (an atheist) could do good works. a The famous remarks had to do with the possibility of good works, and not with soteriology, strictly speaking. Here is the statement:

“[A]ll of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can…”The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!…We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

Here is the surprising conclusion of this story: the head of Rome does not believe in limited atonement. Shocking, isn’t it? As the Church teaches in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“At the end of the parable of the lost sheep Jesus recalled that God’s love excludes no one: “So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” He affirms that he came “to give his life as a ransom for many”; this last term is not restrictive, but contrasts the whole of humanity with the unique person of the redeemer who hands himself over to save us. The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.” — (CCC, 605)

Catholic writer Brandon Vogt observes that there is a distinction between redemption and salvation in Catholic theology. Whereas redemption for all allows even atheists to do good works, salvation, on the other hand, is not for all. In his letter to the Founder of “La Repubblica” he writes: “…and it’s the fundamental thing – the mercy of God has no limits if one turns to him with a sincere and contrite heart.” b The conditional here is something like faith. However Catholics understand faith is another matter which can be discussed later, but to assert that the pope is saying that no belief is necessary to come to God is a falsity. In fact, his language echoes that of repentance: “if one turns to him with a sincere and contrite heart.” One does not need to support Rome’s theology to see that at the very least bloggers have not been wholly charitable to his words. There is a lot to debate and disagree with in this letter c, but to assume the pope is giving a soteriological carte blanche to Sam Harris and Christopher Dawkins is rather naive.<>копирайтинг виды текстовкомпании по обслуживанию ов яндекс

  1. Obviously more clarification would have been helpful, thus avoiding this article altogether  (back)
  2. http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-francis-letter-to-the-founder-of-la-repubblica-italian-newspaper?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zenit%2Fenglish+%28ZENIT+English%29  (back)
  3. I disagree with much of it as a Protestant minister  (back)

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On September 13, 2013 By In Theology

The Flock Must Be Gathered Before Death Is Removed – Why Postmill?

Tissot_Jacob_and_Rachel_at_the_Well

Jacob and Rachel at the Well, Tissot

I’m going to tell you that the conquering of the nations will happen within history and is not merely an immediate transformation that will happen after the resurrection of judgment day. That is, I will argue for postmillennialism, but in a roundabout way. I could just tell you to read 1 Corinthians 15 and say that I think that about covers it, but I want to show something very fun I heard while listening to the story of Jacob meeting Rachel this week.

This post is not nearly as long as the last post, but it does have some pieces to set in place. I think it has a nifty payoff as well. I might add, I highly suggest investing zero dollars in a free app called Soundgecko. I prefer to listen to posts – it is easier than reading.

I need to set up the story context in Genesis, set up a note about the liturgical feasts of Israel, and then tie them into the Rachel and her sheep story. And suggest we do a lot of singing to make the world belong to Jesus. Here we go:

BROTHERS, SHEEP, AND DISUNITY
Once upon a time, two shepherds had so many sheep that they could not keep them from strife, so those brothers could not dwell together in unity. This was Abraham and Lot. Brother can mean relative.

“And Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, 6 so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together; for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together, 7 and there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock.” (Gen 13.5-7)

Now hold that thought, it will need to be brought back up in a second.

THREE FEASTS
But in the course of time God did a lot of things. Things so big that he wanted them commemorated, and things that he wanted commemorated in anticipation of bigger things to come.

  • He passed over the sins of his people, while judging those who opposed him.
  • He passed out his word.
  • He let the people out of Egypt (taking many Egyptians with them) and allowed them to rest from slavery) taking them into a land of Sabbath Rest.

These are the three feasts of Passover, Weeks (Pentecost), Booths. Feasts which also anticipated the Cross, the coming Holy Spirit, and the in-gathering of the nations.

We know that these three feasts required a gathering of all Israel in Jerusalem every year. The flocks of Israel had to gather before the celebration. And because it meant gathering of God’s people, his sheep, it meant they would spend a week at a time in unity, in cramped quarters, in tents.…celebrating what God’s work had done to the world, and what it would do to the world to come.

And so they sang on the way to these feasts, the Psalms of Ascent (Pss 120-134). They even sang about brothers dwelling in cramped quarters and getting along, because that’s the picture of what salvation does for the world – makes the world a big, tight bundle of goodness, and full of people redeemed:

“Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!.…For there YHWH has commanded the blessing: Life Eternal!” (Ps 133.1,3)

A BASIC PROBLEM RESOLVED ON A SMALL SCALE
What we have seen so far is that one basic problem to sin is that brothers cannot dwell in unity, and sheep flocks are driven apart. Liturgically, God designed to force brothers back into unity and to sing about it on the way to doing it. (This is something God likes to do a lot).

The flock have to be gathered together, and they sing about liking it, and then we see eternal life flowing out from Jerusalem to the world… It’s just the way the story goes.

A BASIC PROBLEM RESOLVED ON A BIG SCALE
We’re all well aware that Jesus did the big work of fixing the world during Passovera. And that he sent out his word as Spirit on Pentecost. These events necessarily took place while all Israel was gathered together in unity. He didn’t do them randomly in a moment of obscurity, but in a congregational setting, when they were together.

And there the Lord was crucified, and there the Lord was buried, and there the Lord rolled the stone out of the way of the tomb, and there the Lord commanded the blessing: Eternal Life! And there the Lord sent them out to get their inheritance of the ingathered nations.

A WEIRDER CONNECTION
Hunker down now for 14 verses from Genesis 29:

Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. 2 As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it, for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well’s mouth was large, 3 and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well.

4 Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where do you come from?” They said, “We are from Haran.” 5 He said to them, “Do you know Laban the son of Nahor?” They said, “We know him.” 6 He said to them, “Is it well with him?” They said, “It is well; and see, Rachel his daughter is coming with the sheep!” 7 He said, “Behold, it is still high day; it is not time for the livestock to be gathered together. Water the sheep and go, pasture them.” 8 But they said, “We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep.”

9 While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess. 10 Now as soon as Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother. 11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud. 12 And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s kinsman, and that he was Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father.

13 As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban all these things, 14 and Laban said to him, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh!” And he stayed with him a month. (Gen 29.1-14)

END OF BIBLE QUOTE

DID YOU SEE IT?

We are in the same book where Lot and Abraham’s flocks and shepherds could not dwell in unity. And here we have the beginning of the story of when Israel himself is finding the wife (or wives) that will make Israel into many, many sheep, there we learn something about the plan. The shepherds wait for all to be gathered together, and then they roll the stone away, and then water can flow out to the sheep.

Just let it sit there for a bit and run over the imagistic connections for a while.

Of course, Jacob proved to be strong enough to roll the stone away on his own, and to take care of his bride’s many sheep. And we hear about brotherly unity – that bone of bones and flesh of flesh family oneness.

SINGING AND THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD – THE SOLUTION ON THE GRANDEST SCALE
We have a Lord who rolled a stone away and waters his flock weekly when we are gathered together. And he gave us a specific command to gather the nations.

The future of history looks like this (can you believe I am going to give you an outline of the future?):

1 – WORSHIP: The Church will continue the liturgical work of singing about gathering in unity while meeting with the Lord who declares salvation, and who flows out through us.
2 – INGATHERING: The nations will get gathered into the church. All the nations.
3 – FINAL RESURRECTION: The last enemy to be defeated will be death.
4 – ETERNAL CELEBRATION: Jesus will hand us all to his father together with himself as a head, and we will be a giant Trinitarian wedding gift – that bone and flesh kind.

Where do I get this outline? 1 Cor 15. (And Psalm 2 and Psalm 110).

I suggest reading Psalm 2 and 110, and then 1 Corinthians 15 and listening for promise that the Son will win the hand of all nations. That he will crush the heads of all wicked leaders of those nations and will supplant them (like Jacob) and take over their subjects. You can see the same thing in Daniel 7.

The fact that this happens on multiple levels should free us to read very similar statements (Like in Matt 24.14) as being about 70 AD and also applying to the future. This strengthens Postmillennialism and discards any hint of hyperpreterism. Postmill good. Heretical Hyperpreterism bad. We don’t need to choose between ingathering in the first century, and ingathering in the rest of history. Plus, you get to read 1 Corinthians 15 in a way that is natural to the wording in it.

Notice that this needs to happen within history, before “death” is done away with as the LAST enemy, as 1 Cor 15 explicitly says. The timing matters. The whole flock of the earth must be gathered together first, and only then will he roll the stone from our grave. Then we will receive his water for eternity. And we have the pleasure of singing that this is true along the way, until it is true. And it will become true, in part because we sing that it is true.

Luke Welch has a master’s degree from Covenant Seminary and preaches regularly in a conservative Anglican church in Maryland. He blogs about Bible structure at SUBTEXT. Follow him on Twitter: @lukeawelch
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  1. That is, Passover and Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was in all an 8 day combination of 4 feasts: 1) PASSOVER always fell on a numbered day of the month, but as such, it was not always on the same day of the week. The next seven days were the 2) FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD. During that 8 day period would be a 3) SABBATH, and the next day would be the 4) FEAST OF FIRSTFRUITS. In the year Jesus was crucified and resurrected, Passover was on Friday, the Sabbath was on Saturday, and the Feast of Firstfruits was Sunday. Crucified on Passover, Raised on Firstfruits.  (back)

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On September 2, 2013 By In Theology

Jesus is coming soon if, by “soon,” you mean no sooner than 100,000 years in the future

no left behindI was getting my hair cut the other day by someone other than my wife, for a change. As a result I got exposed to Christian culture outside my own personal sociological safe room. I am ashamed to say how seldom this happens. Of course, by not “getting out more” I help other Christians form their own little bubbles of idiosyncratic belief and theological naivete.

But not this time. The barber learned, as he cut my hair, that I was a seminary graduate and had pastored in a number of places around the country. So, as he finished up shaving the back of my neck, he let loose with his camaraderie question: “Before I let you go, I have to ask you: Do you think the Lord is coming back soon!”

The sound of his voice alerted me this was, in his mind, a rhetorical question. We were supposed to share in the joy of the soon return of Jesus to earth.

I couldn’t come up with a way to evade his question, at least not in the half-second before hesitation on my part would get awkward. So I said it.

“No, I think we have at least another 100,000 years left.”

He expected not that.

But he should have. The only thing shocking about my claim is that I was giving such a low-ball number. The absolute minimum estimate should be 120,000 years from the time the Ten Commandments were given on Mount Sinai. There God wrote with his own finger.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of generations of those who love me and keep my commandments (Exodus 20).

Many English translations mute this because they leave out the second “generations.” It is true the word does not appear in the text after “thousands.” But it does not appear after “the third and the fourth” either. The reader has to read the implication. Third and fourth generation makes sense. But it makes no sense to then change the comparison to something else. God is promising to cut off wicked generations relatively quickly and bless the righteous for thousands of generation. The suffix is plural, not dual, so three generations is the absolute minimum here. A generation is forty years so:

40 x 3 x 1000 = 120,000

This idea is repeated elsewhere:

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face (Deuternomy 7.9, 10).

Here we see the passage includes the word, “generations.” It only mentions one thousand of them, but it too contrasts this time span with the relatively quick destruction of the wicked.

So why do we expect the wicked to flourish and the number of generations of the righteous to remain small?

In fact, it is really strained to read the promise of faithfulness to “thousands” of generations as the minimal conceivable number of three. Why not eight thousands? Or twenty-four? Or more? It is possible that, just as God owns the cattle on more than a thousand hills (Psalm 50.10), so he will actually be faithful to many more generations of believers than merely thousands.

According to Paul, now that Jesus has come, there is to be an explosion of grace and salvation relative to the past.  As he writes in Romans 5:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So when we read in Esther 8 about a world-wide vindication of God’s people resulting in massive proselytization “from India to Ethiopia,” we should realize that that was rather minimal compared to what is to happen now that Jesus has come and died and risen again. God says he is faithful to thousands of generations, which leaves us with 115 thousand years left.

So God says to expect thousands of generations, and we’ve spent a few generations claiming that we are the last one.  Paul writes that life through Jesus is more powerful than sin and death through Adam, and we preach that sin is universal and redemption only for a minority in history.

How does that honor what God says?

With this time frame in mind, I will leave you some of Jesus’ last words on earth:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

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