Authorities

I've been thinking a lot about authority this year, which has led to contemplating Biblicism and Systematic Theology. I'm sharing some (probably incomplete) thoughts here, at least partly so I can refer to them later. 

Rodger has reminded me that everyone develops some sort of systematic theology. We can't help it: God has made us culture-creating people, and theology is part of that. That's probably an important fact to keep in mind. Whether you read it in a book or develop it as you read through the Scriptures, you will end up with some kind of systematic theology. And to be honest, the theology you read in a book is likely much better thought out than the one you develop yourself.

On the other hand, if God had wanted to give us a systematic theology, He could have. But He did not. He gave us the scriptures: a collection of texts from several different writers, in different languages, written at different times and in different styles and of different genres. What God gave us does contain some doctrinal text, but that is a very small minority of the total words He gave us. The scriptures are a collection of poetry, history, narrative (which includes history, but certainly isn't all history), prophecy (some of which is pretty plain, some is very obscure), personal letters, and even a love song. We must not approach God's word with the idea that it's primarily a legal text, or a doctrinal text, or even a history text. It contains all of those things, but it's not merely any of them.

This, to me, is a real issue with our developing theologies: so many Christians talk like the scripture is a collection of raw ingredients whose purpose is to be turned into a final product. As though their theologies are somehow an improved form of the words God has spoken. Let's say right now that the word of God is of infinitely more value that any understanding of it you or I might have (Proverbs 30:5–6). 

We seem incapable of not allowing our theologies to displace Scripture in our own minds. I've mentioned before that "helpful tool" becomes "interpretative framework" and then "replacement for Scripture" very quickly. There is, I'm sure, an application of "leaning on our own understanding" (Proverbs 3:5–6) in that. 

Scripture speaks very highly of the fear of the Lord. It is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7), the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10), and even the summation of wisdom (Job 28:28). The Lord speaks highly of the man "who trembles at my word" (Isaiah 66:1–5). The Lord Jesus accused the Pharisees of nullifying the word of God by "the traditions of men" (Matthew 15:3–9; Mark 7:1–13).  I have seen that play out many times.

I was talking to a man a few years ago who was telling me about a church where the pastor was an excellent Bible teacher, but they fall into error because "they didn't have the Creeds." Whatever he meant to say, what he actually said was the the Creeds are capable of protecting us from error where God's own words are not. Whether or not saying something like that is actual sin, it certainly is not the fear of the Lord. 

Many years ago, someone told me that he was quite comfortable disallowing speaking in tongues in the church despite 1 Corinthians 14:39. He said the context of 1 Corinthians 14 is clearly at the start of the present dispensation, and we are past the point of the Lord working through those things. That may or may not be true, but it's indisputable that 1 Corinthians 14:39 commands not to forbid speaking in tongues. I cannot see his position as anything other than deliberate disobedience to the word of God. 

I've noticed a tendency to refer to the parable of the Sower as the "parable of the soils."  I mentioned this before. While we don't want to make someone a transgressor for a word, the fact is that the Lord Jesus told many parables, and the parable of the sower is the only one He named. So if we want to refer to the parable of the Prodigal Son as "the parable of the Forgiving Father," we're really just replacing one man-made name with another. But "the parable of the Sower" is the title Christ Himself gave to that particular story. To give it another name – even for what seems like a good reason – implies the Lord got the name wrong when He named it. Again, this might not be actual sin, but it's not the fear of the Lord.

Those three examples are from my own experience, and they're from people with widely varying theologies. So it's not like there's a problem with "their" theology but not "ours." Every theology becomes an excuse for us to ignore the words God has spoken and replace them with our own. It seems to me there's no path to Pharisaism as direct as being "well taught" in theology.

And in case I'm not being clear, the issue isn't the theology per se, but our own hearts. We have such a desperate need to move ourselves into the center that we'll replace God's words with our own at the slightest excuse. The problem isn't "Calvinism" or "Arminianism" or "Dispensationalism" or any other "-ism." The problem is that we don't want to bow to God's word. Any theology we can erect between ourselves and His words can be used as a way to hide from God.

It's probably not the worst idea to read through the Gospels, putting ourselves in the Pharisees' place. It might be the most accurate way to read them, and it might open our eyes a bit.

Now, because I have a friend who objects to Biblicism on the grounds that it's easy for it to become proof-texting, I'll just add this... To the extent that I advocate Biblicism (that is, taking the word of God as not merely infallible but also sufficient), I am doing so with the assumption that we bow to the whole word of God. Using Biblicism as an excuse to be lazy about theology is sin too. Scripture doesn't excuse slothfulness, especially not when it comes to the Scriptures.  If the first eight chapters of Proverbs convince us of nothing else, it ought to make us certain that the Scriptures demand work. 

Part of the temptation to replace Scripture with theology is that it's a lot less work. 

I absolutely encourage reading other books in addition to the Bible. I cannot overstate how much reading Darby and Newell and Nee and Kelly (and others too!) has helped me. The effort to find, acquire, and read those books was effort well spent. But I must not allow myself to put them into the place of God. The book God gave is perfect, the books Darby wrote are not. 

And even if they were – even if you were somehow able to find the perfect theology textbook – it would only address one part of what God has given. This is the point I started with: God could have given us a systematic theology text, but He did not. He knows what we are, and He gave us what we need. What we need is a collection of books written over several centuries by several different people: some of it poetry, some of it prose. When we try boil that book down, we always produce something less. 

Searching for nuance

I am an insomniac. It runs in the family, and I don't have it nearly so bad as some of my family members. So I'm not trying to complain, but I have spent many a night staring at the ceiling.

One thing I have found that helps me fall asleep is listening to an audio book or to a recording of a sermon. There's a delicate balance here: if an audio book is too interesting, then it keeps me awake, instead of putting me to sleep. The solution to that seems to be listening to something many, many times. In other words, I have a small collection of recordings that work for me, partly because I've listened to them so many times already.

Among my go-to recordings is a message on "The Dangers of Calvinism and Arminianism." I have listened to it dozens of times, perhaps even hundreds of times. I refer to it as "the unhinged rant on Calvinism," because it's an excellent example of unhinged ranting. Of course there are some good points in that talk, but they're not very thick on the ground.

So it's fair to say I listen to someone talking about the dangers of Calvinism at least weekly, if not several times every week.

I'm not quite sure what happened, but over the last few decades there has been a real trend for "anti-Calvinism" among "brethren." While I don't want to advocate for (or against) Calvinism, I've been interested to see this trend solidify into what sometimes seems like an obsession. I'm concerned that it has come to approach unhealthy levels.

I bring that up only to say that the anti-Calvinist teaching exemplifies what we might call an asymmetry that seems common when we take up any controversial topic. That is a tendency to look at Scripture texts that seem to agree with us and say, "it's right there in the text!" while at the same time calling for nuance in the passages that seem (at face value) to support the opposite view. So we call for nuance when it's convenient and "face value" when it's convenient.

As an example, in those messages on "The Dangers of Calvinism," a great deal of weight is placed on the number of times the Scripture uses the term "whosoever." But when the speaker mentions 2 Thessalonians 2:13, he launches into a very nuanced discussion of what "salvation" really means. In this context, he says, it can't possibly mean "personal, individual salvation."

I've pondered this a lot over the last few years. It seems there's a danger for all of us to "proof text" on the verses that seem to say what we want them to say, while looking for infinite nuance in any verse we don't like. None of us are exempt: we all do it.

The point is this: if all of us have a tendency to take our proof texts at face value – while looking for an escape from the "other guy's" proof texts in a nuanced reading– then it seems to me we would all do well to apply that same level of nuance to every text. That seems like a reasonable approach to me, especially since we already know can't trust ourselves. 

So I have been trying to make a point of reading every verse in its context, reading every verse as nuanced as though it attacked one of my pet doctrines on its face.  That might mean I am going to lose some proof texts to nuance. 

There is a Sunday School song that summarizes Jeremiah 23:29, 

God's word is like a hammer that breaketh the rock in twain

The song has been playing in my head a lot today. It's worth remembering that of all the rocks the Word of God might break, my own heart is the one that would do me the most good.

We don't need proof the other guy is wrong nearly so much as we need our own hearts broken before God. It's probably better for us to be suspicious when a verse says what we want it to say than for us to be suspicious when it doesn't.

One recurring theme for me has been learning to give the Word of God space to speak. There are plenty of texts that don't say what I want or expect them to say. Those texts seem to pay the most for the time investment I put into them. To be fair, there are "problem verses" for almost any doctrine you choose. Take either side of any debated issue, and you'll find verses that are hard for you to explain. but those verses are the ones that seem to carry the biggest rewards.

If you're a Dispensationalist, for example, it might be worth meditating on Deuteronomy 29:1ff. Yes, there are two Mosaic Covenants in Scripture: what is the impact of that on your understanding of dispensations? If you lean to Calvinism, you might want to spend some time looking at the first six chapters of Genesis. Pay special attention to words like "repent" and "relent." They might surprise you. If you lean to Arminianism, spend some time in John 6 or Romans 9. Really read them, consider carefully why Paul assumes his teaching of election will offend you (Romans 9:19). Does Romans 9 offend you? Will you let it?

And whatever you do, don't reach for that pat answer you've adopted to shield your heart and conscience from the Word of God. Let it hurt a bit. Take it in. You might find those become the verses that reward you the most.

And then, when we find ourselves in those passages that seem to say what we want them to, let's try and find some nuance. Are we understanding them in context? Is it possible we are right, but this particular verse really isn't one that supports our view? That happens a lot.

Not every verse supports every truth. I've mentioned Romans 6:23 a lot on this blog: it's an important verse, but it's not a gospel verse. It's not talking about God's just judgment on sins we have committed; it's talking about the wages we as justified believers can expect to be paid when we obey indwelling sin as our master. So let's not rip it from its context, even if our intentions are pure.

So that's my goal: to read every verse with nuance, not just the ones that don't seem to agree with me. I'm not sure I do it very well, but I think it's a worthy goal.

 

 

 

Radicalism (again)

I was watching an interview on YouTube recently with Douglas Wilson about baptism. He makes some interesting comments in passing about systemic theology with respect to his father's personal hermeneutics starting around 1:11 and going until 2:05 or so.

Now, I don't know Douglas Wilson. I've never met him, but I know several people in Reformed circles who know him and think highly of him. He is postmilennialist, I am not. He has said and done many things I wouldn't say or do. But there have been several times –  especially in the craziness of 2020 and 2021 – that I have looked back and realized he was right, even though I thought at the time he was wrong. 

But this isn't about Douglas Wilson. It's about some comments he made in that one-minute digression: those have made me do some really hard thinking.

Wilson describes his father's perspective on scripture like this :

He's the kind of person who believes whatever the verse in front of him is saying, and he doesn't care at all about making systematic sense of it. You know his enemy is systematic theology, because he thinks that systemize... he thinks that systematic theology puts the verse on a Procrustean bed and then cuts the verse to fit the theology... He places a much higher priority on taking the verse in front of you at face value and let it do whatever damage to your systematics that it will. (1:23–2:03)

If you listen to his comments in context, they're quite respectful. It's very clear that he's not attacking his father, but it's also clear that he doesn't [entirely] agree.

The thing is, I can't decide what I think about these comments. I've tried to articulate my thoughts about this clearly, but I keep going around in circles. I finally realized it's OK to put some wild and only-slightly-coherent thoughts onto my blog and let people comment and/or judge me as they will.

So here are my scattered and perhaps contradictory thoughts:

It seems to me that the Protestant Reformation is the result of exactly what he says his father would do: "[take] the verse in front of you at face value and let it do whatever damage to your systematics that it will."  Isn't that just what Martin Luther did with Romans 1:17ff ? He threw away the entire Roman Catholic doctrine of justification because of that one verse. That's a pretty good description of Luther's concept of "one little word," right?

So on the one hand, it seems to me Sola Scriptura entails treating each verse of Scripture as having more weight than all our theological tomes combined. The words that God has spoken must outweigh everything else.

On the other hand, we need to respect the whole counsel of God. If by "systematic theology" we mean our vast libraries of books, then we certainly should be willing to throw them away in the face of just one verse. But if we take "systematic theology" to mean the overarching teachings and themes of the whole of Scripture, then we need to recognize all those other verses are God's words too. 

When Martin Luther read Romans 1:17ff, he wasn't reading just one verse in isolation. Justification by faith alone is spread through all of the New Testament, from the words of the Lord Himself (John 5:24), through Acts (Acts 13:38–39), then through all the epistles (Romans 4:5ff), and all the way into Revelation (Revelation 14:6–7). Martin Luther didn't pick out one "problem verse" and build a contrarian theology on it: he was struck by a single verse that clarified in one sentence a central theme of the New Testament.

The fact is that we're able to build all sorts of crazy ideas on a single verse in isolation. Every cult does exactly that. Regardless of what position you take on any number of questions, you're going to be able to find a "problem verse." And they're not always ripped from context, either. There are any number of difficult verses for every single person who sincerely tries to understand the Word of God.

So on the one hand, each verse is God's own words, and it outweighs all our own thoughts. On other hand, each verse is part of the whole counsel of God, and wasn't ever meant to stand all alone.

OK, that's a reasonably coherent thought.

One of my concerns with the Reformed crowd (of which Douglas Wilson is certainly part) is that when they use the term "systematic theology" they don't mean only "all of Scripture." In my experience, they have in view things like the Westminster Confession, the Creeds, and their vast libraries of theological books. (And don't let's think for a minute that "we" don't do exactly the same thing. We might not have as long a history, but we certainly seem to elevate our books and libraries.  J. N. Darby's writings aren't as universally accepted as they once were, but plenty of others' have taken their place.)

So if we warm up our old metaphor of "a ditch on both sides of the road," we might see on the one side the error of snatching a verse from its context, with no regard to the whole counsel of God, and using it to prop up some error or another. Cults seem really good at doing that, but pretty much every Christian I've ever met has fallen into some sort of error along those lines at one point or another.

The ditch on the other side of the road might be mistaking our theologies for the whole counsel of God. We might not be as formal about it as our Reformed friends, but we all have some sort of systemic theology, even if it's just a rough outline in the backs of our minds about what Scripture teaches. The question is, do we mistake that for the whole counsel of God?

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but at some point I became very surprised by what Scripture doesn't say. There were all sorts of things I had believed to be "absolutely true" that proved to be not Scripture, but someone's understanding of it. Those things might not have been "traditions" in as formal a sense as the Roman Catholic church has "traditions," but they were traditions nevertheless.

The Lord Jesus told the Sadducees, "Ye err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God" (Matthew 22:29). He told the Pharisees, "ye have made void the commandment of God on account of your traditional teaching" (Matthew 15:6).

So maybe the ditch on the other side of the road is something like allowing our traditions as much weight as the words God has spoken. Do we do that? Have we made void the words of God on account of our traditions? Those aren't Scripture – we know that, right?

Many years ago I was reading an article from a "brethren" teacher of some renown, rebutting some particular teaching. I was struck as I read it that his argument had basically nothing to do with the verses he cited. I mean, they sounded good at first glance, but when I actually looked up the references, they didn't at all say what he had been making them out to say. As far as I could tell, this man was so invested in his tradition, he was looking for any verse sounding more-or-less similar and calling it scriptural support. Only... it wasn't. 

So those are my only slightly coherent thoughts triggered by Douglas Wilson's interview. The interview itself is probably worth a listen, I honestly can't remember a lot of it. I was so absorbed in his tangential comments about "the verse right in front of you" that I remember basically nothing else.

Why would they come here?

Several years ago, my wife and I were speaking to a young(er) guy in the assembly about some then-current trends. I can't recall very much about the conversation. After it was over and we had parted, my wife commented, "If we offer people exactly what they can find everywhere else, why would the come here?"

I'm going to rip her words from their context and ask them as a more general question. Why would someone choose to come to our assembly, or Bible study, or church – or even more generally to the faith itself – if all we offer them is exactly what they can find everywhere else?

Peter told the Lord, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal" (John 6:66–71). We can sympathize with Peter: the Lord's words were somewhere between incomprehensible and offensive (John 6:52, 60–61), but they were the words of eternal life. It's like Peter has made the choice that it's better to be offended by the words of eternal life than to find inoffensive – but lifeless – teaching somewhere else.

The Lord Jesus offered (and offers) what cannot be found anywhere else: eternal life. There's only one place to get it, there's only one Person who can give it. But if we want eternal life, we need to accept that He might well offend us. 

I suppose the people in John 6 ought to have expected that eternal life would offend them. They were searching the Scriptures to find eternal life (John 5:39–40). When I read about the people the Lord was addressing, I wonder how they didn't find the Scriptures offensive. They clearly had a very high view of their ancestry (John 8:33–37), but the Scriptures themselves tell in clear detail how their fathers had been hard-hearted, stiff-necked, and rebellious (Luke 11:47). "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?" (Acts 7:52). 

And it's interesting the Lord doesn't tell them they searched the Scriptures for eternal life in vain, on the contrary, the Scriptures were leading them to Him, but they weren't willing to come to Him for eternal life (John 5:39–40). It's like they had a map to buried treasure, and they studied it carefully and followed it to its end, where they decided picking up a shovel and digging was just too much work. And even that analogy falls far short, because the Lord wasn't just passively waiting for them, but was actively offering them eternal life.

We see ourselves following the same path, if we're honest with ourselves. The Lord offends us, like He offended them. It's almost cliché to say it, but there's nothing so offensive to us as being told we're not God. We claim we're grateful for the Savior, but deep down, we all want to be the savior. It offends us when we need to turn to Someone Else for salvation. And I say that as someone who has known the Lord for well over 40 years. That rebellion in our hearts doesn't go away, and it won't until He comes for us (Philippians 3:20–21).

One of the dangers when we contemplate eternal life is the idea that we who have been given eternal life don't need it anymore. The Lord calls us to eat (John 6:53) and keep on eating (John 6:56). There is a one-time eating His flesh and drinking His blood to gain eternal life, there is also a repeated eating and drinking. Eternal life isn't the sort of thing that's "one and done." No, we are creatures who need to eat and drink again and again and again. We are creatures who need to feed. That's as true in the spiritual realm as in the physical.

So Peter's question is even more pertinent than we might at first understand: "where shall we go?"  It's not like you can come to the Lord just long enough to get eternal life and then go away. No, it's necessary to come to Him and stay with Him. Maybe that's one of the ideas in 1 John 5:11–12. God gives eternal life, that's true, but He doesn't put it into our hands, so to speak. He gives us life in the Son. And so if we have the Son, we have eternal life. But if we walk away from the Son, then we're effectively walking away from eternal life.

And don't let's think that's not a real thing. No, I don't believe we can lose eternal life, but we sure can walk away from it. It might be "ours" in some objective sense, but if we're neglecting it – if we're walking away from the One in whom it resides – then what good is it doing us? What's the point in having eternal life if we're not living it? I don't want weak, anemic, and wan eternal life. I want to experience eternal life that's well fed, and that means feeding on the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking His blood. That means sticking close to Him, because He – He alone – has eternal life to give us.

But now we come back to where we started: if we're going to be near Christ, then we're going to hear things to offend us. It's not by accident that Christ offending His listeners and His offering eternal life are presented together in Scripture. An inoffensive Christ doesn't offer eternal life.

So let's go back to my wife's question: "why would anyone come here, if we're just offering what everyone else offers?" If people look at us and see that we have Christ, then we might get the odd crowd, but those are the people who are going to leave again pretty soon (John 6:66). But if we're faithful to Christ, if He truly is our center, then we can expect that those who come to us know why they're here.

Now, I must also point this out: if people come to us and are offended, we should be careful to ask if it's really Christ that is offending them. I have been in too many assemblies where their offensiveness is seen as a sort of a badge of honor. They seem to think it's proof of their godliness that people keep leaving. Well... that's one explanation. There are other explanations that are less flattering.

 

Careful speech

For various reasons that don't matter at the moment, I've been much more exposed to mainstream Protestantism over the last few months.  I've recently heard a couple people allude to Hebrews 4:15, and both went off the rails. We've talked about this before, so let's don't cover that ground again. But there are some difficulties we encounter when we're not careful, and maybe those are worth discussing in more detail.

At some point I made the decision that I'd try to express my thoughts about Scripture in the language of Scripture. I decided to use the words and phrases Scripture uses, rather than using my own. I'm not claiming to be very good at that, but I make the effort. I'm not sure where I got that idea, or when I made that decision, but I have some suspicions.

When I was a university student, I was part of an off-campus Bible study run by Kelly, one of the campus chaplains. Kelly led us through a study of 1 John that was life-changing for me, not because of content, but because of technique. We started the study by independently reading 1 John "as many times as you can over the next week." According to Kelly, when you had read a book of the Bible enough times you could quote it, then you were ready for a Bible study on that book.

I suspect it was Kelly who influenced me to try to use Scriptural words and phrases. 

See, when we express a thought in words, the words then begin to reshape the thought. So when we take a Scriptural idea and put it into words, those words begin to change the Scriptural idea in our own mind. If we're not very careful with our choice of words, we end up going wrong not only in how we express our thoughts, but in what our thoughts actually are.

Here's an example: I've heard many "brethren" refer to Satan as "the prince and the power of the air." That's not what Scripture actually says. Scripture calls Satan "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2, KJV). I'm sure this started out as a simple misquote, but we can see how the ideas aren't at all the same, even if the words sound similar.

Here's another example: just last week I heard someone talking about being "adopted into God's family." You can search all day long, you won't find that verse! Scripture doesn't teach adoption into God's family. It doesn't teach we are children of God by adoption. On the contrary, we are children of God when we have been born [again] of God (John 1:12–13; John 3:3). 

When scripture talks about adoption, it's talking about sonship. Galatians 4:1–5 presents sonship in contrast to childhood (I don't know the right word for that, perhaps childness?). A child might be treated as a servant in his own home, a son cannot be. 

The Spirit of God given to us connects adoption (Romans 8:15) and sonship (Galatians 4:6). 

So the person who talks about being "adopted into God's family" takes two ideas that Scripture presents in contrast and bludgeons them into a single concept. I can't think of a better recipe for spiritual disaster.

There are a great many errors we avoid when we attempt to stick to the actual words of the text.

It's not popular to say it, but the goal of Bible study isn't – or shouldn't be – to ask "how can I apply this to my life?"  A rush to find some sort of application in Scripture seems to be the source of a great many ills. If we could only learn to slow down and savor each word, we might find that God's words carry a great deal more weight and meaning than we might think. We might even find that God's thoughts center not on us at all, but on His Son, Jesus Christ.

Not everything is about us.

I'm afraid we're reaping the harvest of years of carelessness in reading and studying and quoting Scripture. Martin Luther believed the written word of God is so potent that even "one little word will fell [Satan]" We have largely abandoned that respect for the words that God has spoken. We think nothing of putting our own in their place. And I'm not talking about theological liberals, or progressive Christians here! I'm talking about people who believe in "verbal plenary inspiration."

I wrote before about hearing a preacher say, "the wages for sin is death," which is certainly not Scripture. Changing that one preposition from "of" to "for" ruins the argument of Romans 6:15–23. This was a professional preacher, paid to prepare and deliver his sermons. He didn't even seem to notice his mistake.

Well, I'm trying to avoid ranting, but I'm not doing a good job of that. I'm afraid I'm getting pretty close to a full-on rant here. 

So let's wrap this up with an admonition. And make no mistake, I'm saying this as much to myself as to anyone else. Let's act like the Word of God is just that. Let's acknowledge that God has spoken, and has spoken better than we can. Let's make every effort to think and speak in His words, not our own.

Chronology

When I was younger, I was a dogmatic Young Earth Creationist. I was convinced that if you weren't a Young Earth Creationist, then you really weren't believing what God had said. Indeed, I thought you were probably compromising with the world, trying to claim to be a Christian while at the same time denying the biblical account of creation.

These days I'd describe myself as a literal six-day Creationist who thinks it probably happened a lot more than 10,000 years ago. So an Old Earth Creationist, as opposed to a Theistic Evolutionist.

There is this idea that someday we'll get to Heaven, and we'll ask God all sorts of questions. I don't think that's really how it works (or how it's going to work). But if it works that way, if someday I get a chance to ask God all sorts of questions, mine will almost certainly focus on the first twelve chapters of Genesis. Was there a pre-Edenic creation in the gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? Were the Nephilim the children of fallen angels who intermarried with humans (Genesis 6:1–4, Jude 1:6)? How big was Nimrod's kingdom (Genesis 10:8-12)? When was Job? I'm not saying I understand the rest of Scripture, but I am most intrigued by the first twelve chapters.

(I confess I really want Ezekiel 28:12–15 to be a glimpse into the Edenic and pre-Edenic earth. But there are pretty strong arguments in the other direction too. Apparently Kelly makes a strong case in In the Beginning – it's in my queue, but I haven't started it yet.)

What I find fascinating about the question of Young Earth vs. Old Earth is that both positions seem abundantly obvious to their adherents. If you hold an Old Earth view, there is no shortage of Young Earth proponents to patiently explain to you that you really must not have paid attention to Genesis. If you hold to a Young Earth view, there are equally convinced (but not, in my experience, as vocal) people who think you probably haven't paid attention to Genesis either.

So I'd like to look at those two arguments and see if we can see some larger principles hiding in there.

In my early twenties, I spent a lot of time on a Macintosh Performa building a spreadsheet to work out a chronology based on biblical genealogies. So I had a column for the person's name, one of his father's age when he was born, one for how long he lived, one for the Bible reference, etc. It went something like this: 

1. Adam was 130 when Seth was born (Genesis 5:3) 
2. Seth was 105 when Enosh was born (Genesis 5:6)
3. Enosh was 90 when Cainan was born (Genesis 5:9)

And it kept going well past the Flood (in Noah's 600th year (Genesis 9:28–29) or 1,656), all the way to Jacob. Things get tough in Jacob's life, the chronology just sort of trails off. But from Joseph you can cheat a little, knowing the Captivity was 430 years (Genesis 15:13; Exodus 12:40; Galatians 3:17). I can't recall working through the numbers past Moses, though.

If you go through that exercise, there are some surprising results. For one thing, Abram is actually an adult before Shem dies. So it's possible Abraham and Shem could have known each other.

Another interesting result is that lifespans drop off drastically in the first couple generations after the Flood. It's quite dramatic if you graph them.

If you had asked me at that time, I would have been excited to share all my findings with you, perhaps boring you with charts and graphs. Young Earth Me (YEM) was pretty excited by all this.

But over time, I began to wonder if YEM was barking up the wrong tree. I wouldn't describe myself as Old Earth Me (OEM) quite yet, but several things happened to move me in that direction.

Possibly the first was a conversation I had with an older brother who was going on about William Kelly's defense of the Gap Theory, I think it's in In the Beginning. When I was in school and first ran across the Gap Theory, it was presented as a kookie conspiracy theory developed by Victorians with over-active imaginations who were making concessions to Darwin. But when it turned out William Kelly was one of those "crazy Victorians," I had to give it some more thought. Because William Kelly might well be a kook, but also he's possibly the greatest expositor of Scripture in the last several centuries.

Something else happened, which is really the whole point of my story. Eventually I began to realize that the verses that didn't contain ages and "begats" contained a whole lot of relevant information as well. There are explicit verses, there are implicit verses too.

Here's an example from Exodus 6:16–20: Levi's son is Kohath, Kohath's son is Amram, Amram's sons are Aaron and Moses. So Levi is Moses' grandfather, Jacob is his great-grandfather. In other words, Moses is only the third generation after Levi, the fourth after Jacob. 

But when Moses numbers the Levites at Sinai, there are 22,000 (Numbers 3:14–39). If we recall that Moses is 80 years old at the time, we might reasonably say that the "current" generation is the fourth or fifth generation from Levi. Is it reasonable to think that Levi's three sons produce 22,000 [male] Levites in five generations? That seems... excessive. Levi had three sons, Kohath had four, Amram had two, and Moses had two. It takes far more than four generations to get to 22,000 if those are typical numbers.

That's not even taking into account the difficulty of having only three generations span 430 years of captivity in Egypt. Levi lived to be 137 (Exodus 6:16), Kohath lived to be 133 (Exodus 6:18), Amram lived to be 137 (Exodus 6:20). Moses was 80 when he stood before Pharaoh (Exodus 7:7). If we add up those numbers, we get 137 + 130 + 137 + 80 = 484 years. That's longer than the 430 years we need, but only if we don't think too hard. 

We don't think that Kohath was born right as Levi was dying, or that Amram was born right as Kohath was dying. If we assume their children were born when they were 60 years old, then there are only 60 + 60 + 60 + 80 = 260 years accounted for. That's 170 years less than the 430 we need. And 60 seems a little old to me. I'd expect it to be closer to 30. (I chose 60 so the numbers would work out for Amram to die before the Exodus.)

So it seems to me that there are probably more generations there than the four that are explicitly named. It seems entirely likely there are gaps in the genealogy.

I realize that biblical chronology is complex, and there are people for whom this sort of thing is a life work. I'm not attempting to make myself sound like some sort of expert. My point is that I've read through the Pentatuech many times, and I'm struck every time by the notion that the genealogies don't account for all the time the narrative arc suggests.

So in the end, I've come to realize that if I allow the genealogies to act as a sort of a chronology of the Pentatuech, I end up at a Young Earth position. But if I pay attention to the rest of the text, I end up at an Old Earth position. And that's my whole point: there are two equally obvious, but completely opposite positions the are both based on Scripture.

Now let's try and get some sort of useful application.

When the Lord Jesus was confronted by the Sadducees about the resurrection (Matthew 22:23–32), He rebuked them for not seeing a statement about the resurrection in Exodus 3:6. When He was confronted by the Pharisees, He questioned why they hadn't thought about the odd relationship between Messiah and David, that Messiah is both David's son and David's Lord (Matthew 22:41–46, quoting Psalm 110:1).

The Lord Jesus took the Jewish leaders to task for not understanding nuances of Scripture that most of us wouldn't ever notice on our own. He took them to task for not understanding the implicit teaching in Scripture.

I grew up in a Christian home. There has never been a time in my life when the Bible wasn't very much part of it. And sometimes it seems to me that I have a pretty good handle on what it says. Sometimes, I confess, I think and act and talk like there's not much in there I don't already know about. But there are times when I'm brought face-to-face with my own ignorance of what it says.

I didn't just wake up one day and decide to try out Old Earth Creationism: there came a day when I realized there were more clues in the text than those in the genealogies. When I was adding up the ages next to the "begats" in those genealogies, I thought I was being thorough; but when I really read what the text was saying, I realized I had missed a whole lot.

The Young Earth position was so obvious to me, that I didn't even think about the statements that didn't seem to add up. I was so caught up with the explicit statements, I missed the implicit ones. Now I look through the Pentatuech and the Old Earth position seems just as obvious.

And I suppose that's my point: we can get some strange ideas when we're not careful with everything God has said. Yes, it's possible to read things into the text that just aren't there. But it's equally dangerous to ignore what's staring us right in the face, because we think we already have the answers.

 

Eisegesis

 Eisegesis sounds pretentious, but it's a real word. It means "reading in." It's adding something into the text because we expect it to be there, or we want it to be there. It's a hard trap to avoid, because it's hard to see and identify our own biases and preconceptions.

A few years ago, I read an article online where someone referenced the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3–9), calling it the "parable of the soils." That's not the first time I've heard that title, nor the last. But in this case, I commented on the article, asking why the person had called it "the parable of the soils" when the Lord called it "the parable of the sower" (Matthew 13:18). The author responded:

The reason why I (and I assume others also) have referred to it as the parable of the soils is to focus upon the main thrust of the passage – the ground on which the seed was thrown. The emphasis by the Lord leans heavily toward the condition of the soil where the seed was sown, representing the four different heart responses to the Gospel message. In no way (at least with me) is it meant to counter the words of our Lord or to redirect the teaching.

I didn't follow up on that response, because I wasn't interested in fight on a comment thread. But it's been more than five years since that exchange, and as I've thought it over, it hasn't gotten less troubling. 

Note: I'm not going to link to the article, nor to the comment thread, because I'm not trying to embarrass anyone. It shouldn't be too hard to find, if you want to fact-check me on it. If you can't find it, email me and I can send you a link. 

As far as I can tell, the Lord gave exactly one of His parables a title. He told many, many parables; but this appears to be the only one He titled. Since we agree that the title of the parable focuses our attention to a specific element of the story, it's self-evident that the emphasis by the Lord is not on the soils at all, but on the sower. That's why He called it "the parable of the sower."

And this is what I mean by reading something into a passage. Doing something as small as giving a parable a title seems to be harmless, but it's not. Does this person really think the Lord missed the main thrust of the passage? I'm sure he doesn't, but it's what he actually said in that response.

So we can think more highly of ourselves than we ought, or we can use this as a teachable moment for ourselves. We can ask, "where do I read things into the Scripture?"

For years I thought that the Lord taught we should do good works so that men and women would see them and believe. But that's not what the Lord said. He said, "Let your light thus shine before men, so that they may see your upright works, and glorify your Father who is in the heavens" (Matthew 5:16). Why did I think that verse was teaching that good works would lead someone to repent? It's not in the text, it was only there in my mind. To be fair, it was likely because I had heard others misquote that verse all my life; but we can fairly say that I misread that verse, because I thought I knew what it was supposed to say.

I wasn't allowing the Scripture to speak to me, I was trying to finish the Lord's sentences!

So where else am I doing this? I'm sure there are many places in Scripture where I am finishing the Lord's sentences. I'm sure there are many places where I just assume I know what the text is going to say. 

 

Eternal Sonship

I should have been a lot more careful with me wording on this post. To be honest, my wording was largely because I wasn't very careful in my thinking. Let me just make this disclaimer: Jesus Christ did not become the Son of God. I've kept the post as-is (excepting this paragraph) so the comments make sense.

A few months ago I was speaking on John 1 in the assembly, and spent a few minutes discussing Eternal Sonship. I've heard several comments on the Lord's Sonship in the meetings, many of which are nonsense. I thought it might be helpful for some of the younger folks in the assembly to lay out what Scripture actually says.

This is one of those topics where we have to be very cautious. When we talk about the Person of the Son, we need to understand from the outset that our very best understanding falls short. There's a hymn in the Little Flock that says:

The Father only Thy blest name

Of Son can comprehend.

There's a lot of truth in that statement, and we do well to approach this sort of thing fearfully. Better men than I have run aground here...

The Lord Jesus has several titles that infer sonship:

• Son (John 5:19–23)
• Son of God (John 5:25)
• Son of Man (John 5:27)
• Son of David (Matthew 1:1)
• Son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1)
• Son of His love (Colossians 1:13)

There are others, but this list serves for our purposes.

We understand that an eternal Person can have a non-eternal title. We'd look askance at someone who called Christ "the eternal Son of David." The Person is eternal, the relationship is not. Christ was Son when there was no David. He was Son when there was no Abraham, and He was Son when there was no man.

The question of Eternal Sonship revolves around exactly this question: we agree that Christ is eternal and uncreated: He is God blessed forever (Romans 9:5). But the question remains, is the Father-Son relationship in the Godhead eternal?

Let's pause to be sure we're very clear about this. I've heard preachers talk about Eternal Sonship who seemed to think the question is whether Christ is eternal. Nothing could be farther from the truth! C. A. Coates denied Eternal Sonship, but did not question Christ's essential and eternal Deity:

In reply to your letter I may say, in the first place, that the question raised in regard to the expression "the eternal Son", as applied to our Lord, is not at all a question as to His Deity, or His eternal personality. The dear brethren are all, thank God, perfectly clear as to these great and vital matters of revelation and of faith. The Son was eternally God (John 1:1), and subsisted in the form of God (Philippians 2:6); before Abraham was He was "I am", John 8:58. Whatever inscrutable blessedness and glory and power belongs to the Godhead belongs in the fullest and most absolute way to Christ; He is "over all, God blessed for ever", Romans 9:5.

(Letters of C. A. Coates, pp. 191–195)

Having made that clear, let's consider the Father-Son relationship in the Godhead: There are at least three times where Scripture takes us back into past eternity and names the Father and the Son: John 5, John 17, and Hebrews 1. There may well be others. These three passages convince me of Christ's eternal Sonship. The Lord clearly speaks of His relationship with the Father as Father before the world began.

That being said, C. A. Coates is correct that scripture doesn't use the title "Eternal Son." We try to be very careful to use the words of Scripture, especially with regard to Christ – we should be careful about using a title Scripture doesn't use. We don't want to make a person an offender for a word, but we realize it's extremely easy to fall into error when we touch the Person of Christ.

If we examine what Scripture says about the Father-Son relationship in eternity, we find it consistently uses the title "Son" to refer to Christ. I know a lot of "brethren" who believe that the title "Son of God" is eternal, but I can find no evidence of that in Scripture.

I admit when I hear someone talk about "the Eternal Son of God" I wince a little. As far as I have been able to find, scripture talks about "the Son" in eternity past, it doesn't talk about "the Son of God" in that context. And yes, I have said "the Eternal Son of God" many times.

Scripture connects the title "Son of God" with national Israel (John 1:49), while it connects "Son of Man" with the Gentiles (Daniel 7:13–14). I don't see in Scripture that either title is eternal.

Yes, I do believe in eternal Sonship. No, I don't believe the eternal title is "Son of God".

Judgement

I stumbled across William Kelly's article on wine. I wasn't really looking for it, but it was a fascinating read.

Near the end he discusses the whole issue of the inspiration if Scripture, including this gem:

The practical consequence also is clear. Man sits in judgment upon that word which shall judge him at the last day, and censures with various degrees of incredulity the Pentateuch of Moses, Canticles, Daniel, the Gospels, Hebrews, and the Apocalypse. He cannot find what he expects a priori, and at once stigmatizes such and such books as at issue with his ephemeral notions, and therefore not given by inspiration of God. That is, his poor, proud mind, constitutes itself the umpire of what God ought to be and to reveal, and condemns whatever is against or above itself!

Ruin (Part 1)

I'm sitting at home sick, so I thought I'd update this blog. Recently someone asked me about "the Church in Ruin", and I found had trouble giving a concise answer. So I'm going to use this blog as a scratchpad to see if I can articulate this idea a bit.

The Ruin of the Church is the teaching that the Church has failed in its dispensational (governmental) responsibilities on the earth. As a result, it is irreparably "ruined" as far as dispensational responsibility is concerned. There is no repairing the damage, we are left merely waiting for judgment.

So I got it down to three sentences, but they're not very good sentences. And while that's not a terrible description, there's no way I'd expect anyone to agree without some reference to the Word of God. So let's look at the Scriptures and see what they say.

First we're going to look at the Old Testament, because there is a subtle, but important, principle brought out there. Three incidents stick out in my mind with respect Israel in the wilderness. The first is in Numbers 23:

18 Then he took up his parable and said, Rise up, Balak, and hear! hearken unto me, son of Zippor! 19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither a son of man, that he should repent. Shall he say and not do? and shall he speak and not make it good? 20 Behold, I have received [mission] to bless; and he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it. 21 He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen wrong in Israel; Jehovah his God is with him, and the shout of a king is in his midst. 22 God brought him out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of a buffalo. 23 For there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel. At this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought! (Numbers 23:18–23)

The second is in Exodus 32:7–8:

7 Then Jehovah said to Moses, Away, go down! for thy people, which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, is acting corruptly. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them: they have made themselves a molten calf, and have bowed down to it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, This is thy god, Israel, who has brought thee up out of the land of Egypt!

The last is a single verse, Deuteronomy 23:14:

14 For Jehovah thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; and thy camp shall be holy, that he see nothing unseemly with thee, and turn away from thee.

There are two different perspectives between the first passage and the second and third passages. In the first, the Lord says He doesn't see any iniquity in Israel. Which is a remarkable statement, given the entirety of the history of Israel's travel from Egypt to Canaan. There certainly was a great deal of iniquity in Israel! But the Lord looks down and sees not a bit of it.

In the second and third verses, the Lord definitely sees iniquity in Israel. In the passage in Exodus, He looks down from Sinai and tells Moses to leave Him, because of Israel's sin. The third passage is actually part of the commands about sanitation: they weren't to foul their camp, but they were to "turn aside" and keep the camp clean. But the remarkable statement is that the Lord would walk in the camp, and if He sees anything unseemly in it, He might turn away from them.

So which is it? Did God see iniquity in Jacob? Was that what the second and third passages say? Or perhaps He was just making empty threats when He looked down from Sinai, or when Moses commanded the people not to foul the camp? Well, both are true. God saw Israel from two different perspectives. When He looked down from Heaven and spoke to Balaam, He saw a perfect people. But when He walked through the camp, He saw their sin.

Now, perhaps we see something akin to Galatians 4 when we introduce Sinai vs. the "high places of Baal". Perhaps there is something there for us to learn about the Accuser. Perhaps we should point out that God saw their sins at Sinai, but there was an intercessor there to plead for them. And really, Moses stands as a type of our Advocate in this story. But we're not going to consider all the implications here. We're merely going to point out that there are two different perspectives from which God saw Israel.

When viewed from the perspective of God's eternal purposes, He saw no sin in Israel. But when He was walking in the camp, He saw everything that defiles.

Similarly, the Lord sees the Church in two different perspectives. There is the perspective of God's eternal purpose, but there is the perspective of man's responsibility. From the one perspective, Christ sees no sin in the Church. But from the other, He judges everything, and there is no hiding from His sight.

Those two perspectives are contrasted in 1 Peter 2 and 1 Corinthians 4.

4 To whom coming, a living stone, cast away indeed as worthless by men, but with God chosen, precious, 5 yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:4–5)

9 For we are God's fellow-workmen; ye are God's husbandry, God's building. 10 According to the grace of God which has been given to me, as a wise architect, I have laid the foundation, but another builds upon it. But let each see how he builds upon it. 11 For other foundation can no man lay besides that which [is] laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any one build upon [this] foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass, straw, 13 the work of each shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare [it], because it is revealed in fire; and the fire shall try the work of each what it is. 14 If the work of any one which he has built upon [the foundation] shall abide, he shall receive a reward. 15 If the work of any one shall be consumed, he shall suffer loss, but *he* shall be saved, but so as through [the] fire. (1 Corinthians 3:9–15)

In 1 Peter, God Himself does the building, and He works with only one building material: "living stones" (v. 5). But in 1 Corinthians 3, although it's still God's building, it is now men who are working on it. These men need to take care how they build, because they can make mistakes; God can't. And while God works exclusively with "living stones", men have more options: gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass, straw. Men build with six materials, God with only one.

Need I point out that the Lord Jesus, as both God and Man, builds the assembly as well? (Matthew 16:16–18). Need I mention that His work doesn't fail? Of course it doesn't!

But the point is that there are both perspectives in the New Testament, just like there were both in the Old Testament.

Now, Revelation 2–3 brings us to the end of one of those two perspectives. God's eternal, heavenly perspective doesn't come to a close. How God sees us now is how He'll see us through eternity. But there is a dispensational responsibility, which is connected to this earth. Here on this earth, we have a responsibility as the House of God. And 1 Peter 4 reminds us that the House of God is where judgment will begin (1 Peter 4:17). So Revelation 2–3 gives us a prophetic look into that judgment. And notice how it starts, the Lord Jesus is described as the One who "who walks in the midst of the seven golden lamps" (Revelation 2:1) the previous verse tells us exactly what those lamps are: they are the seven assemblies in Asia (Revelation 1:20).

So we're right back to Deuteronomy 23 in a sense: when the Lord looks down from Heaven, He sees His eternal purpose, but when He walks in the camp, He sees every defiling thing.

When we look at what the Scripture says about the Church, we need to bear these two perspectives in mind. God's eternal purpose for us is nothing but blessing. But while we're here waiting for His Son to come and get us (Philippians 3:20–21, 1 Thessalonians 1:9–10), there is responsibility connected with this earth.

There's a lot more to say, but I think I'll save it for next time.

The Kingdom

About two-and-a-half years ago, I started reading The Greatness of the Kingdom by Alva J. McClain (see "New Book"). A friend had recommended it, so I picked up a copy and started working on it.

I finished the book this morning. It is, without a doubt, one of the best books I've ever read. I whole-heartedly encourage you to buy a copy and read it. It's amazing.

Now, the fact that it took me more than two years to read is suggestive.  Some of that is because I was reading a lot of other things at the time. Some of it is that I tend to do everything inconsistently, especially reading: it's not at all uncommon for me to read several hundred pages of a book, then put it down for months or even years before picking it up again (I've got bookmarks in at least a half-dozen books at any given time). But in this case, I found the book bogged down significantly in the middle. It seemed to get a little dry, and it took months for me to work through it, sometimes no more than a page in a day. But once I got to around page 300, I found I had trouble putting it down.

I've been interested in the Biblical teaching about the Kingdom for many years. I spend a lot of time around Dispensationalists, who seem to fear the word "kingdom." But at some point I realized my reticence to study the Kingdom was not based on Scripture. The Scripture spends a good deal of time discussing the Kingdom, indeed the book of Acts ends with this description of Paul's ministry:

 30 ¶ And he remained two whole years in his own hired lodging, and received all who came to him,

 31 preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, with all freedom unhinderedly. (Acts 28:30 & 31, JND)

So certainly the Apostle considered the Kingdom of some importance.

What I love about this book is, it studies the Kingdom from a dispensational perspective. While unapologetically premillenialist and dispensationalist, it's also a passionate and enthusiastic study into Christ as King.  McClain doesn't shy away from the place the Church has as part of the Kingdom: indeed, he almost exults in it.

McClain's book is a study of the Kingdom from Genesis to Revelation. It's written as a text-book, and it's very matter-of-fact. That's probably why I found the middle of it quite dry. But it's not a boring book: not by any means.

What I found most amazing in the book was McClain's study of the four Gospels in relation to the Kingdom. There's no doubt that the Kingdom was the main focus of the Lord Jesus' earthly ministry, and McClain expounds it brilliantly and clearly. His discussions of the Triumphal Entry and the Olivet Discourse are well worth the time, effort, and expense of getting a copy and reading it through.

I've now read three of McClain's books: The Greatness of the Kingdom, Law and Grace, and Daniel's Prophecy of the 70 Weeks.  The Greatness is by far the longest book I've read by McClain: Law and Grace is  a very short book, while Daniel's Prophecy is little more than a pamphlet. Nevertheless, I've become a real fan of McClain's. He does an excellent job of arguing simply and carefully from Scripture, without becoming too abstract or theoretical.

If you're going to read The Greatness of the Kingdom (and you should), I recommend you check out either his book on Daniel's 70 weeks, or even The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson first.  An understanding of Daniel 9 will be helpful to McClain's treatment of the Lord's earthly ministry.

I made the comment quite some time ago that McClain is kind of like Darby, but a lot easier to read. I meant that as a compliment. But where Law and Grace is almost a précis of JND's teachings on the subject, and Daniel's Prophecy of the 70 Weeks is a sort of summation of The Coming Prince,  I haven't read anything that goes into this of depth on the Kingdom of God.  The book is a masterpiece, and everyone should read it.

Dwelling

Shan left a comment  almost a year ago:

Mark, just a quick question: a blogger friend recently noted this:

"The holiness of God, or holy, or sanctification, or any word in that family, is not mentioned in the Bible between the 7th day of creation (Genesis 2:3) and Moses (Exodus 3:5). That's quite a gap! It seems like the topic should have come up with Abraham. Or Isaac. Or Jacob. If it did, it didn't make it into the Biblical record."

Any thoughts on why that might be?

I stewed over this for quite some time.  But it was during some (unrelated) reading that I found an answer. I've given the answer a lot of thought, and I think it's correct. So I'm going to pass it on. I think the article that caught my attention was Darby's comments on Exodus 15 in the Synopsis. I was going to copy some of his comments in here, but it's really long.

The key is Psalm 93:5

holiness becometh thy house, O Jehovah, for ever. (JND) 

The issue in Exodus is that God has taken up a habitation with men:

 44 And I will hallow the tent of meeting, and the altar; and I will hallow Aaron and his sons, that they may serve me as priests.

 45 And I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel, and will be their God.

 46 And they shall know that I am Jehovah their God, who have brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, to dwell in their midst: I am Jehovah their God.  (Exodus 29:44--46, JND)

God told Moses that He had taken the children of Israel out of Egypt to "dwell in their midst". This is something quite different than His relationship with the patriarchs.  It's true that Abraham was the friend of God, but there is not a word in Scripture that God dwelt with Abraham. We don't read about God dwelling with men until Exodus.

God's habitation introduces the responsibility to holiness.

From Exodus on, there is a history of God's dwelling with men. When Joshua led the people into the land, they set up the Tabernacle at Shiloh (Joshua 18:1). We've gone over the history of the ark and its location before (The Tabernacle at Gibeon), so we needn't repeat it here. But Psalm 78 details God's rejecting Shiloh and choosing Jerusalem as the place where He would put His name.  Jerusalem remained the place where God put His name until the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost (Acts 2). Notice this occurred in Jerusalem. Now, Paul says, the assembly is the "habitation of God in the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:22).

God will once more choose Jerusalem as the place where He puts His name: that's plain from the prophets (Zechariah 1:17, 2:12). It is God's intention that His King will reign in Zion (Psalm 2), but that day hasn't come yet. It will: Christ will descend onto the Mount of Olives and come up into Jerusalem through the east gate (Zechariah 14, Ezekiel 43).

So to answer the question: holiness (or sanctification) is connected with God's habitation. In fact, "holiness" is first mentioned in Exodus 15, which is also the first mention of God's dwelling place:

 11 Who is like unto thee, Jehovah, among the gods? Who is like unto thee, glorifying thyself in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders?

 12 Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them.

 13 Thou by thy mercy hast led forth the people that thou hast redeemed; Thou hast guided them by thy strength unto the abode of thy holiness. (Exodus 15:11--13, JND)

There is no question that God is holy, and always was. It's not like Abraham got a free pass, consider Genesis 17:1

And Abram was ninety-nine years old, when Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said to him, I am the Almighty *God: walk before my face, and be perfect. (JND)

Abraham was told to "be perfect". So we ought not to think that God's standard was low for Abraham. But the issue of holiness comes out of the responsibility of God's habitation. It's God's dwelling with men that brings the responsibility for holiness (cf. Numbers 5:2--3).

1 Timothy is interesting in this light: it's the epistle of how to behave oneself in God's house (1 Timothy 3:15). There is a responsibility in the house of God that is over and above the responsibility of the redeemed creature.

There is a tendency in "evangelical" Christianity to reduce everything to the individual. Scripture is full of teaching about God's dealing with individuals, but that's not the whole counsel of God. The whole counsel of God includes what I call "dispensational responsibility". This is really the bulk of Paul's epistles: there is a thing on the earth called the assembly (or church, or congregation, or gathering if you prefer), which Scripture calls the "habitation of God in the Spirit."  There is an order to be observed in the assembly, which is given in 1 Corinthians, 1 Timothy, etc. The order of Scripture isn't very popular today, but it's what God has laid out, and it's what He calls us to now as 2000 years ago. This is above and beyond individual justification, redemption, and salvation. It's how God calls us to behave in His house.

Well, I can feel a rant coming on, so I'll end this now.  Shan, I hope this answers your question.  I freely admit I got this from Johnny D., but as I've mulled this over, read Scripture, and researched the question, I've become convinced he was right. So I wanted to pass it on.

Ezekiel 8

I gave a talk on Ezekiel 8 the other day. It didn't come out at all like I had thought: I had a lot of trouble expressing what I was thinking. So I thought I'd give it another try here.

The book of Ezekiel starts with Ezekiel standing on the banks of the Chebar, in Babylon. There he sees a vision of the glory of the Lord. He sees what looks like a man made of burning brass on a throne, with four "living creatures" under the throne, and four "wheels within wheels" with the living creatures. He describes this vision in some detail in the first two chapters. Ezekiel sees this same vision three more times, or four times in total. He sees it again seven days later "in the valley" in chapter 3, then in Jerusalem in chapters 8--11. Finally, he sees the same vision in chapter 43.

These four appearances of the glory of the Lord form a simple outline of the book. Each appearance of this vision is followed by specific messages. We might think of these as "sections" of the book:

1. chapters 1--3:31 Following the vision on the banks of the Chebar (vv. 1:1--3:15), the Lord speaks to Ezekiel and gives him the rules of the watchman (vv. 3:16--3:21). That is, He tells Ezekiel his duty as a prophet. This section closes at v. 3:21, after essentially only one message from God.
2. chapters 3:22--7 The second section begins with the Lord revealing Himself "in the valley" (vv. 3:22--3:27). Ezekiel notes (v. 23) that this is the same vision he saw on the banks of the Chebar. Ezekiel's vision is followed by messages specifically for Jerusalem and her inhabitants (ch. 4--7). The key verse in this section is v. 5:5, "this is Jerusalem". All the messages God gives Ezekiel in this section are about Jerusalem and the surrounding area.
3. chapters 8--39 The third section begins with the same vision Ezekiel saw "in the valley" (v. 8:4) and "by the river Chebar" (v. 10:20). The Lord takes Ezekiel "in the visions of God" to Jerusalem (v. 8:3). I assume this means he wasn't looking at the literal Jerusalem, but a spiritual vision of it. The vision that begins in v. 8:2 continues through chapter 11. Following the vision in ch. 8--11, the Lord gives Ezekiel several messages. Unlike the previous section, these messages address not only Jerusalem, but the captives in Babylon, and the nations as well. This section is the largest in the book.
4. chapters 40--48 The fourth and final section is millenial: it starts with the Millenial temple and describes the nation and its worship under the Son (cf. Psalm 2). Ezekiel sees a vision "like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar" (v. 43:3). It's in this section that he sees the glory of God return from the mountains in the east back into the Temple.

There is a clear moral symmetry between the vision in ch. 11 and that in ch. 43. In chapter 11, he sees the glory of the Lord leave them Temple and head east into the mountains. In chapter 43 he sees it come back from the mountains through the east gate and into the Temple.

Ezekiel is characterized by conversations between the Lord and his prophet. Unlike Isaiah (largely composed of the messages the Lord has for His people) or even Jeremiah, Ezekiel is mainly the Lord telling Ezekiel what to tell the people. It doesn't really record that he actually passed the messages on. It's not a book about the prophet speaking to the people, it's a book about the Lord speaking to the prophet.

The characteristic title of Ezekiel is "son of man". He's one of two men called that in the Old Testament: the other is Daniel. This gives us a hint of where we'd look to see Christ in this book. Isaiah and Daniel describe the One who is coming: Ezekiel doesn't. In Ezekiel, the prophet himself stands in the place of the coming Son of Man. In type, Ezekiel is a book where the Father talks to the Son.

This brings us to chapter 8. Chapter 8 comes a little more than a year after the vision in Chebar (cf. v. 1:1--2; v. 8:1). Ezekiel is brought by the Lord into Jerusalem "in the visions of God" (v. 8:3). The story starts outside the Temple, by the gate (vv. 8:3--6). There is an image in the gate of the Temple, which Ezekiel describes as "the image of jealousy" (v. 8:3). Next the Lord has him dig a hole through the Temple wall, and he finds a chamber full of men burning incense to idols (vv. 8:7--13). Then the Lord brings him into the court of the temple, where women are wailing for Tammuz (vv. 8:14--15). Finally, the Lord takes him into the inner court, where 25 men are worshipping the sun, with their backs to the altar (vv. 8:16--18).

The first thing we notice in this sequence is the transitions between the visions. After the first three visions, the Lord asks Ezekiel if he sees what he people are doing, and He says Ezekiel will see something even worse (vv. 8:6, 13, 15). So we understand that these visions are actually a progression. It's not just that there are four different idolatrous practices going on, but each is worse than the one before. We also notice that the trend is inward from the Temple gate toward the sanctuary.

I'm not sure what the "image of jealousy" is (v. 3), but it seems to be an idol. That is, there was an idol in the entrance to the Temple. If we remember our Sunday School lessons, we recall that at least two kings of Judah set up idols in the Temple itself: Ahaz built an altar modelled after the idolatrous altar he saw in Damascus, and put it into the Temple, moving the brazen altar out of the way to make room for it (2 Kings 16:10--16). Manasseh also set up his idols in the Temple (2 Kings 21:1--9). No doubt there are others: these two spring to mind.

There's an enormous difference between going to bow down to an idol in its temple, and bringing the idol into the house of God. But that's exactly what these two kings did.

There are four steps from the "image of jealousy" in the gate to the sun-worshippers inside the Temple:

• the image of jealousy
• burning incense in the room of idols
• wailing for Tammuz
• worshipping the sun

These four steps form a sort of progression: inward into the Temple, as we mentioned earlier; but also a progression of the heart. First, there is an image in the gate (v. 3). No one is worshipping the image: it's just there. We might think of this as passive idolatry. Second, we have active worship on the part of Jaazaniah and the seventy elders of Israel (v. 7). Then we have emotional idolatry, the women wailing for Tammuz (v. 14). Finally, we have complete obeisance in the twenty-five men bowing with their backs to the altar (v. 16).

It's interesting there are four steps here. They remind us of the four downward steps in Romans 1:21--32 and those in Proverbs 30:11--14.

But the main point is the progression not only towards to the center of the Temple, but in the hearts of the idolaters. And we notice again that this is all in the Temple: in the center of the worship God Himself established. We might remember the last verse of 1 John: "Children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21). There is a danger--- a very real danger--- of dabbling in idolatry, especially in the house of God. God doesn't have an house anymore, "The God who has made the world and all things which are in it, *he*, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands" (Acts 17:24). But the Scripture tells us that God has chosen the Church as "a habitation of God in the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:22). So there is a parallel, isn't there? The Israelites brought idolatry into God's habitation, and it offended Him. We ought not do the same. We need to be careful that we aren't dabbling in idolatry.

There's another thread in this story: it's the thread of God looking for a man He can confide in. The whole book of Ezekiel is characterized by the idea the God is baring His heart to the prophet, but it's particularly brought out here in chapter 8. At every step, the Lord asks Ezekiel, "Do you see what they're doing?" There's a sense where God is looking for someone to take His side against His people.

It's significant that the prophet who is so intimate with God's heart should be the prophet most particularly called "son of man". Really, God has found exactly one Man to whom He could completely pour out His heart. The Son of Man walked on this earth, and He saw exactly what grieved God. And there were conversations between the Father and the Son about it, although we only read one explicitly (John 17) and catch other small glimpses (John 5, etc.). The Lord Jesus, while eternally God, was here as the Man that God was looking for. He was the Man that God could take completely into His confidence.

And it's a sobering thought that He was the one Man who actually understood exactly how evil this world is. I will never know just how bad my sin is, because I'll never be required to pay its price. The Lord Jesus knows exactly how bad my sin is, because He suffered for it.

Can we imagine what it must have been like for the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father to walk down here in this wicked world? The Pharisees said, "This man receives sinners and eats with them" (Luke 15:2), which indicates just how seared their consciences were. Yes, this Man did eat with sinners: and had He eaten with the Pharisees, He wouldn't have been in any better company. He was the Son of God, He had come down from Heaven. To imagine there's any significant difference between different degrees of fallen men in comparison with Him is sheer foolishness.

And once again, we remember the God has found the Man He was looking for. Indeed, He had to provide the Man He was looking for, because there's no other man, woman, or child that is good enough. And now that God has found Him, He's not looking for another. He has found what He wanted, and He is content in Him. We ought to be content in Him too.

Well, that's more or less what I ought to have said the other day. What I actually did was go on long digressions through the histories of Ahaz and Manasseh, as well as a diversion through the identity of Tammuz. It was frankly a bit of a mess. Hopefully I'll be a little more to the point next time.

The Father and the Son

John 5 is to me one of the highest and most mysterious passages in Scripture. It takes us back into eternity before there was anything except God, and it takes us to the last day when Christ will judge all men. It pulls back the curtain a bit and gives us a rare and touching glimpse into the Godhead so we can see a bit of the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son.

The chapter opens with the Lord Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath, a man who'd been bed-ridden for 38 years. The Pharisees accuse Him of working on the Sabbath (which He had, in fact, done). The response of the Lord Jesus to the accusation of the Pharisees opens into an astonishing treatise on relationships in the Godhead.

The Lord Jesus' answer to the charge of working on the Sabbath is actually fairly subtle, and I have to admit I didn't really understand it until fairly recently. The argument basically boils down to this: the Son can't do anything on His own, He only does what He sees the Father do (v. 19). And the Father works on the Sabbath (v. 17), so the Son must work on the Sabbath. It's what the Father has taught Him to do.

I find it interesting that the Scripture doesn't tell us that Christ didn't really break the Sabbath. That's not the point. The Son had been told to do something by the Father, and that meant He wasn't going to keep the Sabbath. Interestingly, there is an Old Testament precedent for this in Joshua. It was a few years ago that an older brother pointed out that Joshua and the people were told to encircle Jericho once every day for six days, and seven times on the seventh. No matter how you figure it, those people broke the Sabbath. But they did it because God told them to. Similarly, Christ broke the Sabbath because He was obeying the Father.

But He goes beyond explaining His actions in vv. 19--30. He starts with an explanation of the relationship between the Father and the Son: "the Father loves the Son and shews him all things which he himself does" (v. 20). There is an interesting image here: the Father is bringing the Son into the family business. The Son doesn't do what He wants, He does what He sees His Father do. The Father deliberately shows the Son what it is He's doing.

Notice the titles Christ uses for Himself here: He mainly refers to Himself in John 5 as "the Son", but in v. 25 He's the "Son of God" and in v. 27 He's the "Son of man." Each of these titles holds a distinctive meaning. When the Lord Jesus refers to Himself in relationship with the Father, He calls Himself "Son." When He talks about raising the dead, He's "Son of God"; and when He talks about eternal judgment, He's "Son of man". In fact, it's because He's Son of man that all judgment is given to Him (v. 27).

(We should be very careful when we discuss Christ, because none of us can really understand Him: "no one knows the Son but the Father" (Matthew 11:27, JND). But I think it's worth emphasizing that when the Scripture talks about eternal relationships in the Godhead, it uses the title "Son", not "Son of God". Certainly Christ is the eternal Son of the eternal Father, but the title that conveys that isn't "Son of God," it's "Son". I say that carefully, because I've heard a lot of people insist that Christ is the "eternal Son of God". I don't think that's what Scripture teaches: He's the "eternal Son"; the title "Son of God" is different. This certainly isn't a hill I'm willing to die on--- I appreciate they're only trying to highlight Eternal Sonship--- but I think a careful reading of Scripture indicates the eternal title is "Son", rather than "Son of God". cf. Hebrews 1 & 2.)

There are several passages in Scripture that specifically outline God's purpose. For example, in John 4 the Father is seeking worshipers. Exodus 29 tells us Jehovah saved the children of Israel "out of the land of Egypt, to dwell in their midst: I am Jehovah their God" (Exodus 29:46, JND). Here in John 5 we have another purpose of God verse, v. 23. It is the Father's goal that all men should honour the Son just like they honour the Father. This verse has been very important to me over the last 15 or 20 years. It's like God's grand plan is really just for all men to honour His Son.

Now, the Lord Jesus gives us three specific similarities between the Son and the Father:

1. He raises the dead (v. 21)
2. He is the judge of all men (v. 22)
3. He has life in Himself (v. 26)

Raising the dead is God's exclusive right. It's not simply that only God has the right to raise the dead, but only God has the power to do so. We can't raise the dead, no matter how much we'd like to. Sure, we might witness a "medical miracle" where someone who's as good as dead recovers. Or we might even see someone "clinically dead" recover after a brief time. But the Lord Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead four days later. He'd been wrapped and buried: he wasn't in a coma, he was dead. But death is no barrier to the Son of God, He raises the dead. And He quickens "whom He will" (v. 21). It's not that He's under any obligation: He raises whomever He wants to raise. No one else gets a say in the matter.

Now, He applies this to two cases. The first is what we might call a spiritual resurrection in v. 25. The Scripture often refers to man's fallen state as a spiritual death. Christ's solution to that is to raise and quicken us. Notice Ephesians and Colossians follow this same thread, but Romans takes the opposite view. In Romans it's the lost who are alive (Romans 1--3), and the saved are dead (Romans 6).

The second application is two physical resurrections in vv. 29 & 30. One is a resurrection to life, the other a resurrection to judgment. You can't be in both groups: if you're in the resurrection to judgment, you're not in the resurrection to life. Notice this is what He insists on in v. 24. If we hear His word and believe on Him who sent Him, we have life and don't come into judgment. It's not just that we're judged and acquitted, but we're never even summoned.

This brings up an important point: judgment is always related to our physical bodies. When the dead are judged, they're raised first. And how are they judged? They're judged for what they did in their bodies.

There is no escaping the judgment of God. If you die first, He'll raise you from the dead to judge you. There's no statute of limitations, there's no way to avoid the bailiff. The only escape is to believe and pass from death into life: Christ has already been judged for those who believe. He has taken their punishment, so there's no judgment left for them.

I should think to the Pharisees at the time, certainly the next claim would be been shocking. They would have known that Abraham called God "the Judge of all the earth" (Genesis 18:25, JND), and here Christ is claiming that He is the exclusive Judge (v. 22). The Father has given all judgment to the Son. The Father won't judge anyone, the Son will judge everyone. Now certainly the Lord Jesus is God. I'm not denying that. But within the Godhead it's the Son who will judge.

I find it interesting that He is Judge because He is Son of man. This is closely echoed by Paul on Mars Hill: it's by this Man God will judge the world (Acts 17:31). Paul goes further than John 5 and tells us God has announced this publicly through the Resurrection. The message of the Resurrection, Paul says, is that God has publicly named His Judge by raising Him from the dead. But again, it's the "Man Christ Jesus" that will be Judge. Christ won't judge all men as God (although He is God), but as Man. He will judge as One who knows exactly what it's like to be a Man in a fallen world.

William Kelly says God created this world for Christ to have dominion over it:

Man is called to rule, to have dominion. God was looking on to His Son, the Son of man. For Him the habitable earth is destined. God has not made it in vain. (William Kelly, Hebrews, Chapter 2)

God created the world and gave it to man to have dominion over it. But it wasn't really Adam God intended to rule; it was the Last Adam, Jesus Christ. It is as Man that He will take dominion, and it is as Man that He will judge.

The last similarity Christ reveals is "as the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son also to have life in himself" (v. 26, JND). I find this one of the most mysterious and difficult verses in Scripture. Here's a time when the Son pulls back the curtain and lets us see into the light unapproachable where God dwells, and we can't really understand what we see there.

I have no idea what it means that the Father has "given to the Son also to have life in himself." No clue.

But little as I understand it, this verse forms the basis of Christianity in a sense. Colossians 3 says, "When the Christ is manifested who [is] our life, then shall *ye* also be manifested with him in glory" (Colossians 3:4, JND). It's not just that Christ has life in Himself, but that He shares it with us. And it's not that He gives us a little piece of it and sends us on our way: but He Himself actually is our Life. John says it a little differently: "God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son" (1 John 5:11, JND).

God has no blessing for me that's not in Christ, and He has no intention of ever taking it out of Christ to give it to me. God doesn't give me blessings per se. He gives me Christ, and in Him are all the blessings God has.

Christianity is not just that Christ has died for me. That's important, but it's not really Christianity. That's not much more than Abraham, Moses, and the prophets expected. The really amazing thing about Christianity is that the Son of God has died for us and has given us an eternal claim on Him. Christianity is not so much justification: it's the ongoing, eternal, and uninterrupted relationship we have with the Son of God. He's died for us, He also lives for us. And He is personally our Life.

We're going to spend eternity getting a better idea who Christ is. And when we get to the end of eternity (you know what I mean), we won't be done. Of course, the real goal is not to wait until we're there to get to know Him. I'm not sure I'll ever understand this chapter: I'm just a creature after all. But it's in looking at Christ that we become like Him (2 Corinthians 3:18). So maybe the point isn't understanding, but just in looking and enjoying.

Audacity

I've been considering faith of late. We use the word "faith" a lot these days, and it seems to mean a whole lot of nothing. The Bible uses the word in two ways: it uses "the faith" to mean the truth we have received, but more commonly "faith" is a synonym for "belief".

Faith is a funny thing: we all believe all sorts of things we can neither prove nor really understand. I was talking to an adolescent boy recently who was telling me that the speed of light is 186,282 miles per second. I told him that he accepts this as fact solely on faith; he didn't agree with me at first, so I asked him how he would go about measuring the speed of light. He very quickly saw my point.

Scripture talks about faith a great deal. One of my favourite verses is Romans 4:5,

but to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness (JND)

This verse certainly equates faith with believing. But more than that, it tells us the value of faith lies in who is being believed. Notice the focus of the verse: we're not told what the person believes, but whom the person believes. I think my good friend Epimenos said something along those lines once.

Really Romans 4:5 is an audacious verse. It says something that I would never dare to say, except that God said it first: there's nothing you can do to please God except take Him at His word. Ultimately that's the Gospel, God doesn't want you to be good or act better... He just wants you to believe Him. This is what we mean when we say "justification by faith alone in Christ alone". There's nothing to do (as Epimenos says), only someone to believe.

But really Scripture is full of audacious statements. How about Acts 13:38 & 39

Be it known unto you, therefore, brethren, that through this man remission of sins is preached to you, and from all things from which ye could not be justified in the law of Moses, in him every one that believes is justified. (JND)

Now there's an audacious statement: take anything that the Law of Moses condemns then select from those the things for which a person's sentence is certain death: you end up with quite a list. There are some that don't seem like a big deal (collecting firewood on Saturday), but you get some pretty terrible ones too: murder, rape, incest, abduction, blasphemy--- the list goes on. But Scripture says that remission of sins--- the same sins for which there is no remedy in Moses' Law--- and everyone who believes is justified from them. This is a recurring theme, isn't it? God justifies freely the one who believes. Want to be forgiven of all your sins? Just believe God.

And notice there's no limit in this one: no hint that there's something you can do to really put yourself beyond what God will forgive. God will freely justify you from all things, if you believe Him.

Here's an audacious verse, 1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (JND)

Have you sinned? Of course you have! What sort of penance does God want? Why, He wants nothing at all except for you to agree with Him about it! He simply wants you to confess it, and you're forgiven. It's that simple: no tears, no promises to do better... you don't even have to beg for forgiveness. No, Scripture makes the audacious statement that when we confess, God forgives.

The next chapter goes even further:

My children, these things I write to you in order that ye may not sin; and if any one sin, we have a patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1, JND)

When does Christ represent our interests to God? When we sin. Does Christ begin to advocate for us when we repent? or when we confess? or when we clean up our act? Nope, He advocates for us when we sin. What if we sin and sin and sin and continue in it for years? Well, it seems to me like this verse would indicate that He advocates for us for years.

Hebrews is full of that sort of thing:

[Christ] being the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, having made by himself the purification of sins, set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high

Here's some more: Christ made purification for sins by Himself. How much help did He have? None. What's my part in all this? Nothing. There's some audacity.


I suppose it's the sheer audacity of Scripture that makes it so hard to believe sometimes. It's easy to believe I'm no good, it's pretty hard to believe God's willing to justify me without any effort on my part when I believe Him. It's easy to recognize the wickedness of things that I do and say and think, but awfully hard to believe the remedy is simply to agree with God about them.

And I suppose that's why so many people fall into the "try harder" trap. It's awfully hard to accept that trying harder is actually the problem... it's a lot easier to think we need to put in some work.


On the other hand, if faith is audacious then unbelief is arrogant. If the Bible really is the word of God--- if this book really is the actual words that God told men to write down--- then not believing them is much worse than audacity: it's outright arrogance. If the Bible declares that men (and women) are justified from all their sins solely by believing God, then it's staggering arrogance to try and add something more than that. To add the slightest human effort to that is not humility: it's actually saying that you know better than God.

And if we choose to ignore what the Bible says about sins: that God only wants us to agree with Him about them; then it's inconceivably arrogant to suggest that what God really wants is some penance or good works to help convince Him. As Paul said, let God be true and every man a liar.

And I suppose this would equally apply to those who on the one hand claim to believe God and on the other doubt what He said. There are some tough passages in Scripture; but to make light of God's words isn't humility, it's arrogance. It seems a lot of people are trying to excuse their disbelief as humility these days, but to question God's veracity isn't humility. Casting aspersion on God is purely arrogance.

G. K. Chesterton made some insightful comments about this arrogance-as-humility:

We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own devices. Disbelievers and cynics of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced.

It's striking how well he describes a world he didn't live to see...


"The just shall live by faith": Paul quotes Habakkuk three times in the epistles: Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38. The old "brethren" preachers would say that each epistle emphasizes a different word in that verse: Romans is all about the "just", Galatians is about "living", and Hebrews is all about "faith". I think there's a lot to that.

Ultimately, what God wants from beginning to end is for women and men to believe Him. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. What did God say that Abraham believed? I'm pretty sure it was merely that he would have a son; it's not so much what we believe, but whom we believe. The Lord Jesus told the crowds at the Sea of Galilee, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he has sent" (John 6:29, JND). What does God want us to do? He wants us to believe Him.

There's an audacity to faith. Hebrews 11 lists a whole bunch of people who believed, and then lists some of the consequences of their believing. They did some pretty audacious things. Some of the things they did were incredible, some seem surprisingly mundane. The value of what they did is not implicit in their actions: the value is that they stem from believing God.


I'm pretty sure if I walk out what Scripture actually teaches I'll be called a lot of things, and I'm sure arrogant is one of them. And I know that I've been far too timid when it comes to what God has said: I've let myself be cowed far too many times. So call me a hypocrite: but I can't help but think that audacity is infinitely better than arrogance.