Monthly Archives: December 2009

The Future of Jesus 6: To three thousand-PLUS generations

2 Replies

First Post in Series

Second Post in Series

Third Post in Series

Fourth Post in Series

Fifth Post in Series

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

If you read this in Hebrew you discover that the word “generation” is not in the text.  But it is implied.  What is wrong with this translation, however, is that it fails to take into account the contrast.  God won’t let wickedness continue for more than three or four generations, but he will be faithful “to thousands of generations” of those who love God and keep his commandments.

And it is said explicitly elsewhere:

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

OK, this only mentions one thousand generations, but it too contrasts this with the quick destruction of the wicked.

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

According to Paul, once Jesus comes, there should be an explosion of grace and salvation relative to the past.  As he writes in Romans 5:

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

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

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

So when we read in Esther 8 about a world-wide vindication of God’s people resulting in massive proselytization “from India to Ethiopia,” we should realize that that was rather minimal compared to what is to happen now that Jesus has come and died and risen again.  God says he is faithful to a thousand generations, that leaves us with thirty-five thousand years left, if a generation is forty years.  God says he is faithful to thousands of generations, which leaves us with 115 thousand years left.  But I don’t want to be literalistic.  I am sure that, just as God owns the cattle on more than a thousand hills (Psalm 50.10), so he will actually be faithful to many more generations of believers than merely thousands.

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

How does that honor what God says?

Next Post in Series

Though not a Baptist, I think parts of this catechism are brilliant and beautiful

Leave a reply

Question 16: What special act of providence did God exercise towards man when he was first created?

Answer: When God had created man, he made a covenant with him that he should live and enjoy all the benefits of creation, but that he would die if he forsook the obedience that comes from faith. God commanded him not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thus forsake his child-like dependence upon God for all things.

Scripture: Genesis 2:15-17; Galatians 3:12; Romans 5:12.

Question 17: Did our first parents continue in the glad obedience for which they were created?

Answer: No, but desiring to be like God, our first parents forsook the obedience of faith, ate of the forbidden tree, sinned against God, and fell from the innocence in which they were created.

Scripture: Genesis 3:1-7; Ecclesiastes 7:29; Romans 5:12.

via A Baptist Catechism :: Desiring God.

Dare we hope that the future of Jesus is getting through?

Leave a reply

As a 6-year-old growing up at a time when Hal Lindsey’s “Late Great Planet Earth” was holding sway in Southern Baptist churches, Jerry Johnson was fascinated by the talk of end times.

He later earned three theological degrees that prepared him for service at Boyce College, Criswell College and his current role as academic dean at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, but Johnson still points to that early interest in eschatology as sparking his own desire to profess faith in Christ two years later at age 8.

A few decades later co-authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins provided their interpretation of end times through the popular “Left Behind” novels.

Today, younger generations are exchanging the doctrine of last things as viewed by novelists and their fundamentalist forbearers for what some of them prefer to describe as Kingdom-oriented living. Are they reacting against popular depictions of end times and what some described as the pessimism of dispensationalism or developing a more biblical interpretation of what the Kingdom entails?

Unlike their parents, many evangelicals in Generations X and Y (born between 1965-1976 and 1977-2002, respectively) are throwing their energies into community projects and Kingdom causes without explicitly connecting them to the eschaton.

But there is disagreement among those the Southern Baptist TEXAN interviewed about whether this represents a lack of interest in last things among the young or simply a rejection of “pop eschatology.”

Read the rest at: Baptist Press – END TIMES: Is there a generational gap? – News with a Christian Perspective.

Stacking mystery and/or revelation in Paul

Leave a reply

Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations/Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. (Romans 16.25-27)

For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. (Eph 3)

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 1-2)

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. (Galatians 1)

…in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we [Jews] have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we [Jews] who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you [Gentiles] also, when you [Gentiles] heard the word of truth, the gospel of your [Gentile] salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our [both] inheritance until we [both] acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

A sin like Adam’s

Leave a reply

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

Adam sinned by seizing forbidden fruit in the middle of the sancturary, in a special, land, in the world (Genesis 2-3).

Once he was cast out there was no way to commit that sin.  It was impossible.  Perhaps attacking the cherubim might count, but we have no such record.

But on Sinai God gave the Law which refers not only to the decalogue but to the Tabernacle that housed the decalogue.  The Tabernacle was placed in a special land in the world.

So now Israel could trespass like Adam had.

The sin “not counted where there is no law” is a relative statement–the equivalent of sinning not like the transgression of Adam.  The sin of the Gentiles were not as serious as the sins that were, as it were, in God’s face.

Machen’s Warrior Children could be cut off

Leave a reply

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

via Passage: Romans 11.17-24 (ESV Bible Online).

This passage deal with apostates from the covenant.  As such, while it was historically about unbelieving Jews and believing Gentiles, it should be applied to the way growing confessional Evangelicals treat denominations now compromised with various forms of liberalism.

Paul is talking to some people about how they have treated N. T. Wright.

John Piper on the Gracious Law

1 Reply

The Law Is Fulfilled by the Obedience of Faith

So the first point in our theology of the law was that love fulfills the law. The second point was that love is the outworking of faith. And the third point was that, therefore, the law itself does not demand meritorious works, but only the obedience which comes from faith. The fourth point follows naturally, namely: we must therefore obey (or fulfill) the OT commandments the same way we must obey the NT commandments—not to win God's favor, but because we already depend on his free grace and trust that his commands will lead to full and lasting joy. Of course since Christ has come and fulfilled the sacrificial side of the OT (1 Corinthians 5:7), and has declared all foods clean (Mark 7:19), and has founded a new people of God which is not a national or ethnic group, many of the OT commandments do not apply to us (e.g., dietary laws, laws about sacrifices, laws pertaining to political organizations and national action). But vast portions of the OT describe dimensions of obedience which are true for God's people in any age.

Romans 8:3, 4 teaches that the law itself is powerless to produce this kind of obedience. The letter kills; it is the Spirit that gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). Therefore, God sent Christ to atone for sin (Romans 8:3), that he might pour the Holy Spirit into our hearts, “in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:4). Thus Paul teaches that we should not leave the law behind, not reject the law for something else, but fulfill the law in the power of the Holy Spirit through faith which works itself out in love.

We Should Delight in God's Law and Sing of Its Value

In conclusion, then, the points are these: first, the law is fulfilled in us when we love our neighbor as ourselves. Second, love is the outworking of genuine, saving faith. Third, therefore, the law did not teach us to try to produce meritorious works, but only taught us to trust the gracious God of the exodus and to live out the obedience of faith. Fourth, therefore, the Mosaic covenant is not fundamentally different from the Abrahamic and New Covenants, for we should obey the commandments of all three from the very same motive—not to win God's favor, but because we already depend on his free grace and trust that his commands will lead to full and lasting joy. The final point, then, is that we should delight in God's law, meditate on it day and night (Psalm 119:97), and sing of his value to all generations (Psalm 19:7-14).

Read it all at: Why the Law Was Given :: Desiring God Christian Resource Library.

As I said, John Piper has done some excellent work.

RePost: my last article for Ligonier Minstries’ Tabletalk magazine

3 Replies

Originally posted on 7/30/2007.

Title: HIStory

Column: A Pastor’s Perspective

Date: Don’t have that written down on my copy.  Sometime between around 1999 to 2000.

Magazine: Ligonier Ministries’ TableTalk

Quick! What’s the basic message of the Bible? Summarize it in as few words as possible and say what first comes to mind.

Here’s how I would answer the question:

Boy meets girl.

No, I am not joking. We see it in the happy ending of Revelation, which shows us a wedding between Christ and the church and tells us that they live happily ever after. We see it in Adam and Eve all the way back in Genesis 2, which–as Paul tells us in Ephesians 5–refers fundamentally to Christ and the church. When we read in Luke 2 of how the Spirit will overshadow Mary, we realize that the description of the Spirit hovering over the waters in Genesis 1 involved the same theme. From beginning to end , this theme of boy meets girl pervades all of the Bible.

Twice in Genesis, once in Exodus, and once in an incident reported in both Joshua and Judges, we see a man coming together with his wife in association with a well or spring of water. Abraham’s servant meets Rebekah, the future wife of his master Isaac, at a well. She gives him a drink and waters his camels, demonstrating that God has chosen her to be the bride. Jacob meets the shepherdess Rachel at a well. He rolls away the stone that is blocking the spring and then waters all her flock. Moses meets his future wife Zipporah at a well. He defends her and her sisters (who all “just happen” to be shepherdesses, just like Rachel was) from bullying shepherds, then waters their flock. Caleb offers his daughter Achsah to the man who defeats the Canaanites in Kirjath Sepher.  Othniel captures the city and wins the bride. In receiving her, he also gains some land grants from her father. Due to her petitioning her father, the grant is expanded to include springs of water.

So when Jesus meets a woman at a well, in Samaria, what are they going to talk about? Even if you have never read John 4, the answer should be inescapable. When Jesus meets this woman at a well, they are going to discuss her marital status. Indeed, Jesus rescues her from a much more dangerous threat than bullying shepherds.

There is much else to support this basic biblical theme. Space would fail if I were to mentions the Song of Solomon, the role of Wisdom in the book of Proverbs, and the way Proverbs culminates with the portrayal of the ideal wife. Neither could I list here all the times Jerusalem or Israel is called God’s wife, setting us up for the identity of the church as the bride of Christ.

There are two things we have to keep in mind if we are going to understand the Bible as God’s literary masterpiece. First of all, we must keep in mind the doctrine of providence: God is in complete control of everything that happens in history. As we read about the events recorded in the Bible, we must apply this doctrine by bearing in mind that not only what God is said to have done in these events, but also the events themselves, are part of His message. God could have brought about Jesus’ meeting with the woman at the well in some other place, but he predestined it to take place there. It is not simply what Jesus said that reveals god, but the entire situation in which Jesus acts.

Second of all, we must keep in mind the doctrine of inspiration. Every word, every jot and tittle of Scripture, is the very Word of God. It is not merely the overarching truths that are inspired but the words used to express them. With the woman at the well, John could have summarized what Jesus said about the Spirit without quoting the metaphor of water or mentioning the well where He spoke. He could have overlooked what Jesus said about her marital history. But by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John set down those statements.

If we remember these twin truths, we should be able to navigate between two common errors. Many conservative evangelicals, who (rightly) affirm the inerrancy of the scriptural record of events, treat the events themselves as virtuously meaningless. The fact that the same things keep happening is simply ignored. Liberals, on the other hand, sometimes do much better at seeing the meaning in events, but they treat the Scriptures as a fictionalized account that cannot be trusted for historical veracity. For conservatives, the woman at the well really happened, but her encounter with Jesus is important only in that it gave Jesus a chance to say some things He could have said almost anywhere else. For liberals, the woman at the well fits nicely into the themes and theology of the Bible, but her encounter with Jesus probably never really happened. Rather, it is the work of a novelist.

But if we acknowledge that God is the great novelist, then we need never choose between meaning and truth. God is more creative than any human being and can make His novel work better than any merely human book. But God is also all-powerful and sovereign over history. Thus, God can make history be His novel. Therefore, He can make a truthful Bible work better than fiction, even while remaining completely truthful.

As characters in God’s novel, we usually don’t see how our problematic lives can possibly be leading to the kind of tidy plot resolutions that we find so satisfying in a narrative. But the Bible can function as a corrective to our lack of faith. As we see what a well-woven tale the Bible is, how it is all true, and what its story is about, we can believe that our own stories will make sense because they are tied to that story. We have to trust the Novelist to finish His work and vindicate His graciously chosen protagonists. Ultimately, He is going to win the girl.

John Piper on Romans 3.25-26

2 Replies

whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood through faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

This is a pretty amazing argument.

I would insist that God’s righteousness that obligates him to save his people and fulfill his promise to save the world cannot be divorced from his righteous opposition to sin (though I’m not impressed with the insistence on the divine egotism Piper likes so much).  After all, how can God promise to save from sin if he was not opposed to sin?

But what is amazing is that Piper gets so detailed in arguing for a consistent definition while he actually wants to completely flip definitions within a paragraph.  Here is the text:

But now the God’s Righteousness has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— God’s Righteousness through faith in/the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood through faith/faithfulness. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

I have used the ESV with some interpretive options given in italics.  I changed the ESV’s odious paraphrase “to be received by faith” back to “through faith.”  I suspect that Paul is saying that God’s righteousness is demonstrated in the faithfulness of Jesus in providing propitiation and redemption, and that thus “through faithfulness” is a statement that the propitiation came about through God’s or Jesus’ faithfulness.

But here is Piper’s understanding:

But now the righteousness imputed by God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness imputed by God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood through faith. This was to show God’s unswerving commitment to uphold his own glory, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his unswerving commitment to uphold his own glory at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Piper’s done great work in the Bible.  This is not an instance of such.