Monday, March 11, 2024

The Parable of the Sower, Matthew 13

 Mt. 13


A.) Seed by the wayside

B.) Seed on stony places

C.) Seed among thorns


C’.) Some a hundredfold 

B’.) Some sixty

A’.) Some thirty


Jesus is emphasizing the antithesis here and throughout the chapter, between those of His Kingdom and those of the wicked one, those who are righteous and those who are evil, those bear fruit and those who do not, those who persevere in faith and those who fall away. But vss. 8 and 23 only make sense when seen as mirrors of the three types of people who do not persevere in faith in the first part of each section (vss. 3-8 & 18-23). The focus is on how far each category of person progresses in relation to the word of the kingdom, i.e. the gospel.


Jesus’ movement through this section echoes an often repeated flow one sees in the Psalms: the wicked and their behavior, followed by the righteous and their behavior in contrast.


And the application? Jesus gives a narrow application within the context of the parable itself. Those multitudes to whom he spoke were those who heard the word of the kingdom, and did not understand it (vss. 13 & 19). Jesus contrasts them here specifically with His disciples (vss. 11, 16-17). More broadly, it applied to all those of Israel who would not receive Christ and His kingdom, paving the way for the end of the Old Covenant and the destruction of Israel in 70 AD, as prophesied and prefigured in the Old Testament. As such, this passage continues what we see throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Israel’s rejection of Jesus. The movement, in other words, is from Old Covenant to New Covenant, Israel to Church, “this age” to “the age to come”.


But there is an even broader application to be made, as emphasized later in Romans and Hebrews. The warning is given to all those of the kingdom, both Jew and Gentile: only those who bear fruit and persevere will be saved. True faith always produces faithfulness.

Friday, November 10, 2023

Perseverance in Hebrews

A friend on Facebook raised the question of whether Eternal Security/Perseverance of the Saints is something new to the New Covenant and therefore foreign to the Old. But this seems clearly to contradict the central point of the Book of Hebrews.


The large point of the Book of Hebrews is that the New Covenant is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant by Christ, and is therefore better. And for that reason, the warnings against apostasy are intensified, not lessened. Eternal security is always conditioned on eternal election manifested in true faith accompanied by faith-filled works. The whole point is that there is no difference between the two covenants in this. Those who persevere are saved, those who don’t, aren’t saved, and won’t be saved.


Wherever salvation exists, Perseverance must exist as well, the flip side of it being, as Dr. Sproul put it, God preserving us or persevering with and in us. One might argue that, based off of the failure of the Old Covenant, there was less persevering during the Old. This is a point of those holding to New Covenant Theology, and it is to a degree a fair point. The Old was insufficient in itself, not having the work of Christ, but merely foreshadowing. But in the ebbs and flows of Israel’s relationship with God, we see countless of those in whom salvation was real. This is the focus of Hebrews 12:1-13:1, after all. Abraham, as Paul says, was justified by faith, as were all those after him walking in his faith. Salvation is always at its core the same - to persevere is to be saved.

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

The Israel That Isn’t Israel

 Dispensationalism has always taught that Israel cannot be reassembled until the Church is raptured, because this is still the Dispensation of the Church, and God will not deal with Israel during this dispensation. God is working through the Church alone right now. None of the prophecies that supposedly still apply to Israel will be fulfilled during this age. And so all those verses that Dispies continue to meme out about Israel? They are irrelevant, according to their own system of interpretation. What everybody keeps calling “Israel” isn’t Biblical Israel, per Dispensationalism. This is a basic teaching of the system.


This “Israel” that’s been gathering since 1948? It isn’t Israel.


I find it strange that people who have sat under this teaching for decades still don’t understand this. But often I find even the pastors and teachers teaching it don’t understand it either.

Monday, September 18, 2023

Living in the New Jerusalem

 If we’re currently living in Babylon rather than Jerusalem, then it’s amazing how well the Gospel, Scripture, and the Church have spread throughout Babylon over the past two thousand years. I would have expected more failure.


It’s John MacArthur syndrome, a disconnect between soteriology and eschatology. It’s acting as if Total Depravity was the beginning and the end of the thing, and ignoring the other four points of Calvinism.


“All authority in heaven and on earth have been given to Me.” It’s not as if He was vague in that. Unbelief, faithlessness, pessimillennialism, anti-intellectualism, sloth, laciviousness, plain old erroneous theology - that’s what has brought us the failure we see. But this generation’s failure won’t stop God’s final conquest.


When Moses lowered his arms, the battle turned against Israel. But when he obeyed God and kept his arms raised, Israel saw victory. Stop lowering your arms. Stop expecting failure. This world belongs to Jesus. He bought it with His blood. Act like it.

Monday, September 11, 2023

9/11 and Our Continuing Apostasy

 Immediately after 9/11, the churches in America were flooded with people seeking answers. Special prayer services were held. But since then, the churches are more empty than ever. We’ve opened the doors to unrestrained immigration. Drugs pour across the border and usage is out of control. Human trafficking continues. We have Muslim communities, mosques, the Islamic call to prayer going out multiple times a day in places in the West, and Muslim politicians. And we have innumerable lives permanently changed or ended due to a twenty year war we lost after we simply walked away from it, leaving millions of dollars of equipment behind.


No matter how much we remember, we seem to have learned nothing. We have not repented and returned to the Lord.

Thursday, August 03, 2023

Justified by Works

 “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” - Matthew 12:33-37



The latter half of the passage is especially interesting, in that it ties justification, works, and the final judgment together. The word for “justification” here is the same as in Romans as well as James. The Dispensational teaching of there being two (or more) final judgments, one for all people and one just for the Church according to works, is contradicted by this passage. That good and evil works are in view is clear, as is the fact that there are only two groups to consider, those with an inherent righteousness and those without. There is no third, “Carnal Christian” class to take into account. This judgment according to works is also not one that merely involves those who are saved. Some of the people here will be declared righteous, and some will be condemned, those who are evil.


As echoed in James, the internal state of the person as well as their works are taken into account in God’s judgment of them. But, in conjunction with Paul in Romans (Rom. 2:5-16), the declaration to the righteous here is the final declaration of justification, the end result of God’s original declaration of justification in time to the individual by grace through that person’s faith (Romans 4). God begins by regenerating the man dead in sin and gifting him with faith. And in response to that faith, God declares the man just, based on the righteousness of Christ alone. In so doing, God declares His own promise and intention to make that man into what he is not - a truly righteous man, filling the role of ruling the world which God originally intended for Adam (Romans 4:13-25, 8:18-25). It is the man justified by faith in his life who will be justified at the judgment at the end of this world.

Cultural Ignorance is Bliss

 Was listening to a talk by Kevin Vanhoozer in which he mentioned the need for the Christian to try to be culturally literate. So, I started scrolling through the TV and came across American Idol.


Look, I’m getting old. At this point, and in light of the state of our culture, I think I’d rather remain culturally illiterate from here on out. Somebody let me know if an actual enactment of Red Dawn happens or something. I’ll need to stock up on canned goods so I can survive while rewatching episodes of Andy Griffith.

Saturday, July 22, 2023

Transcending the Moment

Controversial personalities are usually temporary in their fame. Ten years from now it is unlikely anybody will be talking about Andrew Tate, and the “controversy” over a Jason Aldean song will be long past. Even within the realm of culture, aim for those things that are long lasting, those things that show permanence. If people are still listening to J.S. Bach after hundreds of years, then you should probably be listening to J.S. Bach from time to time. It is those things that change people for good generation after generation that are the most worth pursuing.