The Point of Salvation

 The point I’ve been trying to make in some of the recent things I’ve posted is that questions on race aren’t somehow subsidiary to the matter of salvation. Rather, for Scripture, the tearing down of divisions and the unification of all peoples (and of all creation) in Christ is central to the Gospel. For Scripture, it is the point. Sin separates, and God in Christ undid that separation, in a project that will carry on until the resurrection of the dead. This is why Paul handles Romans 1-3 the way he does. Paul in Galatians is not merely concerned with either salvation or “table fellowship” (contra Wright), but both, because the two cannot be separated. This is not universalism. Some will be saved, and some will not. But the Kingdom of God will be made up of those from every tongue, tribe, and nation. God is saving the world - that is the Gospel.

“Natural Affections”

 Matt. 10:34-37. “Natural affections” are good, but they were intended by God for this life. He regularly upends natural affections throughout Scripture and in this life, and His doing so is a foretaste of the Kingdom. It is a breaking into this age of the age that is to come. All things and people are God’s, and we are meant to hold on to them loosely. Rejoice in your natural relations as His gifts, but understand that many of them will be temporary and will not carry on into eternity. 

The End Goal

 Eschatology and Soteriology are not separate in Scripture, in contrast with our Modernistic tendency to try to divide things into neat, distinct categories. Rather, eschatology is the consummation of God’s plan to save the world. 

If the Church up until now had more consistently taken seriously Paul’s references to “the Jew first, and also to the Greek”, then it wouldn’t have struggled over why it appeared he took a drastic turn in subject matter in Romans 9-11. We would have understood Romans rather as having a singular, flowing argument about God’s plan for the world.

Our ignorance of the Old Testament hasn’t helped matters any.

Matter and the Beloved Son

 Matter is good, and material things are good. We know this because God declared them to be good when He created them. And even now, though corrupted by sin, creation at its core is still good. Contrary to what is sometimes conveyed by often well-meaning people, capitalism and commerce in themselves aren’t the problem - in fact, they are good. The problem isn’t with stuff - it’s our attitude, and what we do with the stuff. “Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”   In our sinfulness, we are ungrateful for what we receive, and we take what we’re given and use it sinfully, rather than for the glory of God. The answer lies neither in rejecting material things, nor in sinful indulgence, but in receiving with gratitude, giving with generosity, and in living in holiness. The God who created the world incarnated His Son in matter, in human flesh, to redeem us from our thanklessness and materialism. We refused and mishandled His gifts, and He still redeemed us by giving His greatest gift.

Campolo and Lindsey

 Within the span of one week, two of the most influential American Evangelicals of the late twentieth century, Tony Campolo and Hal Lindsey, have died. And almost nobody is talking about it. Your life is a vapor. How many teachers have I sat under whose names I will never remember? And what of all the authors of books I’ve read whose names I couldn’t tell you now? Your influence might carry on, but you will be forgotten by most of the people you meet. But God will remember you, whether for blessing or judgment. That’s the one thing you can be certain of.

Everything in Christ

 The divisions created at Babel were meant to be temporary from the beginning, and from the moment of Israel’s Exodus they began to be erased. 

When Israel left Egypt, they were accompanied by a “mixed multitude” of people, those who were not of Israel (Exodus 12:38).

From the Exodus on there were always Gentiles who, seeing the God of Israel was the one true God at work in the world, sought to join themselves to Israel and her God. “The terror of you has fallen upon us,” Rahab told the two spies. The nations knew that the one true God was Yahweh, because of the mighty works He did for Israel. As long as Israel remained faithful, God worked victory for them, and the nations could see it.

Rahab and Ruth were both in the lineage of our Lord. Racial segregation was never the point of God’s setting apart of Israel.

By the end of Israel’s exile, the lineage of some had become so lost that they could not tell for sure that they were of Israel (Nehemiah 7:61-64). Any racial unity that existed in Israel was gradually being torn apart by the sovereign hand of God Himself. 

Through the mouths of the prophets, God called the nations to account for their sins. This was in preparation for the coming of the Messiah.

The goal from the beginning was not that the Gentiles might merely “eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” (Mt. 15:27), but that all the nations might sit with Israel and feast together at the table of the Lord. All things and peoples were to be gathered together into Christ (Eph. 1:10).

The Antioch Declaration

 I’ve read the Antioch Declaration. I’ve also listened to Jon Harris’s podcast on it. I understand some people looking in from the outside and not understanding all of it. But for those roughly within the Reformed world who have been following the conversations on theological, cultural, and political matters the past few years, I don’t understand what is ambiguous about it. And when you’re talking about a whole host of young men within this movement, I don’t see why individuals need to be named. 

As a side note, in the Reformed world we have a history of seeing the Gospel as categories of soteriology within systematic theology - justification, sanctification, etc. While those things are there in Scripture, they are how the Gospel is applied to individuals. The Gospel itself is God saving the world - not just Jew, but Gentile as well - through the work of Christ. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself”. The Gentile is brought to God in unity with the Jew - see Isaiah 40-66, and Ephesians 2. This is the Gospel. Therefore, trying to set back up barriers between people groups on the basis of race or ethnicity is a denial of the Gospel. No amount of appealing to covenant or cherry picking verses from Scripture is going to change that.

Arminian Man’s Sovereign Will

 The Arminian idea of Election: God looks down through the corridor of time, and sees that one day certain people will choose Him. And because of their choice of Him, He in turn chooses them.

I understand why a person might want to believe that. There was a time when I would have thought this was true. The problem with that, though, is that there isn’t a verse or passage in Scripture that suggests it. Scripture says God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. And we are told that it was according to “the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:4-5), not according to our choosing of Him first. In Romans 9:11 we are told that Isaac, who is set forward as an example of salvation, was chosen before he could do any good or evil.

Then there are the attempts to suggest election is to sanctification or service. The problem with that, though, is that Scripture never separates these things from each other, but always treats them all as a part of the complete package I what it is to be saved. The elect man is justified, and sanctified, and serves God and neighbor. If one of these things is missing, they are all missing.

And so if we are to believe that we are chosen on the basis of our choice, it is an odd thing that God’s Word seems to go to such great lengths to suggest the exact opposite.

Herod the Pretender

 So why does the account of the beheading of John the Baptist sit where it does within the Gospel of Mark? From the beginning, Mark presents Jesus as a man of action. He enters the synagogues, and he goes about teaching and healing and feeding the people. In our one image of Herod in this passage, we see him as a man of sloth and indulgence. Whereas Jesus is a healer, Herod is a murderer. Whereas Jesus feeds the people, Herod sets up a feast for the rich and powerful. Whereas Jesus fears no man for the sake of truth, Herod is willing to go against the truth for fear of those at the feast. When the people came to Jesus, he had compassion on them, seeing that they were without a shepherd. Herod, who should have been the shepherd-king in the image of David prior to Bathsheba, was neglecting the people. Jesus instead had come as the true shepherd-king, the heir of the throne of David. He was Israel’s true rightful ruler.

Ephesians and Dominion

 Paul’s emphasis in Ephesians on Jesus’s kingship over all things, originating from His throne in heavenly places, makes sense in light of Paul’s status as a prisoner of and in Rome. The one true King is Jesus, and Caesar owes Him his allegiance. Psalms 2 and 110 loom in the background of the letter.

It’s worth noting how Paul continued working to take dominion for Christ, even though he was in prison (Phil. 4:22). The fact that Paul was Christ’s prisoner was more powerful than any claim Rome tried to lay on him (Eph.3:1, 4:1). And the same is true for all of us bound to one another in Him in the “bond (fetters) of peace” (4:3). Jesus ascended into the heavenly places and took captivity captive (4:8). Even though he was physically bound in Rome, Paul was still truly bound only to Christ, and thereby free from all others. No matter who we find ourselves “bound” to, Jesus alone is King, and we serve Him alone.

As a side note, I understand James Jordan’s idea of Ephesians 6 being about the High Priest, but I am not convinced by it. There’s no doubt that worship is warfare. But what is described in the passage is broader than corporate worship and applies to the whole Christian life. Paul’s emphasis in the letter is the working of Christ’s kingship first of all in the Church, but then also spreading beyond the walls of the local church building and beyond the relationships between members of the Church (chs. 5 & 6). What all believers are called to is spiritual warfare for Christ’s kingdom, everywhere and anywhere they go.

Jesus and the Exodus

 Matthew 8:18-27 is a repetition of Israel’s crossing the Red Sea in Exodus 14. This had never occurred to me before today. You have the same reticence and fear expressed in the Matthew passage as you do from Israel in the Exodus passage. In both passages, God is leading his people across the Red Sea. In both passages, God controls the sea to create a safe passage for them. Jesus is Yahweh, leading his disciples, who are Israel. And in both passages, Yahweh’s mighty power in spite of his people’s lack of faith is displayed. Jesus is the same God who saved his people out of Egypt.

Biblical Male Headship

 With regard to the ongoing debate over “patriarchy”: if one wants to quibble over the term, then use another term. Call it what I was taught growing up. Call it “Male Headship”. It simply goes back to the Biblical teaching that godly men are intended by God to be the ones leading in the Church, in the family, and in the broader society.

Any attempt to subvert this teaching using the Deborah episode in Judges ignores the broader context of Judges itself, that Israel was in a state of being given over to the consequences of their sin for failing to take dominion as God had commanded them. Rather than subverting the doctrine of Male Headship, the Deborah episode confirms it and reinforces it.

We are in the state we are in in America today because we all - both men and women - have failed to obey God in this area. And no amount of trying to justify feminism or trying to make it work is going to change that. Society and its relationships will continue to suffer so long as we keep trying to do things our way rather than God’s.

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.