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.

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.