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.

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.

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.