Reflections on Isaiah 53:6,10

T.U.L.I.P.

In an effort to set up my thoughts and reflections on Isaiah 53, I am going to provide some of the context around what led me both to study it, wrestle with the seeming paradox in it, and finally come to my personal conclusion as to how we should understand the Isaiah 53:6 in the context of the rest of the chapter.

Even before I really made a personally motivated effort to memorize Scripture on my own, I knew these verses. Now, I may not have remembered the exact reference right away, and I knew what verse 5 much better than verse 6, but I could come close to quoting these verses for you. And it was with this in mind that I planned to study Isaiah 53 to teach in Sunday school. In the past I’ve spent weeks on studying a single chapter, but because I didn’t have that luxury this time, I planned on briefly looking at some of less familiar parts of this Messianic prophesy. My goal was to simply wet the appetites of the class into looking back at this passage with a revitalized sense of awe that may have been diminished because its familiarity.

In my grand design, I wanted to end the last few minutes of the class dealing with verse 6 and how we should understand what “the iniquity of us all to fall on Him” means. I had planned the majority of my time with looking at Christ as the once for all sacrifice as contrasted to the ongoing priestly sacrifices, what “His offspring” and “prolong His days” (v.10) means, or even how it is so important to note that “the Lord was pleased to crush Him” and “if He would render Himself (as) a guilt offering” (v.10) showed both the willingness of the suffering servant and the pleasure of the Father.

We began by reading 52:13 – 53:12 out loud, and when we were done, I asked what impressed them or stuck out to them from what we had just read. Now, I thought that someone would bring up something form verse 10, or something relating to the silent lamb before the slaughter (v. 7) and that is where we would begin the lesson. It was a good idea until the first, and only, person to answer my question referred to verse 6 and marveled at how awesome it was that Christ bore all of the sins for everyone whoever lived.

Now I had a problem. This is exactly the issue and mindset that I wanted to deal with, somewhat briefly, at the end of the class. Primarily I wanted to deal with it briefly because of the potential powder keg that discussing my conclusions on this verse might lead to. What I mean is this: at this time, I don’t necessarily believe that Isaiah 53 teaches the doctrine of particular redemption (limited atonement), but I believe that the correct understanding of it would lead one to think along those lines. And from my experience in preaching anything that touches on the doctrine of election, much less on the doctrine of limited atonement, the reaction could be less than hospitable and even cause enough discord as to motivate people to leave the fellowship of our local body. This is not to say that I will not say what the Word is saying in a particular text or situation, but I am very aware that I must be delicate because it is not my place to be so “controversial” as to motivate people to leave be cause of me.

So when the observation was made that this verse said that all people had their sins placed on Christ, and He paid for them all, I reluctantly took the carrot and decided to begin to look into what this verse means in the context of the rest of Isaiah 53. So without further ado, here are my reflections on Isaiah 53:6 when taken in context (specifically verses 11 and 12).

“⁵ But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being {fell} upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. ⁶ All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.” (Isaiah 53:5,6)

When looking at these verses, my initial gut reaction is to take them to mean exactly what the words plainly say. Namely, that Jesus bore the punishment for everyone’s sins to bring us all to peace with God because everyone of us have gone astray, but God has caused all of our iniquities to fall on Jesus. I don’t think that I go too by saying that this is the general understanding of the majority of Christians when looking at this verse in the same way. I don’t know if I heard this from someone, or if is simply what I have thought in the past, but these two verses come across almost as the equivalent of Romans 3:23 in the Old Testament. In other words, just as Romans 3:23 (built on the context of Romans 1-3) shows the universality of the sinfulness of man, this verse is portrayed as doing the same thing in the Old Testament.

I had believed that exact thing until studying this chapter for this lesson. It was not verses 5 and 6 that caused me to be up way to late struggling with how to understand it, but it was when looking at these verses in light of verses 11 and 12 that I almost pulled my hair out.

“⁶ All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.

¹¹ As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see {it and} be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.” (Isaiah 53: 6,11 emphasis mine)

The language of “all”, “our”, and “many” may have caused some initial confusion, but in the past I had just understood them to be referring to different groups and had no problem with that. All people are sinful but only those who have faith in Christ will be justified. There is no problem with this because that is the glorious truth of the gospel. However, the problem that I encountered came from fact that the context indicates that those whose sins Christ bears will be justified, but if all people’s iniquities fall on Christ then all would be justified. In other words, then all people everywhere would be saved. Not that I would oppose universalism if the Bible taught it, but it blatantly does not. So how can I understand this in context?

Even though we understand that we are justified and connected to the death and resurrection of Christ through faith, Isaiah doesn’t address that. He simply states that “the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him” and that the “Servant justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities.” So, as I understand it, whether the “all” of verse 6 and the “many” of verse 11 refer to the exact same people or not, neither can be referring to all people of all time because the Bible is clear that many people will be eternally condemned.

My concern was not that this text somehow teaches universalism, my struggle was how to understand this passage consistently so that it said what I know the Bible teaches elsewhere. And the first thing that I was drawn too was the pronouns used throughout the chapter. Isaiah uses “our” (1,4,5), “we ourselves” (4), “we” (5), “all of us” (6), “each of us” (6), “us all” (6), “my people” (8), “many” (11,12), “their” (11) to describe those to whom the action of the Suffering Servant relates.

At first, the “my people” from verse eight seems to be the best clue as to who Isaiah is writing about here. I believe based on Isaiah 52:14 as well as 53:8 that “my people” refers to the nation of Israel, God’s covenant people. But that still doesn’t resolve the “all” verses the “many” problem that we get from verse 6 and 11. And unless “all” refers to all Israel and “many” refers to the number of descendants as related to the rest of humanity, I don’t think that identifying “my people” is the final key to unlocking the who’s who of Isaiah 53. And I say that because of what we know; we know that much of Israel is and was apostate, and we also know that salvation came to the gentiles in Christ. So, my dilemma continues.

After more searching and scouring of the passage for another clue as to what might be the best key for understanding the “many” against the “all” language, I reread and reread the chapter and surrounding context for some help. It wasn’t until after having read it many times that I again noticed that the first possessive pronoun used in chapter 53 was used in verse 1, and it was the word “our”.

“Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” (Isaiah 53:1)

I believe that it is this verse, this statement or lament of Isaiah, which gives the key to understanding and making sense of the rest of this chapter. And the question that I think is important is this: who is the “our” that proclaimed the message that was to be believed? This is not the nation, it cannot be. The nation rejected God and rebelled against the laws of God and of worshipping and following Him alone from the very Exodus from Egypt. Because of their constant rebellion and hard hearts, God sent prophets who were to call the nation back to the Lord. We also know that there were devout priests and other people who remained faithful to God during the rampant apostasy of their land (see 1 Kings 19:14-18).

It seems best to understand the possessive and inclusive pronoun “our” in verse 1 as well as “each of us” and “all of us” in verse 6 to refer to those people who were proclaiming the Word of the Lord. And for lack of a better way to categorize them, I’ll call them the prophets, even though this group would include more than those who wrote the prophetic books in the Old Testament. Isaiah wasn’t commenting on the general sin of Israel in verse 6, he was referring to the faithful group of prophets who proclaimed the message. Remember, this is the same Isaiah who lamented his own sinfulness before the throne of God,

“Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." (Isaiah 6:5)

If Isaiah is referring to those faithfully proclaiming the Word of the Lord to the nations when he says “all of us” and “each of us”, then who are the “many” in verse 11? It seems best to understand the “many” in God’s ultimate redemptive sense. In other words, it is not simply the faithful among the prophets of God to Israel and Judah that He will save, but He is the savior of the gentiles too. The prophets knew this well, and that is why Jonah fled; he did not want God to be merciful to the Ninevites, even though he knew that He would be.

So in this case, “many” is actually a larger group than “all of us” is. Everyone who has been justified by faith is included in the “many”, but only Isaiah’s contemporaries proclaiming the Word of the Lord at that time would be included in the “all of us”. I could even be convinced that “all of us” refers to all of the believers of the message, not just the proclaimers of the message, in Isaiah’s time and in all time. And in this case, the “all of us” would include the totality of those chosen by God, and the “many” would refer to their numerical value.

This understanding of who the various groups are allow us to interpret Isaiah 53 consistently in its context as well as in the broader context of the Bible’s teaching on salvation. All of those people who have their sins imputed to Christ will be justified by His righteousness, and there will be many people who come from every tribe, tongue, and nation who receive God’s gracious gift of salvation through Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria

Satan the Scriptures and Sound Doctrine (Part 2)

I decided to use the text of Matthew 4 for my most recent Awana council lesson. I really want the children (as well as adults) to get a better grasp of the Bible. But not only that, I want children and adults alike to know more reasons why we should know and love the Bible. And in an attempt to do that, I wanted to show that Satan knows the Scriptures well and he intentionally uses, abuses, and confuses them in an attempt to draw us into sin.

In order to illustrate this, I decided to look at Matthew 4 while cross-referencing it with Genesis 3. It seems to me that Satan accurately quotes the Psalms when he tempts Christ in Matthew 4 while he totally distorts and confuses God’s Word when he tempted Eve in Genesis 3. I believe that this gives us a glimpse of two different tactics that Satan uses when he attempts to deceive believers and non-believers alike who may have some knowledge of the Bible.

When dealing with Eve, the devil mis-referenced what God had told Adam in the previous chapter. Adam was commanded not to eat from only the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Satan’s question to Eve implied that God had restricted her enjoyment from the whole garden. But what makes the situation even worse is that Eve herself apparently didn’t know God’s command. She communicated that they had been commanded not to eat or even to touch that forbidden tree. And I cannot find a reference in Genesis 2 where God instructs Adam not to touch the tree, only not to eat from it. When you combine the fact that Satan twisted God’s words and cast doubt on what God had said with the fact that Eve didn’t know what God had indeed said, you have a recipe for confusion and sin.

I don’t think that this attack method is limited only to Eve’s singular situation. We can see so many people in modern Christendom (especially the emergent church) who want to converse about theology but usually they ask the same question from the garden, “has God indeed said…?” And more often than not, these conversations call into question the very explicit and foundational teachings of the Bible; the exclusivity of Christ in salvation, eternal punishment for the ungodly, and substitutionary atonement to name a few. Furthermore, proponents of the same types of “new” or “generous” orthodoxy (which many times is not orthodox at all) try to use Jesus’ words as the trump card to all other Scripture in an unfair way. If I were to say to some adherents to more emerging and inclusive theology that the Bible condemns homosexuality (which it does in Genesis, Leviticus, Romans, and Corinthians – among other places), the common retort is that Jesus didn’t say a word about homosexuality, therefore it must be acceptable. It is true that Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality that is recorded in the gospels or Acts, but He also didn’t say anything against raping your neighbor’s daughter. Is it fine to rape your neighbor’s daughter? Absolutely not! And the reason that it is not acceptable to rape is the same reason that it is not acceptable to have homosexual relations. The Bible clearly condemns rape and homosexuality regardless of the fact that Jesus didn’t comment on either. Don’t allow Satan to trick you with the logic used in this type of an argument and be led astray from the truth as so many of our contemporaries inside of Christendom are.

I actually think that it is easier to deal with this type of attack as opposed to the second of Satan’s revealed tactics. If someone, anyone, uses a Scripture to condone some action or belief but after simply looking up the verse I can tell that it has been violently altered (changed words, inserted words, removed words, etc.) so as to fit the promoted views, that is an easy enough Scriptural attack to deal with and then move on. But when ravenous false teachers quote Scripture to justify heresy or sin, it becomes a problem that is more difficult to deal with when they are not overtly changing and editing the wording of that verse. When tempting Christ, Satan accurately quoted (as far as I can tell) the words from Psalms 91:11,12 but he applied them in a completely unbiblical way. Jesus meets this attack head on and quotes Deuteronomy 6:16 declaring that no one puts God to the test, and this stops Satan in his tracks. In other words, no matter what Psalms 91:11,12 say, if you apply that in a way that contradicts the rest of the Bible, you’ve got your application all wrong.

Since no one has insight equal to that of Christ, I gave the children some advice to use in situations where something is being said or taught that just seems wrong but the person speaking seems to be accurately quoting a bible verse. The advice (I believe it originally came from the ministry Stand to Reason) is that Christians should not read a Bible verse. Don’t read a Bible verse? The point is not to tell people to ignore the Bible. The point is to admonish Christians not to read one single verse, but instead to read the context of that verse so that we can better discern the meaning of that specific verse. Sometimes that may mean reading only the paragraph or two surrounding the verse and sometimes you may need to read the whole chapter or more. And other times, you may just need to read other verses (and their context) that seem to say the same thing or something different in order to begin to grasp the overall meaning of what the particular verse in question has to say.

The single defense against false teaching is the same thing that is necessary for promoting true teaching and theology; The Word of God. Only by knowing what the Bible says and what God means by what He said in the Scriptures can we rightly understand anything about God. It is important to know and understand what God has spoken to us because without it, believers are almost as helpless as a blind man in a maze. We’re “almost” as helpless because believers have the Holy Spirit indwelling us in order to help us, but without the Word of God we don’t have anything solid by which to judge our feelings and thoughts or the teaching of others.

Satan the Scriptures and Sound Doctrine

⁵ Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, ⁶ and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, `HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU'; and `ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'" ⁷ Jesus said to him, "On the other hand, it is written, `YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'" (Matthew 4:5-7)

Scripture alone is the final voice in all things pertaining to godliness, theology, and anything else in life. As Christians, we must be humble enough to bow our own desires and thoughts to the truth of God’s Word. Everything, from how I raise my family to how I interact in my political world, should be guided from a thorough study of and implementation of the Word of God.

It is hard to find any example that better displays the supremacy of Scripture than the example of Christ being tempted by Satan in the desert. In the broader context, Jesus rebukes the devil and answers the temptations put before Him by quoting Scripture as well as simply commanding him. I have always found it interesting that Jesus didn’t simply command Satan not to tempt Him, but He quoted Scripture to stand firm against temptation.

But even more than that, even Satan quotes Scriptures in an effort to have God sin before him. We must never be foolish enough to think that just because someone quotes Scripture and sounds authoritative, that doesn’t mean that the message being conveyed is true. Whether you hear Scripture from a preacher, teacher, evangelist, or anyone else, don’t simply ingest, digest, and manifest what they are proclaiming. Satan and his slick salesmen are very keenly aware of what the Scriptures say. In fact, I have heard it said before that if Satan had true and uncontrolled power over the world that it would look cleaner and nicer, it would be full of smiling people who filled up church buildings on Sunday’s and Wednesdays. But the church buildings would not preach Christ aright.

Now, whether that is truly how the world would look or not, I think that it gives a glimpse at one of the most tragically effective deceptions that the devil is adept at using. Church without God, Jesus without the cross, and the Scriptures without their context all lead to an abysmal “gospel” that is truly no gospel.

We must not be lackadaisical in our vetting of the preaching and teaching of our ministers and lay-teachers, nor should we be casually tolerant anytime anyone throws out a Bible verse or a biblical cliché. “God helps those who help themselves.” What Bible verse is that? It’s not in the Bible, but if I had a nickel for every time that I heard someone use that phrase in reference to Christianity and the God of the Bible, I would have no small fortune.

One of the favorite Scriptures for non-Christians, pseudo-Christians, and Christians alike to quote is from Jesus’ words on the Sermon on the Mount, when referring to Matthew 7:1 they say, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” And when this verse is brought out, it is often used as an offensive weapon against those Christians who see sin in our midst, whether in ourselves or in others, and have the audacity to call sin “sin”. Or if a Christian calls attention to a self-styled Christian teacher or a professed believer and notes that this same person betrays that they are not born again based on their actions, this same verse is brought out as a cudgel to put down this kind of judgmental attitude.

I forget where I first heard the best fitting response to the abuse of the words of our Lord from Matthew 7, but I find it to be so refreshing and true. So the next time that you are rightly making an identification of something as sinful, evil, wicked or false and you are doing so while not being pharisaical and executing a sentence or punishment (excluding church discipline, of course) on that individual in the place of God Himself, you may want to remember this concise retort.

“You say, ‘Judge not lest ye be judged.’ But I say, ‘Twist not Scripture lest ye be like Satan.’” - Unknown

The Sound My Brain Made When It Melted…

One of the blessings of my job, other than the primary benefit of taking care of my family and allowing my wife to stay home with our kids, is the fact that I have the liberty to listen to pretty much whatever I want throughout the course of my day. For the first few years, my regular diet of audio intake was Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, and Joe Soucheray. In other words, I listened to a lot of conservative political talk radio. However, after the election of 2004, I became less and less satisfied with the content of the programs. My views on social, political, and moral issues are still very much the same, but I became increasingly unable to listen to Medved and Prager be very openly inclusivistic as it relates to their views on religion and God.

My growing dissatisfaction with political talk (of any stripe) came about because of a few contributing factors. The major one is that during that time my only real desired topic of conversation was quickly becoming Christ, the gospel, and the Bible. Again, not that politics are unimportant, but I felt that my time and energy would be used more effectively if they are not consumed by politics. Furthermore, I have a theory about general conversation and people’s willingness to listen at all. I believe that everyone in every relationship (whether it is a long time friend or someone you just met) has a certain degree of conversational “capital” that you can choose to spend in conversation with that other person. In other words, normal social niceness will allow you to bring up a subject or talk about things for a certain length of time even when the hearer is opposed to what they are hearing. So, if I used my conversational capital primarily discussing budgetary issues, immigration, the war in Iraq, abortion, poverty, taxes, or any other important issue (and they are important political and social issues), I would not have any left to spend on talking about the gospel, Christ, salvation, and eternity.

So while this transition in my own thoughts was occurring, I found a talk radio program called “Talk the Walk” on a local AM Christian station. This program had many focuses, but primarily it was on the proclamation of true doctrine (Theology Thursday’s), calling out false teachers (False Teacher Tuesday’s), and evangelism (Witness Wednesday’s). I came to greatly enjoy this show, even if I did not always agree 100% with the host or guests. But then, about two years ago, the program started to change a bit. I didn’t know why, but I believe in January of 2006 the program was taken off the air, and a newer show that is much less critical of modern Christendom has taken its place. “Talk the Walk” morphed into “Way of the Master Radio” that still has the same goals as the previous show, but with a different name and a sharper focus, primarily, on evangelism but without losing doctrinal clarity or calling out false teachers when they pop up.

However, this is not an article about Way of the Master Radio, but it is focused more on AM 980 KKMS and the show “KKMS Live – with Jeff and Lee”. “KKMS Live” was the show that replaced “Talk the Walk” on AM 980 KKMS and I didn’t listen to it a lot at first because the style was a bit different from what I was used to. My first real exposure to Jeff and Lee was at a John MacArthur conference in mid January of 2006, and I had no adverse thoughts about them because of this experience. However, since then, I have heard snippets and segments of their program and I have become increasingly uneasy with some of the programming choices that they are making and some of the theological views that they choose to give air time to in order to promote them. This was no where more profoundly evident than when I heard them interviewing Tony Campolo.

Tony has written a book recently (honestly I don’t know or really care what the title is), and he appeared on this show in order to promote this book. I will mostly quote what Tony had to say as my critique and the subject of contention that I have with the show and its hosts. In his book, Tony apparently talks a lot about different forms of prayer, and he encourages practicing them. One of the forms is called Lectio Divina, and Tony explained what that type of prayer is,

“Take a passage of Scripture, read it. Now close the Bible; be still and let the Spirit of God apply what you have just read to your own personal existential situation. Go to the Scriptures and there are two ways of reading them. One is the scholarly way. “What did Paul mean when he wrote these words? How do the people in the social context who receive these words understand them?” That’s’ the scholarly way, but there is another way of reading Scripture in which you read some Scriptures and say, ‘Ok Holy Spirit, what do you want to say to me through these verses?’ We see the Scriptures as a vehicle through which God speaks to us, not in generalities, but to our individual needs. I am sure you have met people who have said, ‘I was going through a very difficult time and I was reading some Scripture and suddenly a verse that I had read over 100 times spoke to me in a way that it had never spoken to me before. And suddenly it addressed my need; at that hour it was exactly what I needed to hear from the Lord. That’s called Lectio Divina.”¹

After hearing this, to their credit, one of the hosts of KKMS Live voiced a concern that using this type of prayer would and this type of studying technique with the Scriptures would lead to misunderstanding the meaning of the text. I think that this was a valid question to raise, and it gave me hope that the hosts would stand firm against such inductive and subjective methods of Scripture interpretation. Tony responded by saying the following,

“I think that there is that danger, that’s why in this book, we establish certain parameters to make sure that you do not end up with pure subjectivity and end up interpreting the Scriptures in a way that suits your own purposes rather than see the Scriptures as an instrument through which God wants to speak to you in your situation. Now we all know that you can read the same passage of Scripture 10 different times, 10 different months, and every time the same Scripture will speak to you, probably every time it will say something else to you. I’m sure you’ve had that experience?”

When Tony asked this question, both of the hosts gave rather affirmative responses. Now this concerned me, and I was beginning to get rather irritated with this entire program and the dialogue that was going on here. But before I could even catch my breath, Tony kept steamrolling along the same thought line.

“But we always have to be careful; is what God is saying to us through the Scripture in harmony with His will, and there are certain ways of dealing with this, and we feel that John Wesley, and we talk about John Wesley in this book a great length, told us how to be careful so that we don’t end up with subjective interpretations that end up being quite heretical. One of the ways is this; that we must always read the Scripture and ask ‘how do those in the Christian community to which I belong understand these verses?’ To share what I just learned from these Scriptures with bro & sis in the faith is a very important thing. Because if I am out of line, they will correct me. The Scripture sys test the spirits to see whether they be of God. And this is one of the ways that you test; namely you ask brother or sister [summarize what you read and what it “said to me”], and wait for ether correction or affirmation from your brother or sister. The second thing to do is to ask whether, in the tradition of the church, the church has been around for 2,000 years and people have been interpreting Scripture for 2,000 years, is this in harmony w what the church leaders, the fathers & mothers of the church have said about this passage of Scripture over the years. Is it in harmony with that? ‘Check with tradition’ says Wesley. The third thing is; be reasonable. Is this a reasonable understanding of these verse? These are very very important things to do because otherwise we end up with pure subjectivity."²

I don’t think that I’m being too critical of Mr. Campolo here if I think that his method for validating his understanding of the Scriptures is way off. This method may well be good enough for the Roman Catholic system or any other system that holds up tradition as equal to Scripture, but not for someone who claims to be protestant and evangelical. He didn’t once mention that we need to check our understanding of a particular passage against the rest of the council of Scripture. Would it be reasonable to think that Tony was implying this type of Scriptural authority when he indicated that the steps for vetting ideas were to ask other Christians, to check the tradition of the church, and to see if the conclusion is reasonable? I don’t think so at all. It is not nearly the same as stating that the Bible is the single authority for all things pertaining to God and our Christian life. Honestly, he sounds more Episcopalian than evangelical with his readiness to bow to reason and tradition.

One other thing came out in his comments that truly troubled me. He made allusions to what the Bible is, what Scripture is, a few different times, but none of them was more revealing than when he advocated viewing the Scriptures “as an instrument through which God wants to speak to you in your situation.” I do not believe that I am playing a game of semantics when I say that this view of the Scriptures that he articulated is very dangerous, and I believe that the danger is evident in what he further went on to advocate. Let me, clearly and for the record, state that the Holy Bible, the Scriptures, is the container of the objective message from God but it is not an instrument for communicating a subjective message from God.

The differences in what I have said and what Tony Campolo has said are not minor. With Campolo’s interpretive method, it would be very possible (and likely) that based on (selected) comments and thoughts from some of the church fathers as well as utilizing modern reason along with the thoughts of other like-minded Christians that one could conclude that Christ isn’t God or that He isn’t the only way to God. Furthermore, other blatantly universalistic conclusions could be arrived at using this same hermeneutic. Consequently, this type of inductive interpretation is dangerous and deadly to the soul.

But, unfortunately, the madness didn’t stop. Campolo went on talking and now moved on to the second prayer type called centering prayer.

“Centering prayer is an ancient practice, and I think Jesus was into it. He said, when you pray – it’s ok to pray publicly with a lot of words - but if you really want to pray go into a closet and shut the door; that is go where there are no distractions; go where there is nothing around you to pull you away and then center down, focus. And the Hebrew Bible says, to meditate upon His word. To those who wait upon the Lord. I wake up in the morning before I have to, I did it this morning, before the alarm went off I was up, and I say the name ‘Jesus’ over and over again. And people say, ‘it sounds like vain repetition.’ Call it anything you want, there’s something about that name. It drives back dark things; it gets rid of the extraneous thoughts; I have to put things out of my mind, because the minute I wake up my head starts spinning with all the things that are waiting to be done. I have to drive them out and create what the celtic Christians called ‘the thin place’. An atmosphere that is rarified with nothing which I am conscience, save His presence. And in the quietude, and the stillness of the morning, I simply surrender and wait for Christ, wait for the HS to flow into me. In Isaiah 42 we read, ‘they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.’ And I ask the listeners, when was the last time you waited for the Lord to flow into you? When was the last time you were quiet and still and just surrendered and said, ‘Christ Jesus, come in, flow into my being, saturate my personhood.’ And then the next verse says, ‘and in stillness He will come into you.’ What a wonderful that we are taught in the Scriptures."³

Again, before I look at what was said, I must again note that the KKMS Live hosts responded in verbal affirmation of what Campolo just said. The truth of Scripture records that Jesus had long prayer times and that He often went away from people to pray, yes, but that doesn’t come close to saying that He was doing “centering” prayer. Furthermore, if centering prayer is emptying one’s mind of nothing save “His presence”, how could He do that if He was the one trying to pray in this way? It makes me want to retch when I hear Jesus’ habits being interpreted as doing centering prayer. That conclusion is only at all possible to come to if you go looking through the Bible for vague references to something that might have been centering prayer.

Also, I think that Campolo’s dismissal of the “vain repetition” (cf. Matt 6:7) objection shows a downright disregard for Scripture. To be fair, whether “vain repetition” is referring to this specific type of meditation or if it is referring to using a lot of big and dramatic words while praying, Campolo dismisses the objection outright! I’m not certain of the specific meaning of this text, but judging from the context it seems to be specifically referring to the quantity of words, perhaps these are in a vain display of intelligence in an attempt to show the severity of a need, as opposed to repeating one word over and over. And if that is the interpretation of this text in Matthew, I still would have a hard time finding anything in the Bible relating to prayer that indicates that we are to repeat one word over and over and over and over in an effort to be aware of nothing “save His presence”. Plus, the taught model for prayer from Jesus to the disciples was not one of emptying or not thinking about stuff, it was praying first and foremost for the supremacy of God, but then the prayer includes things that are in daily life like the provision of daily bread, requesting forgiveness for current sins, and from deliverance from temptation, and this is the exact opposite from a clearing of the mind.

“There is a kind of conversation with God where you say nothing and you hear nothing, but you just sense yourself being connected with Him and He being connected with you; flowing into your being, saturating your personhood. That’s what centering prayer is all about.”⁴

When he described centering prayer this way, I just about lost whatever sanity I still had left at this point. First of all, how do you have a conversation if no one says anything? I don’t even think that an emergent could understand that or pull that off. Secondly, what does it feel like to “sense” being connected with God in that way? And what does it feel like when God flows into you? What does “saturating your personhood” even mean? I have no idea what he just said. This is ridiculous. And this is supposed to be a way to converse with God? How can we do this and be confident that we are connected to God when we have no way to “test the spirits” to see if the feeling we’re getting is the saturation of my personhood by God Himself or just the leftover bodily reaction to the mocha I had this morning.

I don’t want to minimize making your requests known unto God – we should do that – but we need these other kinds of praying as well: Lectio Divina and I am also mentioning this other kind of praying which is called centering prayer. And there is a third kind that we mention in this book, and it’s the prayer of examine and I do this when I go to bed. I put my head on the pillow and I examine the day from when I woke up until that moment, and I think of all of the good things that I have done, all of the ways in which God moved through me and blessed other people; all the ways in which I did His will, and I thank God for them. Paul writes in Philippians 4:8, “and finally my brothers and sisters” and I could easily read ‘at the end of the day brothers and sisters’, ‘whatsover things you have done that are good, whatsover things you have done that are profitable, whatsover things you have done that are of good report, that are excellent, think on these things.” And the next verse is ‘and then continue to do them.’ Then I go over the day a second time and I remember all of the ways in which I failed God, all of the ways in which I sinned, and I repent, and I ask God’s forgiveness. But I dare not do the second thing until I’ve done the first thing. So often, all Christians ever do is confess their sins and do not recognize the wonderful things that God has done in them and through them. Hence, they end up very depressed because if all you do is concentrate on the negative, you will end up as a negative person. The prayer of examine requires that we do both of those things.”⁵

It is one thing to examine your day and praise God for how you’ve been used as a vessel to glorify Him, but it is quite another to mangle Philippians 4:8 to do it. I’m sorry, but “Finally my brothers and sisters” is not the equivalent of saying “at the end of the day”. “Finally” is not in reference to a time or date, but in reference to the conclusion of Paul’s letter. But even more than that, the text doesn’t say think on these things “that I’ve done” or “that you’ve done”. It says “think on these things” with no specification as to the person doing them. I tend to think that he’s referring to the good things, and specifically the best way to think on them is to go to God and to His Word and think on what He has done.

As to Campolo’s comment that confessing sin leads one to be negative because you’re only focusing on the negative, I must heartily disagree. I do attempt to confess my sin, as much and as often as I can, and it doesn’t leave me depressed. Why? My focus is not solely on my many and dire failures. My focus and my mind are fixed on the mercy of God. This does not leave me depressed, it leaves me thankful and in awe of Him because He saved me and loves me.

Well, it wouldn’t be fair to not mention that once Campolo was done with this part of his monologue, one of the hosts of KKMS Live responds by saying, “very good, very interesting.” Honestly, I don’t know what would be considered “good” about the content of what he was saying and the content of the book he was pushing. I’m not sure whose decision it was to push this book and give Campolo this platform, but all I can say is that wherever the blame lies, it is a bad sign for a Christian radio station that has included so many faithful Bible teachers.

I have no knowledge as to the motives of either of the hosts for why they were so inviting to Tony Campolo or to his dangerous and sub-Christian ideas of prayer and the Scriptures. That being said, I find it difficult to understand how the two hosts of KKMS Live can “amen” John MacArthur and seem to make overtones to really enjoying his preaching as well as other men like him and then turn around and be warm and fuzzy to a guest who promotes spiritual practices that are exact opposite of so much of what men like Dr. MacArthur have been teaching.

Whether the hosts have little or no discernment concerning the difference in the teachings of a Campolo and a MacArthur, or whether they don’t see a problem with the practices encouraged by Campolo, or if they do see a problem with the practices and do understand the difference between him and MacArthur type teachers but still gave a warm and welcoming environment for him to plug his book I don’t know. Regardless of the real reason for this kind of dichotomy, this does speak well for KKMS as a station, KKMS Live as a program, or Jeff and Lee as discerning and wise Christian “leaders”.

As a side note, this wasn’t the first time that Tony Campolo was a guest on this radio program. He was on near the end of 2006, and I listened to that show too. The thing that made me the saddest concerning that interview when I compared it to the recent one was that both hosts disagreed and brought up points of debate with Tony Campolo regarding his views on the Palestinian people, the state of Israel, social justice, and other conservative political issues. This was shocking and saddening because they were more passionate about the state of Israel and the government’s place in helping the poor than the clear problematic statements about the Word of God and about prayer. Not that the issues of modern Israel and poverty are not something to have biblically motivated thoughts about, but the disparity in passion and conviction between the two subjects was woefully concerning.

(Oh, and by the way, my brain made a gurgling sound when it melted.)

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¹ Tony Campolo on “KKMS Live with Jeff and Lee” November 26, 2007. http://www.kkms.com/blogs/JeffandLee/11560256/

² Ibid.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid.

Yoga…again

I heard about a television News Magazine segment that pitted John MacArthur against Doug Pagitt on the issue of Christians and the practice of Yoga, and it was quite interesting to see the exchange. This news segment really aligns well and adds further confirmation to my own views on yoga that I wrote about in “Yoga and the Christian: Do They Go together like Apple Pie and Baseball or Oil and Water?”

You can watch the video of this exchange on youtube, but the folks at Pulpit Magazine have transcribed the exchange as well.

Mike Galanos (host): Alright, let’s say I do decide to try yoga, head to the local gym, give it a shot. What am I opening myself up to spiritually that could go against my Christian faith?

John MacArthur: Well that would depend on how the yoga is conducted. If it’s just purely exercise, and you’re a strong Christian, it probably wouldn’t have any impact on your faith. But in the big picture, why would Christians want to borrow an expression from a false religion, from pantheism (god is everything, you’re god, everything is god), when we believe there’s only one true God (the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ). Why would we need to import that? If you want to exercise, exercise. But why borrow a term that has been part of a false religion for centuries?

Mike Galanos (host): Doug Pagitt, let’s get you in on this. And as we do, I want to read the definition from Webster’s on “yoga.” It says it’s “a Hindu theistic philosophy teaching the suppression of all activity of body, mind, and will in order that the self may realize its distinction from them and attain liberation.” Kind of tough one to cipher but, on a spiritual front for a Christian, that does not sound like Christ-centered faith to me. On the surface of that definition, what’s going on here? Help us out.

Doug Pagitt: Well, for people who perform yoga, what they’re normally trying to do is to find a whole and complete and healed life. So when people participate in yoga, most of them aren’t on some kind of a yoga agenda. What they’re trying to do is use whatever practices they can find that would help them have a whole and complete life. And for a Christian, that’s certainly what we’re after. The Jesus agenda is a whole life, is a complete life, is a healed life. So when people use it to relieve stress, to be healthy in their relationships, to feel good in their body, that’s a really good thing.

In fact, there’s a great little verse in the New Testament where it says, “Whatever is good, whatever is right, whatever is noble, whatever is praiseworthy, think upon such things.” And for so many of us, yoga has been one of those ‘whatevers’ that’s such a positive thing in our life.

Mike Galanos (host): So you say, Jesus is alright with yoga?

Doug Pagitt: Yeah, are you asking if I think Jesus was alright with yoga?

Mike Galanos (host): Yeah.

Doug Pagitt: Yeah, I’m not sure exactly how to answer a question like that. My assumption is that Christianity and yoga are not in competition with one another and are not enemies of one another. So to suggest that I could speak clearly for everything that Jesus would have been okay with – if Jesus was familiar with yoga when he was alive, and yoga has certainly around from before the time of Jesus, I don’t think Jesus ever spoke out against yoga and said, don’t perform yoga. But that kind of question that you’re going to ask somebody – “If Jesus was okay with it, then I wouldn’t do it” – that’s the kind of thing that says, would Jesus be okay with pastors wearing suits? Would Jesus be okay with having Christmas trees? These are the kinds of questions that just don’t move forward.

Mike Galanos (host): Let’s get back to the yoga — Doug, let’s get back to yoga real quick – as you do the postures, and this again, again I have not done yoga, but you do the postures, and they’re, one of the concerns is that it’s an offering to some of the millions of Hindu gods. Is there a part of you in the spirit that’s tweaked at all by this? Are you bothered at all. You practice yoga yourself. How do you go through with it?

Doug Pagitt: Hey, I have to confess that I’m not very good at it? Yoga, it’s really hard to hold these postures, to hold these positions. And I’ll tell you that from my own experience, and the many, many people that I know who participate in yoga, none of them have ever found themselves to be opened up to something negative or something demonic or something evil. In fact, many of us find the high benefit that comes from body mind connection, and from knowing that we are pushing, that we are stretching, that we are sending our body into an exercise. And that exercise is not wholly disconnected from our will or from our mind or from our spirit; it’s a complete practice. And I’ve never known anybody who has had anything detrimental come into their spirit because of their practice of yoga.

Mike Galanos (host): John MacArthur, real quick, want to get you in on this as well, is all yoga bad yoga for the Christian?

John MacArthur: Well, let me just respond to what I’ve been hearing. That doesn’t sound anything like Christianity. If you want a whole life, if you want your life to be what it should be, you don’t put yourself in some weird physical position, empty your mind, center on yourself and try to relieve your stress. You go to the word of God, to the gospel of Jesus Christ, you embrace in faith the sacrifice of Christ in his death and resurrection as your savior and redeemer. God comes, regenerates you, transforms your life, makes you a new creation, and you’re saved and you’re on your way to heaven, and you can live a life of peace and joy. That’s the promise of the gospel. There is no contribution made to that by any physical position or any kind of meditation.
The idea of Christianity is to fill your mind with biblical truth and focus on the God who is above you. That’s Christian worship. The idea of yoga is to fill your mind with nothing except to focus on yourself and try to find the god that is inside of you. From a Christian viewpoint, that’s a false religion. Exercise is a different issue.

Mike Galanos (host): Gentlemen, we’re going to have to leave it there. Pastor Doug Pagitt and John MacArthur we appreciate your time, both of you. Thank you very much.¹

I find it interesting that Mr. Pagitt is unable to clearly state what he believes Jesus’ position would be when it comes to Christians practicing Yoga. Perhaps I’m not as involved in the emergent conversation as I should be, but shouldn’t that be one of the first things that is discovered with any activity or issue? But sadly, this is just one of the big problems with the philosophy surrounding Christians and yoga.

In an attempt to defend his position, Mr. Pagitt used a debate tactic and a contemporary theological argument that I am so tired of hearing because it is just plain nonsense. Mr. Pagitt said, “I don’t think Jesus ever spoke out against yoga and said, don’t perform yoga.” First of all, this is such a horrible way of communicating and understanding what Scripture has to say on any subject. Did Jesus ever say anything specifically about yoga? Nope. But He also didn’t specifically mention raping women or abusing children when referring to proper sexual expression. He also didn’t discuss the value (or lack thereof) of dog-fighting or gladiator contests as forms of entertainment, or a host of other issues. Furthermore, Jesus doesn’t make any specific comments about the sin of homosexuality. So, on Mr. Pagitt’s logical grounds, if Jesus doesn’t specifically condemn yoga, then it is (or it could be) fine if a self-professed Christian practices yoga. If that is the case, then we should likewise be able to explore the possibility of the rape and abuse of women and children for sexual expression as well as have a conversation about whether or not we should relax and enjoy some recreation while dogs or humans fight to the death. As a side note, I believe that Solomon’s Porch, Mr. Pagitt’s church, is not concerned with the sin of homosexuality. And the reason for their apathy on this issue, I would guess, is rooted in the same logic as he showed in the interview.

This hermeneutical travesty is so odious that it seems to scream at me whenever I hear someone use it. The Bible condemns any and all sexual expression outside of a marriage between a man and a woman (cf. Lev 18), and this would include rape, incest, molestation, masturbation, fornication, and homosexuality (see also Romans 1:20-32 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11). The Bible encourages us to dwell on good and lovely things (cf. Phil 4:8), not on the brutal maiming and killing of people or animals for sport. The more I see people advocating Christians practicing yoga, or even defending it with the kind of nonsense that Mr. Pagitt used, the more I see the slimy fingers of the enemy closing around the throat of the slightly alive, but mostly apostate group that is American evangelicalism.

Dr. MacArthur hit the nail on the head with his condemnation of the “goal” that Mr. Pagitt described of those people that he knows who practice yoga. The Hindu practice emptying and focusing on nothing or on self is in complete and total contradistinction from the purposeful and discerning practice of faith and focusing our affections and actions on God through the power of the Holy Spirit because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

I would actually have a lot more to say in refutation and correction of Mr. Pagitt’s errors, but I believe that it was said to him already by Dr. MacArthur. What a blessing it is to have a man of God who has been given, not only a platform but also a mind and heart to use that platform for the sake of Christ and the gospel instead of his own agenda.

As a side, and humorous, note, a while back I was assisting some friends of my parents in finding a local church near where I live. During the e-mail correspondence back and forth with them I happened to mention that a Baptist church I had attended during college was slipping toward emergent error, I believe they even were including yoga in their programs. In part of his responding e-mail to me, this gentleman wrote the following,

“It's interesting that you mentioned that the one church you went to in college has teamed up with the Emergent Church Movement. One of my college mates, Doug Padgett, is apparently one of the 'leaders' of the Emergent movement. I never thought of him as a Pastor or deep theological thinker at the time... but then... okay, so maybe I just answered my own question there - didn't I?”

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¹ http://www.sfpulpit.com/2007/09/13/john-macarthur-doug-pagitt-and-yoga/

Reckless and Irresponsible

I first became aware of Hank Lindstrom and his ministry when I read an article entitled “Repentance” that was being advertised or promoted on crosswalk.com. You can read his article and the reasons why I disagree with his conclusions by reading “Is Turning from Sin Legalism?”

Well, following my initial exposure to Dr. Lindstrom, I have listened to his radio program or perused his articles very rarely and cautiously. I say cautiously because I want to see what he is saying, and rarely because so often, what he says is so wrong and infuriating.

Yesterday I decided to listen to one of his broadcasts to see if I’d hear anything good, beneficial, new, or whatever. I expect to hear him blast repentance and faith and promote KJV Onlyism, but thankfully he only promoted KJV Onlyism in his monologue…sort of.

About 2/3 of the way through his program on 11/29/06, a man called in with a heartfelt request for prayer on behalf of his son who had converted to Islam. One of the tactics used by the Muslims, and now by this man’s son, is to say that the Bible is corrupt and it is untrustworthy because of all of the different translations (KJV, NKJV, NASB, NIV, ESV, etc.). Hank responded to the caller’s statement by saying that, sadly, the current state of bible translations is in the favor of the Muslims because he agrees that current versions like NKJV, NASB, NIV, and RSV¹ have been corrupted by Satan in order to distort the gospel and mislead people.

But my problem was not primarily with the fact that his bible translation conspiracy theory gave credit to the Muslims’ attacks, but it was the following “fulfilled prophesy” that made my hackles stand up. When commenting about the state of affairs in the world and the amount of havoc that is caused by Muslims, Dr. Lindstrom said,

“We are being assaulted today, head on, with Islam. If you look up Daniel 9:11, you know the number “9 11” that’s when the twin towers were taken, well there is a verse there that talks about a curse coming because of our departure from God’s word. And if you look up the word “curse” in your concordance in Daniel 9:11, it is the Hebrew word “alah”. And truly hasn’t that been a prophesy fulfilled that Allah is the curse on this world today? And God said that He would bring this curse upon the world, and we are seeing the curse of Allah right now, and it’s because we’ve departed away from His word.”²

Well, first of all I did check Strong’s Concordance and found that the Hebrew word here is transliterated as “alah” and pronounced “aw-law”.³ But let me make sure that I understand this interpretation correctly. According to Dr. Hank Lindstrom, the meaning of Daniel 9:11 is that because of the world’s rejection of the Bible, God has cursed the world with Islam? I will argue that the current state of terrorism in the world is nothing but a curse and an abomination. However, to say that Daniel 9:11 is speaking about this because the Hebrew word for curse sounds like the name by which Muslims call God is absurd.

Do you know how our Christian brethren in Arab countries refer to God the Father? They use the word Allah. If you’re shocked, you shouldn’t be. The word “allah” is no different than the English word “god”. When we refer to God the Father, we capitalize the first letter in the word, but when we refer to other types of gods or goddesses, we do not. When a Hindu refers to deity while using the English language, they use the word god, and when we refer to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or the Father, we use the word “god” but we write it as “God”.

You may still be wondering what the point of discussing the words “allah” and “god” has to do with anything. The point is that the context of the use of a word determines the meaning of that word. For instance, look at the following example using the word “can”:

• I can do this. “can” means “am able”
• I would like a can of soda. “can” means “metal container”
• I have to use the can. “can” is slang for “lavatory”

If we attempted to force a single meaning of the word “can” onto all three of these sentences, you’d have gibberish and foolishness. Furthermore, if you lived in a country that spoke Spanish, and used the word “con” (sounds like “can”) which means “with” (i.e. chili con queso) and you forced the meaning “with” into these situations, you would not only have gibberish and foolishness, but it would be complete nonsense.

Why did I bring up Spanish? Well, Dr. Lindstrom made that leap right away when he equated the Hebrew word that sounds like the Arabic or Aramaic word for god with a specific reference to the Islamic religion. It is no less foolish to do what he did than it is to do it with the above “can” example.

Let me make the issue even more clear. There is a word in the New Testament that occurs 602 times in the KJV. This is the word that is translated “but”, it is the Greek word “alla” and it sounds exactly like “allah”. This word not only sounds like the Arabic or Aramaic word for god, but it also looks like it too (the letter lamda “l” has the “L” sound and kind of looks like an “L”). Should we understand or see some reference to Islam every time that this word is used in the New Testament? Of course not. It would be reckless, irresponsible, and wrong to do so. It would also make the message of the gospel all but unintelligible.

This is just one example of his reckless hermeneutics.⁴ The problem with bad hermeneutics is that you can distort and misunderstand the bible so much that the message and the truth is lost. It is almost funny (you either laugh or you cry) that someone who is an ardent KJV Only supporter (even though he has said that he is not one) and who heralds the current distortions of the bible with such a loud voice is so dangerously reckless with his personal bible study and interpretation.

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¹ In another broadcast, he called the RSV translation of the bible, the “Reversed Satanic Translation” Bibleline Radio Broadcast, 12/14/06 11:02

² Bibleline Radio Broadcast, 11/29/06 41:50

³ Brown, Driver, Briggs and Gesenius. "Hebrew Lexicon entry for 'alah". "The KJV Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon". .

⁴ Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation, especially of the Scriptures http://dictionary.reference.com/search?db=dictionary&q=hermeneutics