“18 Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. 19 For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. 21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps,” (1 Peter 2:18 – 21)
This is probably my first “real time” blog entry. What I mean by that is that I am writing my thoughts and reflections about an ongoing situation (however minor this current situation is). My hope is that my meditation on this subject matter will cause me to react rightly, and better than I have already, regarding the outcome of this situation. In all things, I want to reflect the reality that Christ’s righteousness is mine and my life is His, so I need to act and react in ways that honor and glorify my Lord.
Here is the short (and detail-less) version of the story:
Last week I was told by my boss to stay a little late at my job and there was nothing for me to do. When I checked my time card today I found that I was not paid for the extra time that I stayed at work. I didn’t do any work, but I was instructed to stick around for a specific period of time by my boss. I was informed by my scheduling and payroll manager that I would not be paid for this time, regardless of why I stayed late, because I was not doing actual work.
After my initial outburst of frustration following reading the memo from my payroll manager, I went over to discuss the situation with her. She was understanding of the situation, but not optimistic that I would receive payment for the, now disputed, time. I thanked her for continuing to investigate this and then went and “vented” my frustration to a co-worker.
Now, I am back at my desk and I thought of Peter’s words about bearing unjust suffering well as a testimony to my faith in Christ. So, without a doubt, I blew it when I went to find an outlet to complain to my coworker. I sinned in my attitude and in my thoughts, even if my words did not seem foul on the surface.
I now have a choice to make. I need to purpose in my heart and mind to act and react in a Christ like and Christ honoring way to the final decision (whatever it is) regarding whether or not I will be getting paid for this time. If I am paid, glory to God! I will be rightly compensated for what I was requested to do by my employer. And if I am not paid, praise to Christ! I will be wronged by my employer, but I can bear this unjust treatment in a way that displays my “set-apartedness” in Christ.
Until recently, I had always heard and accepted that Joshua probably wrote the end of Deuteronomy. This is said because this chapter includes details about the death and burial of Moses, and Joshua, as Moses’ successor, would have had the knowledge and position to write about the end of Moses’ life.
Well, I recently read the paper, “The Authorship of Deuteronomy 34: Moses or a Redactor?” by William D. Barrick. This paper was presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in November of 2001, and in it the author was appealing that Mosaic authorship of the entire Pentateuch (Gen 1 – Deut 34) be a boundary for this body. I think he wrote it knowing that this was a tall order and he approached the issue with good humor in noting that his opponents (those who hold to Joshua or someone else writing Deuteronomy 34) might liken stalwart proponents of Mosaic authorship of this chapter to “the soul-mate of a ‘flat earth’ theology/science.’”1 There are three primary (although there are more, for sure) arguments given for why Moses was not the author of Deuteronomy 34, and they are basically this:
There are timing issues in the text that do not seem to fit right if Moses is the author.
There are references to the division of the land of Canaan that was not a reality until after it was conquered and recorded in Joshua 13-19.
There are references to Moses, his ministry, and his works that seem to be best understood as someone, later, eulogizing Moses.
I found that the most compelling reasons to find that Moses is not the author of Deuteronomy 34 coincides with the least satisfying response, and this has to do with one of the timing issues in this chapter. I see no real problem with Moses being able to pen the story of his own death as it would happen in the all-to-near future for him. Since God wanted that included in the Scriptures, He could inspire the man who was going to experience it to write about it. The real stickler of a problem comes later in the chapter,
“The Lord buried him in a valley in Moab, opposite the town of Bethpeor, but to this day no one knows the exact place of his burial.” (Deuteronomy 34:6)
“No other prophet has been able to do the great and terrifying things that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.”(Deuteronomy 34:12)
In both verse 6 and 12, there is the sense of a significant time gap between the life of Moses and the writing of the thoughts. A long time wouldn’t necessarily need to pass before someone could realistically pen that “to this day” no one knows where Moses is buried. However, it seems that a longer time would be needed for the same author to write a statement that no prophet “has been able to do” the things that Moses did. Because there is no grammatical or linguistic reason that the actual language of the chapter gives so that, and there is no Biblical witness to the fact that Moses didn’t write this chapter, I have decided not to place too heavy a weight on this temporal objection. My answer to this objection is almost dismissively simple; if God wanted the account of Moses’ death and burial recorded, and if God wanted to include in His revealed Word that Moses would be a singular figure among the prophets of Israel, He had every opportunity and right to have Moses himself pen the words of Deuteronomy 34.
The second major objection to Mosaic authorship is found in how Moses refers to the unconquered land of Canaan.
“…the Lord showed him the whole land: the territory of Gilead as far north as the town of Dan; 2 the entire territory of Naphtali; the territories of Ephraim and Manasseh; the territory of Judah as far west as the Mediterranean Sea; 3 the southern part of Judah; and the plain that reaches from Zoar to Jericho, the city of palm trees.” (Deut 34:1b-3)
The objection basically says that the lands of Canaan were only divided up during the conquest (see Joshua 13-19); Moses would not have been able to gaze at the different territories that he was not familiar with and that had not yet been settled. I think that this objection loses much of its value when we see that Moses had at least some prior knowledge as to the specific inheritance for each tribe. Just before the account of his death, he blessed Naphtali in order that they might “take possession of the sea and the south” in Deuteronomy 33:23. He also references Israel’s blessing of Manasseh and Ephraim in Genesis 48:22 indicating that they will receive “one portion more than your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow.” Then there is the recon and report of the 12 spies recorded in Numbers 13-14. There was some understanding of the land and its fortifications and other of its characteristics was gained from their expedition that Moses definitely had been made aware of (and had had plenty of time to think about while wandering in the desert for 40 years). These instances of knowledge of the land and foreknowledge of some details of the inheritance seems to be sufficient evidence to enable me to refute the objection that Moses would not have had sufficient knowledge of the allotted inheritance of the 12 tribes to make the statements in verses 1-3.
The third primary objection to Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy 34 has to do with the grandiose language used to characterize Moses’ ministry and his relationship to the Lord. The thought is that Moses would not have referred to himself in the third person nor would he have spoken of his relationship to the Lord in the way that he did. First of all, Deuteronomy 34 is not the singular instance where Moses would have used described himself in a perspective other than the first person (see Numbers 11:11; 12:17). But if I were taking position against Mosaic authorship stating that he wouldn’t have referred to himself with such majesty, I would begin by mentioning that Paul referred to himself as the chief of sinners. And if Deuteronomy 34 was written by Moses, would he be referring to himself with such a self-important attitude that set him apart from the other prophets who would come after him, both in powerful works and in his closeness to God? Of course, the answer to this rhetorical question would be “no”. But I submit that this is not the best way to examine the text at hand. One of the primary phrases that objectors use to make their argument is,
“10 Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, 11 for all the signs and wonders which the LORD sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land, 12 and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.” (Deuteronomy 34:10-12)
If this is an example of the type of language that is too self-complimentary for something that Moses would have said about himself, then what are we to do with Stephen’s defense before the high priest? In his defense of Christ as Messiah, he quoted Deuteronomy 18:15 where he indicates that Jesus is the prophet who Moses said would come after him who Moses indicated would be “like me.” This verse, as it is used by Stephen, directly relates Moses to Christ in this manner, and it is surely more of a grandiose statement than those referred to in this chapter by those opposed to Mosaic authorship.
It seems to me that the arguments against Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy 34, other than the objections about how Moses would have referred to and characterized himself, are basically anti-supernaturalistic in nature. These objections seem to come from a mindset that is influenced, at least in this case, by naturalism. Because it seems that the objection is basically that Moses couldn’t have known or wouldn’t have known the necessary information needed to catalog the events. This is done in direct contrast to the basic nature of divine revelation. Divine revelation is, in the God-breathed Scriptures, is the revealing of what was previously unknown, unknowable or hidden. Furthermore, objections to Mosaic authorship are not based on the overall Biblical witness or the grammar used in this specific text as compared to the rest of the Pentateuch.
I am not saying that all people who oppose Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy 34 categorically reject the supernatural, far from it. But I am saying that the primary objections, as I understand them, come from the same presuppositional basis, at least in this isolated case, as do the empiricists rejections of all miraculous or divine action in the world and in the Scriptures.
1 William D. Barrick, “The Authorship of Deuteronomy 34: Moses or a Redactor?” presented at the ETS Annual Meeting, Nov 14-16,2001, P. 17
Click here to read the paper that I wrote for my Old Testament Introduction class.
On Friday, September 12, 2008, former Christian artist Ray Boltz publicly announced, among other things, that he is a homosexual and he has been all of his life. I skimmed through the article in Washington Blade and wanted simply to comment on one particular thing that he said regarding Christianity and his now open homosexuality and how they are mutually exclusive. While the genesis of my comments are specifically related to Mr. Boltz’s comments regarding his sexuality and Christianity, my comments are not only applicable to people who may be homosexual in their inclinations. So, in other words, practicing homosexuals who erroneously want to call themselves Christians are not the only ones who should be upset and offended by what I’m going to say.
Ray Boltz made several comments regarding who he is and how he views himself in relation to his continuing confession of being a Christian. However, it was the final thing that he was quoted as saying in the article that held my attention and has given birth to my comments.
“This is what it really comes down to,” he says. “If this is the way God made me, then this is the way I’m going to live. It’s not like God made me this way and he’ll send me to hell if I am who he created me to be … I really feel closer to God because I no longer hate myself.”1
In other words, Mr. Boltz believes that God made him and intends him to be gay, so his decision to live this way – true to who he is – will not cause God to condemn him to hell. If God created him with a specific type of sexual inclination, and his continued attempts to suppress it for decades has not caused it to wane in its ferocity but instead it has continued with vigor, then he should not feel ashamed of it, nor should he feel that his claim of being a Christian will be rendered void by living out his natural inclination. With all due respect, I must, on the basis of Scripture, patently reject this logic and. I don’t see any consolation in Scripture for the person who claims to be a Christian but yet lives a life of unrepentant and blatant sin.
The problem with Mr. Boltz’s theology (as stated above, anyway) is that he doesn’t understand the depravity of man; neither generally with the entirety of humanity nor specifically with regards to himself. I am becoming more and more convinced that a misunderstanding of sin – its effect, scope, and result – leads to so many of the problems and inconsistencies that we see in theology. Furthermore, I think that this error is surpassed in its potential damage only by errors relating to Scripture (denying its sufficiency, inerrancy, inspiration, etc.) and errors related to the Person of Christ Himself.
Mankind, as a whole, is born in sin and is completely and utterly defiled because of our sin in Adam. And because of our sin in Adam, all of the parts of our being have been corrupted from the perfect and sinless model of our first father. In other words, God made a perfect creation but we have corrupted it. So, in a sense, it is both true and untrue for Mr. Boltz to say that “God made me this way” relating to his sexuality. God did not create man to be homosexual, but God did create Ray with the sinful proclivity that lends itself towards homosexuality. This neither justifies Ray, or anyone, in rebelling against God’s command to abstain from that kind of activity, nor does this render God as being unjust or as being unfairly malicious in His eternal condemnation of men and women who practice such forbidden things.
Because if one reads the Scriptures consistently in the way in which they intend to be read (as being a perspicuous divine revelation), there is no way to avoid the condemnation of any sexual activity (mentally or physically) outside of the bounds of monogamous heterosexual marriage between one male and one female. Would it would be wrong if, and I doubt that Mr. Boltz or his “church” body would not disagree with me on this even though they may reject the analogy, after decades of marriage to one woman that produced four grown children, I decided to leave her and go off to engage in all sorts of sexual encounters with as many women as I was able to. If so, then why?
I’m an average man. And any honest hetero-sexual man that I have ever met has desires and tendencies to have as much sex with virtually as many different people as you could imagine. Why should I not go out and live in a lifestyle of free love? That is where my natural proclivities point me? And based on Mr. Boltz’s summarization of his situation, there are no Scriptural grounds upon which to condemn my promiscuous lifestyle. This is done to the utter disregard of the Scripture when it is clear that fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God, and neither will the homosexual!2
So, whether you’re a homosexual ex-Contemporary Christian recording artist who has just decided to come out of the closet or whether you’re an average Joe who has decided that warring against the constant bombardment of sexual thoughts is foolish because “God made me this way”, and you’ve decided to live out your natural desires for sexual fulfillment – you are giving evidence that you have not been born again and that you do not love Christ Jesus at all. You love what is plainly called sin in the Scriptures more than you love the God of the Scriptures.
Christians sin. Some Christians have homosexual attractions and desires. All Christians have natural desires that are contrary to the Biblical call for holiness and purity. All Christians war against these sins, and we die still in the war against our sinful desires. Whether we die in while losing a skirmish or standing on a mountain of triumph, we’re still in the fight.
Those who leave the fight, give up the fight, deny that there is a fight and utterly forsake the call of Christ to war against the sin that is present in the flesh give evidence to the fact that they haven’t been redeemed by Christ. It is impossible for man to resist his natural inclinations in the way that Christ calls us to. It takes a supernatural victory and the alien righteousness of Christ to first make war and then to continue that war on the flesh throughout the remainder.
2 I should note that when I use the term homosexual, as I did in this sentence, the meaning is that of a practicing homosexual in the same manner as I would say that the fornicator is someone who is actively fornicating in their life. For a man to be tempted with thoughts of homosexual sin or heterosexual sin and his response is to war against it, this does not make him a homosexual or a fornicator in the sense that it would be evidence of not being a Christian. The man who is tempted with the same sins and gladly runs his mind in this sin or acts out on these sins is the one who is giving evidence to possibly not having been justified.
A while ago (a long while ago, actually) I did a little study on the “queen of heaven” as it relates to Roman Catholicism’s exaltation of Mary and if that has any relevance to the pagan goddess mentioned in Jeremiah 7:18. The conclusion that I came to is that I’m not willing to say that the same spirit that was being worshipped as the “queen of heaven” in ancient times is modernly incarnated in the Roman exaltation of Mary. That being the case, I view the modern Marian devotion more similarly to run-of-the-mill idolatry that has always plagued man in his sinfulness.
So, I wrote my thoughts and made a summary video of it to put on youtube and there ended up being a fairly lively discussion in the comments section of the video. Recently I have pretty much left that video and the comments alone…until I saw this comment:
"O teach me Holy Mary A loving song to frame When WICKED MEN blashpheme thee I'll love and bless thy name"
Now, this comment from “Rapture1987” was part of a stanza from a hymn to Mary. The primary thing that the commenter wanted to get across was that I am a wicked man because of my comments against the unholy and blasphemous exaltation of Mary. But what caught my attention is that this hymn ascribes the charge of blasphemy to those who dare challenge the exaltation of Mary in Roman Catholicism.
Now, I make the charge that the exaltation of Mary and the veneration of her is blasphemy simply because doing so either gives her attributes that are for God alone, or they make her the recipient of prayer or praise that is due to God alone. I submit that I do this on the basis of the Scriptural precedent that worship and praise and prayer is only to be addressed to God and to Him alone. It is quite a different thing to accuse someone of blasphemy against a person. That charge, I think, goes more to validate my concerns and objections to the elevation of Mary, but furthermore, it may lend credence to those who see the Marian elevation as nothing less than her deification in Roman dogma.
And now, based on this comment and the fact that it was a quotation of a Marian Hymn, I am more convinced that the true deification of Mary is where the modern Roman push will end up, even if that is not the intention of the majority of those who are promoting the fifth Marian dogma. Now, it may be that the hymn writer and the commenter have no real understanding of what they are saying when they accuse men of blasphemy when they attack Mary, but they should know better.
I did a quick concordance search on the word “blasphem” (this was to include both forms of “blasphemy and blaspheme” and I came up with 41 different results from the NASB. Now, granted, this is not an exhaustive study of the Biblical understanding of blasphemy, but it is a quick and cursory look at how the Holy Spirit used this word in God’s revelation to us.
The overwhelming majority of the Scriptures clearly indicate that the offended party in the act of blasphemy is God. The only time in the Scriptures that I could find that where the object of the blasphemy might be found in 2nd Samuel. This is during the account following David’s sin with Bathsheba and Uriah.
"However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die." (2 Samuel 12:14)
Now, although it seems quite clear in the larger context that it was the Lord who was the recipient of the blasphemy of His enemies, this verse itself doesn’t say “…occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme the LORD….” I don’t think that there is any other way that one could interpret the text other than to say that the blasphemy was against the LORD, but others might argue otherwise.1 The other 11 times that the charge of blasphemy was named in the Old Testament, it was specifically listed as being against God Himself. However, there is one verse where the sin of blasphemy was attributed to a human party as well as to God. And it is this Scripture that needs to be addressed, I think.
Then they secretly induced men to say, "We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God." (Acts 6:11)
The context here is the testimony, trial, and martyrdom of Stephen. How is it that Stephen was blaspheming against God and Moses if blasphemy is an offense only against God? Well, first of all, the revelation of the Old Testament, specifically the Pentateuch, was referred to as the Law of Moses (see, among others, Joshua 8:31-32; 23:4; Judges 4:11; 1 Kings 2:3; Ezra 7:6; Malachi 4:4; Luke 2:22; Acts 13:39; 15:5; 28:23; 1 Corinthians 9:9). And in this way, one could be said to blaspheme Moses by contradicting the revelation that God had given to him in the Law. And in the account of Stephen, he only used Scripture to point to Christ. He did not attack Moses or their perception of Moses as the most righteous man who intercedes on their behalf before God.
But even if one was to argue that the Jewish officials were accusing Stephen of blasphemy against the person of Moses instead of the Law, I don’t see a precedent set here that we could then use to apply in the case of Marian opposition. And there are three main reasons for why there is no problem with this accusation. First of all, this would be the single time in the Scriptures where the charge of blasphemy was attributed to an assault on a person instead of God. Secondly, this charge is made by those people who have rejected the incarnate Christ Himself and who schemed and “induced” men to make this accusation against Stephen. In other words, this is not the best crowd to look to for a correctly interpreted understanding of the Scriptures to make a precedent in this area or for honesty in their actions and accusations. And thirdly, this verse is nothing less than a single vague reference to a possible offence of blasphemy against a person and not against God alone, and so it should by no means be a verse we look to in order to expand the otherwise clear definition of blasphemy in the Scriptures.
It is on the basis of the Scripture’s use of this term and concept that I defend that the sin of blasphemy is only against God. Men who mock a gospel preacher may mock the man while they blaspheme God. And it is in the same vain of Biblical precedent that I reject the accusation of blasphemy against Mary. Mary is not God, therefore she cannot be blasphemed.
But if Rome wants to defend her Marian dogmas and charge those of us with blasphemy who challenge them for being extra-biblical and a satanic exaltation and veneration of her, they have no biblical ground to do so. And I would further state that the accusations of blasphemy against Mary, intentionally or unintentionally, ascribe a measure of deity to her based on how this word is used in Scripture.
My Roman Catholic friends, I urge you to see this exaltation of Mary for what it is: idolatry and subtle deification of a created being. Defend your dogmas, if you like, but know that their defense is not one that can be done from a consistent interpretation of Scripture.
Soli Deo Gloria.
1 I include this little caveat primarily because many of the opponents of Sola Scriptura (Roman apologists and adherents) believe that the Scripture must say certain things with the exact words that they think that it should in order to uphold our doctrinal conclusions. So, even though the inspired Scripture doesn’t include the “the LORD” after the word “blaspheme”, a fair reading of the text would come up with that interpretation.
How did people in the Old Testament have their sins forgiven? How is all of the stuff with the temple, and the stringent requirements that God gave in the Old Testament reconciled with grace through faith in the New Testament? These two questions are answered in very different ways depending on the person asked. The ways that this question is answered varies as much as the people asking it do.
One of the ways that this is answered is by saying that salvation was always by grace through faith (cf. Eph 2:8, 9) and not by works of the Law (cf. Gal 2:16). This happens to be what I see as clearly taught in Scripture, but others see the picture a bit differently. Another view is that the Jews in the Old Testament were saved by a combination of faith and works, and since the coming of Christ, all men are still saved by grace through faith and works. Other schools of thought would hold to a mish-mash assortment of views of varying consistencies that include a dual covenant (Israel is still saved by nature of being Israel, and the gentiles are saved by faith) theology, a hyper-dispensational theology that espouses a works righteousness salvation of the Old Testament and a true grace salvation of the New Testament, and many many more.
In a very roundabout way I came to deal with the question of salvation in the Old Testament, or under the Old Covenant, while studying for a Sunday school overview of John the Baptist. John the Baptist is one of the figures in the gospels who does not get too much attention by the Biblical writers or by the church. Most Christians will know that John was a relative of Jesus, that he was the promised forerunner of the Messiah, that he baptized Jesus, and that he was martyred by Herod. This is a fairly good and complete summary of who John was and what his mission was, so I didn’t want to focus primarily on these issues. What I wanted to investigate was the content, the message, of John the Baptist.
Have you ever noticed it when you gloss over a passage quickly when it seems to say something that you don’t agree with or when you simply don’t understand it? Perhaps I’m the only person who has done this, but I was definitely guilty of that in the past when I’d read a description of John’s message and ministry.
“John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mark 1:4)
I believe that the New Testament teaches baptism, repentance, and the forgiveness of sins, however the way that Mark formulates John’s message seems to combine these three things in a way that flies in the face the doctrine of justification by faith alone. It was this text that prompted me to study John the Baptist in hopes of coming to see how best to understand this text in light of the rest of the Scriptures.
Checking the other three gospel accounts gives some clues as to what the message of John was even if there is no point by point theological statement written down.
“16 John answered and said to them all, "As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 "His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 18 So with many other exhortations he preached the gospel to the people. (Luke 3:16-18)
In this passage I didn’t even focus on verses 16 and 17 except for the context of what John said. It was verse 18 that grabbed my attention. John was preaching the gospel, or at least what Luke identified as the gospel at a later date. I think that it is important to know that Luke, like the other New Testament writers, refers to the message of salvation from the condemnation of God as the gospel. Furthermore, Luke uses this word to summarize what Christ Himself was proclaiming during His own ministry. So whatever we say about John’s message, we cannot say that it differed from that of Christ’s own message.
“7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.” (John 1:7-8)
The apostle John understood and related the message of the Baptizer to be one that pointed to Christ and was clear enough so that “all might believe through him.” This would not be possible if John the Baptist was making people a slave of the Law or tradition in order to bring about salvation. The facts that the ministry of the forerunner to the Messiah was to clear the path to Christ and that John’s message was shown to be in harmony with the message of Christ Himself should erase any fear of a proclamation of baptismal regeneration from Mark 1:4. There is still one more Scripture that I had not looked at in this context before, which really captured the truth that John’s message was one that lined up not only with Christ, but also with the apostles.
“24 Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures. 25 This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John;26 and he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. 27 And when he wanted to go across to Achaia, the brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him; and when he had arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, 28 for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.” (Acts 18:24-28, emphasis mine)
I wanted to emphasize the later part of verse 25 but also include 27 and 28 because of the more complete context of Apollos’ early faith and ministry. Notice that before Apollos had been baptized in the apostolic ministry, he was “speaking and teaching the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John.” In other words, Apollos had come into contact with the ministry of John the Baptist and had been baptized by him (cf. Mark 1:5). This may have happened during one of the many Jewish feasts where the faithful would make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate and worship.
John’s message was clear enough and direct enough that Apollos truly was able to “believe through” John’s preaching (cf. John 1:7) but then was not present during the further ministry of Christ, or at least not surrounding the time of the crucifixion and resurrection. The reason I say that is that if he were around, he would have experienced the baptism of the apostles and the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
If Apollos was proclaiming the falsehoods concerning Christ and His role as Messiah, he would not have been “speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus”. So the fact that Apollos was accurately teaching the things concerning Jesus without any apostolic instruction but only with the teaching from John the Baptist is a great testimony for the content of John’s teaching. John the Baptist was truly making the paths straight to the messiah, and Apollos is an example of the fruit of his ministry.
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.
James White debates Nadir Ahmed (Muslim apologist) in 2008 over whether the New Testament is reliable.
I watched this debate in its entirety, and I can say that I have never seen anything like it. This was infact a non-debate. The reason being that the Muslim apologist refused to stay on subject, answer questions, or follow the debate rules. Furthermore, Mr. Ahmed was asking for evidence regarding the validness of Paul being a "prophet" but would not even listen to anything that James would say.
Truly, the only thing about this debate that is worthy of remembering, at least from the things that Mr. Ahmed said, was this clip of him calling out a member of the audience in very "Jerry Springer-ish" way.
Yikes.
Praise God for the Bible and for men who can keep their composure much better and much longer than I can.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
“I cannot help but stop for just a moment and remind us that it is not a gospel that does not explain to men and to women and to children why they’re under the wrath of God. Don’t tell me that you’ve preached the gospel to someone when you have not followed the apostolic example and explained, first and foremost, that we all stand justly condemned before a holy God. If you have not proclaimed that, you have not proclaimed the gospel.” - James White, 2008 John Bunyan Conference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82_3HVNqsTc 2:34 ff.
