Church Write-Up: The Liked-Disliked Christian Exclusivist

For church last Sunday, I watched John MacArthur’s service, then I watched the service of the church that I normally attend.  In this post, I would like to mention something that MacArthur said.

MacArthur said that there is a paradox in the Christian life.  On the one hand, Christians are popular with the world because they are good, honest, trustworthy, and kind people.  MacArthur appealed to I Timothy 3:7, in which Paul told Timothy that a good reputation with outsiders is a qualification for being an overseer of the church.  On the other hand, Christians are unpopular because of their beliefs, particularly their narrow view that Jesus is the only way to salvation.  Jesus in Matthew 10:24-25 and John 15:18-25 said that, if the world hated Jesus, then it will hate the disciples, as well.

MacArthur was making these points within the context of discussing the early church in the early chapters of Acts.  On the one hand, the early church was popular.  God was adding new people to the church, and even people with base motivations (i.e., Simon the sorcerer and Ananias and Sapphira) were joining.  On the other hand, early Christians were being persecuted because they were teaching that it was only through the name of Jesus that one can be saved, challenging the adequacy of the Jewish religion.

I was relating that to Christians I have known.  There are Christians I know who strike me as very self-righteous: no humility that I can see!  I figure that I would like them better if I observed more humility in them!  But then I recall that I knew this one Christian who was a nice, sweet, giving person, without much pretense.  But her Christian exclusivist beliefs were a turn-off to me.  She believed that those who don’t believe in Jesus would go to hell, and she said this was because she believed what Jesus said.

Why did her beliefs irk me so?  Is it because, deep down, I believed she was right?  Well, not necessarily, but I will admit that I have dealt with religious incongruity and dissonance within myself: of wanting to believe in Jesus, but simply not liking things that he said, at least as I understand them.  Was I hoping that she would manifest more of a critical approach to her religion rather than just swallowing it, or that she would recognize the apparent (in my mind) injustice of everlasting hell?  Could be.  But, then again, there are Christians who have justified hell in their own minds, offering reasons for their position rather than swallowing it without critical thought.  They’ve turned me off, too!

I have to admit: the possibility that a Christian exclusivist belief is the way things actually are does scare me, for the sake of people I know and love.

I’ll shut off comments.  I hope none of my Christian exclusivist friends or friendly acquaintances are offended by this post, or conclude that I dislike them on account of their beliefs.

Church Write-Up: Self-Denial

At church last Sunday, it was raining outside, plus there were forecasts of an ice-storm.  I stayed home and watched John MacArthur’s service, then I watched the service of the church that I usually attend.  I hope I don’t get too comfortable with this way of doing “church”!  As an introvert, I love it, but I do think it is good for me to push myself into situations that involve being with people.

MacArthur was continuing his series on the church, and he was commenting on Jesus’ statement in Matthew 16:24: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (KJV).

What does it mean to deny oneself?  Does it mean that we are never allowed to do what we want to do, to please ourselves?  Can we never have our own way?

MacArthur offered explanations.  For him, one way that we deny ourselves is by being humble about our need for God’s forgiveness.  According to MacArthur, we should come to church, wanting nothing from God but God’s forgiveness.  As we grow in the faith, MacArthur said, we become more and more aware of how unworthy we are of what God has given us.

How is this self-denial?  It may be self-denial in the sense that it entails that we deny our natural tendency to exalt ourselves, by humbling ourselves before God.

MacArthur offered other ideas, as well.  He referred to a Puritan poem about a person losing everything, yet still having Jesus and the riches of God’s grace.  MacArthur also mentioned attitudes that correspond with self-denial.  Such attitudes include being content with anonymity, accepting rebuke from people we consider our social inferiors (or at least taking that rebuke seriously), not fighting back when we are criticized, and being happy for someone when something good happens in that person’s life, even if we are still struggling.  Again, self-denial contends against our desire for self-exaltation.

The pastor at the church that I normally attend touched on self-denial.  He has done so in past sermons, too.  For him, self-denial is resisting our old, sinful self, which wants to go the opposite direction from God’s way.  We have to say “no” to that.

How do I process all of this?  Sure, I would love to be content with anonymity!  Some days, like today, I actually am.  But, like a lot of people, Christians included, I would like to be noticed.  And, in my opinion, part of Christian love is recognizing other people’s desire to be noticed and actually noticing them!  There are plenty of New Testament passages about encouraging people, which entails noticing them.

What is self-denial?  I could say that it related to the persecution that Christians endured back then, and even endure today in certain countries, but that seems like too convenient of an explanation, for me and other Christians in the United States.  In my opinion, and I’m sure there are people who will disagree with me on this, being a Christian in the United States does not entail a lot of counting the cost.  Christians are not put to death in the United States for being Christians.  I could say that self-denial means being a Christian despite persecution, and, since I am not persecuted, that command does not apply to me.  But that sounds like the easy way out.

Maybe MacArthur goes to an extreme in his characterization of self-denial, but then, on the other hand, maybe there is somewhere in there something helpful and constructive: being so secure in our identity in God that we can actually take second place.

Church Write-Up: Church Is About Jesus

Due to inclement weather, the church that I normally attend cancelled services last Sunday.  As I did the previous Sunday, when it cancelled services, I watched the live-stream of John MacArthur, Jr.’s Grace Community Church.

MacArthur is doing a series on the church.  MacArthur said that church is not about us making contacts to enrich ourselves, us recovering from substance abuse, or even us feeling better about ourselves so that we can get through the week.  On that last point, MacArthur likened church to a carousel: we get on, enjoy the music, and then get off at the same place where we got on!

For MacArthur, church is about exalting Jesus.  A component of that is serious, respectful worship.  MacArthur was calling the musical part of the service a taste of heaven, and, I must admit, it was powerful and majestic!  For MacArthur, when we exalt Jesus, things in our life fall into their proper place.

MacArthur was also placing the church within a larger context.  God the Father has given Christ the people of the church, according to John 6:37.  We belong to Christ, and we glorify Christ by imaging Christ.  At the eschaton, Christ will give the church to the Father, so that God may be all in all, a la I Corinthians 15:28.  According to MacArthur, the world is decaying, but the church will last forever.

At the end of the sermon, MacArthur reluctantly said that there were three men who were unfaithful to their….And that’s when the live-stream ended!  The service was about to start communion, but we were not shown that.

Oddly, the sermon made me feel better.  I realize that MacArthur’s whole point was that church isn’t about me but is about Jesus, but it still made me feel better.  Recent events made me evaluate the question of why I go to church.  I cannot deny that one reason is to make contacts: I have difficulty making friends, and church is a community where I can meet people, maybe people who would give me a job reference!  But that may not happen.  Would I say that church is a waste?  I should not say that.  It is a place for me to exalt Jesus and to learn about Jesus’ grace and character.

Church Write-Up: MacArthur Starts a Series on the Church

Last Sunday, the church that I usually attend cancelled its services, since there was an ice-storm.  I live on the West Coast, so I was trying to find an online service that matched my time-zone.  I decided to watch Grace Community Church’s service.  Grace Community Church is located in California, and its pastor is John MacArthur, Jr.

The service was impressive.  There was a choir, and there were nicely-dressed people in front of the choir playing violins and cellos.  The words of the songs were placed on the bottom of the screen so that viewers could sing along.  It was a formal, Reformed kind of service.

MacArthur preached the message, and he was starting a series on the church.  MacArthur was baffled that there are people who claim to have a personal relationship with Christ, yet have no relationship with the church.  For MacArthur, their relationship with Christ must not be that good, for Christ himself loves the church, and aren’t people in a relationship with Christ supposed to love what Christ loves?  MacArthur was saying that church is where believers live, move, and have their being.  It is where they serve, and where their spiritual desires are met.  The church is their kingdom, their people.  MacArthur related his own experience of the church: he grew up in it, made his friends there, and met his wife there.

MacArthur was critical of those who do church by themselves, by listening to their favorite teachers and the music that they select.  MacArthur was even critical of those who live-stream their church service from the Internet!  Why does his church allow people to watch its services on live-streaming, then?  Maybe it’s to give us a sampler, in hope that we will desire to visit the church in person.

MacArthur does not like people listening to their church on a podcast or watching their church on the Internet.  What exactly does he consider to be good enough, in terms of doing church?  Is coming to church sufficient, for MacArthur?  I don’t think so.  MacArthur was calling loud, concert-like churches fake churches.  Okay, then, is coming to MacArthur’s church sufficient?  Well, not exactly.  MacArthur was encouraging people to make a commitment to the church by becoming members, rather than keeping church at a distance.

MacArthur said that people may not want to commit to the church because they want to do what they want to do, when they want to do it.  For MacArthur, this is an obedience-to-God issue.  MacArthur asked people who keep their distance from the church if they are so wrapped up in themselves, that they cannot connect with the church.

The sermon was a little short on practicalities, but, to be fair, it is the first sermon of a series.  As far as I can recall, MacArthur did not encourage people to join small groups.  He did say that the church had active ministries, so perhaps he was encouraging people to participate in those.  He did say that people should come to church to serve and encourage others, but my guess is that this is the sort of church where that would be difficult: you know, a big sort of church where lots of people do not know the other people there.  I don’t even recall the service having a passing-of-the-peace!  Maybe that occurred before the service began, I don’t know.

The sermon kind of made me mad, but I knew before I even watched the service that there was a possibility that MacArthur would say something that would make me mad.  His Gospel According to Jesus put me in a spiritual tailspin for years, making me wonder if I was truly saved!  Still, for some reason, I have found MacArthur to be enjoyable to read and to listen to.

In expressing his bafflement at people who profess to have a personal relationship with Christ, yet keep their distance from the church, MacArthur was likening that to being connected to the head, but not the body.  He seemed to have difficulty imagining that as a possibility.  On some level, I don’t find that too far-fetched to envision: I would like to think that Christ loves me and has a relationship with me, whether or not I fit in with other believers.  If I cannot trust at least that, then how can I have hope?  At the same time, if I find any common ground at all with this sermon, it is here: I should not just think about myself but should think about others, too.

Giving Thanks, Without Being Perfunctory

During my prayer time last night, the subject of thanksgiving entered my mind because, well, it is Thanksgiving!  Philippians 4:6 came to my mind: “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (KJV).

There are many verses that I have read in the Bible.  Some have been impressed in my mind.  Some, not so much!  I first came to appreciate this verse when I read John MacArthur’s book, Anxiety Attacked, back when I was in high school.  I read that book a couple of times.  I read it once, then I reread it during the final exam period, a time when I was particularly anxious.  John MacArthur had a chapter in that book about Philippians 4:6.

But the years passed, and I have not thought about that verse that often since then—-maybe sporadically.  But I thought about it last night.  And what I thought was this: I spend a lot of my prayer time making requests to God.  That is not all that I do, of course, for I read something devotional: the Bible, the pseudepigrapha, and currently the “Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan.”  But requests are a significant part of my prayer time.  I pray for others first, one reason being that I care for the people I pray for and want to see good in their lives, and another reason being that I want to cultivate compassion within myself.  Then I pray for my own needs and desires: help me to get paying employment so that eventually I can pay off my student loans, help my blog to do better, help me to have more peace in social situations, fill me with your Holy Spirit, help me to make progress on my dissertation, help me to move on from past hurts.

I make these requests, and I do not think that is a bad thing.  This is a broken world, after all.  I am broken.  Others are broken, looking for a breakthrough, or at least peace.  Life is broken.  I would be wrong to refrain from praying for things, for that would imply that everything is all right.  It’s not.

But, unfortunately, I rarely make these requests with thanksgiving.  It’s not that I never give thanks.  It’s just pretty sporadic.  I thank God for the good that happens in the lives of others: when someone fears that she has cancer and learns that she does not, I give God thanks.  Yes, bad things happen to people in this life, but it is good to be happy about the good things that happen in people’s lives.  I also thank God for some of the joys or conveniences that I experience: that movie, TV show, or book that really moved me or made me think; that resource that I found for my dissertation (and, believe me, resources are not always easy to find!).

But I think that I should make thanksgiving a regular part of my daily prayer time.  But I want to do this without being perfunctory.  I don’t like having a long list of obligatory things that I have to say when I am praying.  I get to the point where I am not feeling what I am praying.  Currently, I have my standard list of people I pray for each day, and I keep that pretty standard: I rarely add to it.  But there is also a part of my prayer time in which I pray for people who are not part of my standard list—-people who come to mind at that moment.  That can vary by the day.  I find this approach more authentic than feeling as if I have to pray through the phone book.

I can do something similar with thanksgiving.  I can set aside a part of my prayer time in which I mention something that I am thankful for.  I don’t have to go through a laundry list, but I can mention something, and maybe more than one thing.  It can pertain to myself, or to something good that is happening in the life of someone else.  There is a lot to be thankful for: people who have helped me, our cats, and the list goes on.

I spend a lot of time complaining and griping about life.  That probably won’t change.  I believe that I have things to complain about!  I might as well not pretend otherwise, though I generally will try not to burden my readers with that (which is not a promise, but just a policy I may follow).  But I should spend more time than I do being thankful.

Authenticity, Choice, and Free Will

For my blog post about church this morning, I would like to use as my starting-point the stanza of a song that we sang.  The song is entitled “All That I Am.”  The stanza goes as follows:

“All that I am for all that You are my Lord,
“All that I have for all that You are.
“You’re the pearl beyond price greater than life.
“All that I am for all that You are.”

This reminded me of something that I heard John MacArthur say in a sermon a while back: that true Christians exchange all that they are for all that Christ is.

It sort of rubs me the wrong way, to tell you the truth.  I believe that God made each of us unique.  Each of us is one of a kind.  God doesn’t want us to be Jesus-clones.  God wants us to be like Jesus in terms of Jesus’ love and compassion, yet to have our own personalities.  Why should we have to surrender all of what we are for all that God is?  What is wrong with all that we are?

I may be misinterpreting the stanza.  I know plenty of evangelicals and other Christians have said that God created us unique, with our own personalities, gifts, and ways to contribute.  I just get leery at this kind of surrender talk.  I am not sure what to do with it.

I recall M. Scott Peck’s book, People of the Lie, which was about evil.  Peck was talking about a woman he counseled whom he considered to be evil.  This woman was responding to the Christian line that we were created to glorify God and enjoy him forever, and she was baffled by it.  She wondered what room there was for her in that.  Peck seemed to be presenting her as a self-centered narcissist.  I think she was asking a good question.

Another hymn I think of is “Draw Me Nearer.”  It has a line about my will being lost in the will of God.  That turns me off, too.  Losing my will?  That sounds like me losing myself and becoming programmed by God!  Don’t many Christians like to say that God gave us free-will because God doesn’t want robots, but people who freely love him?

A thought has occurred to me more than once as of late.  Yesterday, this thought somewhat intensified, so I wrestled with it more than I usually do.  I was upset with God, and I wondered why I should pray.  I concluded that I should pray for others because I wanted to be a more caring, compassionate person, and that I should ask God to make me that.  But then I had a thought: do I want to be a Christian because I want to be caring or compassionate, or because God wants me to be caring and compassionate?  Who sets the agenda in my life: me or God?  Whom am I trying to please: myself or God?  Where I settled was to say that being caring and compassionate is a good thing—-for me and others—-so it is not just a matter of my personal preference.  I cannot deny that personal preference plays a role, though.  And, to be honest, I do not really feel bad about that.  Maybe my attitude makes me look like a consumer.  Oh well.

Worship can be a bit of a challenge for me.  I do not consider it to be as great of a challenge for me as, say, socializing in unstructured social situations.  The latter is like me as a handicapped person trying to walk.  Regarding worship, I am able to sing songs and to read prayers.  But I am required to get into a mood of getting outside myself and proclaiming that someone, God, is greater than I am.  The attention is going to God.  It is not that I think that I deserve worship.  I realize that there are people who are better in character and talent than I am, that I am far from being the greatest power of the universe, that I am powerless in many areas, that I am a blip in the vast history of the universe, and that there are beautiful and fearsome things in nature that can make me feel small.  Still, getting outside of myself and worshiping God can be difficult.  Yet, I think it is necessary, at least for me.

The pastor’s sermon was interesting.  The pastor was preaching about Mark 12:38-44, in which Jesus criticizes the teachers of the law who devoured widow’s houses, right before pointing out a poor widow who gave everything she had, as small as it was, to the Temple.  The pastor mentioned a variety of issues: how the early church gave to widows; how Jesus and his brother James (who, in James 1:27, saw caring for widows as part of the essence of true religion) may have had a special concern for widows because their mother Mary was one; how giving to the church pays the pastor to do the things that he does (i.e., preaching, counseling); how there are pastors who try to guilt people into giving by saying the people should be self-sacrificial, as Jesus was on the cross; and how the pastor gives to the church because it was a friend to him when he did not have too many friends.

This intersects with what I am talking about: certain moral standards being beyond ourselves, and yet we can authentically embrace them; caring about God and others, even as we and our self-interest do not vanish from the picture; giving as an expression of who we are and where we have been; having and expressing gratitude.  I guess what I long for is personal and spiritual authenticity: doing right out of who I am, out of my personality.  There is a place for doing right out of obligation or obedience to God’s commandments—-certainly one would do well to avoid doing wrong whether that feels authentic or not!  But there is something special about authenticity.  I have long rolled my eyes at the standard Christian explanation (or, rather, A Christian explanation) for why God permits moral evil: God gave us free-will because God doesn’t want us to be robots but beings who freely love him.  Even if that theodicy does not solve everything or make me feel totally better about God or the evil in the world, there is something to it, in my opinion; at the very least, I like its valuation of authenticity, choice, and free-will.

Ramblings on My Church's Small Group and the Holy Spirit

My church has small groups during the fall and the spring.  This fall, we are going through Robert Morris’ The God I Never Knew: How Real Friendship with the Holy Spirit Can Change Your Life.  In the past, the church’s small groups have gone through Marcus Borg’s Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, and Rob Bell’s Love Wins.

I decided to go to the 10 a.m. group because I like morning meetings better than evening meetings.  Once I find a job, I may have to stop attending, depending on my hours.  But, in the meantime, I will keep on going.

I do stand out in the group.  I am the only male there.  I am also the youngest.  The group has mothers, elderly people, and soon-to-be retirees.  I hope that my presence there does not make anyone uncomfortable.  Although my presence there is probably unusual, the group has been welcoming to me.

I like the practical wisdom that I see in the group, as older people share their experiences with younger people.  People were talking last week about the grieving process after losing a loved one.

One member of the group was talking about doing church service projects with a couple of people, and those people recently “left us.”  That is a sad reminder of the reality of death.  People are with us, doing things, and then they are not.

We did not get that deeply into theology last week, but we did talk some about it.  Robert Morris, the author of the book we are reading, tells about his pastor, who told him to beware of people who talk about the Holy Spirit.  Morris was saying that a lot of Christians are reticent about the Holy Spirit, for a variety of reasons.

That made me think about how my own church background handled the Holy Spirit.  The church in which I was raised was non-Trinitarian.  It thought that God the Father and God the Son were God but that the Holy Spirit was not.  It saw the Holy Spirit as God’s power rather than as a person within the Godhead.

You would think that the church of my upbringing would not talk much about the Holy Spirit.  Morris himself argues that the Holy Spirit is a person, apparently seeing the view that the Holy Spirit is God’s impersonal power as part of the problem.  Actually, though, the church of my upbringing talked a lot about the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit opened people’s minds to God’s truth and dwelt inside of believers, enabling them to live righteous lives, if the believers yielded to it.  The person giving the opening prayer would ask for God’s Holy Spirit to be present in the congregation, helping the speaker in his speaking and the congregation in its listening.  God, through God’s power (or spirit), could do these things, the church of my upbringing reasoned.

There is a lot more that I could say about the church of my upbringing and its attitude towards the Holy Spirit.  It is rather difficult for me to determine whether it was cessationist in its stance on the spiritual gifts, or continuationist.  (Cessationists believe that things like tongues and healings ceased after the New Testament and now we should rely on the Bible for our information about God.  Continuationists think that such gifts have continued to exist, and that God can speak to people today.)  There were elements of both.  It did not believe in speaking in tongues and mocked Pentecostals and charismatics.  But it did believe that God spoke to its leaders, in some capacity.  Cessationist John MacArthur criticized the founder of the movement in Charismatic Chaos, pointing to him as an example of what can happen if one does not embrace cessationism.

Why did the church of my upbringing talk about the Holy Spirit?  I could ask “Why not?” The Holy Spirit is significant in the Bible, after all.  But I also think that many people there believed that their eyes were opened to the truth by the Holy Spirit.  That church believed a lot of things that the world does not believe in, things that are in the Bible yet not talked about that much in the outside world, even within Christendom.  How could people become aware of these things, instead of being unaware of them, like most people?  Their answer was that their minds had been opened by the Holy Spirit.  God had called them out of the world!  That was the only way to explain it!

(Note: This is not to suggest that I regard the teachings of the church of my upbringing as truth, but I can understand how people can consider them to be such.)

Back to the United Methodist Church that I currently attend, and its small group.  One of the facilitators was asking how we saw the Holy Spirit.  “He is inside of us,” one person said.  “I always believed that Christ was inside of me, but I guess that is the same as the Holy Spirit being inside of me,” another facilitator said.  Then someone said that our conscience can be the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us.

That actually raises a profound question.  I would not say that our conscience is the Holy Spirit inside of us.  Believers have the Holy Spirit, but everyone has a conscience.  That said, they are similar, in that both guide and instruct people about what is right and wrong.  From a Christian standpoint, I would say that the Holy Spirit gives people the power to do what their conscience demands, and perhaps also that the Holy Spirit elevates or enhances the conscience.  Whether I truly and personally believe that, I do not know.  There are Christians who struggle with moral weakness, and there are non-Christians who are good people.  I know that I seek strength from the Holy Spirit, but that does not make me morally perfect, not by a long shot.

I recently read a book, God, Please Rewire My MADFATS, which was about how people can essentially reprogram their brain in a positive direction.  From a Christian standpoint, one can ask: If I can reprogram my brain naturally so that it is positive, what role does God need to play?  The author did believe that the Holy Spirit was important, however: that we walk in victory through the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit is what makes us truly love other people, in a self-sacrificial sense.  What we naturally have can only take us so far, the author seemed to be suggesting, so there does need to be supernatural intervention for us to live a godly, righteous life.

I’ll stop here.

"Take Away Our (Bent or Desire?) to Sinning"

At church last Sunday, the pastor was contrasting a Methodist version of a Charles Wesley hymn with a Lutheran version.  The hymn is “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” The reason that the pastor was commenting on this is that she will soon be leaving us to pastor another church, and the church that she will pastor is a combination of Methodist and Lutheran churches.  She once told me that you see these sorts of combinations a lot these days, since there are a lot of small denominational churches, and churches believe that they can support themselves better and get more done by combining.  The pastor at the church that I attended in upstate New York before moving here used to be involved in a similar set-up: he pastored a church that was a combination of Presbyterian and Methodist churches.

But back to the hymn!  The Methodist version of the hymn has “Take away our bent to sinning.”  But, according to the pastor last Sunday, the Lutheran hymn asks God to take away our desire to sin.  When I first heard my pastor make that point, my thought was, “What’s the difference?  They sound to me like the same point!”  As I reflected some more, and especially as I read that book about George Whitefield, I realized that the points are different.

George Whitefield and John Wesley had debates.  I already knew that one of their debates was about predestination—-that God decreed before the foundation of the world who would come to Christ and be saved, and who would not be saved.  Whitefield believed in predestination, whereas Wesley did not.  But Whitefield and Wesley also debated another issue: whether sinless perfection is possible for believers in this life.  Whitefield said no, whereas Wesley said yes.  (To read more about what Wesley thought sinless perfection is and is not, see my post here.)

I thought back to Calvinist things that I had read, such as John MacArthur’s The Gospel According to Jesus, Faith Works, and Saved Without a Doubt.  A point that MacArthur made, if I recall correctly, is that Christians will never be free from sin in this life, but that, once they become saved, they do not want to sin.  Their desire is to please God.  When they do sin, they feel bad about it.  I have encountered this sort of view among other Christians, as well.

That said, I can understand what the Lutheran version of Charles Wesley’s hymn was saying, and how that differs from the Methodist version.  The Methodist version was saying that God can take away our bent to sin.  The Lutheran version, by contrast, was saying that God can take away our desire to sin, but that we will still sin in this life; the overall desire of believers, however, is not to sin.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and, on some level, this will be the case until our last breath.

Where my pastor takes this insight about the contrast between Methodism and Lutheranism, I am not entirely sure.  I doubt that she believes that she has arrived at a state of sinless perfection.  My impression is that she does, however, prefer to focus on spiritual growth and advancement, becoming closer to God, and doing good rather than on beating oneself up on account of sins.

On a related note, I was thinking of a book that I recently read, Carl Schmuland’s Parables of the Deer, which was written from a Calvinist perspective.  Schmuland, in my opinion, was rather ambiguous about what happens to the sinful nature of people once they become born-again believers in Christ.  In one place, he said that believers are essentially like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, prior to the Fall: they can freely choose between good and evil, rather than being bent towards evil.  In another place, Schmuland was saying that believers still have to contend with their sinful nature, on some level, which implies that some bent towards sin is still present within them.  I am sharing my impression of what Schmuland was saying, and I hope that I have conveyed his thoughts accurately, as opposed to taking his thoughts in a direction that he did not intend.

I was meditating on the second century C.E. (according to A.F.J. Klijn) Jewish work, II Baruch, a few days ago.  II Baruch was saying that, even though Adam and Eve sinned, people after Adam and Eve only have themselves to blame for their sins and the punishment that God dishes out to them.  It seemed to me that II Baruch was interacting with some notion of original sin, and I wondered how developed the doctrine actually was in the second century C.E.  In any case, these passages encouraged me to ask myself: “If I were in the Garden of Eden, would I eat the forbidden fruit?”  Wouldn’t that be a sign of whether one has the new, born-again nature—-that we would not commit the sin that Adam and Eve committed, were we in their shoes?  I have read or heard more than one Christian say that human beings, with their fallen human nature, would eat the forbidden fruit without hesitation were they in Adam and Eve’s shoes.  That is how some Christians try to justify the idea that God is just to punish human beings for the sin of Adam and Eve.

Would I have eaten the forbidden fruit?  Speaking for myself, it is a strong possibility.  I can imagine myself not fully trusting God, believing that God is holding something back from me, and desiring for myself the wisdom, power, and divinity that the serpent said would come from eating the forbidden fruit.  Come to think of it, though, I can also envision myself making the opposite decision.  And, while I do not know people’s hearts, I can picture even non-believers going either way.  It’s not as if all non-believers are power-hungry or obsessed with vainglory.

The Opposite of Love Is...Indifference?

I’m reading a biography of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and a prolific author.  The book is Michael Mott’s The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton.  On page 316, Mott quotes the following from one of Merton’s books, Thoughts in Solitude:

“Those who do not love, hate.  In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate.  That is why tepidity (which seems to be indifferent) is so detestable.  It is hate disguised as love.”

Similarly, pastor and author John MacArthur, Jr. says this here:

“Do you honestly care about other believers or are you cold, uncaring, and indifferent? Do you have a desire to reach out and meet their needs? Those who don’t care are spiritually dead, characterized by an ongoing hatred. In our sophisticated age, that is manifested not so much in vitriolic hostility as in an utterly self-centered approach to life. People who continually focus on themselves and couldn’t care less what happens to anyone else are of their father the devil, who ‘was a murderer from the beginning’ (John 8:44). As believers, however, ‘we know love by this, that [Christ] laid down His life for us’ quite the opposite of the devil’s murderous character. Therefore, ‘We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren’ (1 John 3:16).”

These passages remind me of the cliche that “the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.”  I’ve seen TV shows about this.  A son hates his mother, and his mother actually thinks that’s a good thing, because the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.  If he hates, that shows he still cares.

The reason that the Thomas Merton quote stood out to me is that, lately, I have been rather indifferent towards certain people and have considered that to be a good thing.  At least I am not seething in resentment against them!  At least indifference allows me to have a certain peace of mind!  I can think about certain people from my past and be happy that I do not have to see them anymore, and just let them go their way, while I go mine.  Why should I beat myself up for not having benevolence in my heart towards them?  Actually, when would I be better able to meet their needs were I to encounter them or to be asked by them for help: when I am seething against them, or when I have a placid indifference?  Probably the latter, unless I am called upon to make a great sacrifice.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says that the way to cure a grudge against a person is to pray for him or her.  More than one person has testified that this approach works.  Essentially, over a period of time, you pray for the person and wish for him or her the things that you desire for yourself.  This approach is not placid indifference towards the other person but is an attempt to cultivate some benevolence in one’s heart, to humanize the other person, if you will.  At the same time, I doubt that the Big Book is expecting the person with the grudge to think about that other person all of the time.  What we’re talking about here, it seems to me, is a method to cure resentment, which can drive an alcoholic to drink.

Personally, I find indifference to be a step up from hatred.  Yet, I do not want to be at a place where I am totally callous towards others and self-absorbed.  Benevolence towards those I dislike, however, is too saintly for me.  For that, I need divine grace, and that is something for me to pray for.  In the meantime, as I do that, I will celebrate whatever placid feelings I have.  Maybe I can remind myself that God loves me and those I dislike, and that can cultivate a greater love in my heart.

Kenneth Copeland Waiting for the Dentist...

I was listening to preacher Kenneth Copeland a couple days ago.  He told a story about when he was sitting in the waiting room to see the dentist, and he overheard two dental assistants talking.  The first said that she asked God for patience, and the second replied that she should go to God and take that back, for now God will put her through all kinds of turmoil to teach her patience!

Kenneth Copeland did not agree with the second woman.  He said that God corrects us through his word and out of love, whereas the woman was seeing God as rather harsh and untrustworthy.  He also stated that the woman was mixing the law-oriented system of the Old Covenant with the (presumably grace-oriented) New Covenant.  Copeland was about to say something to the second woman, he narrates, but he said that God told him to keep his mouth shut!

I liked this story for three reasons:

1. I never cared for the platitude that we should never pray for patience because God would then put us through horrible experiences to teach us patience.  I agree with what Kenneth Copeland said about this in his sermon: it doesn’t present a very flattering picture of God!  But because that platitude is somewhere in my mind, it discourages me from praying for patience.  The thing is, I need patience: the ability to stay inwardly and outwardly calm when I am not getting my own way.  I have reached a compromise: rather than simply asking God for patience, I ask that God might give me calm and peace through specific situations.  God does not have to manufacture those situations to teach me patience.  The situations are already there, and I am asking God to help me to cope with them.

Platitudes that comfort some people may turn other people off.  I one time heard somebody say that he never cared for the platitude of “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”  He did not think that God laughed at his plans!  He put a lot of thought into his plans, as we all should do!  Why would God laugh at that?

The platitudes may be getting at something edifying, though.  God may teach us patience by giving us things to be patient about.  Or God may have plans for us that differ from our own plans, and that we did not anticipate.  But these platitudes can be taken in directions that are not exactly edifying, at least not to everyone.

2.  I could somewhat identify with what Copeland said about law and God’s grace.  He could have fleshed it out some more, and he may have elsewhere.  But my impression is that there are many versions of Christianity that mix law and God’s grace.  They may proclaim, “God is loving, but…” or “We are saved by grace, but…”   They believe that God forgives, but they also see God as one who condemns people for their flaws and does not fully accept them.  It is almost as if people need to pass some test to get God’s approval.  Christians who love to focus on grace, however, maintain that there is no test: God accepts us.  Our goal now should be to grow spiritually within the context of God’s acceptance.

It is not the case that Copeland dismisses moral standards.  As he said, God corrects us through his word and out of love.  God has to have standards if God is to correct us according to them.  But keeping the law is not the pathway to getting God’s acceptance, for nobody is perfect in keeping the law.  Rather, for Copeland, God offers his acceptance freely through Jesus Christ.  God does not condemn believers for their sin, I presume is the case in this model, but God corrects them.

I can see some wisdom to this.  I question how biblical it is, though.  Perhaps it is consistent with aspects of Paul’s thought.  But, this morning, I was thinking about Jesus’ statement that the narrow way leads to life or salvation, and that only a few will find it (Matthew 7:13-14; Luke 13:23-24).  I recalled listening to a tape in which Lordship salvation advocate John MacArthur was responding to someone who claimed that, if Lordship salvation (only those who obey Jesus as Lord are saved) is true, then only a few people will be saved.  MacArthur’s response was that this is exactly what Jesus said was the case: narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it!  I had to laugh at MacArthur’s wit and use of Scripture to refute a Christian thinker.  But it kind of splashes cold water on any notion I have that Christianity is about a God of unconditional love.  I feel as if I need to keep some law to be assured of salvation, and that does not make me feel that good, for I am far from perfect, or even righteous, for that matter!  Maybe there are ways to understand Matthew 7:13-14 and Luke 13:23-24 in manners that are consistent with God’s love and grace.

3.  Copeland said that God in the waiting room told him to keep his mouth shut.  I find that to be appropriate for certain situations.  Even if I am right, people do not need to hear me express my right opinion in every situation.  I had to respect Copeland’s humility in recognizing that it was not the time or the place for people to hear his opinion, in that setting.

There are times, though, when I am silent and I later wish that I had said something.  In a Bible study group, for example, I may choose to refrain from mentioning my doubts about Christianity as we discuss a devotional DVD about Jesus’ life.  I do not want to disturb the spiritual flow or rain on people’s parade.  But, when people in the group later express that they are baffled that there are people who believe differently from them about Christianity, they fail to acknowledge that there are reasons for other points of view, they manifest an “us vs. them” mindset, they scream “persecution,” or they wage the culture wars (i.e., about people saying “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas”), I may have to say something.  I hope that I have the courage to do so.

Book Write-Up: The Christ of the Covenants, by O. Palmer Robertson

O. Palmer Robertson.  The Christ of the Covenants.  Phillipsburgh, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1980.

A Reformed Christian recommended this book to me about eight years ago—-that, and O. Palmer Robertson’s 2000 book, The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.  I recently decided to read The Christ of the Covenants for a variety of reasons.  First of all, I was noticing John Valade’s blog posts about the book, and that reminded me that I had it.  Second, I not long ago blogged about a book by John MacArthur and others defending dispensationalism, and I wanted to understand the perspective of dispensationalism’s rival, Covenant Theology.  Third, my church will be doing its Bible study on the covenants, and that has placed the covenants on my mind.

In this post, I’d like to talk about Robertson’s interaction with two issues.  The first issue is the relationship between the Abrahamic and the Mosaic covenants.  The second issue is Robertson’s view that God’s covenant with Israel typified themes in the New Testament.

1.  I have long had a question about the covenants: What is the relationship between the Abrahamic covenant and the Sinai/Mosaic covenant?  Back when I was a child, I heard a preacher say that the Mosaic covenant was an extension, or a sub-set, of the Abrahamic covenant.  When I would read Paul years later, it seemed to me that Paul was placing the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant in opposition to each other, as if Christians are to rely on the Abrahamic covenant of justification by grace through faith, whereas the Mosaic covenant was a temporary schoolmaster of works that was designed to lead Israel to Christ.

Just looking at the two covenants, they strike me as rather different.  The Abrahamic covenant is unconditional and is based on God’s promise that Abraham’s offspring would inherit the Promised Land, and Abraham is considered to be righteous in trusting God’s promise.  The Mosaic covenant, however, conditions Israel’s possession of the land on her obedience to God’s commandments.

Robertson interacts with this question, as well as dispensationalist and neo-dispensationalist takes on it.  One dispensationalist perspective is that Israel essentially took a step down when she adopted the Mosaic covenant.  Under the Abrahamic covenant, she was justified and possessed the land by grace through faith alone, but she chose instead to embrace a covenant that conditioned her righteousness and her possession of the land on her works.  Later on, Robertson observes, the New Scofield Bible would deny that Israel under the Mosaic covenant was justified by works, maintaining that obedience to the law was to be an expression of her faith.  (Maybe, but I don’t think that one can get around the conditional nature of the Mosaic covenant: if Israel did not obey, she would not possess the land.)

Robertson disagrees with dispensationalism on this issue, and he actually has a variety of takes on it.  Robertson seems to question that the Abrahamic covenant was truly unconditional.  He notes the importance of obedience even under the Abrahamic covenant: one had to be circumcised to remain a part of God’s people, and Abraham was said to obey certain laws.  Robertson also affirms that there are conditions in the New Covenant.  The laws that God writes on people’s hearts and minds (a la Jeremiah 31:31-33) are the same as the Mosaic laws, as far as Robertson is concerned, even though he acknowledges that Christians should not obey all of these laws physically and literally, as Old Covenant Israelites did.  At the same time, Robertson later in the book appears to grant that the Abrahamic covenant is unconditional, for only God walks through the animal pieces in Genesis 15.  Robertson’s position here seems to be that God is committed to Israel under the Abrahamic covenant, yet God will still discipline her with exile for her sins.  In this book and also in The Israel of God, Robertson argues that Christ himself fulfilled the conditions of the covenant, the conditions of obedience that Israel could not fulfill.

Why does Robertson believe that God gave the law to Israel?  One reason was that nations need laws.  God promised that Abraham would have offspring and would possess the Promised Land, meaning that there would be a nation.  At Sinai, God constituted Israel into a nation by giving her laws.  Later, under the Davidic covenant, God would establish a system of authority to enforce the laws and the proper worship at Jerusalem.  Second, according to Robertson, God gave Israel the law to remind her of her inability to be righteous by works, thereby highlighting her need for Christ.

Speaking for myself, I would say that God’s promises in Deuteronomy and prophetic writings to spiritually transform Israel bring together the unconditional and conditional covenants: God’s promise that Israel would inherit the land is unconditional, but she cannot stay in the land if she disobeys God.  How does God solve this problem?  God programs Israel to be obedient, so she is guaranteed to stay in the land!  The unconditional covenant is fulfilled as God ensures that the conditions are met! 

2.  I often felt in reading The Christ of the Covenants that Robertson was reducing God’s covenant with Israel to being a type of the themes of the New Testament (i.e., salvation through Christ), while ignoring Israel’s significance and value within the Hebrew Bible itself, and criticizing dispensationalists for acknowledging some non-Christian significance to elements of the Hebrew Bible.  Maybe my concern is fair, but it is not entirely fair, for there are places in the book where Robertson treats God’s relationship with Israel on its own terms, without reference to the New Testament.  While Robertson believes that circumcision is a symbol of the spiritual cleansing that believers receive under the New Covenant (Colossians 2:11), for example, he argues on the basis of Joshua 5:9 (Israel’s circumcision rolled off of her the reproach of Egypt) that circumcision related to spiritual purification in the Hebrew Bible, as well.  He also offered other reasons for circumcision under the Old Covenant: that it highlighted God’s relationship with Israel as a community, since the organ of procreation is what is circumcised, and circumcision is a ritual whereby Israelite children become part of the covenant community.

Overall, however, my impression is that Robertson regards God’s covenant with Israel as a type of the New Covenant.  Does that mean that Robertson believes that the church has replaced Israel as God’s chosen people?  Well, Robertson does not think that the land promises are in effect the same way that they were under the Old Covenant, for he regards them more as spiritual within the New Covenant on the basis of Hebrews 11:9-10.  (Robertson does argue more than once, however, that God plans are not just spiritual and heavenly, for they relate to the healing of the cosmos, and Christ’s rule in heaven has earthly effects.)  But Robertson does not seem to believe that God has utterly forsaken physical Israel, for Robertson states that God has reserved a remnant of physical Israelites who believe in the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

I wish that Robertson had gone into more detail about the New Covenant significance of Israel’s restoration from exile.  Robertson does well to place the promised New Covenant in Jeremiah 31 within the context of Jeremiah 31 itself, but God in that chapter associates the New Covenant with Israel’s return to her land.  Does Robertson not interpret that return as literal?  If not, why not?  Maybe he’ll go into more detail about this in The Israel of God.

This book was worth the read, even though I walk away from it with a rather fragmented understanding of the covenants.  Perhaps that should be an incentive for me to study more, and my church’s Bible study will provide me with an opportunity to do so.

Review of Christ's Prophetic Plans: A Futuristic Premillennial Primer

John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue, ed.  Christ’s Prophetic Plans: A Futuristic Premillennial Primer.  Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2012.

I would like to thank Moody Publishers for my review copy of this book.  See here for Moody’s page about the book.

Christ’s Prophetic Plans is an explanation and a defense of futuristic premillennialism, the pretribulational rapture, and classical dispensationalism.  Futuristic premillennialism is the notion that Jesus Christ will come back to earth in the future and will rule the world for one thousand years.  Prior to Christ’s second coming, according to futuristic premillennialism, there will be a Great Tribulation that will befall the world.  The pretribulational rapture is the idea that God will take Christians to heaven (as well as resurrect past saints) before this Tribulation occurs.  Classical dispensationalism states that God is still committed to the nation of Israel, and it interprets the Old Testament promises to Israel literally rather than spiritualizing them out of a belief that the church has replaced Israel as God’s chosen people (replacement theology).  For classical dispensationalists, Israel continues to be God’s chosen nation.  (Note: I use the term “Old Testament” rather than Hebrew Bible in this review because the authors of Christ’s Prophetic Plans regard the Hebrew Bible as an Old Testament.)

This book contains contributions by John MacArthur, Richard Mayhue, Michael Vlach, Nathan Busenitz, and Matthew Waymeyer, all of whom are associated with the Master’s Seminary.  The contributions by MacArthur, Vlach, and Waymeyer are very lucid and well-argued.  Mayhue’s writing is rather complex and elliptical in areas, and yet his defense of the pretribulational rapture is quite thought-provoking, and it avoids (perhaps even repudiates) some of the weak defenses of the pretribulational rapture that I have encountered over the years (i.e., Matthew 24:40-41 concerns the pretribulational rapture, or Christ’s coming as a thief in the night indicates a pretribulational rapture).  Busenitz’s chapter might be useful to scholars in the field of the History of Biblical Interpretation or Church History, for it quotes church fathers who believed in a literal, future millennial reign of Christ, as well as offered reasons that much of the church departed from futuristic premillennialism in favor of amillennialism, the idea that the millennium in Revelation 20 refers to Christ’s present spiritual reign (which commenced after Jesus’ resurrection) rather than a future earthly reign.

Overall, I found the book’s defense of futuristic premillennialism and classical dispensationalism to be effective.  Against amillennialists who argue that the millennium of Revelation 20 is Christ’s present spiritual reign and that (in accordance with Revelation 20:2-3) Satan is currently limited in terms of his ability to deceive the world, more than one contributor referred to New Testament passages indicating that Satan has been active in the world even after Christ’s resurrection.  The book also appealed to New Testament passages in arguing that God is still committed to Israel.  John MacArthur even contended that Calvinists especially should believe in God’s commitment to Israel, since God has elected Israel, and Calvinists often regard God’s election as unconditional and lasting.  MacArthur offers reasons that a number of Calvinists have instead embraced replacement theology and a non-literal interpretation of parts of the Old Testament.

I did not find all of the book’s arguments to be convincing, however.  The book purported to support a literal hermeneutic of Scripture, yet there were times when I thought that it failed to take the text at face value due to its commitment to biblical inerrancy.   Mayhue, for instance, said that the church of Philadelphia in Revelation 3 refers to a first century church and also an end-time church, and the reason is probably that Mayhue wants to use Revelation 3:10 as a proof-text for the pre-tribulational rapture, and he cannot do so if Revelation 3:10 applies only to the first century church in Philadelphia.  Consequently, he embraces a notion that Revelation 3:10 has a first century and an end-time fulfillment, when Revelation 3:10 could simply have been an expectation of what would happen in the first century.  Similarly, on page 99, Mayhue says that God often warned God’s people in the past about a judgment that they would not experience in order to encourage them to repent.  I think that this is Mayhue’s attempt to account for imminent eschatology: the idea that God will soon exact judgment and set up a paradise.  This idea appears in prophecies in the Hebrew Bible and also in the New Testament, but the eschaton did not materialize in the past, and this can pose a problem to those who regard the Bible as the inerrant word of God.  In my opinion, not only does Mayhue deal with this problem inadequately, but he also skirts the literal meaning of the biblical text.

In addition, there were times when I wished that the book went more deeply into certain issues.  For example, there was a chart near the beginning of the book that explained futuristic premillennialism, and it distinguished among the Judgment Seat of Christ that Paul mentions, God’s judgment of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46, and the White Throne Judgment in Revelation 20:11-15, asserting that these are three separate judgments.  I was hoping to read a discussion about the judgment of the sheep and the goats later in the book, but I was disappointed.

On page 43, Vlach quotes the dispensationalist Scofield Reference Bible, which states regarding John 1:17 that “The point of testing is no longer legal obedience as the condition of salvation, but acceptance or rejection of Christ, with good works as a fruit of salvation.”  Vlach is arguing against the idea that dispensationalists teach that there have been multiple paths to salvation—-that the Old Testament held to salvation by obedience to the law, whereas people today are saved by grace through faith in Christ.  Vlach refers to dispensationalist statements that even people in Old Testament times were saved by grace, but, unfortunately, he does not explain what that passage in the Scofield Reference Bible meant in implying that legal obedience was once a “condition of salvation.”  Instead, Vlach quotes Charles Ryrie’s statement that earlier dispensationalists made “unguarded statements that would have been more carefully worded if they were being made in the light of today’s debate” (Ryrie’s words).  I wish that Vlach had explained how dispensationalists believe that salvation occurred in Old Testament times, and what role (if any) the law played.

I also wish that the book went into more detail about the significance of Israel’s establishment as a nation in 1948.  The book mentions that event, but I was curious as to whether the book’s contributors believe it fulfilled the prophecies in the Old Testament about Israel’s restoration.  Many of the glorious occurrences that are associated with Israel’s restoration within the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible did not occur in 1948.  I wonder about how the contributors to Christ’s Prophetic Plans would address that.

Overall, however, I found this book to be interesting and informative.

Questions about Luke 22, and Why Luke Said Jesus Was Innocent

My church finished its Bible study on Luke last night.  We were going through Luke: Gospel of Reassurance With Michael Card.  Because my pastor and his wife will be away next week, we went through two lessons last night.  In this post, I'll have three items: two about Lesson 7, and one about Lesson 8.

1.  One verse that stood out to me was Luke 22:15-16, which states (in the NIV): "And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.  For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God." 

How will the Passover be fulfilled in the kingdom of God?  What does that mean? 

John MacArthur states: "fulfilled. Christ’s death on the following day fulfilled the symbolism of the Passover meal. Passover was both a memorial of the deliverance from Egypt, and a prophetic type of the sacrifice of Christ."
 
According to MacArthur, if I am understanding him correctly, the Passover found fulfillment in the Kingdom of God when Jesus died on the cross.  I thought for a long time, however, that its fulfillment in the Kingdom of God would relate to Christ's second coming.  John Gill's interpretation is similar to that of MacArthur, but he also believes that there is eschatological significance: "it will also be fulfilled in the kingdom of heaven, or eternal glory, when there will be a perfect deliverance of the saints from sin, Satan, and the world; which the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt was typical of, commemorated in the passover; and therefore then will be sung the song of Moses, and the Lamb; and then will Christ, and his true followers, eat and drink together in his Father's kingdom, and spend an endless eternity in never fading joys and pleasures."
 
In a sense, while the deliverance of the world from sin and Satan commenced with Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, it will be completed, or fulfilled, after Christ's second coming.  Within early Christian thought, the Passover is relevant to this eschatological occurrence, for the Book of Revelation mentions the Song of Moses in reference to it.

2.  What stood out to me in Lesson 7 was a question about Luke 22:45.  I think that the curriculum was using the NIV, so I'll quote Luke 22:45 in that version.  The context is Jesus' anguished prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, shortly before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion.  Luke 22:45 states, "When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow."  The question about this passage in the workbook was: "What do you think Luke meant in regard to the disciples being asleep, 'exhausted from sorrow' (verse 45)?"

I have to admit that this biblical passage puzzled me somewhat.  Why were the disciples sorrowful?  Did they know that Jesus was about to die?  Did they feel heavy around Jesus because they could sense that Jesus was feeling heavy?

I had problems with the idea that the disciples at that moment were aware that Jesus would die.  I didn't think that they had that kind of understanding of God's plan at that point.  Obviously, they knew that Jesus was about to encounter trials, since Peter affirmed in Luke 22:32 that he would not deny Jesus but would go to prison and death for him, so Peter was aware that troubling times were ahead.  Could that be why the disciples were sorrowful when they were praying?  I had long assumed that they were clueless about what was about to happen to Jesus when they fell asleep.

I looked at commentaries, and the only explanations I found were that the disciples were sad because Jesus was sad, or because Jesus had told them about his imminent trials and death.  Why would they stick with Jesus, if they knew that he was about to die?  Was it out of loyalty, love, and admiration for Jesus?  Did they expect for God to deliver Jesus and usher in the Messianic era at the last minute?  If that was their expectation, why were they so sad?

3.  The Gospel of Luke makes a big deal about Jesus' innocence.  That was noted when I was taking New Testament classes as an undergraduate.  The curriculum my church was using last night highlighted this point.  Michael Card said that Jesus' innocence in Luke's Gospel foreshadowed Paul's innocence in Acts.  But what is the big deal about Jesus being innocent.  Innocent of what?  The charge that he was a blasphemer, or an insurrectionist Messianic wannabee?  The impression that I got from the group, and that I get from many Christians, is that Jesus' innocence in Luke's Gospel means he was sinless.  But one doesn't follow from the other, in my opinion.  One can be innocent of charges, yet still fall short of sinless perfection.

Perhaps Luke is simply trying to convince the Romans that Jesus was innocent of being an insurrectionist.  At the same time, I have the feeling that his innocence has a deeper meaning than that in Luke's Gospel. 

Pentecost and John 16:10

We celebrated Pentecost at my church this morning.  We sang songs about the liberating, creative, convicting, and yet gentle Spirit of God.  I especially liked one of the songs that we sang, "Spirit", which went into the Holy Spirit's activity from creation through Sinai, all the way to Acts 2.

We were reading John 16:7-14, which is about the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.  I'd like to highlight vv 8-11 in the King James Version:

"(8) And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:  (9) Of sin, because they believe not on me;  (10) Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; (11) Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged."

I think that I understand v 9: the Holy Spirit convicts people of the sin of not believing in Christ.  And I can somewhat understand v 11: the Holy Spirit is informing people that the prince of this world is judged.  But I don't quite get v 10: what does the Holy Spirit convicting people of righteousness have to do with Jesus going to his Father?  Let's check some commentaries!

One point that John Gill makes is that Jesus' ascension to heaven and subsequent sending of the Holy Spirit vindicated his own (meaning Jesus') righteousness against those who accused him of unrighteousness.  Other Christian commentaries offer similar thoughts.

The Nelson Study Bible states: "of righteousness: After Christ’s departure the Holy Spirit would convict the world of the nature of righteousness and the need for righteousness. Jesus’ work on the Cross was completely righteous. This is demonstrated by the Father’s emptying of the tomb, signifying His satisfaction with the righteous payment and His acceptance of Christ into His presence."  In this view, Jesus' ascension affirms the righteousness of what Jesus did on the cross, as well as God's recognition of Jesus' saving work for the saints.

John MacArthur states in his MacArthur Study Bible: "righteousness. The Holy Spirit’s purpose here is to shatter the pretensions of self-righteousness (hypocrisy), exposing the darkness of the heart (3:19–21; 7:7; 15:22, 24). While Jesus was on the earth, He performed this task especially toward the shallowness and emptiness of Judaism that had degenerated into legalistic modes without life-giving reality (e.g., 2:13–22; 5:10–16; 7:24; Is. 64:5, 6). With Jesus gone to the Father, the Holy Spirit continues His convicting role."  I don't particularly care for MacArthur's characterization of Judaism here, but I can see his overall point about the meaning of John 16:10: the Holy Spirit is carrying on Jesus' work of convicting the world of righteousness, now that Jesus has ascended to heaven and is no longer physically on earth to do his convicting work.

Which of these interpretations do I prefer?  Well, I'd like to interpret John 16:10 in light of themes within John's Gospel itself.  I'm hesitant to interpret it in reference to the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement, for I'm not certain that this doctrine is in John's Gospel.  I'm open to correction on this, but Jesus in John 12:32 seems to posit a moral-influence view of the atonement: Jesus, in being lifted up on the cross, draws people to him, perhaps through his demonstration of love. 

But I'm open to some of the other interpretations of John 16:10: the Holy Spirit continues Jesus' work of convicting the world now that Jesus is in heaven, or the Holy Spirit affirms that Jesus' righteousness was affirmed by Jesus' ascent into heaven.

Week 3 of the John Bible Study

For its Bible study, my church is going through John's Gospel: Wisdom from Ephesus, with Michael Card. 

I was a little thrown off by this question in our workbook: "Michael notes that the gospel of John is unique among the four gospels.  What is one of your unique characteristics?  (If this is a hard question for you to answer, maybe the group can help!)"

My problem was that I didn't think that anyone was truly unique.  Can I truly say that something is true about me, that is not true of at least one other person on the face of the earth?  But, as I thought some more, I came to gain an appreciation for how unique each of us really is.  I may (to use an example) be interested in theology, and somebody else is interesting in theology.  But, even if the two of us read the same books and agree on the same ideas, we're still unique.  My commitment to the ideas is not quite like someone else's commitment to those same ideas.

Michael Card on the DVD mentioned a couple of other things that caught my interest.  Michael Card said that eight other gods besides the God of Israel were worshiped in the city of Nazareth, and that was one reason that Nathaniel in John 1:46 asked if anything good could come out of Nazareth.  I have no idea whether that's true or not.  There were rather pagan cities in the land of Israel----they were called the Decapolis.  But Nazareth was not part of the Decapolis.  Mark Chancey's "The Myth of a Gentile Galilee" may be relevant to this topic.  

Michael Card was also speculating about what Nathaniel was doing under the fig tree.  You may recall that Nathaniel in John 1 was really impressed with Jesus and concluded Jesus was the Messiah after Jesus told him that he (Jesus) saw Nathaniel under the fig tree.  Was Nathaniel praying?  Studying Scripture?  Doing something embarrassing?  Michael Card said that Nathaniel was praying for the coming of the Messiah.  That interpretation makes sense to me: Nathaniel is praying for the Messiah while he is under the fig tree, he is asked to come and see the Messiah, he is skeptical at first, and then he is impressed that Jesus knows that he was under the fig tree.  It's like Jesus is speaking out of intimate knowledge of Nathaniel's hope for the Messiah.

But the workbook also offers another possibility: Nathaniel was reading about the stairway to heaven that Jacob dreamed about in Genesis 28.  Jesus would allude to that story by saying that Nathaniel would see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.  Michael Card says this means that Jesus would be the fulfillment of Jacob's dream----that Jesus himself would be the way to heaven.  I don't think that this interpretation makes as much sense as the one that says that Nathaniel was praying for the Messiah.  Nathaniel was impressed that Jesus knew he was under the fig tree before Jesus alluded to the Jacob story.  I do believe, however, that the story of Jacob is relevant to Jesus' encounter with Nathaniel in John 1.  For one, there is the angels ascending and descending, which appears to be an allusion to Genesis 28.  Second, I appreciate John MacArthur's point that Jesus might be contrasting the guileless Nathaniel with Jacob, who had his share of guile.

On that note, I'd like to quote MacArthur's explanation for why Jesus called Nathaniel an Israelite without guile.  Remember that Nathaniel had bluntly asked if anything good could come out of Nazareth.  MacArthur says: " Jesus’ point was that Nathanael’s bluntness revealed that he was an Israelite without duplicitous motives who was willing to examine for himself the claims being made about Jesus. The term reveals an honest seeking heart."  Nathaniel's bluntness was a good thing, according to MacArthur. 

John 20:23, and Concluding Reflections

I finished Lee Harmon's John's Gospel: The Way It Happened.  In this post, I'll write about John 20:23, then I will provide my overall assessment of Lee's book.

John 20:23 states (in the King James Version): "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."

This verse has long disturbed me, the same way that Matthew 16:19 has troubled me.  (Matthew 16:19 says in the KJV: "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.")  The reason is that I have a hard time with the notion that God would condition God's acceptance or rejection of me on what fallible human beings think.  I have seen or heard of church leaders abusing their power and scaring their congregants with the threat that God will reject them if they disobey the church authorities.  And I draw comfort from the notion that God sides with what's right and that God loves me, even if there are other human beings (even church authorities) who might not.

Is there a better way to understand John 20:23?  As I look at Protestant commentaries, such as those of John Gill and John MacArthur, I see the idea that the church has the authority to declare that people are forgiven or unforgiven in the sense that God has given it stewardship over the Gospel, upon which forgiveness is conditioned: if a person repents and receives the Gospel, then the church will declare that person forgiven; if the person rejects the Gospel, then the church will declare him or her unforgiven.  According to this view, as I understand it, the church has authority in terms of forgiveness because it possesses the means of forgiveness (the Gospel), and yet whether or not a person is forgiven does not depend on the whims of church leaders, but rather on acceptance of the Gospel that the church preaches. 

Lee has a similar view, at least somewhat.  Lee talks about John 20:23 on pages 342-343.  According to Lee, Jesus in John 20:23 is encouraging the disciples to go out and preach forgiveness, which is the way that people will become free.  Otherwise, people are lost and in sin.  But my impression is that Lee differs somewhat from how many evangelicals would understand this: that we need to preach the Gospel because otherwise people will not hear and will go to hell because they did not have a chance to receive God's forgiveness, and thus are in a state of unforgiveness.  According to Lee, God has already forgiven everyone, but we're the ones who keep dragging others' sin up in our refusal to forgive and let things go.  By atoning for our sin, Jesus has given us the opportunity to "see beyond it."  In this Jubilee, we should be setting people free rather than holding grudges.  God has forgiven everyone, but that does not free people if we do not let them know that they are forgiven or forgive them ourselves.

Both the views of Protestant interpreters and Lee's view are thought-provoking, and I wouldn't be surprised if there is truth in what they say.  Still, when I read the verse, it seems to say that God's forgiveness (not just our cognizance of God's forgiveness) is somehow conditioned on whether or not the disciples exercise forgiveness (not just preach the Gospel).  I don't think that Jesus was giving the disciples a loaded pistol or knowingly sanctioning the abuse of power.  But, somehow, the church seems to have authority when it comes to people's forgiveness.

Now, for my overall assessment of Lee's book.  Again, I'd like to thank him for sending me a copy.  I have enjoyed reading it, and I have found it thought-provoking, intellectually stimulating, and spiritually inspiring.  In terms of its positives, I appreciated its picture of Christians struggling to recover their faith after the failure of their apocalyptic expectations, Lee's discussion of early Christians' diversity and their complex interaction with the Hebrew Bible, and Lee's wide-ranging knowledge of biblical scholarship, which he manifests in the book.  In terms of its negatives, there were times when I wished that Lee provided more footnotes to document what he was saying, especially when he was talking about how John's Gospel reflects pagan religions in areas (which, as he knows, has been debated within scholarship).  Moreover, it seemed to me that Lee contradicted himself in areas: he presents Paul as believing in a realized resurrection, but later he says that Paul expected for the resurrection to be future; he says that John's Gospel knew of II Thessalonians 2:13 (which is about the son of perdition, the man of sin) and applies the "son of perdition" label to Judas, but Lee later contends that II Thessalonians 2:13 was a reaction against John applying the label to Judas (pages 268, 350); and I'm still not clear about whether or not Lee thinks that John believed in an afterlife.  Contradiction is understandable, for there are plenty of arguments that can make sense or manifest a degree of plausibility, even though they contradict each other; I struggled with this when I did my comprehensive exam in Hebrew Bible!  But I think that a book should be consistent.  Overall, I'd say that Lee's book was consistent, in terms of its big picture: that John was replacing a futurist eschatology with a realized eschatology.  But it was mostly on side-issues that there appeared to be inconsistencies.

I blogged a lot through this book, but there were plenty of topics that I did not get to (i.e., John was from a priestly family).  My blog posts hopefully gave you a taste, and you are now tempted to buy Lee's book and read it for yourself!

John 20:17: Mary Magdalene and Jesus' Ascension

In John 20:17, Jesus says to Mary Magdalene shortly after his resurrection: "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and [to] my God, and your God" (KJV).

Why didn't Jesus want for Mary Magdalene to touch him before he ascended to his Father?  Later in the chapter, Thomas touches Jesus when he puts his hand into Jesus' side.  Did Jesus ascend sometime between his conversation with Mary and his conversation with Thomas, and that was why Thomas could touch him whereas Mary could not?  (UPDATE: Lee Harmon later argues in John's Gospel: The Way It Happened that the part of John's Gospel about Thomas touching Jesus' side was added by a later hand.)

In this post, I'll go into various interpretations of John 20:17, including that of Lee Harmon in John's Gospel: The Way It Happened.  Not all of the interpretations that I will mention are scholarly, for I don't own a lot of scholarly commentaries on the Gospel of John.  But I will draw from what I have.

Lee Harmon's view is that Mary was interrupting the ascent of Jesus' soul to heaven.  According to Lee, there was a notion at this time that the souls of the martyrs went to heaven, whereas the souls of everybody else went to Sheol, and, for John, Jesus was a martyr whose soul was going to heaven.  The soul departed from the body after three days, and Jesus at the time that he was speaking to Mary was therefore "incorporeal, untouchable" (page 330).  Lee also brings realized eschatology into the picture.  A common view within Christianity was that Jesus ascended to heaven and would one day come back to perform his Messianic role.  But John interprets this view within the lens of realized eschatology, according to Lee: Jesus would ascend to heaven, and soon thereafter he would come down and dwell with believers through the Holy Spirit.  Remember from my previous posts that, according to Lee, John's Gospel regards the coming of the Holy Spirit as Jesus' second coming.

Do I buy into this view?  While I am happy that Lee interacts here with the issue of the afterlife in the Gospel of John (since I was wondering what Lee's view on that is), I have a hard time with his focus on Jesus' soul to the exclusion of his body.  For one, as N.T. Wright has noted, this was a resurrection, and that's not entirely the same as a disembodied soul.  Moreover, in the Gospel of John, we can tell that John believed that Jesus' body rose on the third day because his body was missing from the tomb, and, later on, Jesus appeared to his disciples with his wounds.  If Jesus' soul were absent from his body when he appeared to Mary, then where exactly was his body?  It wasn't in the tomb!  Lee addresses this question, but he does not appear to answer it head-on; instead, he discusses the empty tomb tradition in the New Testament.  (UPDATE: In an appendix, on page 359, Lee says that what happened to Jesus' flesh is a mystery, and that it "has simply disappeared, never to be seen again!")

Regarding Lee's claim on realized eschatology, I find that to be plausible.  Jesus ascended to heaven, and then he returned and imparted to his disciples the Holy Spirit (John 20:22), which arguably could have been a means for him to dwell with his disciples.  (On a side note, Lee makes an interesting point when he interprets the five hundred witnesses to the risen Jesus in I Corinthians 15:6 in reference to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2.)

Why, then, could Mary not touch Jesus before his ascension?  There are a number of commentators (i.e., Peake's commentary, Bullinger, and others) who contend that something important happened at Jesus' ascension----he was presented to the Father as the wavesheaf offering, the Father accepted Jesus' sacrifice, Jesus officially was crowned with glory, etc.  But advocates of these positions did not explain, at least not to my satisfaction, why Mary could not touch Jesus before his ascension, whereas people could touch him after the ascension had taken place.  The closest I saw them get to an explanation was their assertion that Jesus wanted for Mary to regard him in a new way, not in her old manner of familiarity, and so Jesus needed to officially become new before that could happen.

But there are other commentators who take a different track altogether.  They don't regard Jesus' ascension as something that took place between the time that Jesus spoke to Mary and the time that Jesus appeared to Thomas.  Rather, in accordance with Luke-Acts, they regard Jesus' ascension as Jesus going to heaven forty days after his resurrection.  Consequently, when Jesus tells Mary not to touch him because he has not ascended, such commentators contend that Jesus is telling Mary that she should not cling to him but should rush to tell the disciples, for she'll have plenty of time to interact with Jesus before he goes back to heaven (John Gill), or that Mary should not cling to Jesus on earth because he will eventually have to go to heaven (John MacArthur).  I can't really argue against these sorts of ideas.  But they don't entirely set right with me.

Psalm 98

For my weekly quiet time this week, I will blog about Psalm 98.

The King James Version for Psalm 98:1 says "his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory."  What the Hebrew appears to say, however, is "his right hand, and the arm of his holiness, saved for him."  The Septuagint says the same thing----that God's right hand and holy arm saved for him.

What does this mean?  Did God save Israel for God's own benefit?  Of all the commentators whom I read, Augustine actually interacts with the eccentricity of this phraseology.  According to Augustine, we should be healed for God.  In Augustine's eyes, when we are healed and then go on to live dissolute lives, then our healing is not for God.  Augustine also affirms that God's inward healing of us----our spiritual healing and transformation, if you will----is for God.  As far as I could see, Augustine in his comments on Psalm 98 does not specify what being healed for God means, but he may mean that we should make God happy by pursuing righteousness and should use our healing as an opportunity to serve God.

I remember John MacArthur preaching a sermon in which he said that Christ died for God.  Many Christians focus on Christ dying out of love for them, but Christ also died out of love for God: to obey God, and also to give glory to God.  Speaking for myself, I think that both concepts are important: Christ died out of love for me, and Christ also died because he loved God.  There are a variety of ways for God to be glorified, including the punishment of sinners.  But Christ chose a way to glorify God that was also beneficial to humanity.

In terms of Psalm 98 itself, I did a Bibleworks search on the hiphil of y-sh-' plus the preposition "l" (which means "to" or "for").  Most of the time, that phrase in the Hebrew Bible says that God is saving somebody: the "l" precedes the object of God's salvation.  On two occasions, however, the phrase is used for God saving for himself.  The first example of this is Isaiah 59:16, which states in the KJV: "And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him."  The second example is Isaiah 63:5: "And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me."

How does God save for himself in Psalm 98?  God brings glory to himself in the eyes of Israel and the nations when God saves Israel and effects a rule of righteousness over the world.  God also fulfills God's desire to show God's commitment and love for God's people, Israel, and that is probably something that God appreciates----since we all like for our desires to be fulfilled.   Consequently, in a sense, God is a beneficiary of his salvation of Israel.

What's It Have to Do with Me?

Even though my sermon is over and done with, I have another post about preaching within me!

I remember reading something by Pastor John MacArthur about preaching.  (I'll be relying on my memory of what I read, and that may be flawed, so please keep that in mind!)  MacArthur said that many pastors tell him that they try to make their sermons 50 percent theology, and 50 percent application (ways to apply Christianity to one's daily life).  But MacArthur stated that he does not have that sort of approach; rather, he believes that theology itself is applicable to people's everyday lives.

In a sense, I can see MacArthur's point.  In my sermon on Job this last Sunday, I presented God as someone who loved God's creation.  That was a theological assertion.  I suppose that I could have come up with specific points about how people can apply that concept to their daily lives, but (at least in this area) I didn't think it was really necessary.  People can apply this concept to their lives when they walk out of the service and regard God as one who loves God's creation (including them), and relate to this God accordingly.  The application is essentially, "Now go ye therefore with this conception of God in your mind."

But things are not always that simple, for there are a number of theological concepts----or concepts related to biblical interpretation----whose applicability is not readily apparent, and so the preacher may have to bring them down to earth and detail possible ways that people can apply them.  I'll use myself as an example.  A long time ago, I delivered a sermon about Deuteronomy 23, which bans the offspring of illegitimate sexual unions, men with their privates crushed or cut off, Ammonites, and Moabites from God's assembly.  I went into how the Book of Ruth and Isaiah 56 appear to offer a different vision, but I may have mentioned that Nehemiah 13 holds fast to the more exclusive vision of Deuteronomy 23.  My overall point, though, was that the New Testament includes all people.

This is all information that interests me, for it's an excellent test-case of the diversity that exists within the Bible.  And yet, I can picture people in the congregation thinking to themselves, "Okay, this is all interesting, but what's if have to do with me?"  My overall point in the sermon was that God now includes all people, and so we should go out and witness, but couldn't I have made that point without going into Deuteronomy 23, Ruth, Isaiah 56, and Nehemiah 13?  Perhaps, but I really wanted to talk about those texts, as they're a favorite topic of mine!  Maybe what I should have done was to probe the issue of exclusion----how there may have been justifiable reasons for God to exclude certain people from the assembly, in the same way that we all deserve exclusion from God's presence on account of our sins.  And yet, how wonderful it is when the excluded are finally included!  And perhaps they appreciate their inclusion even more after they've been excluded.  This is an evangelical, Luther-like----maybe even a Spurgeon-esque----message, and some of you may have problems with that.  (It doesn't set entirely right with me, either, to be honest!)  But my point is that I should have done a better job in bringing the biblical texts down to earth for my audience----so that they could see ways that the texts could relate to them.

Another sermon that I gave a while back was shortly before Thanksgiving.  Essentially, I gave a little history lesson about how God was with the Pilgrims, protecting them and their mission and sending them rain and Squanto the Native American, and I lamented that America has departed from her godly roots.  This was an interesting history lesson----some of it was probably true, and some of it may have been thenomist propaganda.  But I should have brought it down to earth for my congregation----showing them what lessons they themselves could take from it.  After I spoke, the pastor was reaching for some way to apply my sermon, and he told the congregation that people who immigrate to the U.S. from Caribbean countries (much of the congregation was from the Caribbean) should not just come here and enjoy the blessings of America, but they should remember their families, who are still in the Caribbean.  And the associate pastor told me that one way I could have brought my message down to earth was to say that, if we follow God and try to do God's will, God will help us by making crooked paths straight.  (He probably didn't intend that as an absolute, in a prosperity Gospel sense, but his point was most likely that God will open doors for us to serve God, if we are willing, and will help us in our service.)

I think that some preachers can preach their theology, and their theological points are easy to apply, without them having to include in their sermons specific application points.  I, however, am the sort of person who may have to have 50 percent theology and 50 percent application in my sermon, for I need to work at bringing my information down to earth so that people don't leave the service saying to themselves, "Well, that was interesting, but what's it have to do with me?"