An Evening on Revelation 20

Following my previous post on Revelation, a friend of mine told me of a debate chaired by John Piper on the millenium in Revelation 20 (which I completely omitted in my treatment, for reasons which will become apparent as you watch the video). For those of you who are interested in this, there is a link below. It is illustrative of how difficult to interpret this particular chapter is. Luckily it is probably the most difficult chapter to figure out in the New Testament.


Video Here

Revelation... in 5 minutes!

Revelation is the most controversial and debated book in the whole Bible. It is as full of odd numbers and weird symbols as there are weird and wacky interpretations of it. Reading it usually leads to two kind of responses: despair and speculation. Those who go for the former get so confused by the book that they give up on it all together. Those who opt for the latter read Revelation to the point of obsession - and not a good obsession. Guess what? Neither position is right. Revelation can be understood, and when it is it is profoundly uplifting and encouraging! However, I am the first to acknowledge that it is difficult to understand, hence the sheer mass of odd interpretations! What is the way forward?

The gist of this post is in the title. The idea is to summarize the message of the book of revelation in a post that can be read in five minutes or less (for an average reader). Once you have read this post, try re-reading the whole of revelation in one go (that should take you less than an hour) with this framework in mind and see if it makes any more sense. I should note before I start that I am so heavily indebted to John Hosier's teaching and writing that this post is practically plagiarism!

Revelation in five minutes

Revelation is like an X-ray rather than a Crystal ball. It is not primarily about predicting the future, but about providing insight into what is currently going on in heaven. Behind the difficulties of life, the persecution, John's (author) readers could perceive another reality in these visions - the reality of what God was doing behind the events that were unfolding before their eyes.

John, at the beginning of Revelation sees a vision of the Ascended Christ. After the shock of this encounter, Jesus tells him to write seven letters to seven churches in which Jesus himself warns them about various things (I'm trying to keep this short) and tells quite a few of them off. We're usually fine with the letters - they are easier to understand. The rest of the book (Chapters 4 onwards) is another matter altogether.

Chapters 4-5 provide the backbone to the book. In Chapter 4, John has a vision of heaven opened in which he sees the throne of God. In the midst of the church's suffering, John's eyes are opened to see that throughout this, God is on the throne. In chapter 5 this is extended. John sees a vision of the conquering lamb of God, who because he died for the sins of the world, has authority to unfold the events of history. The suffering church which read this would understand this: "God is on the throne and the lamb of God has conquered. Therefore we have a hope that this world will finally be put to rights!".

The bulk of the book is taken up with 3 cycles of seven. Seven seals (6-8.5), seven trumpets (8.6-11.19), seven bowls of wrath (chapter 16). Don't get bogged down with the odd imagery. Each of these cycles is a different perspective on the folding out of history which climaxes with the end and return of Christ on the seventh of each. In other words, the seven seals, the seven trumpets and the seven bowls of wrath tell the history of the Church in very broad strokes. The first two series are interspersed with an interlude on (1) the assurance of the saints (chap 7) and (2) the mission of the Church (chap 10-11).

The more discerning of you will have notice that I have jumped over chaps. 12-14. These three chapters describe the battle between the Church and Satan from a heavenly perspective. The beasts in chapter 13 may well refer to particular Roman institutions and Emperors, but that doesn't change the interpretation of the book as a whole. The idea is that behind the oppression of the Church are the spiritual forces of darkness. In the midst of this all, however, the Church can be sure that they are ultimately safe and that the forces of evil will be destroyed (chap. 14).

After the final bowl of wrath (chap 16), there are two chapters which describe the fall of the great prostitute Babylon, which represents Rome (and by implication all world super-powers). In chapters 17-18, it is exposed for what it really is: a sham! Moreover, she is ultimately destined to fall, just like every other earthly empire. This is celebrated in 19.1-10. 


In 19.11-21, Jesus returns to establish justice again on earth and destroy all of his enemies! After a difficult chapter to interpret (chap. 20), there is a vision of judgement (20.11-15) and ew creation (Chaps. 21-22). The dead are raised to life and judged. The righteous go into eternal life and the unrighteous to eternal wrath. What follows is a vision of the new earth and new heaven and the new Jerusalem (the Church). All things are made new, all wrongs are righted and all tears are wiped away.

The book concludes with the encouragement that Jesus is returning soon, which acts as a warning to complacent Christians and an encouragement to suffering Christians. Behind the intense persecution which the Church in John's day was enduring, God was sovereign, the lamb had conquered and would return quickly to make all things new. In other words, revelation speaks to generations of Christians who find themselves in persecution and complacency with the message: "God is still on the throne, the lamb has conquered and he is returning soon to right all wrongs!"

Warning: The legalists are here! Or is it the hypocrites?

Most people are familiar with the Pharisees. Or at least they think they are - A bunch of skulking, petty, crooked nosed legalists who have nothing better to do with their time than impose rules on common people in order for them to gain some kind of merit which will enable them to go to heaven. In other words, the Pharisees appear in the Gospels and in pantomime fashion a plethora of boos and hisses resounds in the average reader's mind along with the thought: "warning the legalists are here!"

That was the common consensus on the Pharisees for quite a while. In 1977, however, a historian called E. P. Sanders published a book called Paul and Palestinian Judaism in which he argues that Jews at the time of Jesus were not legalistic. They didn't think that obeying the Law would enable them to be justified. Rather they believed that they were part of God's people already and that keeping the law was simply a way of "staying in" the covenant. In other words, works of the Law were not a way of "getting in", but of "staying in". The Pharisees, to New Testament scholars, turned from being the legalistic bad guys into being the grace-filled party which tried to make the law accessible to all common Jews.

The influence of E. P. Sander's book was simply enormous. It kick-started the New Perspective on Paul, which is a new way of reading Paul - in this perspective Paul is not opposing legalism, he is opposing ethno-centric Jews. The reformers' talk of legalism was simply anachronistic - an importation of 16th century ideas (notably the legalism of the Catholic Church) onto first-century texts. Other scholars such as James Dunn and Tom Wright have taken on Sander's ideas and completely reread Paul and the Pharisees.

Needless to say, Sander's thesis has been met with fierce criticism from the Evangelical camp. Particularly noteworthy is Simon Gathercole's response in Where is Boasting: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's response in Romans 1-5. Gathercole reexamines the evidence from early Judaism and argues that Sanders has overlooked evidence which points to the fact that many Jews of the first century saw the Law as a way of obtaining salvation. I think Gathercole makes a strong case and has helpfully shown many of the flaws in Sander's logic.

Having read Luke 11 this morning and Jesus' response to the Pharisees, I was reminded of Ligon Duncan's comments on the Pharisees and legalism. Ligon Duncan is an evangelical who could not be more fiercely opposed to E. P. Sanders' thesis. However, he acknowledges that one benefit of Sanders work is that it re-orientates us towards the Pharisees, although he says that simply reading the Gospels properly should help us do this. He points out the fact that Jesus never actually accuses the Pharisees of taking the Law too seriously. He accuses them of being hypocrites. In other words, people who instruct others to follow the law, but fail to do it themselves. They tithe from their spice-rack, but neglect justice; they lay heavy burdens on people, but do not help them to carry it. Check out the brief video here.

Returning to the pantomime analogy, it seems that when you read the Gospels at face value, our response to the Pharisees should not be "warning: the legalists are here!" but rather "warning: the hypocrites are here!". Interestingly, Jesus encourages people to do what the Pharisees teach (Matthew 23:1-3), but not what they do. They have excellent theology, but awful practice. The "Pharisee in each of us" then is no longer so much about our attempts to add to our salvation, but our propensity to have a good belief system and good theology, but a bad practice. We don't want to be Pharisees, but for a very different reason than is usually put suggested.

"Warning: the hypocrites are here!"

Losing your salvation - the implications

Over on his blog, New Testament scholar Scott McKnight has been posting a series on the warning passages in Hebrews and Calvinism. In his final post on the matter, McKnight summarizes the implications of his view that the warning passages in Hebrews actually envisage the possibility of a genuine Christian falling away and forfeiting salvation. Whether you agree with his conclusions on Hebrews or not, the implications of his conclusions are sobering and thought-provoking. Here are three of them (in his own words):

First, I sensed a renewal of the fear of God that is so prominent in Hebrews. Once I came to the conviction that a person, yea that I, could believe and fall away, sin became more important and the prospect of falling away more realistic. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t live in some morbid fear. Assurance accompanies faithfulness for both the Calvinist and the Arminian. Both, at least in my case, knowing that redemption is rooted in the saving powers of Christ and that faith — in the sense of faithfulness and trust — is required. 

Second, it influenced how I presented the gospel. However one wants to present the gospel, through some tract or through personal story or through some piece of rational logic, the summons to believe for me is a summons to become a believer — not just to believe once and for all in a singular moment. It is a summons to live under the rule of King Jesus. The summons to perseverance is part and parcel of the summon to believe. 

Third, I am persuaded that holding to this view does not mean that I (or anyone who shares it with me) believes that I contribute to my own salvation. Instead, what this doctrine encourages me to do is to believe, to watch, and to persevere. It makes me more conscious of the need of grace and the power of the Holy Spirit.

McKnight lists a fourth implication for the unity of scripture, which he suggests needs some more thought. Check out the full post here and have a read of the whole series.

Video on Romans 1-4

I've just found this recent video of Tom Wright's summary of Paul's letter to the Romans. It's a good overview of Wright's understanding of the letter and his particular take on it. For those of you who are interested, here is it:

Love your enemies!

Knowing what context someone is speaking or writing in helps understand the full power of their message. For example, take Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech out of the context of racial oppression and it loses its punch. The same is true with events from the Bible.

I was reading Luke 6.27-30 this morning. The words are probably familiar to anyone who has any acquaintance with Christianity:

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, tdo good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.

The sting of this passage was really brought home to me when I read it with some passages from the ancient Jewish historian Josephus in mind. Writing at the end of the first century AD, Josephus reports events in Israel roughly contemporary with the time of Jesus. Israel was under Roman rule at the time so it was not too difficult for the Jews to realize exactly which enemies Jesus might have had at the front of his mind. Read the following excerpts about how the Romans dealt with the Jews and then read Luke 6.27-30 again. Sorry about the language in the following passages, I only have an old-school translation of Josephus.

But Varus [a Roman general] sent a part of his army into the country, against those that had been the authors of this commotion, and as they caught great numbers of them, those that appeared to have been the least concerned in these tumults he put into custody, but such as were the most guilty he crucified; these were in number about two thousand. (Josephus War 2.75)

After this he raised another disturbance, by expending that sacred treasure which is called Corban upon aqueducts, whereby he brought water from the distance of four hundred furlongs. At this the multitude had indignation; and when Pilate was come to Jerusalem, they came about his tribunal, and made a clamor at it. Now when he was apprized aforehand of this disturbance, he mixed his own soldiers in their armor with the multitude, and ordered them to conceal themselves under the habits of private men, and not indeed to use their swords, but with their staves to beat those that made the clamor. He then gave the signal from his tribunal [to do as he had bidden them]. Now the Jews were so sadly beaten, that many of them perished by the stripes they received, and many of them perished as trodden to death by themselves; (Josephus War 2.175-177)

The main reason why [Titus] did not forbid that cruelty was this, that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterwards be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies. (Josephus War 5.450-1)

"But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies"!

Lessons from 1 Peter 5

I've been thinking about anxiety and 1 Peter 5.1-7 over the last few weeks! 1 Peter 5 is a great text to get to grips with and has that key verse: "casting your anxieties onto him, because he cares for you!" - does that remind you of a song? Having tossed the passage over and over in my mind, I've come to see 3 simple lessons on anxiety which I thought I'd share on the blog. For the sake of simplicity, you can think of each lesson as subsumed under a verb - or action! - (1) bow, (2) throw and (3) know.

I might note quickly, as a wise man pointed out to me, that sometime a lack of peace over unrepented sin could sometimes be mistaken for anxiety. In this case, no matter how much you fight that lack of peace, it won't go away and the required response is to stop what you're doing and repent. 

BOW

The first lesson I learn from 1 Peter 5.1-7 is the reason Peter wants his church to cast their anxieties onto God. There are obviously logical reasons to want to get rid of anxiety - no-one wants to be anxious. However, the reason Peter gives in vv.5-6 is deeper than that. Peter (and therefore God) doesn't just want a church rid of anxieties, he wants a humble church and recognizes that getting rid of anxieties is a step towards this.

Humility is an action of the heart when we lower ourselves before God and before others and consider them to be more significant than ourselves (Phil 2.3) - hence the action "bow". If this is so, and humility involves considering other more significant, then anxiety will make that process difficult since, by definition, anxiety is focussing inwards on your problems, not outwards on others!

So how do we humble ourselves? Simple answer really: look to Jesus. Check out Philippians 2.5-9:

Have this mind amongst yourselves, which is also in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be taken advantage of, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross.

Wow! That's how you become humble - you look at the most outrageous, ridiculous display of humility ever heard of!

THROW

Action two is throw! Notice that 1 Peter 5.7 says "casting your anxieties", not "dropping" or "rolling". The idea here is that we need to get violent against anxiety, just like we would towards any other sin (yes anxiety is a sin). Simply put, rather than being bowl players with anxiety who roll their ball slowly and gently, we need to be shot-put players who display tremendous amounts of energy in casting a big lump of metal as far as they can possibly manage.

How does that actually work in practice though? In part, Philippians 4.6 can help us here. Paul, a man who by all stretches of the imagination should be allowed to be anxious (read a bit about his life), writes "do not be anxious about anything". In other words, take radical action. Decide: "I am NOT going to let this care or thing over which I have no control dominate my mind". Paul writes that instead of worrying, why not pray and give thanks to God and then God's peace will cover over our hearts! Why don't you make it a reflex, next time you are anxious, to pray and praise instead of worrying - it will work!

KNOW

Our third action, "know" refers to this: How do we know that when we cast our anxieties onto God, he will actually deal with it and not simply throw it back? The answer? He cares for you (1 Peter 5.7). The one who put the stars in their place and sustains them, cares for you! Can you get any more mind-bending than that?

We need to know God! It will be an antidote to worrying which no attack of the enemy, nor cares of this life can defeat! So my question to us is this: are we growing in your knowledge of God? If not, how can we expect to cast our anxieties with confidence and attain the aim of maturity and humility? Here are a few quick ways we can grow in our knowledge of God:

-Pray!

-Be filled with the Spirit!

-Become familiar with God's word!

-Obey God's commands!
-Serve others sacrificially!

-Preach the Gospel to yourself!

As we grow in the knowledge of God, anxieties will take their rightful place (which is not our minds or hearts) and joy and peace will grow in the midst of the deepest challenges of life! Can I urge you? Get to know God!

Translations or distortions?

Whilst I was reading for an essay this morning I came across this opinion by Tom Wright. Tom Wright writes of his enthusiasm when the NIV translation of the Bible was originally published because it claimed to translate exactly what was there. However, after using it for a while, he writes:

Again and again, with the Greek text in front of me and the NIV beside it, I discovered that the translators had had another principle, considerably higher than the stated one: to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said. I do no not know what version of scripture they use at Dr [John] Piper's church. But I do know that if a church only, or mainly relies on the NIV it will, quite simply, never understand what Paul was talking about.

Now that's quite a strong claim, but it set back into motion something I was thinking about a while ago. I used to be (before learning New Testament Greek oddly enough) an ESV purist - in other words, the literalness of the ESV meant that it was better than the NIV and more paraphrased versions. However, lately I've become a little less dogmatic on the issue, mainly after listening to New Testament scholar Gordon Fee who claims that most literal modern translations are not written in English, but Greeklish; in other words, your average human being would struggle to recognize the language and sentence constructions. Having heard that I thought: "fair enough, maybe a paraphrase is better than literal since it's more understandable."

But Wright's observation got me thinking about Bible translations in general. I don't have an answer on the issue and so would like to hear what people who have no knowledge of Hebrew or Greek think about this. Is it better, in your opinion, to have a literal translation which is harder to read, or a paraphrased one which is easier to read but will already be an interpretation by the time it reaches the stage of translation?

To give you a bit food for thought, here are a couple of instances (off the top of my head - I am sure there are more pertinent ones) in the Bible which most modern translations obscure slightly:

Galatians 3.10a

Literal: "For as many as are from the Law, are under a curse, for it has been written..."

ESV:  "For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written ..."

(The difference is that the literal translation seems to imply that there are a group of people who are "of the Law" [i.e. Jews], whereas the ESV broadens it).

1 Peter 5:6

Literal: "Be humbled therefore under the mighty hand of God..."

ESV: "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God..."

(Difference being active humbling and passive humbling)

I have no particular judgement on the matter, but wondered what people thought. What is better: easier readability or literalness. The two aren't completely exclusive, but readability a lot of the time necessitates more interpretation before translation.

Debating with humour!

Yes, it is possible to have academic theological debates with humour! For those of you who have some kind of interest in the Justification debate, Kevin J. Vanhoozer gave a lecture responding to N. T. Wright's view of Justification a while ago. It is quite simply hilarious as well as interesting. Have a look for yourselves!

Video is here

Distractions!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen it may come across as a surprise to you, but I easily get distracted. Just when you thought that nothing could rip me away from being enthralled with the latest page-turner Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition, I decide to log into facebook, or check my emails (every 3 minutes), or check out the price of a 6-Volume Bible dictionary on amazon that I would never end up buying anyway, or go onto youtube to find a lecture on theology (makes me feel less guilty about not doing what I should be doing and it's less taxing than reading), or decide that 20 minutes without a cup of tea is verging on an infringement of my basic human rights.

In short people... I get far too easily distracted. Radical action must be taken! Whilst I go and install a facebook, amazon, and email blocker on my front brain-lobe, I'll leave you with this video...

By the way... blogging doesn't count!

The Resurrection of the Son of God!

Christians, by definition, believe that God raised Jesus from the dead! That claim constitutes the very center of Christianity. Disprove the resurrection, and as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, everything else crumbles to pieces and when the dust settles you will find the sorry remains of a church whose hope and very raison d'être has been taken away. The resurrection in central. Therefore, surely it is necessary to know why we believe it! 

In his epic volume The Resurrection of the Son of God, the prolific New Testament scholar N. T. Wright (Tom Wright) provides the most in depth and thorough defense of the historical physical resurrection of Jesus to date. In fact, so in depth that 99% of the world are never going to read this book. It is over 800 pages along and is written with an academic audience in mind. That being said, I read it over the summer of 2010 and thought it was absolutely brilliant. For those of you who don't fancy trawling through the unending chapters, here is a summary of the books argument:

N. T. Wright divides his work into 5 sections, each of which constitutes an essential building block to his overall argument. 

In part I (pp.1-206), Wright surveys texts from the pagan background (from Homer to Plato and beyond) and concludes that Greeks simply do not believe that people are raised from the dead. Whether death is a one-way street (as in Homer's Illiad and Odyssey) or an opportunity for blissful disembodied existence (Plato and others), the pagans at the time of Jesus simply did not believe resurrection happened. Once you were dead, you were dead and that was it.

The situation is different when one considers Jewish writtings. Wright argues that the only explicit mention of resurrection in the Hebrew Bible is Daniel 12, but that many passages (such as Ezek 37) could have given way to the belief that God would raise his people from the dead on the last day. In second temple Jewish sources (between the Old and New Testaments), there are varied beliefs. Some, such as the Sadducees, did not believe in resurrection, whereas others, like the Pharisees believed that there would be a day when all the dead were raised to life. There was no uniform Jewish belief at the time of Jesus, however, the word resurrection (anastasis in Greek) was always used to speak about bodily resurrection or of the restoration of Israel, but never to refer to a bodiless "spiritual" existence.

In Part II (pp.209-398), Wright deals with Paul's writings. He argues that since Paul was a pharisee, he would have believed in physical resurrection of the saints at the end of time. This was a belief that he kept after his conversion, but with a major twist. A belief which was important to pharisees, but not central suddenly became a major and central belief to Paul: one day the dead would be raised. Another twist which Wright detects in Paul is that the pharisaic belief in the resurrection had been split in half. In other words, God had done for Jesus, what he said he would do for all his people in advance. The new age had already started through Jesus' resurrection.


In part III (pp.399-583), Wright considers the rest of the early Christian literature outside of the Gospel resurrection narratives. He concludes that with the exception of a very select few 2nd and 3rd century sources, the New Testament and the early Christian writings expressed a hope in physical resurrection on the final day. Resurrection was (with a couple of possible exceptions) always a reference to a physical resurrection, not a bodiless existence or a resuscitation of a dead corpse Moreover, their belief in the resurrection of Christ is what enabled the early Christians to call him Messiah and Lord.


Part IV (pp.585-682) deals with the resurrection narratives in the Gospels. Drawing on the seeming discrepancies between the four accounts (the accounts need a bit of imagination to fit in nicely with each other), Wright suggests that this shows that the stories (or at least the disciples experience of the stories) were not fabricated - they are not the work of later theological reflexion. Wright concludes: From the details of the four easter accounts in the Gospels, it is historically probable that the disciples truly believed that they had seen Jesus raised from the dead and that the tomb was empty. The question is: does that mean that what the disciples believed happened actually did?


Wright answers this question in Part V (pp.683-738). He claims that the best explanation of the data (an almost universal belief in resurrection in early Christianity, the disciples belief that they had encountered Jesus raised, the empty tomb...) is that what the disciples claimed was true actually happened, that is Jesus of Nazareth was actually bodily raised from the dead! For Wright, the idea of subjective visions and experiences doesn't work (they are insufficient to explain that the disciples believed that a crucified man was actually the Messiah), neither does cognitive dissonance (the idea that when you want something to happen you believe it has) because the disciples had no category in their mind for someone to be raised to eternal life before the final judgement. The only plausible explanation is that what the disciples and early Christians claimed happened was actually true: Jesus rose from the dead!


Although his work is a scholarly and academic juggernaut, Wright does not leave this conclusion at an academic level. He appeals to his scholarly brothers and claims that if this conclusion is true, then it cannot leave us indifferent. I leave you with a citation from his conclusion on the matter and hope that it will encourage you to think through the implications of the claim "But Christ has in fact been raised from the dead" (1 Corinthians 15:20):

We cannot simply arrive at a topic and make grand declarations, as in Francis Drakes celebrated annexation of California, and suppose that all the local inhabitants will take them as binding. Saying that 'Jesus of Nazareth was bodily raised from the dead' is not only a self-involving statement; it is a self-committing  statement, going beyond a reordering of one's private world into various levels of commitment to work out the implications. We cannot simply leave a flag stuck on a hill somewhere and sail back home to safety. (N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, p.717)

Amen to that! 

Bitzer was a banker!!!

As I sit here translating Zechariah from the Hebrew for university (as you do), I'm listening to a sermon on preaching by John Hosier. He is speaking about a book by John Piper called Brothers, We are not Professionals. In one chapter of the book, Piper cautions pastors and teachers in the church against the laziness of not learning the original languages of the Bible. It seems like a provoking read and, in my view, the quote below is one which all elders, and aspiring elders, preachers and teachers should read carefully before they dismiss the need and usefulness of learning at least the basics of Biblical Greek and Hebrew. John Piper writes of a layman called Bitzer. He was not a pastor, an elder or a preacher - he was a banker. With characteristic panache, Piper rants:

His name was Heinrich Bitzer. He was a banker. A banker! Brothers, must we be admonished by the sheep as to what our responsibility is as shepherds? Evidently so. For we are surely not admonishing and encouraging each other to press on in Greek and Hebrew. And most seminaries, evangelical as well as liberal, have communicated by their curriculum emphases that learning Greek and Hebrew may have some value for a few rare folk but is optional for the pastoral ministry. 

I have a debt to pay to Heinrich Bitzer, and I would like to discharge it by exhorting all of us to ponder his thesis: "The more a theologian detaches himself from the basic Hebrew and Greek text of Holy Scripture, the more he detaches himself from the source of real theology! And real theology is the foundation of a fruitful and blessed ministry".

 Bitzer studied Greek and Hebrew - and he was a banker!

You've already been saved, but you MUST keep going!

If you've read Hebrews at all, you may have found yourself slightly puzzled by some pretty nasty warning passages which seem to imply that a Christian can lose their salvation by not persevering. The starkest of these is probably in Hebrews 10.26-27:

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. (ESV)

 On the face of it we have a fairly unequivocal  warning to Christians informing them that a lack of perseverance will lead to an inevitable loss of salvation. This is how the majority of critical New Testament scholars have interpreted these "warnings" in this letter.

Reformed evangelicals have attempted to evade this possibility by suggesting that the people in question are not actually true Christians, but merely confessional ones - in other words, they look like Christians and speak like Christians, but aren't really. There are obvious issues with this interpretation - for example, the language of Hebrews does not seem to describe false Christians.

How do we deal with this then? Andrew Wilson, a Newfrontiers Pastor, has just published an article in Tyndale Bulletin on Hebrews 3.6 and 3.14. Here are the two verses in question:

And we are his house if indeed we ahold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. (3.6b ESV) 

For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. (3.14 ESV)

The question here is perhaps more obvious. Is salvation contingent (directly dependent upon) on perseverance (in which case the author is warning that Christians can lose their salvation) or is perseverance evidence of true salvation (in which case the so-called falling away is a reference to fake Christians). Most commentators have taken one of these lines of interpretation.

In the article Andrew argues that these two verses are speaking of true Christians (in other words not merely apparent Christians). However their perseverance is evidence of their present salvation. In other words, they are already saved and their perseverance will prove this at the eschaton (last day). The author of Hebrews, in Wilson's view, sees their salvation as secure precisely because of these warnings! They will persevere in Christ because he has warned them about falling away. As far as Andrew knows, no recent scholars have suggested this interpretation (both acknowledging that the addressees are real Christians and that the warnings in 3.6 and 3.14 are not conditions, but evidence).

The complete article is here (warning: intense Greek-geeky content). Read the conclusion if you can't battle all the way through, but all in all it was a good read over breakfast!

Excellent Old Testament Summary

I'm writing this as I'm sitting in an Old Testament lecture at university - naughty me (it's alright we've got a 5 minute break). I thought I'd take the opportunity to link a fantastic resource for those of you who would like to get to grips with the story of the Old Testament a bit better and how it all fits together. Kings Church Eastbourne put together a short, snazzy and really helpful Old Testament Summary video. I found this immensely helpful when preparing some teaching on the topic; I hope you'll find it useful! You'll need to scroll down the linked page slightly to find the video player.

Old Testament Summary

Think Biblically!

Part of my job is to engage with theological debates and try and decide what the right answer to the problem in question is. Most of the time, since I am in a secular Theology department at a secular university, I read a lot of scholars who do not submit to the authority of scripture, but from time to time I do have to engage with dueling evangelicals. When this happens, I am sometimes amazed at the way in which the debate takes place.

There has been an ongoing debate on justification between John Piper and Tom Wright for the last few years. Simply put, Tom Wright thinks that the reformers (and most modern Christians) have misunderstood what Paul meant by justification - the Jews weren't legalistic and were not trying to "pull themselves up by their moral bootstraps". Therefore what Paul is primarily addressing when he speaks of justification by faith apart from works of the Law is not legalism, but ethno-centric theology, in which gentiles have to become a Jews in order to be part of God's people (works of the law refer to ethnic badges such a circumcision and food laws in Wright's view).

Wright has also suggested that to speak of imputed righteousness (being given the righteousness which Christ earned on earth) is completely unbiblical - the judge doesn't give his own righteousness to the defendant in a law court, but declares the innocent victim to be "in the right" (or justified). 

Piper responds: No! The reformers' understanding of Paul was pretty much spot on. The Jews thought they could earn salvation by moral works and therefore Paul responds: you don't earn salvation by works, it's a gift. Moreover, we are given Christ's moral righteousness as a gift, which becomes ours as if we had earned it. God looks at us and sees the perfection of Jesus. If the righteousness which God gives us isn't Christ's perfect obedience, how can we be sure that we are truly presentable to an almighty judge?

I'm not going to give my view on the matter here - that would take too long and could open a nasty can of worms so I'll leave that for now. However, I would like to make a couple of observations, which will hopefully provoke some of you.

Firstly, evangelical theological debates can often run the risk of unhelpfully creating theological camps with allegiance to a group of particular scholars of pastors (and thereby being an awful witness to both liberals and non-christians). This one unhelpfully has. Some of the reformed responses to Wright's opinions have, in my opinion been downright offensive and unfounded. Just so you know, Wright is one of the most prolific New Testament scholars in the world as well as an evangelical Christian - not a bad thing at all in my opinion. He has written the most thorough defense of the physical resurrection of Christ in the last few decades. In short, he's a good guy! So it saddens me when people who disagree with Wright on this one issue reject the man altogether. I have heard comments (from well respected American reformed pastors) along the lines of "Tom Wright is certainly not a gift to Christianity" and "When Wright is right he is very right, but when he is wrong he is horrifically wrong".

The result is that people who haven't actually read the debate assume that Wright has been relegated to the status of heretic - "steer clear of this dangerous man" is what they hear! "He was good on the resurrection, but now he is turning into a dangerous liberal - don't go near him kids!". This kind of attitude saddens me on the one hand because I hold Wright (as I do Piper) in incredibly high esteem, but also because these kind of attitudes create division over issues that are worth debating over, but not dividing over (cf. 1 Cor 1-2)

Secondly, I have been surprised by the lack of Biblical argumentation in a lot of reformed responses to Wright. To be sure, many of those who disagree with him are incredibly knowledgeable about the Bible, but there has been an oft-repeated chorus along the lines of "Wright's view goes against historical reformed theology, therefore he must be wrong" or "If Wright is correct, then that compromises his particular doctrine which we hold in very high regards, so we must be wary of him". Piper, to be fair did appeal to scripture a lot in his response (although I would have liked a little more), but it is not enough to say "our doctrine says this, therefore Wright is not right". Surely this is to run the risk of taking tradition over scripture. Whether Wright is correct or not, we cannot simply appeal to a cherished list of traditions, we must appeal to scripture!

This is obviously (intentionally) a slightly unfair portrayal of the debate and to be honest the argument has calmed down significantly in the last year (it turns out that some of it was down to mutual misunderstanding). There have in fact been some very decent responses to Wright from a Biblical perspective, but the caricature which I have painted above has, in my experience and reading, cropped up quite a few times over the last 5 years and I think it should provoke us as evangelicals to look to the Bible (and not simply our list of doctrines) before we dismiss something as dangerous or heretical and to make it very clear that that is what we are doing. As the reformers often said - sola scriptura

Influential authors ... sort of

This week is pretty busy so I haven't had time to write much up here. I thought I'd share a video which I found hilarious. You may not find it funny if you don't know the authors referred to - that's fine we're not all geeks! The guy in the video is Michael Bird, an Australian New Testament author and definitely the wackiest one I know. Enjoy!

A slightly more weighty post that usual!

This is an unusually dense and academic post for this blog, but I've put it up here because it may be helpful to those who are seeking to understand the idea of the Kingdom of God in more depth. It is essentially a very slightly edited version of an essay I wrote last year. The paper deals with how Jesus' listeners may have initially reacted to his proclamation "The Kingdom of God is here".

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND JESUS' HEARERS

In his 1967 book, Rediscovering the teaching of Jesus, Norman Perrin makes the following comment:

The central aspect of the teaching of Jesus was that concerning the Kingdom of God. Of this there can be no doubt and today no scholar does, in fact, doubt it. Jesus appeared as one who proclaimed the Kingdom; all else in his message and ministry serves as a function in relation to that proclamation and derives its meaning from it.¹

To any reader of the gospels, this should be clear.² Jesus' teaching and ministry, in some way, seemed to revolve around this strange concept of the kingdom of God. Scholarship on the historical Jesus has paid a great amount of attention to the issue of kingdom in Jesus' teaching, and particularly from Schweitzer onwards,³ the term has been heavily bound up with eschatology. And so the discussion has tended to revolve around whether Jesus understood the Kingdom as an imminent, realised, or even internal reality

In this essay, we take a step back from the debates surrounding Jesus' teaching itself in order to investigate how Jesus' hearers would have initially understood his message. We shall explore key Old Testament as well as second-temple sources which allow us to gain some insight into how a Galilean peasant would have reacted upon hearing the phrase: 'The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand!'⁴ We shall conclude, that amidst the multiplicity of views, it is very likely that the average Jew living in Palestine would have understood the basic message to mean that Yahweh was finally returning to his people in order to vindicate them and overthrow their oppressors.

1. The Old Testament Background

It is surprising that the concept of the kingdom of God should take such a prominent place in Jesus' teaching when the expression itself is absent in the Old Testament. The phrase mamlekut YHWH (kingdom of Yahweh) does occur once in 1 Chr 28.5 and should surely be understood as an equivalent (God, or heaven in the case of Matthew, being substituted for Yahweh). Yet apart from that reference, there is no direct expression 'kingdom of God' or 'kingdom of heaven' elsewhere in the Old Testament. What is more common, but by no means prevalent, is the idea of God being (or becoming) king. Scholars have rightly pointed out that this motif could easily have served as a precedent for Jesus' message of the kingdom.⁵ This is visible in many Psalms. For example, Psalm 97 begins with: 'Yahweh reigns, let the earth be glad'.⁶ Another reference which many scholars point to is Exodus 15.18, in which Moses declares that 'Yahweh will reign [or be king] forever and ever'.⁷ Interestingly, in Exodus 15, the expression is intimately tied up with God delivering his people from their oppressors (a theme which, as we shall see, occurs a lot more in exilic and post-exilic texts).

Turning to the writings of the prophets, and particularly the exilic and post-exilic prophets, we find the theme of God's reign becoming more prominent. Significantly, the idea of Yahweh's eschatological reign also starts to emerge. In Zech 14, the writer describes what seems like a final and decisive battle between Jerusalem and her enemies, in which Yahweh intervenes to vindicate his people. The outcome is described in terms which are very relevant for our purpose: 'And the LORD will become king over all the earth; on that day the LORD will be one and this name one.' (Zech 14.9). Here the themes of universality and particularity are combined. Yahweh is both presented as king over all the earth, but at the same same, Israel is clearly portrayed as his people over-against the nations. If this passage had any influence on the later Jewish mindset (which is very likely) then it is probable that we should expect a nationalistic emphasis on God's kingdom/reign as well as an eschatological one.

Although many scholars attribute a very late date to Daniel, we deal with it here because of its place within the Hebrew Bible. Here we find a more clearly apocalyptic understanding of the kingdom of God.⁸ According to Dunn, Daniel 2 in particular was taken up in much post-biblical literature.⁹ There is no space here to go in detail into the various visions contained in this book, but we should note a few important points. In Daniel 2, although the kingdom which God sets up is not described in detail, we are told that it is an everlasting kingdom. This idea of finality is significant: It is clear that the author envisages that God will act in a final and decisive way (quite possibly for Israel) when he establishes this final kingdom. This is even clearer in chapter 7, where the 'son of man' figure is given an everlasting kingdom. Whether we understand the son of man to be an angelic being or not, it is clear (from 7.18) that he represents Israel.¹⁰ So we find in this late Canonical text, the merging of both a kingdom which God himself sets up and a kingdom possessed by Israel. Moreover, this very nationalistic kingdom, in typical apocalyptic style, is final and everlasting.

We conclude our analysis of the Old Testament with the so-called Second Isaiah. Chapters 40-55 of Isaiah deal with the return of Israel from exile in Babylon and the theme of Yahweh's kingship and sovereignty is profoundly stated in various places.¹¹ The most poignant declaration of Yahweh's kingship for our purposes is found in 52.7:

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.' [malach elohe'cha].

Here, this declaration is made in the context of the restoration of Jerusalem and the return of Yahweh to his people (52.8-9). This is significant. Indeed, we could claim that for this prophet, Yahweh's kingship and Israel's prosperity go hand in hand. Scholars admit that this particular passage and idea heavily feature in Jesus' concept of the kingdom of God.¹²

Although this text was concerned primarily with the historical return of Israel from exile, there is a case to be made for the idea that later Jews considered this promise to not have been completely fulfilled. According to Wright, Jews at the time of Jesus still saw themselves somewhat in a state of exile and they would cling to these kinds of Biblical promises.¹³ If this is true, then it is possible that some post-exilic Jews could have interpreted Isa 52.7 eschatologically. The LXX of Isa 52.7 could support this idea. Indeed, the translators of the Septuagint substituted the present tense malach elohe'cha) (your God reigns), for basileusei sou ho theos (your god will reign). It is just possible that the translators considered that this great prophecy was as yet unfulfilled and (possibly under the influence of apocalyptic texts) projected the promise of Isa 52.7 into the future. Moreover, we should note that this hope is very much this-worldly, as Beasley-Murray explains: '[w]hen Yahweh comes to bring his kingdom, it is to this world that he comes and in this world that he establishes his reign. The hope of Israel is not for a home in heaven but for the revelation of the glory of God in this world.'¹⁴

So then, although the Old Testament is very light on kingdom-of-God-language, it seems that there was enough material to provide something of a background to later writings (and indeed Jesus' teaching). God, according to the Scriptures, was king over the whole earth, but there was a sense in which he would establish his rule more finally and this would very likely involve the vindication of Israel and the restoration of Jerusalem. Even in the heavenly visions of Daniel, this hope was thoroughly nationalistic and quite possibly this-worldly.

2. The Second-Temple texts

Post-biblical Jewish texts are very helpful in illuminating the Jewish understanding of the kingdom of God at a time contemporary to Jesus. Again, as with the Old Testament, it is not a particularly prominent theme. Neither is there a uniform perspective. Nonetheless, it is possible to imagine, from these texts, what particular ideas and images Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom could have conjured in his hearers minds.

The precise phrase 'kingdom of God/heaven' occurs only three times in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and in very different contexts. However, as in the Old Testament, the idea of God's rule and reign is present in quite a few places.¹⁵ Additionally these appearances are very often referring to an eschatological rule. Three particular texts from the Pseudepigrapha will be helpful for our purposes.

The Testament of Benjamin (highly edited but most likely reaching back prior to Jesus' time)¹⁶ gives a very interesting insight into some second-temple Jewish beliefs:

You shall resume your actions with loose women, and the kingdom of the Lord will not be among you, for he will take it away forthwith. But in your allotted place will be the temple of God, and the latter temple will exceed the former in glory. The twelve tribes shall be gathered there and all the nations, until such time as the Most High shall send forth his salvation through the ministration of the unique prophet.¹⁷

Although the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs have been highly edited by later Christians,¹⁸ they do allow us a certain amount of insight into second-temple expectations. Here, the kingdom of God is closely associated with the rebuilding of an eschatological temple – which was part of much post-biblical thought.¹⁹ Also associated with the kingdom is the idea of the regathering of the twelve tribes. Meier, although he is careful not to deduce too much from a highly edited document, claims that '[a]t the very least, the theme of the regathering of the twelve tribes of Israel around the eschatological Temple in Jerusalem is quite possibly Jewish material.'²⁰ If we accept this, these themes could only mean one thing: the restoration of Israel.

The Jewish fondness for apocalyptic texts is visible in the Testament of Moses, which Collins dates to the Maccabean period.²¹ The tenth chapter describes, in very vivid terms, the breaking-in of God's eschatological kingdom: 'Then his kingdom will appear throughout his creation. Then the devil will have an end. Yea, sorrow will be led away with him'.²² There is a clear dualism involved in which God and his kingdom are opposed to the devil. The idea of God avenging and vindicating his people is also heavily present in the text. Israel are told that they 'will mount up above the necks and the wings of an eagle.'²³ Although Collins sees the reference to an eagle as a later interpolation meant to refer to Rome,²⁴ he seems to ignore the very high possibility that this is echoing the promises of Isaiah 40. If this is intentional, then the writer is bringing the prophecy of Isaiah 40 into an apocalyptic framework: Israel will be vindicated, her enemies judged, God's kingdom shall fill the earth (as in Daniel 2) and the return from exile which Isa 40 describes will take place in a definitive way. Whether we should take the language literally as referring to some kind of heavenly existence, or, along with Wright, consider it to refer to worldly events,²⁵ we can agree with Meiers that '[a]t the very least, the Testament of Moses expects a sudden, dramatic, and definitive reversal of fortunes, by which Israel is elevated directly by God to a situation of permanent joy, while its enemies lie forever prostrate.'26

The seventeenth Psalm of Solomon is one of the only two places in which the expression 'kingdom of God' occurs in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.²⁷ It is most likely that the Psalms were composed in the first century BCE after Pompey's invasion of Judea.²⁸ Moreover, their outlook has often been considered to be Pharisaic, or at least proto-Pharisaic.²⁹ If this is the case, then they are all the more relevant to understanding how the kingdom of God would have been understood in the context of first-century Palestine (as opposed to in the diaspora).³⁰ In most manuscripts there is a direct connection between the kingdom of God, and judgement of the nations.³¹ Moreover, the language is highly nationalistic and contains (as in T. Ben. 9) the idea of the regrouping of the tribes of Israel.³²

In line with the mood expressed in Ps. Sol. It is worth mentioning Josephus' short reference to what he calls 'the fourth Philosophy'.³³ He writes of a movement which holds God to be their only ruler. Interestingly, their beliefs are, according to Josephus, very close to the Pharisees, but their practice was a lot more violent. According to Hengel, it is possible that their leader, Judas the Galilean, could have claimed that God would only bring about his kingdom when the Jews stopped submitting to Gentiles rulers and 'acknowledged his absolute claim to rule here and now, with no reservations whatever.'³⁴ If this group was in any way influential in Galilee, it is very likely that such beliefs (even if the same practice did not ensue) could have been in the air. So the phrase 'the kingdom of God is at hand', for some, in addition to eschatology, could have carried the connotation 'revolution'.

Conclusion

We have had to omit a fair amount of relevant material in our summary of Jewish understandings of the kingdom of God.³⁵ Nonetheless, despite the fact that the exact expression 'kingdom of God' hardly ever appears in Jewish writings prior to Jesus, we have observed a few details which can help us suggest how first-century Palestinian Jews would have responded to Jesus' declaration that the kingdom of God was near. Firstly, we should remind ourselves that God reigning as king is nearly always associated with Israel's restoration and salvation. This is particularly prominent already in Isa. 52.7 and Ex. 15.18 but also in later Jewish texts. Secondly, the kingdom was (at least in the later Hebrew Bible and post-biblical writings) very often eschatological. Although some could spiritualise the idea of the kingdom (particularly in the diaspora texts), the majority of Jews thought that there was a time to come when God's kingdom would be fully established.³⁶ Thirdly, and most clearly in post-biblical texts, the establishment of God's kingdom would generally involve God's judgement on Israel's oppressors. This belief could sometimes, as in the case of Judas the Galilean, take the form of violent rebellion against Rome.

Against this backdrop, we can easily understand why Jesus' teaching attracted such great crowds. Indeed, it is very likely that his hearers, upon hearing 'the kingdom of God is at hand', would have concluded that Jesus was proclaiming that God was finally going to redeem and restore his people as well as judge the Romans. Perhaps some of his hearers even thought of Jesus embodying the messenger of Isaiah 52.7, coming over the mountains of Galilee to proclaim to an oppressed and down-trodden Israel: your God reigns!

Endnotes:

1N. Perrin, Rediscovering the teaching of Jesus (London: SCM Press, 1967), 54.

2It certainly was to C. H. Dodd: Cf. C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (London: Nisbet & Co., 1936).

3A. Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (London: A & C Black, 1954 [1906]).

4Mk. 1.13. Sanders, in his concern to safeguard Jesus from preaching national repentance denies the authenticity of this saying (E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism [London: SCM Press, 1985], 116-17). I see no reason to follow this. Moreover, the idea of the kingdom of God being near is so prevalent in the teachings of Jesus that even if the saying is unauthentic, the message undoubtedly is.

5So D. Patrick, 'The Kingdom of God in the Old Testament' in Willis, W., (Ed.), The Kingdom of God in 20^th-Century Interpretation (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1987), 72; G. Stanton, 'Message and Miracles' in Bockmuehl, M., (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Jesus (Cambridge: CUP, 2001), 57.

6Author's translation. Cf. also Pss 10.16; 29.10; 93; 99; 145.

7Author's translation.

8Cf. D. C Duling, 'Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven' in ABD, Vol 4, 52.

9J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 392.

10So G. Vermes, Jesus the Jew (London: Collins, 1973), 169; N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (London: SPCK, 1992), 294-5.

11Cf. in particular Isa 41.21; 43.15; 44.6; 45.1; 52.7.

12Cf. Dunn, Jesus, 391; J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Volume two: Mentor Message and Miracles, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 246; Stanton, 'Message', 58.

13Wright, New Testament, 269; N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), 202-9.

14G. R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 25.

15Cf. on this J. J. Collins, 'The Kingdom of God in the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha', in Willis, W., (Ed.), The Kingdom of God in 20^th-Century Interpretation (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1987), 81-95.

16H. C. Kee in Charlesworth, Pseudepigrapha, Vol 1, 777-8 claims it could have been written during the Maccabean period.

17T. Ben. 9.1-2 in Charlesworth, Pseudepigrapha.

18Cf. Collins, 'Kingdom of God', 91; Meier, Mentor Message and Miracles, 260.

19So Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 77-90.

20Meier, Mentor Message and Miracles, 261,

21Collins, 'Kingdom of God', 89. J. Priest in Charlesworth, Pseudepigrapha, 920-1 dates it later, to the first century.

22T. Mos. 10.1 in Charlesworth, Pseudepigrapha.

23T. Mos. 10.8 in Charlesworth, Pseudepigrapha.

24Collins, 'Kingdom of God', 90

25Wright, New Testament, 304-5.

26Meier, Mentor Message and Miracles, 256.

27Cf. also Wis. Sol. 10.10.

28Cf. Collins, 'Kingdom of God', 90; Meier, Mentor Message and Miracles, 257; Stanton, 'Message and Miracles', 58.

29So Meier, Mentor Message and Miracles, 257.

30M. Lattke, 'On the Jewish Background of the synoptic concept “The Kingdom of God”' (1975) in Chilton, B., The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (London: SPCK, 1984), 85 claims that even if they are not Pharisaic they give us incredible insight into the mood in first-century Palestine.

31Ps. Sol. 17.3

3217.26-31.

33Jos. Ant. 18.1.23-25.

34M. Hengel, The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish freedom movement in the period from Herod I until 70 A.D. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989 [German version: 1976, second edition]), 93.

35For the most complete summary, to my knowledge, cf. Meier 1994, 243-70.

36So Collins 1987, 95.