Archive for the ‘Biblical Theology’ Category
Regeneration
Jesus and Nicodemus discuss regeneration in John 3:
Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Evangelicalism commonly reads this as referring to individual regeneration, but I’m convinced that is not in view. Nicodemus, a ruler of the people, knows that the church-body is dead; she is still living in wickedness and is still undergoing a kind of exile from God’s favor. In the background are several passages from the prophets. Ezekiel 6 refers to the death of Israel:
And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones all around your altars.
And Ezekiel 37 refers to her resurrection:
The hand of Yahweh came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of Yahweh, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. Then he caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
So I answered, “O Lord Yahweh, You know.”
Again he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of Yahweh! Thus says the Lord Yahweh to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am Yahweh.” ’ ” . . .
Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am Yahweh, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, Yahweh, have spoken it and performed it,” says Yahweh.’ ”
I believe that Nicodemus’s question is like Ezekiel’s reply and like Mary’s answer to the angel: how can this be? Also in the background is Israel’s resurrection from the womb-ground in Isaiah 66:
“Before she was in labor, she gave birth;
Before her pain came,
She delivered a male child.
Who has heard such a thing?
Who has seen such things?
Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day?
Or shall a nation be born at once?
For as soon as Zion was in labor,
She gave birth to her children.
Shall I bring to the time of birth, and not cause delivery?” says Yahweh.
“Shall I who cause delivery shut up the womb?” says your God.
“Rejoice with Jerusalem,
And be glad with her, all you who love her;
Rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn for her;
That you may feed and be satisfied
With the consolation of her bosom,
That you may drink deeply and be delighted
With the abundance of her glory.”
Nicodemus understands this much. What he does not understand is that this corporate regeneration—in fact, the regeneration of the cosmos—would be accomplished by the rebirth, from the earth, of one man, the representative of Israel.
The kingdom and the power, redux
Earlier I claimed that James Jordan had not drawn a straight-line connection between the church’s abandonment of paedobaptism and our culture’s practice of abortion. At the time I was focused primarily on Jordan’s lectures, but I’ve searched again through his written materials. Jordan’s 1989 essay, “The Holy War in America Today: Some Observations on Abortion Rescues,” does in fact address this connection directly. This is an outstanding essay that I commend to you in its entirety. But here are some quotes from this essay on this particular point. These particular quotes originate from Jordan’s earlier 1985 essay, “Abortion: A Cause and a Cure”—
Abortion is clearly murder, so there is absolutely no question about the will of God in this matter. All the Church needs to do is bind and loose properly, and society will conform. There is no doubt about it, because the Bible says it. In Christ, the Church has been restored to the place of Adam as guardian of the Garden; the cherubim have gone back home to heaven. We now have the keys. If the dragon is loose in the garden, killing children, the fault for this lies solely with the Church. What does Scripture say? All power has been given to Christ and is administered through the Church. All power. All. Not part. Not some. Not “enough.” All. The enemy, then, has NO power. We have to say, then, that the reason children are murdered in our society is because the Church has failed to guard at this point.
At those points where the Church fails to guard society, sin breaks out. If the Church fails to maintain its governing function, and fails to use the sword of excommunication properly and consistently, then the state will also fail to wield the sword of iron, and there will be a rise of lawlessness and crime. If the Church fails to protect the weak, then the weak will become the prey of the violent. . . .
In this way, the Church in the West ceased offering the protection of Christ to the children of the West. The results have been slow in coming, but are now devastating. Ancient Israel faced the same choice. They were supposed to circumcise their children and bring them to Passover. When they ignored the festivals (as they almost always did), they fell into child sacrifice, giving their children to Molech. So it was then, and so it is today. We now face rampant child pornography, child molestation, incest, and abortion. This will not cease until the Church once again welcomes the little children to Jesus’ lap. . . .
Working to pass civil laws will help, but is in the category of “little help” (Dan. 11:34, a reference to political relief); indeed, in my opinion the state will not change its stand on abortion until the Church reforms herself. Let the Church reform herself, and confess that by denying the seal of God’s covenant to the children of this society, she has left them open to attack. When the Church is reformed, then the promise of the gospel is that the rest of society will get in line soon enough, and sooner than we think.
Fall
Numbers 12 is a recapitulation of the fall in the garden in Genesis 3:
- A man and a woman grasp at something beyond what God has given to them
- The lie they believe is a lie about God’s character, that he is a father who gives stones in place of bread
- God seeks them, calls them, stands with them at the sanctuary. Interestingly, the text in Numbers suggests that God was not accustomed to walk with Miriam and Aaron as he was with Adam and Eve.
- The sin is dealt with by giving a new covering and by banishment from the sanctuary
Incidentally, I find it interesting that Moses, Miriam, and Aaron were all over 80 years old at this time.
If this identification is true, we should look for the pattern of a triplicate fall in Numbers. Miriam and Aaron commit their sin in the sanctuary place against the Father. Then, in Numbers 16, we see the brother-sin of Cain and Abel repeated when the sons of Kohath attack their brother Aaron. As with Cain and Abel, one brother’s offering is accepted by God, and the other’s is rejected. This connection, I think, instructs us to read this passage with the understanding that there is something murderous growing in the hearts of the sons of Kohath. Then, finally, in Numbers 25 we see the sin against the Spirit, the intermarriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men, repeated as Israel commits harlotry with the Midianite women.
If the pattern holds, we should next expect to see God making a new creation by a passage through water that preserves God’s people. Although this does not happen in the book of Numbers, it is exactly what happens when Israel crosses the Jordan.
Limp
James Jordan has a complex of very helpful things to say about wisdom, patience, faith, maturity, and a long time sense. These play into the repetitive progression he identifies of priest, king, and prophet. I want to extract out of this one particular insight he has on Jacob’s limp, which he associates primarily with the kingly phase of life.
From Studies in Genesis # 29, on Genesis 32,
Now, why is this done to Jacob? Well, it’s a point that we’ve made before, and that is that in union with Christ, all of God’s people limp. In union with Christ, all of God’s people limp. The crushing of the heel is passed to all of us. The Church always limps, and yet is victorious for the simple reason that the other side has its head crushed. But the bruising of the thigh signifies a wound delivered to the seed and it’s a picture then that the seed will suffer.
From The Life of Jacob # 40,
The sign that you’re going to function in the land as a king and that you have the brother’s blessing, that’s going to be this thigh wound, the limp. Now, where is this headed? I mean, this is kind of off the top of my head, except that after 25 years of studying biblical theology, I think that we can do this without any difficulty. If God’s ultimate goal is for us to be full witnesses in the world and have the Spirit, and we start with circumcision, which is painful for a couple of days, then we get this thigh wound that means that we can’t even walk very well and really cripples us. What is going to happen here that is the ultimate form of this to make us ready for witnesses in the world and make the Spirit come? Yeah, death. The cross is a good way of putting it, see? We’re moving here. . . .
Jacob is mighty enough to wrestle with God. So the sun coming up is a sign of Jacob’s strength, but, you see, paradoxically, his strength consists of his limp. Our strength consists of humility. This image associates the godlike power of the sun with the seeming weakness of the limping man. And not just the power of the sun, but what in Genesis 1, what does it say the sun, moon, and stars were set up to do? What do they represent? They are rulers and governors. The greater light for ruling the day, the smaller light for ruling the night. He set them in the firmament to rule the day and night. So, the shining forth of light and ruling are parallel. And Jacob is now like the sun. He comes in as a ruler. Not anymore a servant priest, but now a ruler. But, one who limps, one who’s weak. The limp is a sign of true power, and true power lies in humility and sacrifice.
From The Life of Jacob # 42,
So to be a king means to limp. It doesn’t mean you never do anything. It just means you have this quality of life. And changing Jacob’s name to Israel, which then becomes the name usually used for the nation, means the entire nation has that name, God-wrestlers. The entire nation bears the meaning of God-wrestlers whose seed is consecrated and sacrificed. So Israel becomes God-wrestlers. Israel becomes the circumcised priestly nation that also limps and has humility.
From The Life of Jacob # 43,
We had made the point last time that Esau, the Edomites, are also circumcised, but they don’t get the foot wound, they don’t get the thigh wound; that the limp has to do with humility. Circumcision has to do with being made a priest. If you are limping, you’re going to have to be careful. You can’t go up and fight like you used to. The whole bunch of guys are coming at you, and you can’t hardly stand without a staff. You’re in trouble, and you need some subtlety and wisdom. Direct action that you had maybe when you were younger isn’t going to work.
The Edomites and Esau in the Bible have this meaning of being a counterfeit priestly nation. A nation that’s priestly, or claims to be, and has circumcision, but that does not have humility. And so who hold their priesthood in pride and arrogance. And we were talking about how the book of Obadiah pictures them as dwelling in the rocks, in the cleft of the rock, like Moses and Elijah were in the cleft of the rock, and having a counterfeit kind of wisdom and claiming to be God’s people.
Well, the true church doesn’t look all that powerful. This frustrates people because our enemies don’t limp, but their head is crushed. So they can’t endure. If you want to compare it, go back to Genesis 3. One side gets a foot wound, which is very troublesome. Your foot hurts every day. You never know when you’re going to slip and hurt it again. It means you can’t walk very fast. You go through the wilderness. You make three steps forward and two steps back. And the adversary are all standing out there on two feet, and they look like they’re just real strong, shoulder to shoulder, marching at you. And we look like we’re all over the place in different denominations, fighting over this, that, and the other. But their head is crushed. Despite appearances, they don’t have any overall organization; whereas, despite appearances, we do have complete organization because our head is alive. Jesus is alive.
And by the Holy Spirit, all of this chaos that we see in the church is actually perfectly organized and synchronized development towards something in the future. It’s just that we can’t see it. It’s like if you made a mosaic, and we’re going to take this entire floor here and put a mosaic on it using little tiles an eighth of an inch square, all different colors. And I had a map up here, and I go over here, and I put a little red one-eighth of an inch by one-eighth by an inch square tile here, and a little blue one over here, and a green one over here, and another red one next to it. And you would have no idea what the pattern is. I would, because I’ve got a diagram that tells me I’m painting by numbers or I’m making a mosaic by numbers. I’m putting a little bit here and a little bit there. But I’m not starting in one corner and developing. I’m doing a little bit over here in China, a little bit over here in the Presbyterian Church, a little bit over here in the Catholic Church, a little bit over here in this Pentecostal group, and a little bit over here raising up some Mormons in order to challenge us to think new about other things we hadn’t thought about before, and over here raising up communism to force us to think about things that we wouldn’t normally think about. I’m doing this and I’m doing that.
And those of us who are near to it in this world, we don’t see the pattern. But there is a pattern. But from our perspective, it looks like chaos. That’s the part of the limpingness of the church. And it means that we don’t appear powerful. But we have a head for whom all this is organized. It’s being done in exactly the right order. Meanwhile they look like they’re powerful but their head has been crushed and they’re not actually organized; and you see this in that anytime you get wicked people together they wind up fighting each other. That never happens in the church; well it happens to us because we still have the flesh, but it happens to them preeminently. It’s always the Tower of Babel over and over again. It’s Deja Babel all over again every time they try to do anything.
That’s why the conspiracy view of history isn’t really true. Because it really is true that the Russian communists and the Chinese communists couldn’t get along because Mao Zedong had ambitions and so did Stalin. They might close ranks occasionally against us, but they’re not going to get along. And Ho Chi Minh had ambitions and that’s why he wouldn’t get along with Mao Zedong. The wicked don’t get along with each other except very briefly because each one has his own ambitions to play God.
So while it can look as if Esau is coming out with 400 men all in a rank and you’ve got this little group of women and kids and servants who are used to being farmers and you’re limping along, the fact is Esau is not well organized and they won’t endure. And we are organized and we will endure. We limp, but our head is resurrected, and our limp is a large dance from the viewpoint of eternity.
New creation
Some of [Paul’s] hearers believe the gospel that he preached, which means that they trusted in the resurrection, left the old creation and entered the new creation. To press that just a little further. Paul’s message to them is that the resurrection is indeed the gateway of history. Before the resurrection, the world was different. It was a time of ignorance that God overlooked, meaning before the resurrection, God had exercised great patience with the nations and did not give them what they deserved. We don’t have time this morning, but Paul talks about this very same thing in Acts 14 and Romans 3, and you can look it up there. Paul often refers to the former times, but now after the resurrection, something is significantly different. Now Jesus has come and shed his blood for sins. Jesus is with God, ready to forgive sins, but commands all men everywhere to repent. All men of all nations must confess their sins, trust in Jesus, as Lord and stop living in ignorance and sin. The resurrection marks that hinge in history. Everything that comes before it belongs to the old world. And everything that comes after the empty tomb is a new heavens and a new earth. When Jesus died, the first creation, the old creation, died with him. And his resurrection was the birth of a new reality for the cosmos. The resurrection wasn’t a one-off strange miracle in the old world. The resurrection was the first day of the new world. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. There is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. When you’re united to Jesus by faith, you join the new creation.
We’re used to speaking about the new heavens and the new earth as something that hasn’t happened yet. We think of new heavens and new earth as something that’s way, way, way in the future. We’re looking forward to it. But the reality is with the resurrection, the new order of the cosmos has already begun. How is heaven new? How is heaven new and different from what it was before the resurrection? Well, there’s something very significant about heaven now, and that is today a man rules in heaven. The man, Jesus, is enthroned in heaven, and he rules over everything, and he is the man before which we will all stand as judge. Not only that, but today heaven is populated with the souls of men. If you remember Jesus’s parable of Lazarus and the rich man, those righteous souls are not in heaven. They’re not before the throne of God, right? He says they’re in Abraham’s bosom. They’re waiting for the sacrifice to be made so that men’s souls can enter the presence of God. Back when we studied Revelation, remember one of the narratives we followed through Revelation is that account of angelic elders getting up from their thrones and then human elders taking their place. Heaven is new. Heaven is changed with the enthronement of Jesus, the ascension of Jesus and his enthronement over all the cosmos.
And the earth is under new administration as well. Because Jesus has been vindicated, because he’s been enthroned, the power of Satan to deceive the nations has been broken. Satan is on a chain. He no longer has any kind of dominion over the earth. His functions are severely limited. Satan is not all-powerful. He’s not omniscient. And instead of Satan’s dominion, now the Spirit of God has been poured out in strength upon the world, upon the church, empowering the church to take dominion and rule in history, in time, over creation.
In the old world, before the resurrection, corruption spread, impurity spread. How much of the law is taken up with how to counter all manner of ceremonial uncleanness? There’s uncleanness that can get in the walls of the house and in your clothes and in your cups and dishes, uncleanness everywhere. That’s not the way it is anymore. In the new creation, life spreads. Corruption doesn’t spread. Understanding and wisdom spreads. Purity spreads. In the old creation, it’s as if the people of God are always about to go extinct. They’re always surrounded by their enemies. They dig wells and the Canaanites come behind them and fill up the wells. The women are always barren. The land does not cooperate with them. It’s as if the land wars against them. There’s famine and pestilence and problems all the time. The creation doesn’t cooperate with them in the old covenant. In the new creation, the land cooperates. Blessings abound. The church spreads throughout all the world. Unabated life just gets sweeter and sweeter and more pleasant all the time.
Think about the way that now God blesses our smallest efforts. Just a little faithfulness explodes into a great bounty of fruitfulness by God’s mighty Spirit. This is a new creation. Romans chapter 8 spoke of this. We studied this a few weeks ago, that the creation was subject to futility, awaiting what? Awaiting the revealing of the sons of God. As the sons of God are revealed, as the gospel is preached and men are delivered, so is creation. Everything has been turned around by the resurrection. Death no longer has esteem. The grave no longer has the last word. Death had no victory over Jesus and therefore cannot have victory over those who are in Jesus.
This is what it means to be a Christian, to accept without reservation, without cynicism, without skepticism, to accept the reality of the resurrection, to understand that it is the most important event in human history. And that because of the resurrection of Jesus, we live in a different world. Because of the resurrection, the world is not the same as it used to be. This is the world where Jesus reigns. This is the world where his kingdom spreads. This is the world where death does not get the last word. Life gets the last word. This is the world where the triune God has made himself known. This powerful preaching of the resurrection, this powerful truth emboldened the early Christians to go through the ancient world spreading the message of Jesus. The explosive growth of the church is inexplicable apart from the earth-shattering message of the cross and the empty tomb. And wherever they take this message to confront Caesars and governors and philosophers and pagan priests and merchants and slaves, wherever they go, the truth prevails. Lives are transformed. Men and women are restored as they enter the new creation with Jesus as king.
(Duane Garner, The Resurrection Changes Everything)
Wilderness
God sometimes treats the unrighteous or the rebellious in a way that matches their mistaken conception of him.
But his lord answered and said to him, “You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents.” (Matthew 25)
This is true of the rebellious generation in the wilderness.
Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt?” (Exodus 14)
All these men who have seen my glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded my voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected me see it. (Numbers 14)
The fact that Jesus died, was resurrected, and ascended in AD 30 is significant, because this establishes the time period between Jesus’s own exodus and the destruction of the temple in AD 70 as a 40-year period. This makes AD 70, which is the destruction of the old creation, the full entry into the new creation. This is the time of the release of the saints under the altar (Revelation 6); the time after which those are blessed “who die in the Lord from now on.” (Revelation 14)
Thus, the 40 years between AD 30 and AD 70 are a kind of wilderness wandering for the church. This is a time when the Gentiles, a kind of “mixed multitude,” are incorporated into the church.
And, crucially, this is the time when an unfaithful generation is left to die, while their children are brought into the new creation. Importantly, the fact that an entire generation dies under a covenantal curse does not imply that their children failed to enter into the promises.
Thus, apart from any historical data, from the Biblical record and typology alone it is quite reasonable to conclude that the prophecy of Romans 11 was fulfilled by the entry into the new creation, by AD 70.
And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come out of Zion, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” (Romans 11)
And yet in fact there is historical evidence for this.
Table
There are a number of temptations of important figures in the Bible that I believe we are intended to see as echoes of one another, and from which I think we can gain some insights.
I want to start with the temptation of Mordecai. This temptation appears to involve ease of access to political power and favor, while compromising faithfulness to God’s commands. Mordecai’s faithfulness appears to create trials for him and his people rather than relieving them. However, in the end Mordecai gains great favor with the emperor, while also preserving God’s people.
My attention was called to Mordecai’s temptation by comparison to Joseph’s temptation by Potiphar’s wife. Joseph also experiences trials in exchange for his faithfulness, but ends up gaining the favor of the emperor while also preserving God’s people.
Hebrews tells us that Moses “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.” Moses also experienced trials in response to his faithfulness. He won only reluctant favor from Pharaoh, but God used him to deliver his people. Unlike Ahasuerus and Joseph’s Pharaoh, Moses’ Pharaoh does not seem to experience dreams, although the Passover is a kind of waking nightmare.
Daniel “purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.” I think this is not for dietary reasons but for table fellowship reasons; there is something about the fellowship at Nebuchadnezzar’s table that implied Daniel would be eating, in terms of 1 Corinthians 10, at the table of demons rather than at the Lord’s table. Daniel’s case differs slightly from the others we’ve considered so far; he is elevated to a position of power first and only later experiences trials. His labor for the deliverance of his people is also, as far as we know, primarily a labor of prayer rather than of action; although it is possible that he had something to do with Cyrus’s decree. (It is also possible that he had something to do with Nebuchadnezzar’s investiture of Jerusalem.) Daniel’s emperor experiences dreams.
Daniel’s case leads us to reflect on the place of table fellowship in this pattern. Haman and Potiphar’s wife don’t offer literal tables. But Esther and Joseph both go on to prepare tables from their positions of elevation. The same is true of Moses; the Bible does not call attention to Pharaoh’s table, but Moses does prepare God’s table in the wilderness.
If you were a prophet in the time of Elijah, you should have been eating at the table of Obadiah rather than the table of Jezebel.
Balaam is an anti-pattern, but an interesting one. God appears to him (in the night, though perhaps not in a dream), and he seems to be obedient. But, God opposes him at every step along the way. And, crucially, Balaam eats (several times) at Balak’s table rather than Yahweh’s table. Considered in this light, his fate recorded in Numbers 31 and elsewhere is unsurprising. Balaam seems to retain or regain the favor of the Midianites and Moabites, but this becomes his downfall rather than his (or their) salvation.
Seen in this light, Adam is also an anti-pattern; he has table fellowship with the serpent rather than with God, and this becomes his downfall. Importantly, part of Adam’s temptation is the pursuit of the knowledge of good and evil, which is Biblical terminology for wisdom associated with rule.
Jesus reverses Adam’s pattern exactly; he refuses table fellowship with the devil accompanied with the offer of power and authority. He appears to experience a downfall, but he is vindicated, elevated to power, and accomplishes the salvation of his people. There is even a dream involved: that of Pilate’s wife.
There are threads of this in the gospels; for example, our prayer for heavenly bread, our call to avoid the leaven of the Pharisees, and our consuming Jesus’s flesh and blood. In fact, you could say that there is now only one food law in the new covenant: do not despise God and his people in your table fellowship, either by corrupting God’s table (Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 11, Galatians 2), or by forsaking his table altogether for the table of demons (1 Corinthians 10).
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine
Marriage is a type:
“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5)
This means that sexual intercourse is a type of communion. Knowing this helps us to instinctively answer certain questions rightly.
Q1: Are we in any danger of communion’s losing its special character?
A1: My beloved put his hand by the latch of the door, and my heart yearned for him.
Q2: How often shall we take communion?
A2: Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its pleasant fruits.
Q3: Is the primary reason for weekly covenant renewal the fact that our sin has put us out of fellowship with God?
A3: I said, “Have you seen the one I love?” Scarcely had I passed by them, when I found the one I love. I held him and would not let him go.
Q4: Shall we use grape juice and crackers?
A4: Eat, O friends! Drink, yes, drink deeply, O beloved ones!
Q5: If we are not providentially hindered, is it permissible to show up late or to be absent entirely?
A5: “I will rise now,” I said, “And go about the city; In the streets and in the squares I will seek the one I love.”
Q6: How is Jesus present in the supper?
A6: He is present in, with, and under his bride, who is his own body.
Q7: How shall we examine ourselves?
A7: My beloved is mine, and I am his.
Party
Where was [Jesus] during this time? Suffering for us? No, he was in paradise. He says to the thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” We have a translation of the Apostles’ Creed that says he descended into hell. That’s not very good. The Moravians say he descended to the place of departed spirits, which I think is good. We could say he descended to Sheol.
Most accurately, we would say he went to paradise. And that’s having a party. Your Good Friday service, after the Good Friday service, have a party afterwards. Break out the champagne. Jesus is down in paradise having a great time with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Naaman the Syrian. They’re all down there partying hearty. I mean, I grew up, Good Friday service is over, and we sang—it’s a pretty hymn, but the words aren’t good in my opinion anymore:
O darkest woe!
Ye tears forth flow!
Hath earth so sad a wonder,
God the Father’s only Son
Now lies buried yonder.Well, if we’re seeing through the eyes of faith, and not the eyes of despair, what we want to participate in is much more festive on Friday night and Saturday. Actually, the Eastern Church treats Holy Saturday more festively. But it’s very much medieval for us to treat it, “Oh, it’s a mournful time. The service is over. Everyone should leave. We’re going to turn all the lights off and everybody should leave in silence. Don’t say anything as you leave.” I have come to question that.
Jesus’ second death, it was the death that Adam and Eve were supposed to have, the death that leads to glorification and resurrection. Jesus ascends out of the tomb and he now has knowledge of good and evil. Jesus did not have knowledge of good and evil before his resurrection. That’s to pass judgments.
What did Jesus say when they came? The guy says, “Tell my brother to divide his inheritance with me, my inheritance with me.” And Jesus says, “Who made me a judge? I’m not a judge.” Satan comes and tempts him, Jesus just answers back. He doesn’t say, “This is my world, I’m in charge of it.” He’s not in charge of this world. Satan says, “I’ve been traveling up and down the earth. It’s my world. All things have been given to me, and I’ll give it to you if you bow down and worship me.” Jesus doesn’t dispute that.
Now, the secret in that passage is that you might think, well, Jesus is going to get this world as a result of his resurrection. Actually, Jesus doesn’t want this world. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 says he made that world of nothing. You want this world, Satan? Here, you can have it. I’m going for a new, transfigured, resurrected world. So Satan looks around and he says, “Hey, it’s my world. Where is everybody? Where’s gravity?”
Nothing’s left of this world. It’s been made nothing. Now Jesus has this new world. We all move into it by baptism.
(James Jordan, The Centrality of Death in the Old Creation)
Irrevocable
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:29)
A precise futurist reading of Romans 11 proves too much. Egypt and Assyria (recall their repentance in the time of Jonah) are also objects of God’s calling:
In that day five cities in the land of Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear by Yahweh of hosts; one will be called the City of Destruction. In that day there will be an altar to Yahweh in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to Yahweh at its border. And it will be for a sign and for a witness to Yahweh of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to Yahweh because of the oppressors, and He will send them a Savior and a Mighty One, and He will deliver them.
Then Yahweh will be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know Yahweh in that day, and will make sacrifice and offering; yes, they will make a vow to Yahweh and perform it. And Yahweh will strike Egypt, He will strike and heal it; they will return to Yahweh, and He will be entreated by them and heal them. In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria—a blessing in the midst of the land, whom Yahweh of hosts shall bless, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.” (Isaiah 19)
So too Ammon, Moab, and Elam:
“Yet I will bring back the captives of Moab in the latter days,” says Yahweh. . . .
“But afterward I will bring back the captives of the people of Ammon,” says Yahweh. . . .
“But it shall come to pass in the latter days: I will bring back the captives of Elam,” says Yahweh. (Jeremiah 48-49)
Of course, I do believe that all nations will be brought into the kingdom.
Indeed He says,
‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ (Isaiah 49)
Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there).
And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. (Revelation 21)
But it is ridiculous to claim that they will be brought into the kingdom in some ossified form that was frozen two to three millennia ago.
I gotta have my orange juice. 