Archive for the ‘Biblical Theology’ Category
Tribute
As I have previously suggested, the Lord’s supper has much in connection to the tribute, or grain, offering. The priests in Israel offered bread and wine to God every morning and evening (Num. 28:1-9), and additional bread and wine every Sabbath (Num. 28:10). The priests ate portions of the bread (Lev. 2) but had no portion of the wine, which was poured out entirely (Lev. 10:9). And interestingly, the tribute offering, together with the frankincense that accompanied it, is the only offering described as a memorial. Likewise, Jesus calls the Lord’s supper a memorial (1 Cor. 11, often confusingly translated “remembrance”).
Clearly Jesus means us to draw connections between his supper and the daily offering of bread and wine. This is one of the many ways in which the worship of the church has become a sort of transfiguration of temple worship; for example, the church is the temple (1 Cor. 3), we offer a sacrifice of praise (Heb. 13), and we draw near in worship (Heb. 10), which is sacrificial language. Likewise, as a kingdom of priests, we eat bread—and now drink wine!—together with God in his house.
Thus, weekly communion: if every priest offered memorial bread and wine every day that he stood in service in God’s house, how much more should we eat memorial bread and wine every day that we stand together as the house of God?
The man of lawlessness
What follows are some reasons I think it is preferable or at least possible to think of the “man of lawlessness” of 2 Thessalonians 2 as being the Jewish high priest, priesthood, or additionally some power behind them such as Herod or the former high priest Ananias.
First, we should be alert to the fact that God operates covenantally, and that “judgment [begins] at the household of God” (1 Pet. 4:17). God is concerned with all sin, but is most concerned with faithful worship. This is operative in the pattern of what the Bible calls the “abomination of desolation.” Often interpreters connect this abomination with actions of invading Gentile nations. But everywhere that God threatens to—and actually does—depart from his house, leaving it “desolate,” it is the apostasy of his own people that is the precipitating factor. The pattern is this: God’s people practice abominations, God leaves his house desolate, and then it is left unprotected for Gentile armies to attack. So we should look to identify these abominations as activities on the part of God’s people. We see this pattern in Ezekiel 8-10 where it is the idolatry of Israel that causes God to leave his house desolate. We see it again in Matthew 21 when Jesus cleanses the temple and then leaves it desolate of his presence. We should be prepared again to see it when Jesus vindicates his name in AD 70, understanding that the Jewish and Judaizing persecution of the church serves as the primary antagonist, with Rome playing a secondary role.
Second, there was already an essential element of disobedience to God in the second temple high priesthood. God had declared in the restoration covenant that only Zadokite priests could come near to serve him (Ezek. 40:46). Beginning at least with Menelaus in 172 BC, the high priests were no longer Zadokite, not even under the Hasmoneans. Although the New Testament does not call attention to this, it is likely that this disobedience, which included the murder of the high priest and the buying and selling of the priesthood, was the abomination that left God’s house desolate so that Antiochus Epiphanes could later walk right in. There were continuing abuses of the high priesthood after Jesus.
Third, there are some subtle hints elsewhere concerning the one who “takes his seat in the temple of God.” Hebrews 10 stresses that every priest “stands daily at his service,” and that Jesus is the only priest who has “sat down,” by virtue of his permanent and final sacrifice. By contrast, Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees for sitting in “Moses’ seat” (Matt. 23:2). Now, these are not all priests. And it is likely that this is speaking of their office of teaching and judging (as in Exodus 18:13), rather than a physical seat, and certainly not a seat in the temple. But it is a hint of an inappropriate “seatedness” on the part of the Jews, and the very context in which Jesus prophesies the final desolation of Jerusalem.
Fourth, very much of what is happening in the run-up to AD 70 is a sort of revival of Judaism, as the threat of Christianity catalyzes them, as the temple is completed and the last great Passover celebrated. This, I believe, also connects to 2 Thessalonians 2, in that the “false signs and wonders” were experienced by the Jews, and the “strong delusion” was a characteristically Jewish delusion: the thought that “God has blessed us with a great revival and will give us ultimate victory over the Romans and the Christians.” Again, it is the apostate house of God that is in focus, and the foremost representative of that house before God is the high priest.
Fifth, there are several senses in which we can identify the high priest as “proclaiming himself to be God.” First, in putting Jesus on trial and putting him to death, the Jews, and especially the priesthood, had exalted themselves over God and made themselves out to be the final arbiter, to be God. Second, in continuing to persecute Jesus’s body, the church, the Jews continued in this position. Third, in proclaiming “we have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15) but then revolting against Rome, the Jews revealed themselves to be aspiring to the same sort of idolatry of self-willed power exhibited by Rome.
Finally, we can understand the “one who restrains” the Jewish persecution of Christians as being the Roman rulers. Throughout the New Testament it is the Roman authorities who come to the aid of Christians over against Jewish persecution. It is only at the very end that Rome as well begins to turn upon the Christians, establishing the temporary unholy alliance of beasts (until Rome eventually devours Babylon-Jerusalem) that we see in Revelation.
James Jordan, to whom I am indebted for almost every single idea above, suggests that it is actually the church’s preaching that served as the restraint on lawlessness. Elsewhere Jordan suggests that the “mystery of lawlessness” is a sort of Girardian scapegoating mechanism, whereby the Jews were suppressing their own guilt (and ironically adding to it) by scapegoating Jesus and his church.
Days of the Lord
We tend to speak of “day of the Lord” univocally, but Scripture uses it in a layered fashion: First, it can refer to Jesus’s weekly visitation of his people: “Lord’s day” and “day of the Lord” are essentially the same (e.g., Isa. 58:13). On the Lord’s day Jesus visits his church, walking among the lampstands (Rev. 1ff) and welcoming but also evaluating her. Second, it can refer to archetypal times when Jesus visits his people in judgment and vindication in a peculiar way, such as Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem (Isaiah 2) or Jesus’s destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 (2 Thess. 2). Third, we can use it to refer to other times in history that fit this same pattern, when Jesus visits in judgment and vindication in a special way. Finally, we can use it in a sort of “capital letter” sense to refer to the final visitation of Jesus (1 Cor. 5:5) at “the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power” (1 Cor. 15).
An interesting pattern to observe is how often the “day of the Lord” is connected to Jesus visiting his church. It is true that all nations will experience days of the Lord (Ezek. 30:3). Jesus is visiting to vindicate the faithful and to bring low his enemies, but judgment begins at the house of God. Apostate Israel is brought into exile. Apostate Jerusalem (the “Babylon” of Revelation, “where their Lord was crucified”—Rev. 11:8 together with 18:10ff) is destroyed. There is a special warning in this for the church, in that the day of the Lord will bring about destruction both without and within the church. We see this even in the weekly visitations as Jesus warns the lampstands, and if we consider the double-edged sword of the weekly Lord’s supper in 1 Cor 11.
Finally, if we think about a prophetic pronunciation that the day of the Lord is coming (whether we are thinking about its coming soon to our nation, or at the end of history), we can say that Jesus’s visitation is inevitable. We do not call people to repent so that they can somehow postpone Jesus’s coming; we call people to “die” in repentance so that they can pass through the coming fire and flood, and experience the resurrection that will certainly take place on the other side.
Knock
Revelation 3:20 is a well-known verse:
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:20 ESV)
In spite of the many artistic and evangelistic portrayals of this verse, the context establishes that Jesus is actually knocking at the door of his church, not at the door of individuals. Doug Wilson comments on this, saying that “This is, in the first instance, the door of the church at Laodicea, and then by extension, any church that has people who have drifted into a lukewarm approach to Jesus.”
From elsewhere in Revelation we can establish that a worship service contains prophetic preaching (trumpets) and singing. But those are not present in this verse. Instead, Jesus’s highest intention in meeting with his people is to share a meal with them.
Thus, weekly communion: why open the door but refuse the meal?
Give thanks
While 1 Thessalonians 5 is applicable to all of the Christian life, it has repeated overtones of the weekly public worship service:
- Weekly public worship is one of the several kinds of “day of the Lord” that we can speak of
- As seen in 1 Corinthians, drunkenness and sobriety is particularly applicable to the Lord’s supper
- Our response to church leaders is especially important in the liturgical setting
- Admonishment, encouragement, rejoicing, prayer, thanksgiving, prophecy, and testing-discernment all take place in public worship
- The command to “always rejoice” has particular application to public worship; in Jesus’s presence we have a sort of weekly heavenly furlough from our battle in the world, and are “not [to] be grieved, for the joy of Yahweh is your strength” (Neh. 8:10)
- The focus of the Spirit’s work, and the occasions where we have the most danger of quenching the Spirit, are in the “one another” settings of the whole body of Christ such as public worship
Verse 18 carries similar overtones: in all, give thanks. Translating this as “in all circumstances” or “in all things” is certainly correct; we would not limit its application to public worship. However, it has an intensive application to public worship, where we corporately give thanks to God. And, as the church has recognized throughout history, our giving thanks for the bread and for the wine means that thanksgiving is an appropriate synecdoche for the Lord’s supper.
Thus, weekly communion: in all worship, eucharist!
Enrolled in heaven
The book of Hebrews is critical to understanding the worship of the church under the new covenant. Hebrews 12 contrasts the worship of the church with Israel’s worship at Sinai:
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:18-24 ESV)
From this we understand that the church stands in the presence of Jesus as we gather every Lord’s day. But more than that, we stand in the company of angels, and of the saints that have gone before us. So one of the ways that we can remind ourselves that we grieve with hope (1 Thess 4:13) for saints who have gone before us is that we stand shoulder to shoulder with them every week in the worship of our king. We are sent back into the field of battle without them, but we rejoin them at our weekly furlough-feast.
This is another reason that our worship can be without mourning or weeping (Neh. 8:9), since we are spiritually experiencing a foretaste of all things being made right.
Disciple the nations
E. J. Hutchinson analyzes the grammar of Matthew 28:19:
“The nations” are in the accusative: they themselves, and not some group of people from them, are the direct object of the imperative “disciple” or “teach.” Whatever the phrase means, therefore, it is “the nations” themselves, considered as such, that are to be acted upon.
Regeneration redux
Last year I wrote that we should speak of regeneration as something that God progressively-continually accomplishes in us, and cited Calvin as saying that regeneration is something that occurs progressively.
Ian Hewitson makes a similar observation:
After a brief treatment of union with Christ in chapter 1 [of the Institutes, book 3], Calvin speaks of regeneration. Under the rubric of regeneration, Calvin was taking up the topic of sanctification. (At that point of theological development, “regeneration” had the broad significance of what we now understand by “sanctification”). Calvin, having completed that topic, then takes up the topic of justification. The polemic involved for Calvin was to demonstrate that the Protestant conception of justification did not militate against the moral integrity of the believer as Roman Catholic theology believed would inevitably be the case if a doctrine of justification was grounded in imputed righteousness. Calvin refutes such an understanding by taking up sanctification first, without calling into question the doctrine of justification as a forensic category grounded in the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Although the Westminster Confession of Faith (in chapter XIII) sees regeneration as the beginning of sanctification, I am not aware of any modern Reformed theologian who takes up the topic of sanctification before the topic of justification according to the same pattern as the Confession. Reformed theologians do take up the topic of regeneration, and regeneration is a category of transformation. In the course of theological development, the conception of regeneration was narrowed down to initial transformation that is wrought at the inception of the process of sanctification. In this way, regeneration is thought of as a transforming “act” of God that accounts for the emergence of faith in the believer. Attention is then turned to other “acts” of God that precede the “process” of sanctification. The movement is from regeneration to justification. Regeneration gives rise to the faith that justifies and precedes sanctification. Such a pattern is within the bounds of Reformed theology and not contrary to Calvin’s approach, but it remains the case that it is not the pattern found in Book III of the Institutes. (Trust and Obey, 25-26)
430
Awhile back, I wrote about seventy sevens and suggested that the figure of an evaluation period of 490 years might also have a connection with 430 years (as in the case of the sin of the Amorites), if you count as Sabbath not only Sabbath years but also jubilee years.
There is another evaluation period of 430 years in Ezekiel, broken into a 390 + 40:
“Then lie on your left side, and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their punishment. For I assign to you a number of days, 390 days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment. So long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel. And when you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah. Forty days I assign you, a day for each year. And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared, and you shall prophesy against the city. And behold, I will place cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from one side to the other, till you have completed the days of your siege. (Ezekiel 4:4-8)
430 years of evaluation plus 70 years of judgment makes for a nice round 500 years.
I think we still must take Daniel’s seventy sevens symbolically. There are more, not less, than 490 years to be made up between Cyrus and Jesus.
Future
Peter Leithart writes about one of the symbolic undertones of the ritual of circumcision:
This also highlights the fact that circumcision is the beginning of a pedagogy of weakness, of renunciation of fleshly achievement, of renunciation of the future. If circumcision is a symbolic sacrifice of a newborn son, it is a symbolic offering of the future of your name and family to Yahweh. If Yahweh chooses to raise your son from the dead, then you have a future. But the act entrusts the future into Yahweh hands, which is of course where the future always lies anyway.
The ritual of baptism is the reverse of this in some ways; it is actually our induction into a future that has already begun:
[God] saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5)
In baptism we are joined to Jesus, who has completed the exodus into the new creation (Luke 9:31) and reigns seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Even now we reign with him (Ephesians 2:6). We must still suffer and sacrifice as we look towards the full arrival of this future, and we must still entrust it to God (Ephesians 2:7), but in baptism there is a much greater emphasis on the future’s present arrival in Jesus, and on the church’s participation with him in not just announcing, but actually living out, the kingdom of the new creation.
See also: In the regeneration
I gotta have my orange juice. 