Archive for the ‘Christ is Lord’ Category
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.
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)
Nazirite
There is a sense in which God’s covenant with David, and David’s kingship, are exemplary of the new covenant and of Jesus’s kingship in ways that exceed later covenants. Peter Leithart works to demonstrate some of the ways in which this is true in his outstanding book From Silence to Song.
I especially like to highlight a few aspects of this. The so-called “Messianic Secret” is a fruitful parallel between the ministry of Jesus and the life of David. Related to this, the seven-year period in which Israel was gathered from Ish-bosheth to David is a significant parallel to the forty-year period in which old Israel was called to change her allegiance to Jesus. I especially like to reflect on the water crossings during the time Absalom drove David into the wilderness. Everyone who crossed the Kidron with David into the wilderness—including Ittai and his little ones (2 Sam. 15)—was baptized into David and enjoyed a union with David and all of the blessings of his kingship, victory, and vindication. In fact, on David’s return, it was necessary for the leaders to welcome David back by entering into his exile and crossing over the Jordan to bring him back (2 Sam. 19). These are clear analogs to our baptism into Jesus as well as our children’s baptism.
Mephibosheth was unable to join in this ministry to David. Instead, he allowed his hair to grow long (2 Sam. 19). Mephibosheth was thus to David what the Nazirite is to God. Earlier Nazirites had conducted a ministry of holy warfare; Mephibosheth’s ministry was instead a ministry of spiritual warfare, of prayer and fasting. This is instructive for Christians today. Today, all Christians are baptized; we are all priests (as well as being sons and prophets). There is therefore no more Nazirite, no need for a temporary priest or holy warrior. But the ministry of prayer—especially prayer in corporate worship—is how we fulfill the offices of priest and Nazirite today.
The fire that sat upon the heads of Christians in Acts 2 is equally instructive. This is not just the making of every Christian into a sacrifice and offering; it is also the making of every Christian’s head into a sacrifice and offering, just like the Nazritie. In terms of Pentecost, the work of speech, prayer, and worship is once again a significant characteristic of our service to God and his house.
Metábasis eis állo génos (3-25)
The future turns into the past. But also the past turns into the future.
The word ekklesia appears in the gospels. Fortunately Jesus spends a great deal of time defining this surprising new word for his puzzled disciples. This is how we learn that the church is a new kind of noncorporeal body (TM), whose primary nature is invisible rather than visible, and which excludes children from membership. The word covenant isn’t entirely new to the disciples, however. Jeremiah first introduces us to it: “This is the covenant that I will make with some of the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my grace in some of their minds, and write it on some of their hearts; and I will be the God of some of them, and some of them shall be my people. . . Some of them shall know me, from the middlest of them to the greatest of them.”
Joseph understands Girard and Friedman. Families and churches must guard against quarrels even during the best of times:
So he sent his brothers away, and they departed; and he said to them, “See that you do not become troubled along the way.” (Genesis 45:24, NKJV)
Kuyper’s got it all: Christian individuals, Christian families, Christian businesses, Christian art and music, Christian localism, Christian nationalism, even Christian cosmos. So: baptize your babies, sing Psalms against tyrants, and raise a glass to the king of kings!
Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. (Numbers 18, NKJV)
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. (1 Corinthians 7:14, NKJV)
Thus, paedocommunion! Thanks to Michael Burdge for this connection.
By faith, not by sight
I read and enjoyed Gaffin’s By Faith, Not by Sight recently. I think that he could have gone a little farther towards finding multi-perspectival resolutions, but I am generally very appreciative of the book. Some choice quotes:
Since the goal of redemption is union with the risen Lord, there seems little doubt that, if Paul has a center to his order of salvation, it is this doctrine. When other applied blessings, such as justification or sanctification, are made central, there are inevitably deleterious consequences for the Christian life, whereby incipient forms of antinomianism and legalism creep in. For example, a certain Lutheran view that justification precedes sanctification, so that it causes union with Christ and sanctification, ends up attributing to justification a renovative/transformative element. The notion that one applied benefit can cause another applied benefit has always perplexed me. But when union with Christ structures the whole of applied redemption, the aforementioned errors are dealt with better. This has to do with the fact that Christ’s person, not simply his work or his applied benefits, must have the preeminence. Indeed, the gift of Christ’s person is a greater gift to us than his benefits. As many of our finest divines have vigorously argued, there exists a priority of Christ’s person over his work. Union with Christ helps us to keep this salient fact in mind. We are not simply recipients of his benefits; we also belong to him. (Mark Jones, Foreword, p. x)
One important methodological consideration is that, with all due attention being given to his immediate historical context, including relevant extracanonical texts and materials, in interpreting [Paul’s] letters the context that is not only primary but privileged is the canonical context. (10)
All along I have been speaking of Paul’s “theology” and referring to him as a “theologian.” For many, that will not be a problem, but this way of speaking warrants some clarification, since for some it is questionable at best. The perceived danger here is that we will, as it could be put, “drag Paul down to our level.” . . . What offsets this leveling danger is appreciating Paul’s identity as an apostle, at least if we understand apostleship properly. . . . Regarding [his] authority, the apostle is as Christ himself.
Paul the theologian, then, is Paul the apostle. That points to the God-breathed origin and authority of his teaching, its character as the word of God. It highlights the radical, categorical difference there is between his theology and post-apostolic theology. His teaching, along with the teaching of the other biblical writers, is Spirit-borne, canonical, and foundational. (14-15)
Increasingly over the course of the last century, to fill out this brief historical sketch, a new consensus concerning Paul emerged across a broad front in biblical studies. This happened in tandem with a reassessment of the kingdom proclamation of Jesus. It is now widely maintained that the controlling focus of Paul’s theology, as for Jesus before him, is eschatology—or what is equivalent for some, redemptive history (historia salutis). Specifically, the center of his theology has been recognized to be the death and resurrection of Christ in their eschatological significance.
In my view, this basic conclusion is sound and, by now, well established. (29)
The center of Paul’s soteriology, then, at the center of his theology as a whole, is neither justification by faith nor sanctification, neither the imputation of Christ’s righteousness nor the renewing work of the Spirit. To draw that conclusion, however, is not to decenter justification (or sanctification), as if justification is somehow less important for Paul than it is for the Reformers. Justification is supremely important; it is absolutely crucial in Paul’s “gospel of salvation” (cf. Eph. 1:13). If his teaching on justification is denied or distorted, it ceased to be gospel; there is no longer saving “good news” for guilty sinners. But no matter how close justification is to the heart of Paul’s gospel, in our salvation there is an antecedent consideration, a reality that is deeper, more fundamental, more decisive, more crucial: Christ and our union with him, the crucified and resurrected, the exalted, Christ. Union with Christ by faith—that is the essence of Paul’s ordo salutis.
At the opening of Book 3 of his Institutes of the Christian Religion and controlling all that he has to say about “the way” of salvation—that is, its personal, individual appropriation, including what he will eventually say about justification—Calvin writes, “First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us.” (49-50)
[Some have observed] that Paul’s exhortations to the church as a whole, his ethics of the Christian life in their entirety, can be summed up in the epigram, “Become what you are.” This is helpful, but by itself it carries a liability that can render it decidedly unhelpful (suggesting some form of personal autonomy), unless it is read with an all-encompassing Christological gloss, “Become what you are in Christ.” (80)
The point here is that “the path of good works runs not from man to God, says Paul, but from God to man.” [quoting Berkouwer] Ultimately, in the deepest sense, for Paul “our good works” are not ours, but God’s. They are his work, begun and continuing in us, his being “at work in us, both to will and to do what pleases him” (Phil. 2:13). That is why, without any tension, a faith that rests in God the Savior is a faith that is restless to do his will. (88)
On the coherence between [faith and works], it is hard to improve on what J. Gresham Machen writes aphoristically, “As the faith which James condemns is different than the faith that Paul commends, so also the works which James commends are different than the works which Paul condemns.” (118)
Pebbles
Voting in a large-scale first-past-the-post election is not a statistically meaningful action. I didn’t vote in the United States’ 2016 election. I do plan to vote in our 2020 election, but I do so with a sense of proportion that I am not achieving something tangible or practical with my vote.
Far more important is prayer and corporate worship. We have a weekly audience with the king of the universe, a king who works all things according to the counsel of his will!
There is somewhat more significance to boosting than voting, since your words may influence many votes. I plan to vote for Trump in 2020 and I hope that you will as well. If you think this is a strange position for a Christian, Doug Wilson had some helpful thoughts that I encourage you to consider. Voting is, as Gary DeMar says, not a valentine.
Yet it is troubling that Christians are expressing support for Biden and Harris.
This is of course more obvious among liberal Christians, but folks like Greear, Keller, and Tripp are ongoing enablers as well with their smooth words. I was going to quip that it is not enough to be non-gnostic in America today. . . But, sadly, it turns out that these folks are gnostic.
As for Biden and Harris, they are not merely, er, non-life; they are actively anti-life.
Keep in mind, of course, that both the vote you approve and the vote you disapprove are insignificant. We do not put our trust in princes (they also are insignificant), and there is absolutely no need to be anxious about the future. We are full of joy! But it still matters before God what we advocate and embrace, and, since God’s world is not gnostic, it also matters very much how we live that out.
I really appreciated how Mark Horne framed voting recently. This seems to me a very helpful way to encourage folks to vote, yet without pretending that it has more tangible and practical value than it does:
My current voting philosophy:
1. Mathematically: voting is stupid. Remember all the science fiction stories about time traveling and the dire consequences that occurred when the past was changed? If you changed every ballot I ever filled out throughout my life to the opposite, nothing would be different. Voting, for an individual, is inconsequential to political outcomes.
2. God answers prayers, sometimes affirmatively. Lines of causation can be obscure just like any case of one friend asking another for a favor. But praying to God for a better future is not stupid, but wise.
3. But all prayer is not equally wise. Praying for a job promotion is usually superior to praying to get a million dollars in the next month. This is because, while prayer does involve wishing for a better future, it also involves interacting with God and how you see him working in the world.
4. So while I pray for a better political society in general, my more specific prayers are usually informed by foreseeable possible outcomes. Just like I pray for my current car to not break down rather than for a new car to appear in my driveway tonight, so I pray for a better candidate to win rather than a perfect candidate who I know is not going to win.
5. And if I’m really praying for a candidate in my district to win, why not express that by voting for him or her? It seems inconsistent to tell God I want someone to win an election and then not bother to express that preference in that election. (It certainly seems crazy to pray for a candidate to win but refuse to vote for him merely because he’s evil and stupid. If you’re worried that God might impose a worse ruler on you, and yet think you’re too “good” to vote for a better—if only less destructive—candidate, how are you not claiming to be holier than God?)
So voting, in my mind, can and should be a kind of prayer that complements the more regular verbal prayers.
Not at all an enchanting smell
“Come, all of you. Put away these childish tricks. I have work for you all in the real world. There is no Narnia, no Overworld, no sky, no sun, no Aslan. And now, to bed all. And let us begin a wiser life tomorrow. But, first, to bed; to sleep; deep sleep, soft pillows, sleep without foolish dreams.”
The Prince and the two children were standing with their heads hung down, their cheeks flushed, their eyes half closed; the strength all gone from them; the enchantment almost complete. But Puddleglum, desperately gathering all his strength, walked over to the fire. Then he did a very brave thing. He knew it wouldn’t hurt him quite as much as it would hurt a human; for his feet (which were bare) were webbed and hard and cold-blooded like a duck’s. But he knew it would hurt him badly enough; and so it did. With his bare foot he stamped on the fire, grinding a large part of it into ashes on the flat hearth. And three things happened at once.
First, the sweet, heavy smell grew very much less. For though the whole fire had not been put out, a good bit of it had, and what remained smelled very largely of burnt Marsh-wiggle, which is not at all an enchanting smell. This instantly made everyone’s brain far clearer. The Prince and the children held up their heads again and opened their eyes.
Secondly, the Witch, in a loud, terrible voice, utterly different from all the sweet tones she had been using up till now, called out, “What are you doing? Dare to touch my fire again, mud-filth, and I’ll turn the blood to fire inside your veins.”
Thirdly, the pain itself made Puddleglum’s head for a moment perfectly clear and he knew exactly what he really thought. There is nothing like a good shock of pain for dissolving certain kinds of magic.
“One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for your supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.”
C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, 189-191
I gotta have my orange juice. 
Govern
with one comment
As a precondition to discipling the nations, the church will disciple the revolutionary spirit.
She will gain the means to do so by learning to govern her own revolutionary spirit.
Relevant to this:
Written by Scott Moonen
June 25, 2025 at 7:06 am
Posted in Biblical Theology, Christ is Lord, Commentary, History