Exodus 9:8-35 – Nick Martin-Smith

Nick continues his commentary from yesterday.

Read Exodus 9:8-35 – Plagues of Boils and Hail

Following on from yesterday, in the fourth pair of signs that God presents to Egypt, Moses stands and sprinkles two handfuls of soot from a furnace towards heaven; it comes down as dust becoming crippling ‘boils breaking forth blains’ on all who are made from the dust of Egypt.

God calls Egypt the ‘iron furnace’ (Deuteronomy 4, 1 Kings 8).  Furnaces are where substances are ‘tested’ and ‘proved’ by intense heat in the process of purification (interesting side point: the English words ‘pyro-‘ and ‘pure’ are related to the Biblical Greek for ‘fire’).  Heat symbolises suffering; furnaces burn to destruction the impurities, leaving only that which withstands the heat of suffering … they are the places where suffering produces ‘endurance’, ‘character’, and ‘hope’ (Romans 5).

Soot results from incomplete burning (as opposed to ash, which results from complete burning) – incomplete burning implies an impure end result.

Suffering and blessing are given, hand-in-hand in this generation, to believer and non-believer alike, to different degrees in different seasons.  God does so because He  is ‘not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance’ (2 Peter 3:9).  Blessings are given so that we can ‘taste’ what God’s being ‘good’ and ‘love’ means.  Sufferings are given on the one hand so that we can ‘taste’ what the alternative is (so that with eyes opened by the Spirit, we can choose life instead of death, we can surrender to Christ rather than kicking against the word, and so that, having tasted, we may eat of him).  On the other hand sufferings come so that we can grow in the intimacy with God that comes with living and walking in the Spirit, leaning on the Spirit and sharing with him our joys and our pains.

Moses casts the impure product of the ‘iron furnace’ of Egypt towards the heavens, and they are rejected as unclean (Leviticus 13).  Moses (given to be ‘god to Pharaoh’) alone stands; the scribes are unable to stand before him.

Jesus is really cranking up the delineation between him and his people and the Pharaoh and his people.

The false god of Egypt exalts himself (v17)

But (v16) Pharaoh is raised up so that the God of the Hebrews might show His power and Name.

Aaron’s rod heralded most of the first signs.  Most of the second half are heralded by the rod, hand, or hands of Moses.  But, here, Jesus has identified his own hand as having been ‘put forth’ in all of the signs so far.

The second half of this pair of signs is unprecedented: ‘voices and … hail and fire catching itself in the midst of the hail, very grievous’ … lethal, in fact.

Psalm 78:49 (YLT) – “He sendeth on them the fury of His anger, Wrath, and indignation, and distress — A discharge of evil messengers”

Voices, hail, and fire seem to herald God’s judgement on the nations (e.g. Revelation 8:7, 11:18-19, and 16:21-17:1)

Meaning?

Egypt has been tested and found to be impure (remember Daniel 5:27?) – the judgement begins.

And yet, throughout God’s signs, each Egyptian witness to Jesus’ signs has been offered another opportunity to repent (literally ‘re-weigh’ the evidence before them) and join the God of the Hebrews.  Here, in the plague of hail, we see two different responses from the Egyptians.  Some among the servants of the Pharaoh ‘fear the word of God’ (v20), whilst some have not ‘set their heart unto the word of God’ (v21). This is the choice set before all who would endure the signs/judgements of God.  The signs are joined to words and the great desire of the LORD is for everyone to heed the word.

God is patient and merciful and we see, from Exodus 12:38, that, despite all their previous unfaithfulness, every servant of the Pharaoh who feared the word of God and put their trust in him was saved ‘as a native’.

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Plagues: The Story So Far – Nick Martin-Smith

Nick Martin-Smith loves Jesus.  He’s a teacher and if you talk to him for longer than 30 seconds he’ll get you playing touch rugby. Ask him about starting sports outreach ministries in your church.  He the man.

We are in the midst of a dramatisation of Jesus’ Gospel of Salvation (the version ‘starring’ the Pharaoh, with God’s words being spoken by Moses and Aaron).  We’re at the bit in the story where God is showing his enemy and the watching world the wonders of his power, his righteous judgements, his grace, and his steadfast love.

Moses has already received three signs in chapter 4 to authenticate his ministry.  Then in chapter 7:8-13 Aaron seems to sum up these authenticating signs into the one sign of his serpentine staff.  Traditionally people then say that 10 signs follow.  Yet if we simply read the flow of the narrative from when they are enslaved without hope to when they are free (i.e. chapter 7-15) then actually we have twelve signs.  And the 12th – the Red Sea – is crucial to their deliverance and has massive significance in the bible.

Perhaps then it’s useful to think of the 12 signs against Egypt and it might be helpful to think of them as six pairs of signs.  They develop from signs to Pharaoh, then to Egypt and then to the whole world (see Exodus 15:14; Joshua 2:10 etc, etc).

Each pair shows ‘faithless sin’ followed by ‘fatal judgement’.  And in each pair we have the death of innocents rather than the guilty (think of how God’s prophets die in pursuit of the lost) and we have the symbolic death of ‘sin’ rather than the sinner (think of the substitutionary sacrificial system).

In the LORD’s grace, this pattern of innocents dying for the guilty is repeated again and again until we get a final judgement.  At the Red Sea we finally have the death of the guilty and life for those whose guilt has been taken by their Lamb, the LORD Jesus.

It’s an interesting question to ask who was affected by these signs.  As far as I can tell the effects of at least five (if not nine … if not all) of God’s signs fell on Egypt alone.

Let’s examine them individually.

The first pair:

First, Aaron’s rod becomes a serpent (symbolising ‘sin’). The scribes and magi do likewise but their rods (i.e. what they lean on – and therefore their labours and hopes) are entirely consumed … yet the scribes and magi themselves are not consumed in this spectacle of flying fangs and venom!

Next, Aaron’s serpentine rod smites the waters (symbolising the Holy Spirit’s work in creation) of Egypt to produce blood (symbolising ‘life’ and ‘soul’ in the body, or ‘death’ out of the body).  When sin blemishes the work of the Spirit, death results.   Again, the scribes can also replicate this act, but are unable to reverse it.

Meaning?

The witness of this initial sign ‘pair’ appears to be that the one upon whom Aaron depends to stand is made sin in order to destroy the wages of sin for his people, but sin in the face of God results in death.

Then Aaron’s stretched out rod brings frogs out from the river; when God’s angels (‘messengers’) intercede, they die and their ‘stink’ is revealed. ‘Frogs’ symbolise the spirits of demons: ‘false gods’ who go to the kings of the earth to unite them against Jesus; a ‘stink’ is symbolic of the death that is the result of Man’s works in unity with false gods, rather than with God’s word (John 11:39, Isaiah 50:2, Joel 2:19-22, Ecclesiastes 10:1, Exodus 16:20).

So the work of the Holy Spirit in Egypt is to reveal the hordes of false gods ‘watering’ Egypt.  At God’s hand there will be an ultimate death, both for them and for all who drink in their lies. Again, the scribes seem to be able to replicate this, bringing yet more ‘unclean spirits’ onto the land (crazy!), but they are not able to rid themselves of them.

The second pair:

Aaron’s rod then strikes the land, the dust of which becomes gnats.  The scribes cannot replicate this sign, and confess God. ‘Dust’ is the frame of Man, to which our soul cleaves and the spirit is given (Psalm 103:14, 119:25, Ecclesiastes 12:7).  It symbolises mortality.

Having tried to devour the Man of the dust, the serpent is cursed to ‘go’ on his belly and devour the dust of the earth: dust is the tiny, insignificant, broken end-result of God’s destructive work of judgement (Deuteronomy 9:21). Gnats also symbolise mortality, as well as a perverse focus on the less ‘weighty’ things of God’s Law (Isaiah 51:6, Matthew 23:23-24). So the one on whom Aaron leans originally brought life up from the dust but, if that life’s subsequent means are false, its end is death.

Meaning?

The Holy Spirit’s work among the wicked is to reveal the false teaching that the wicked live by, Jesus’ authorship of life, and the ultimate death of false spirits and false men alike.

The third pair:

Here God uses Aaron and Moses to speak but not to signal – there’s no casting, smiting, or stretching of any rods: God sends and God is.

And God separates: briefly, first there’s the ‘grievous’ beetles (Youngs Literal Translation) sent to consume and corrupt the land of Egypt, but not Goshen.  Goshen is ‘separated’ and ‘divided’ from Egypt.

Then God’s hand is ‘a pestilence very grievous’ that consumes the land-creatures of Egypt, whilst the ‘cattle’ of the sons of Israel are ‘separated’.

Meaning?

Up until now, God’s prophet has spoken and shown signs of death – this time God speaks and shows actual death.

Each pair of signs symbolically shows ‘faithless sin’ followed by ‘fatal judgement’.  ‘The wages of sin is death’ … but Romans 6 goes on: ‘the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus’.

Through judgements Jesus divides and separates ‘His People’ from ‘Not His People’, protecting us from true spiritual death. This is what these signs were pointing to.

Tomorrow, we’ll start to look at the second half of the six pairs of signs.

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Exodus 7:14-8:15 – Paul Huxley

Paul Huxley should blog more (as I’m sure you’ll agree when you read this).  You can read more of his stuff at his blog: Theologymnasium.

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Read Exodus 7:14 – 8:15

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God’s covenant people, from whom will eventually come the serpent crusher, who will bless all nations, are in Egypt. Like Abram, their father, they entered Egypt due to famine (Genesis 12:10), they are brought out through great plagues (Gen 12:17), and they will plunder the Egyptians (Gen 12:16, 20).

But right now, the situation’s not looking good for the Israelites. They are slaves, being treated ‘ruthlessly’ (Ex 1:14). Although Pharaoh’s initial attempt at Eugenics failed (Ex 1:17), the blood of Israelite boys was surely spilled in the Nile, after Pharoah commanded ‘all his people’ to murder the young Hebrew males (Ex 1:22). They have been crying out for 80 years (2 x 40, 2 periods of testing), and now God answers definitively.

So Moses and Aaron bring about the first plague; the water of the Nile, and then the rest of the land is turned into blood. As we’ve seen, there was no shortage of blood for the LORD to use, but the sheer quantity is remarkable. Whose blood is it? It seems to be the LORD Jesus creating blood cells ex nihilo (out of nothing). And as the Egyptians take this ex-water in their wooden and stone vessels (v19) they find that it stinks, and they cannot drink. This is a cup of judgement.

Contrast this with Jesus much later, at the Wedding in Cana (John 2). That time, he created grape cells out of nothing, and it tasted like fine wine. That was a cup of blessing. Later still, Jesus’ blood would be poured out like wine, and to those who received it in faith would receive blessing, and those who profaned it drunk judgement on themselves (1 Cor 11:29).

Back with Moses, and despite seven days of foul stench across Egypt, Pharaoh’s heart remains hard (Ex 1:22). A week passes, and the day of the LORD comes again (you can call it the LORD’s day if you like). Pharaoh has failed to respond to the word he received last week, and it’s time for another cup of judgement.

This time, the curse comes up from the water in the form of frogs. Frogs are ‘creeping things’ if you use Biblical categories. Like the serpent who was made to crawl on his belly (Gen 3:14) the frog is unclean. My wife has a minor obsession with frogs, thinking that they are green and cute, which is why we have a frog-shaped CD rack. But frogs in the Bible are always associated with judgement.

That’s certainly how Egypt took them. Although Pharaoh was impressed when his magicians replicated the water into blood routine, when his magicians filled the land with even more frogs (Ex 8:7), Pharaoh starts to repent (v8). He sets a deal up with Moses. Make the frogs go, and I will let your people go. But when the LORD took the plague away, and everything settled down, Pharaoh once again, hardened his heart, changed his mind, and kept the Israelites as slaves, just ‘as the LORD had said (v15).

All that the LORD has said through his prophet Moses, is coming true. His mighty hand is being stretched out across Egypt to rescue his people. Although Pharaoh seems to have outsmarted the LORD, and got away with breaking his promise, there is yet more judgement to come.

Pharaohs, MPs, vicars, husbands, parents make promises to us; very often that under their leadership, we will receive great blessing. But the LORD is the only one who can promise blessing, in the full knowledge that He will surely do it (1 Thessalonians 5v24).

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The Plagues of Exodus – Paul Blackham

Paul Blackham writes here and you can find his All Souls sermons here and Farm Fellowship sermons here.

Exodus 7:14 – 10:29

Most people remember the story of the plagues from their childhood.  We are allowed to enjoy so many of these great Hebrew stories when we are young before we ‘learn’ not to spend so much time in the Scriptures.

Naturally we won’t waste any time on the bizarre attempts to tie the plagues together into a set of meteorological co-incidences!  [The flooding of the Nile plain stirring up red silt [which would have stunned the ignorant Egyptians who had never seen red silt before!], which encouraged the frogs to leave the river and invade the houses… the dead frogs decay and produce gnats… and… I forget how this is supposed to continue.  I can’t remember how the boils produced the hail and the locusts… but I’ll remember in a minute.  This proposal is supposed to make the Bible easier to believe for outsiders so I’m sure there is a really good explanation of the boils, hail and locust… and why the Egyptians didn’t understand about red silt… ? ..! …?  If only the BBC would produce one of those excellent TV series at Easter…. They always get ‘Bible experts’ to explain all these things.]

The general truth in these plagues is clear enough: The Angel of the LORD is more powerful than Pharaoh, his mighty magicians and the various gods of Egypt.  Yet, each of the plagues displays a different facet of the fact that Jesus is LORD.  The plagues have a progression as they circle in around the first born humans.  They begin at arms length and then get closer and closer.  Plenty of warning is thereby given… yet the terrible and suicidal nature of our selfish hearts is revealed by the fact that we insist on going on to the bitter end in our rebellion.

The plagues serve as an important demonstration of the great and terrible judgements the Lord must exercise in order to redeem us from slavery.  It would be so ‘pleasant’ to imagine that salvation and renewal could be achieved from the comfort of an armchair or in that lovely, gentle spirituality of self-improvement and meditation on how divinely glorious we all really are.  Yet, the shadow of the Cross falls across redemption, from start to finish.  Salvation comes after judgement; glory after suffering.

We are not the desperately grateful victims of a tragedy who cheer the arrival of the emergency services.  No, we are the hardened criminals holed up in the building, shooting at any emergency services that try to get near.  When we are saved, so many of us are kicking and screaming as we spit in the face of Jesus.  Until we see Him as He is and our old humanity is finally destroyed, this is always in us, always making our rescue messy and painful and full of judgement.

The empire of Egypt was comfortable and successful.  The Nile made them the breadbasket of the Mediterranean world.  Even hundreds of years later when the apostle Paul is sailing to Rome we read that he caught a lift on a boat full of Egyptian grain.  Egypt had fabulous wealth and stunning treasures which still capture popular imagination even today.  The gigantic tombs and embalming practices of that ancient past [given to Joseph at the end of Genesis] presumably made them imagine that even death was under their control.

Turning from the Divine Angel who Joseph and his family had worshipped, who had brought such wealth and power to Egypt, they plunged into the sewage of these ‘gods’ who had forsaken their proper habitation.  Far from ordering the nations to the worship of the LORD God through whom all had come to be, they had enthroned themselves as the masters of the universe.  Sin in the heavenlies always looks just the same as sin in the earthlies!

This comfortable and prosperous Egypt has no fear of the Living God!  They had no time for these ancient superstitions from the uncivilised slaves!  They could chart the stars and build the pyramids; they could feed the world and conquer the nations; they could deal with the gods and defy death itself.  Why would they need to listen to a Word that would turn all their security upside down, who would force them to choose between their luxuries and Him?

Into that self-assured arrogance, shown so graphically in Pharaoh as the embodiment of it all, the real world of the Most High God comes crashing down.  Onto the playground of the Egyptian gods, the meteorite of reality explodes – revealing their impotence, judging their rebellion, dethroning their power.

We are told that the Lord is making His Name known to the Israelites (6:7), to Pharaoh (7:17), to all the earth (9:16), and to the Israelite descendants to come (10:2).  This of course includes us.  We too come to know the Name of the LORD Jesus through these plagues, though these judgements.  We learn that Jesus does not issue empty threats.  When He tells us of a coming judgement, it will certainly come to pass.  When He tells us how to escape that coming judgement, His words must be followed to the letter.

How have we accepted certain limits on the power of Jesus?  In that day we assume that the Egyptians took it for granted that Jesus could not control the Nile – and yet He did!  Perhaps they assumed that the demonic frogs or flies were beyond His power – but they were not! The blood of judgement over the Nile; the demonic revelation of the frogs; the creation of new life from the very dust; the proof that Baalzebub is not the true LORD over the flies; the taking of the breath of life from animals; the diseases of the human body; the destruction of human society and production… until finally the light itself goes out.

Think of all the stories in the Bible where the power of Jesus is shown in impossible ways.  Do we really believe that He is capable of acting in that way right now?  Do we honestly believe that He could judge the empires of this day and age in that way?

I always fear that I have mentally so domesticated the LORD Jesus that I don’t really think of Him as the Angel of Death and Judgement who brought these plagues of judgement upon ancient Egypt.  It is not that I don’t know the right words to say [I have all too many of them].  Rather, when I look at the way that I live… is the fear of the LORD Jesus the beginning of my life?  Is the fear and trembling present, the terror of the LORD that drives me to prayer and action, to sacrifice and engagement?

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Dying with Jesus

How do you think of judgement and salvation?

If you ask me – you shouldn’t think like this:

 

Instead think like this:

 

Or to be a bit more nuanced – like this.

Now I could take this observation in many directions.

Perhaps we could explore its significance for an infra versus supra-lapsarian debate.

Perhaps we could discuss the strong link that some make between penal substitutionary atonement and limited atonement.

We could think about how to preach warnings of judgement (for instance warnings of exile in the OT) given that judgement is a-coming.

But I’m going to take the observation in this direction…

I’m becoming convinced that when Jesus says ‘Take up your cross and follow me’ (Mark 8:34) He’s saying the same thing as Paul when he says ‘I was crucified with Christ and I no longer live’  (Gal 2:20).

Think of some of Jesus’ words:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  (Matt 10:34-39)

So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.  (Luke 14:33)

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ²⁵ Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶ If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.  (John 12:24-26)

In the context of Jesus’ own judgement and salvation He tells His followers what it means to come after Him.  It means being caught up in that same path – the only path of life.  Seeds must die to live - so it is with The Seed so it is with the many offspring His death produced.  Judgement then salvation.  To be saved is to die with Jesus – to join Him for an early judgement day and pass through to find true life.

Compare this with some words from Paul:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  (Gal 2:20)

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his, etc, etc  (Rom 6:3-5 and following)

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.  (Gal 6:14)

Here Paul describes his history as utterly determined by the cross and resurrection of Jesus.  Judgement and salvation have happened for Paul because he has died and risen with Jesus to new life on the other side of wrath, death, sin, law, old creation.  And (apart from his Adamic flesh that still clings to him) he is utterly dead to the world around him and utterly brought into ‘newness of life’.

Now.  Think of a sermon you’ve heard on the Jesus verses.  And think of a sermon you’ve heard on the Paul verses.  I imagine the tone of those two sermons was quite different.  I imagine that the Jesus sermons spent a lot of time presenting His words as moralistic exhortations and ‘if-then’ conditions before (perhaps) the preacher retracted the force of them and told you not to forget that you’re ‘saved by grace’ (‘grace’ understood along the lines of diagram 1 not diagram 2).   And I imagine the Paul sermon comforted you with the whole ‘union with Christ’, ‘newness of life’ stuff and encouraged you that ‘hey, you really are saved by grace.’ (again, probably ‘grace’ as understood according to diagram 1) 

I wonder if the Jesus sermons should sound more like the best of the Paul sermons.  And the Paul sermons should sound like the best of the Jesus sermons.  In other words, Jesus, the Seed, dies and rises on your behalf.  If you are His rejoice that you are created, shaped and defined by this death and resurrection in which you are crucified to the the whole world, and the whole world is crucified to you.  This is your salvation because there simply is no other way to resurrection than through the cross.  ‘Come and die’ is not a fearful condition of life – maybe you’re up to it, maybe not.  It’s the description of how that life comes, wrapped up in the announcement that Jesus really has crucified the world to raise it up new – come on in.

If you are not dead to the world, this might well be a sign that you are not His.  Or that you have wandered far from Him.  So go to Him and take that easy yoke onto your shoulders (Matt 11:28-30).  Be constrained by the death and resurrection of Jesus, for this is salvation.  Or else be wearied and burdened by your own, much heavier yokes which cannot lead you through the judgement to come.

But for those who are yoked to Christ, know that you have begun, even now, to live that newness of life.  Even today as we walk together with Jesus, dying to sin and self and the praises and worries of this world, resurrection life is unleashed.  This mystical union with Christ (the best of the Paul sermons) is earthed in the daily discipleship of living for Jesus (the best of the Jesus sermons).  Let’s have both. 

I wonder if that’s why Peter finishes his first letter (which is all about this judgement then salvation dynamic) by saying ‘This is the true grace of God.’ 1 Peter 5:12.

 

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God without a Mediator?

Tim Challies has quoted a pithy saying of Ligon Duncan’s:

Hell is eternity in the presence of God without a mediator.

Heaven is eternity in the presence of God, with a mediator.

What do we reckon?

Here’s what’s great about it.  It affirms that our experience of eternity hinges on our relationship to the Mediator.  It also affirms that God is not absent from hell.  Both those things are true and worth lifting up.

But I think there are better ways of saying such things.  Here’s what’s unhelpful about it:

1. In terms of our doctrine of God – what sense can be made of ‘God without a Mediator’?  Trinity means that mediation goes way back.  WAY back.  And WAY forwards.  1 Corinthians 8:6 – all things have always been from the Father and through the Lord Jesus.  All things.  And all things always will be.  Who is this God who is without His Mediator. I simply can’t recognize ‘God without a mediator’ as the Christian God.
2. In terms of our christology – does this sentiment give Christ His due?It could lead people to suppose that Christ is simply the wrath-averter.  Now of course He is the wrath-averter.  And if He was only the wrath-averter we would still praise Him into eternity for it.  But He is far more than this.  He is the Mediator of all the Father’s business.  Christ does not exist for our benefit – we exist for His.  The saying above could be easily misconstrued to mean that the Mediator is extremely important for us – but not so important for God.  No.  He is essential to the divine life before we ever consider His importance for us. 
3. In terms of Scripture – 2 Thes 1:9 “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” (KJV)  There’s a translation issue about the preposition (‘apo’).  Should it be translated ‘from’ or ‘away from’?  I favour ‘from’ – ie implying that Christ is present in judgement.  This goes with Revelation 14:10 where the damned are tormented in the presence of the Lamb.  See also Rev 1:18 where Jesus is presented as the Jailor of death and hades, and Rev 6:16-17 where it’s the wrath of the Father together with the Lamb.  Jesus expressly says in John 5:22 that the Father has entrusted all judgement to Him. 

What does this mean?  It means that hell is being in the presence of God who continues to mediate His judgement through the Son.  There is no such thing as ‘God without a mediator’. 

I’ve got some more to say on this, but I’ll wait for another post… 

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Judgement and Salvation in Isaiah

I’ve been preparing sermons from Isaiah recently.  What’s really striking me is the universal judgement pronounced by the LORD.

The book has rightly been called a tale of two cities and the remarkable thing is that both cities are Jerusalem.  Jerusalem stands at the head of both old and new creation.  The earthly Jerusalem has its earthly copy of the heavenly reality – the temple.  And contemporary threats to earthly Jerusalem (from Assyria and Babylon) are the sign of universal judgement on this present evil age.  But there is a heavenly Zion, eternal capital of the new heavens and new earth.

Hope is not found in avoiding the universal judgement.  Hope is not found in belonging to some other earthly city or people.  Humanity will be judged wholesale from the top down.  Judgement will begin with the house of God (1 Pet 4:17) – meaning temple, meaning household (people), meaning Christ!  The world will go down in flames.  This is root and branch demolition.

So it’s not:

Instead it’s:

And the only path to salvation is the path through judgement.

Salvation is not the absence of judgement, it’s bowing your head to the Refuge found in the LORD alone.

Some of these thoughts are in a recent sermon on Isaiah 2:6-22 (listen here).

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Light Shines in Darkness

Recently I was reading John 1:1-18 with some international students who knew next to nothing about Christianity.  I was bracing myself for all sorts of questions about the trinity and the incarnation.  Actually they understood these quite easily. (After all how difficult is the sentence “God is a loving relationship of three Persons” or “the Word became flesh” – these concepts are only difficult if you’re committed to a whole other raft of theistic suppositions!).  Here is what they really struggled with:

The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it

Now one issue is the translation of the word for “understood”.  katelaben could be translated ‘lay hold of’, ‘take possession of’ or in the cognitive sense of “understand” as the NIV has it.  Perhaps the English word “grasp” straddles these meanings nicely?  “The darkness has not grasped the light.”

But however you translate it, you have this conceptual riddle: if light shines how come there’s darkness?? 

Well there might be some reasonable explanations like, maybe the Light is not very strong.  Well no, the Light is Jesus Christ – the Light of the cosmos! (v9-10). 

Ok, well perhaps the Light is not shining in the right place?  No – the Light shines directly in the darkness, the darkness that is humanity in its unbelief  (v4-5). 

Hmm, well maybe the Light only shines on some but not on others, leaving the darkness unenlightened?  No, “the true Light gives light to every man.” (v9). 

This is the riddle:  the Light really shines and shines directly into the darkness.  John even says the Light enlightens every man.  Yet the darkness remains.  Somehow the darkness does not receive the omnipotent Light of the cosmos.

These international students were stumped.  And actually so was I.  This should have struck me many times, but it took their fresh pairs of eyes to see what is really a very great question:  How can omnipotent Light shine and darkness remain?

If this doesn’t strike us, it really should.  And we must resist the urge to smoothe the problem away.  The text does not let us off the hook – either saying “He doesn’t really shine” or ”It’s not real darkness.”  No, He really shines and there’s really darkness.

In fact this has been a riddle from day one.  Literally. 

³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light “day”, and the darkness He called “night”. And there was evening, and there was morning–the first day.

Though verse 2 told us of ‘darkness’ and ‘the deep’ (abyss), the Word of God brings a triumphant light.  Yet this light does not extinguish the darkness.  Instead there is a separation of light and darkness.  How strange!  We think of light swallowing up darkness – illuminating it, removing it.  Yet what we see is two realms separated.  The light is clearly superior but the darkness is not obliterated.

Recently 2 Corinthians 5 has come up on two blogs I read regularly – Baxter’s Ongoing Thoughts and Halden’s Inhabitatio Dei.  In particular the emphasis has been on the fact that “God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ.” (2 Cor 5:19).   I heartily agree.  But I took issue with what I see to be the loss of any category for ongoing darkness/alienation/separation.  Paul goes on in the next verse to explain his ministry of reconciliation – he urges people “Be reconciled to God.”  Paul goes around this (in one sense) reconciled world and urges people (with a passive imperative – interesting grammar no?!) to be reconciled.  Why?  Because the light shines but (somehow!) darkness remains.

And this makes the darkness not less outrageous but more.  The sin of those in the dark is not that they haven’t had the light or not pilgrimmaged towards it.  Their sin is that they are being enlightened minute by minute and yet walk in darkness.  Think of Paul in the Areopagus – he tells the Athenians that they live and move and have their being in God – He is not far from them at all!!! (v27-28).  And yet they must repent (v30-31) because judgement is coming.  This is the great problem – not that they have sinned against a ‘god over there.’  Rather, they have rejected the God in Whom is their very life.  The light is shining, they are (in one sense) living in God.  And yet this makes their darkness all the more appalling.

How can we be godless, given how God has lifted the whole creation to Himself in Christ?  How can we shout our ‘No’ to God given His omnipotent ‘Yes’ in Christ?  This is an outrageous conceptual problem.  But it is, even more, an outrageous moral problem.  It must not be rationalized or wished away.  God really was reconciling the world to Himself on the cross.  He really has said Yes to all creation. The true Light really does enlighten everyone.  Yet somehow humans remain godless, they shout their defiant ‘no’, they love and remain in and perpetuate the darkness.

Sin is insanity. There simply is nothing reasonable about it.  We must remember this as we go about our ministry of reconciliation.  (2 Cor 5:18-20).  At the most fundamental level, there’s nothing credible about unbelief.  Let’s not conduct our evangelism as though there is.

We are to urge the people of this reconciled world to be reconciled. How can they not be!?  That should be the flavour of our evangelism.  How can you not be enlightened by Him who is shining with Almighty power??  That urgency and incredulity and insistence and even moral outrage should characterize our ministry.  Christ shines – how can you not be enlightened??  Christ is given to you – how can you not receive Him??  Christ has reconciled the world – how can you not be reconciled??

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For an example of what preaching like this might sound like – here’s an evangelistic Christmas carol talk on Isaiah 9. The concluding challenge in particular is shaped by these kinds of thoughts.

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The Wrath of the Lamb

It’s been very sobering to study the wrath of the Lamb this week (Rev 6:16).  Here are seven thoughts (of course seven!) that occurred to me this week while preparing to preach Revelation 6:

1. This is not so much the anger of the great king against rebels. This is much much worse. This is the anger of the Lamb who was slain to save rebels. This is the anger of the meek and humble Saviour who stretched out His arms to a disobedient and obstinate people. This is the anger of the One who longed to gather His children under His wings but they were not willing. This is the anger of the bloody sacrifice who poured out His life just to redeem and forgive such people. Those who will be sent to hell have not only rebelled against a mighty King, they have trodden on the slain Lamb. They have spurned their only Saviour, who wept and sweated and bled for them. They have hated and trampled on Christ crucified.   And they will not stand on the great day of His wrath.
2. The great day of His wrath comes after a long wait (Rev 6:17).  He is indeed ‘slow to anger’. (Ex 34:6; Num 14:18; Neh 9:17; Ps 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nahum 1:3; cf Rom 3:25; 2 Pet 3:9)  And both the anger and the slowness are good things. It would be terrible if the Father or the Son flew off into a rage without warning. But it would also be terrible if they never got angry – the evil of this world, and particularly the evil of rejecting Christ is damnable. So His wrath is a very good thing.
3. We are meant to draw nearer to the wrathful Lamb, not flee further from Him.  It is the unbelievers who run from the Lamb in His anger (v15-17), it’s the believers who run to Him.  (Cf Psalm 2:12).  As we read of His wrath we are tempted to draw back, but instead we should press closer, ask, seek and knock even more.  His anger should in fact make us draw nearer – if we do, we will find Him to be our Refuge.
4. Anger is not the last word.  Revelation 6 clears the way for Revelation 7.  “Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.  After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.”  (Hosea 6:1-2)
5. It’s vital to see that the Father is not the only One angry at sin!  Sometimes we can imagine that the cross is an angry Father being placated by His Son who really isn’t that bothered about sin.   “Jesus loves you, don’t mind the Father, He’s cranky!”  It’s at this point that people suppose that true trinitarian theology is opposed to penal substitutionary atonement.  But no the Father and Son are not divided in their attitudes to sin.  The Son is Christ precisely because He loves righteousness and hates wickedness (Ps 45:7).  Rev 6:17 speaks of ‘their’ wrath – Jesus is just as angry at sin as the Father. And He suffers in Himself the fullness of His own divine anger at sin.
6. Chapters like Revelation 6 show us just how intense Christ’s sufferings were. Here is the magnitude of the wrath which Jesus faced on the cross. The Lamb faced His own divine anger at sin – an anger that shakes the creation to its very foundations. When we read of Jesus sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane and overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, He is feeling in Himself the dread of all those who say to the mountains ‘Fall on us and hide us.’ After studying Revelation 6 we should have a bigger picture not only of judgement day but also the cross.
7. We are tempted to measure hell by our sins. Passages like this tell us to measure our sins by hell.  (Spurgeon used to say this often).  What do I mean? We tend to think of our sins as trifling matters and then we read about the terrible judgement of God and think it’s over the top. That’s backwards. We should read about the terrible judgement of God and then think – that’s what my sin deserves. Don’t measure hell by your sins, measure your sins by hell. And then rejoice that the Lamb intercepted His own wrath and hid you under His altar, the cross. (Rev 6:9)

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