The Sacrificial System and Why it Matters

A couple of years ago, I listened to a series of four teachings by Dan Lancaster (from the organization First Fruits of Zion, FFOZ) entitled, "What About the Sacrifices?" It is a deep dive into the sacrificial system from Leviticus, looking at all of the various elements of it, and attempting to help us 21st century folks understand it better. I would bet that most of us, myself included, have heard very little about the sacrificial system from our pulpits, and that our understanding of it is shallow at best. About a year ago, I came across a book entitled "Jesus and the Forces of Death" and again, it dealt heavily with the sacrificial system, with an emphasis on the ancient Israelite understandings of clean/unclean and pure/impure. Very recently I have found myself in conversations about this topic again and so as I am prone to do, I want to write out what I've learned so that I am clear in my own mind about the details of the system as well as the importance I feel there is in understanding the sacrificial system as a modern Gentile.

First - there are a few different types of sacrifices:

• The 'Old Offerings' - 'Old' here is meant to denote those offerings which were happening before the construction of the tabernacle/temple. These offerings were typically made at individual altars (for example Exodus 20:22-24) prior to the building of the tabernacle/temple:
  
  
• Burnt Offering (Korban Olah) - this is a voluntary (typically) sacrifice brought on the part of the worshipper who wishes to show complete devotion to God; it could also be an appeal for forgiveness or favor; it is the equivalent of presenting a gift to God. No part of the animal was reserved for consumption as in other sacrifices.
  
  
• Grain Offering - this is sometimes referred to as the 'cereal' offering or even the 'meat' offering, even though meat doesn't mean the same thing as we mean it today, it just referred to the 'meat' of the grain, which was the best part. This is a remembrance offering, or a memorial offering if you will. It is to remember the covenant made at Mount Sinai between God and Israel. Some of it was to be dedicated to God, but some of it is to be consumed by the worshipper, and some part of it was to be for the priests. It is a ceremonial meal offering of sorts, a literal communion with God. Read about all of the stipulations in Leviticus 2.
  
  

A Gospel Presentation - Part 4 (Confirmation/Cross)

Previous Posts in this Series:
A Gospel Presentation: Part 1 (Two-Age Worldview)
A Gospel Presentation: Part 2 (Creation/Curse)
A Gospel Presentation: Part 3 (Covenant/Commitment)

"For I say that Messiah has become a servant to the circumcision in behalf of the truth of God, to confirm the promises given to the fathers, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy..." (Romans 15:8-9, NASB)

In some ways Jesus is the easiest part of this narrative to write about, and in other ways, He is the hardest thing to write about. On the one hand, few are confused as to who Jesus is and what He has done. Those of us who have grown up in the Faith have heard about Jesus all of our lives and heard the wonderous stories of his life; the miracles, the teachings, his death and his resurrection, etc. many times over. On the other hand, the layers of meaning run endlessly deep - the possible avenues for discussion and commentary could (and have) fill volumes upon volumes. In Evangelical circles, the 'volume' on Jesus is turned way up, and I don't seek to change that in any way. When speaking of Messiah Jesus, he deserves to have the volume all the way up. What I have hoped to achieve with these writings is a turning up of the volume in some other areas as well, to present what I believe is a full Gospel, ala Acts 18:24-26. What I want to do here is communicate how Jesus fits into the narrative I have been speaking about throughout this series.

Jesus as Messiah/King

A good starting place in speaking about Jesus, is his role as 'Messiah'. In keeping with some of what I brought up in the last post, I will point out that 'Messiah' is a thoroughly Jewish term. There was a whole 'messianic expectation' that had formed prior to Jesus' appearance, mostly in the Intertestamental Period (the ~400 year period between the end of the Hebraic Scriptures, Genesis through Malachi, and the beginning of Matthew). This expectation centered, in part, around the Davidic Covenant and the Jewish hope of one who would come to sit/rule on the throne of David forever. It is critical to understand that at the time of Jesus birth, the primary expectation of a 'messiah' within the mind of a Jew, was the expectation of a coming King. A political figure, to put a modern context to it. This is clear when we look at what the Magi say when they come to find the one they are searching for:

"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." (Matthew 2:1-2, NIV)

Render Unto Caesar...

"Then they [the leaders of the people] sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Him in order to trap Him in a statement. They came and said to Him, "Teacher, we know that You are truthful and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. Is is lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not? Shall we pay or shall we not pay?" But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, "Why are you testing me? Bring Me a denarius to look at." They brought one. And He said to them, "Whose likeness and inscription is this?" And they said to Him, "Caesar's." And Jesus said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And they were amazed at Him." (Mark 12:13-17, NASB)

That last line stands out to me. "And they were amazed at Him".

Let's talk first about what the Pharisees and Herodians are trying to do here. Why would this question be a 'trap'? Don't miss the "is it lawful" part of the question. In asking it that way - the Pharisees are appealing to Torah law, not Roman law. So, ultimately, they are asking a question of morality. "Are we morally obligated, according to Torah, to pay the tax?" I read a fascinating commentary (seriously, check it out - what I am speaking of here is barely scratching the surface compared to the depth of this commentary) of this verse which suggested that by asking "is it lawful", the Pharisees and Herodians were forcing Jesus to answer the question because shortly before this, the people had hailed Jesus as "King" when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. If he doesn't answer the question, he isn't a rabbi, and also isn't King. That is part of the trap. It seems also that they are trying to get Jesus to identify, or align himself in some way, if even seemingly, with the Romans, against the Jews, or with the Jewish people as a revolutionary against the Roman state. If they could get Jesus to simply say, "yes, you should pay your tax", then they could incite the people against him as a Roman-sympathizer (the equivalent of a tax collector). If they could get him to simply say, "no, you should not pay your tax", then they could make the claim he was an anti-Roman revolutionary and could hand him over to be treated as such.

Thoughts on Salvation (Part 2)

I was going to completely re-do my previous post on this topic and then I decided I wanted to write something new, and preserve the thought process. I'm not sure that my thoughts have changed all that much, but I feel like I am clearer on the topic of salvation now, than I was a few months ago.

One of the things I've been diving deeply into lately is the concept of 'The Kingdom of God'. The motivational verse for me was Matthew 4:23 (corollary verses in Luke 8:1, Mark 1:14) which reads, "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and healing every disease and sickness among the people." Two things occurred to me as I read this recently - a) this is Jesus, preaching THE GOSPEL before he was crucified and b) the Gospel and the Kingdom of God are tied together. To flesh that out just a little more - the Gospel can't simply be, "Jesus died for our sins and that by believing in his sacrificial death, we can have Eternal Life with Him in heaven" (which is a Romans 10 verse taken out of context IMHO). If that was the extent of the Gospel, what was Jesus talking about before he died? For that matter, what was John the Baptist talking about, before Jesus was even officially on the scene, since he was also preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God (Matthew 3)? So that got me thinking about the question, "what is the Gospel", but it also seemed that the Good News was intimately tied to The Kingdom of God (interchangeable in Scripture with the Kingdom of Heaven). After all, news, no matter what kind of news it is, is always about something - that seems self-evident, right?

What I set out to try and understand is what a 1st century Jew would have thought the Kingdom of God is. When John the Baptist and Jesus started going around preaching about the good news of the kingdom of God, no one was saying, "Kingdom of God? What's that? We've never heard of that before!". They all knew and so I wanted to know what their understanding was. I have so far read two books, along with innumerable articles - "The Gospel and the Kingdom" (1955) by George Eldon Ladd (the 'already/not yet' guy) and "The Kingdom of God in History" (1988) by Benedict T. Viviano, a New Testament scholar at the University of Freibourg. Ladd's book, to me, was lacking any real examination of the Old Testament. Though he does cite some old testament passages, and some inter-testamental material - his work seems more like an attempt at bringing together very different views that were held by predecessors in theology. It was Viviano's work which I was really impressed with and he did dive into the OT and into the inter-testamental literature that is available. His definition of 'The Kingdom of God' is the best one I have found so far. He says, "To attempt to define the undefinable, we could say that the Kingdom of God is a future apocalyptic divine gift not built by human beings directly but given as a response to hopeful prayer, longing and hastening struggle. It is the final act of God in visiting and redeeming his people, a comprehensive term for the blessings of salvation, that is, all the blessing secured by that act of God." In the Lord's prayer recorded in Matthew 6, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done" - Viviano points out, what is the necessity of praying 'thy Kingdom come' if it is in some way already here? Even up to the very point at which Jesus departs this Earth, he is affirming that The Kingdom is future. Acts 1:3, "...appearing to them [his disciples] over a period of forty days and speaking of the thing concerning the Kingdom of God." Interestingly, the Disciples' recorded question after all that teaching is, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the Kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6) Jesus doesn't correct their understanding of the content he has been teaching them - he addresses the time aspect of their question and says, "It is not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority..." (Acts 1:7).

I think it is precisely that focus on the timing of the Kingdom which really colors ones view on whether the Kingdom is in any part 'now', or if it is altogether future. From reading Ladd's book, and some commentaries written by other modern theologians, it is clear what the modern consensus is...but the question everyone needs to ask themselves is, "what is actually true?" Does an interpretation of Scripture, outside of its historical context, mean anything? I'm starting to believe it does not. If one thinks of the Bible as a historical document, not in the sense that it is literal history (though it certainly is at times), but that its contents were directed at a certain people in a certain time and place in history -- or that it was produced by people, under the divine leadership of the Holy Spirit, who had a certain worldview and who had a specific set of things they 'knew' about their faith, then any interpretation of Scripture that does not take a serious effort at examining that context is faulty at best, if not outright wrong. I will not sit here and claim that Ladd didn't 'do his homework' so to speak, in that contextual regard, but I will say, I think he did what a lot of people in modern theological thought have done, and that is relying on the work of others to inform the baselines of the arguments they make. It is my personal opinion that he didn't go back far enough, he didn't take into account that a Hebrew belief system and Hebrew scriptures were essentially translated into a Greco-Roman worldview...and worldview makes a huge difference. There is much more to be said on this specific topic, but that is for another post (or book?) - if you are curious now, read Viviano's book because he dives DEEP into this particular topic.

The bottom-line is that the Apostles had a totally future view of The Kingdom. They would know the Kingdom was here when Jesus was sitting on the throne of David, in Jerusalem, with a fully restored Israel, having been completely vindicated in the eyes of their oppressors and enemies; all of which are Covenant promises. In fact, their view would have included their own involvement in that scene because Jesus says to the Twelve in Matthew 19:28, "Jesus said to them [the Twelve disciples], "Truly I tell you, in the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Put another way, there was no spiritualized or individualized element to the Kingdom of God. It was a literal Kingdom - it's elements were understood as physical, political, and social. If there was an individualized element to it, it was more that it gave an individual's life meaning and purpose, not that there was some element of the Kingdom that was realized within an individual.

Which brings us back around, taking the scenic route, to salvation. If the Kingdom is entirely future - then salvation, which is an aspect of the Kingdom (one is saved when one is IN the Kingdom) also becomes an entirely future hope.

"Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him." (Hebrews 9:27-28)

One can put their hope and trust (faith) in Jesus and His coming Kingdom now, in this life, but salvation is not a thing that we possess on this side of the great and terrible Day of the Lord (aka Judgement). This is a total tangent, but I recently heard a commentary that much of Western Christianity rails against the 'prosperity gospel', but that many of the people railing against that type of gospel preaching believe a very similar thing, but instead of possessing physical prosperity, it's possessing spiritual prosperity (I'm saved now, I can experience the joys of heaven now, etc). Anyway, when you read the words of Jesus and of the Apostles, the continual theme is perseverance and endurance in one's faith, until the End. In this way, the things motivating a Disciple of Jesus never change. Our own internal motivation-level might wax and wane, but the driver is always there - never very far from the mind of a Disciple who is regularly spending time in prayer and in reading Scripture. When our hope is entirely future - suffering is put into proper context. Someone smart I know once said, "Eschatology is the engine of discipleship." Focusing on where this is going gives us an accurate balance of God's goodness and God's wrath - it provides something to strive towards and gives the gift of the Holy Spirit some real significance. It creates urgency within the Disciple and, when treated with a sober mind, causes the Disciple to walk in humility.

I want to touch on the Holy Spirit in a little more detail - because I feel that the Holy Spirit was the thing Ladd was misinterpreting. When you view of The Kingdom of God as entirely future, the purpose of the Holy Spirit becomes so much more clear. The Holy Spirit is the power of God to help you do something you cannot do on your own...to help you take up your cross daily, and to deny yourself - to say 'no' to the flesh and yes to the one who gives Life. Also - in the life of a Disciple, the Holy Spirit is the one who comes to confirm the truth of the Gospel - it is the witness of the truth of the things to come. Rather than the Holy Spirit facilitating the growth of God's Kingdom now as Ladd suggested, it is the thing turning men's hearts, with Jesus, towards the End and the Renewal of all thing - towards the hope of Eternal glory - giving them the ability to be Disciples of Messiah Jesus, to walk and remain on the narrow path that leads to Life (Matthew 7).

I have this heightened sense of urgency lately in my own life. Most of the time, I don't want to work, I just want to read and write and pray. When I'm around people - I want to tell them about this. Partly, I am concerned about the faith of most people I know. I don't want to sound arrogant or judgmental, far from it - no one is as much of a sinner as me - but the reality is, the gift is free, sure, but it requires everything. I was reading in Deuteronomy this morning, Chapter 1, and it's the story of God saving the Israelites from Egypt and it gets to the section about the Israelites being on the cusp of the promised land (you know the story, the 12 spies, 10 were bad and 2 were good), and after the spies came back from scoping things out, the people didn't trust God. Then in verse 34 it reads, "When the Lord heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore; "No one from this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your ancestors, except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly." It was that last line that struck me - ...because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly. There is no such thing as a halfway disciple. What is a disciple? Jesus said many things - but two things that stick out to me are: Luke 9:23 "Then Jesus said to all of them, "If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." and also Acts 2:42 - immediately after Peter preaches the Good News, it says how the people who believed responded, "Those who embraced his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to the believers that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." The Apostles' teaching would have been Scripture, basically - so two of the main things were Scripture and prayer. I would add fasting into that mix as well (Matthew 9:15). I have much work to do in my own life - but I don't feel as though I live under any illusion. I'm not walking around thinking I have secured anything. Hopefully, as the days go by, I am getting more and more serious about emulating the conduct, cares and concerns of Jesus. I know I have the Holy Spirit to help me persevere and endure, the Scriptures to guide me, and brothers and sisters to encourage me. That's all that I need to think about - the rest is just, as they say, details.

As a means of closing - I pray regularly that God would keep my heart soft; that I would always be open to the Truth and not get stuck in theological camps or ideas just because I've decided that I need to make up my mind. Some people find it scary to let go the doctrine of eternal security and I can certainly understand that. But with that being said, I just don't see a backing for it in Scripture. Rather - I see a call to lifelong discipleship and how one lives their life as being the evidence of faith in God and a truly changed heart. I write these posts for myself and to distill my own thinking, but if you're reading this, chances are you probably know me, and if you want to talk this out - by all means, I would absolutely love that.

The Storm

Luke 6:46-49 (Blessed Hope Translation - see sidebar for a link)
"Now, how foolish it is for you to address me with, "Lord, Lord," but not do what I command. Anyone who comes to me and hears my teachings and obeys them - I will show you what he is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundations on bedrock. Now when a flood came, the torrent struck that house but was unable to shake it, because it had been built well. If someone hears my teachings and down not obey them, however, he is like a man who built a house right on top of the ground without any foundation. As soon as a torrent struck it, it collapsed. And the ruin of that house was great."

Matthew 7:21-27
"Not just anyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in the heavens. Many people will say to me in that Day, "Lord, Lord, it was in your name that we prophesied, wasn't it? And it was in your name that we drove out demons, was it not? And yours was the name in which we did many miracles, was it not?" And at that time I will publicly declare to them, "I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!" Given these things, if anyone hears these teachings of mine and obeys them, he may be compared to a wise man, who built his house on bedrock. The rain fell and the floodwaters came and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall, because it had been founded on the bedrock. But if someone hears these teachings of mine and does not obey them, he may be compared to a foolish man, who built his house on the sand. The rain fell and the floodwaters came and the winds blew and struck that house, and it fell. And its fall was great."

I've heard many sermons over the years on what we call "The Sermon on the Mount". There are two accounts of it and I have shared the same excerpt from both versions. Typically, when someone is preaching on this section - they refer to the 'flood' or the 'storm' as the "storms of life". That we need to be well-grounded in order that we not lose our Faith in the trials of this life. While that may be one application that can be made, I don't believe it captures the spirit of what Jesus is saying here. First, a couple observations:

a) Jesus' crowd here is his followers, otherwise known as his disciples. Earlier in Luke 6, verse 20, we read that, "Jesus, then, directed his attention to his disciples and said..." Certainly The Twelve would have been there, and these teaching would have been directed at them, but also there was a greater multitude that was following, who were not considered the inner circle, but were nevertheless disciples.

b) The entire tenor and tone of this sermon is eschatological, meaning, it is about a) what Jesus' eternal Kingdom will be like and b) what Jesus will be looking for upon his second coming. From the beatitudes at the beginning, ("blessed are you who are hungry now, for you WILL in due time eat as much as you want"), to the clarifications of the law in the middle section ("truly I tell you, these have received their reward"), to the very clear exhortations to "obey" at the end - all of it is pointing to a future reality.

It seems clear that the flood or storm that Jesus references at the end of this sermon has to do with a coming time of great distress, or 'tribulation' if you want to use a Biblical word. One indication is that the storm strikes everyone - both the one who built on the bedrock and the one who built on the sand...not only that, it is described as the same kind of storm (just 'flood' in the Luke account and 'rain', 'floods' and 'wind' in the Matthew account). The storms that each of us face in this life are very different. Some people tragically lose children, some people lose parents painfully to accidents or sickness, some people go through life with debilitating illnesses or conditions, and some people seem not to have much tragedy at all in their lives. So this can't be talking about the regular 'storms of life' that each of us faces, because those are very different, person to person. Sure - those storms can certainly test our faith in the God of the Universe, but with time, we usually heal, or the pain becomes more bearable.

But what about THE Storm? As someone who has only recently started wading into the waters of the different opinions on what 'the end times' will be like...I can't claim to know much of anything. I know there are pre-millenialists, post-millenialists, pre-tribulation rapturists, post-tribulation rapturists, and a hundred other (seemingly) positions that people take. I don't know much about any of that, but I know what the Bible has to say about The Storm, the great and terrible Day of the Lord:

Matthew 24:21
"For then [at the second coming] there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be." There is a parallel verse in Mark 13:19, "For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the ginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be."

This passages above seem to be a reference to Daniel 12:1, which says,
"At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time."

Joel 2:31
"The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the mood to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes."

Luke 21:34-36
"But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and care of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."

Revelation 3-19 has a lot to say about what this period will be like (but again, a reminder, that I do not yet understand much of the nuance of the debate as to the timing of various parts of this such as rapture, resurrection of the dead, etc):

Revelation 6:12-17
"When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree shreds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb..."

Think about this - six million Jews were exterminated in Nazi death camps during WWII. Millions and millions of soldiers died fighting for their countries and millions more civilians were killed as a result of bombings, starvation, etc. AND YET - the Bible promises a period of distress and suffering that will be unparalleled in human history. The Bible says that every human on the face of the earth at that time (and some would argue, anyone who has ever lived) will experience 'it' (Luke 21:34-36 above). The pain and suffering experienced throughout the world during WWI and WWII is incredible - but to think there will be a time worse than that...

I wonder if I'm ready for The Storm. Oftentimes, I doubt that I am. I feel weak in my faith, or I doubt my ability to suffer. It sobers me up - it makes me realize that I have work to do, to prepare myself. The normal storms of life will come, no doubt about it, but will I allow those things to press me in to Jesus and God's promises? Or will I become increasingly focused on myself and my own pain? I talked in a previous blogpost about how we counsel one another through difficulty...and while we certainly need someone, at times, to sit with us in our pain, we also need people who remind us that this isn't all there is. That no matter what happens here in this life, even if death should come for us, it isn't about THIS LIFE. It's about the life to come - it's about faith in Jesus and in the promises of God and about His Kingdom. Paul put it so perfectly in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (a verse I have quoted often here): "There we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day. For our light and temporary affliction is producing for us an eternal glory that far outweighs our troubles. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Let us, together, fix our eyes on what is to come - and not allow the cares and concerns and troubles and afflictions of this life weigh us down and choke out our faith.

Social Justice Gospel? Hold Up.

I see a lot of pastors and Christians these days talking about social justice and about racism in general and using the words of Jesus to justify their positions and I'm here to say - the Gospel may have something to say about Social Justice, but it is not primarily about Justice or Social Justice, on this side of Heaven. In fact, the only true justice that the Bible speaks of, is the justice that Jesus will oversee when he returns in Glory and sits on his throne, judging the living and the dead, in Jerusalem (Isaiah 2). I think Christians and Pastors walk a dangerous line when they make statements like, "if you call yourself a Christian and don't have a social justice mindset, you might be following the wrong Jesus". That's a paraphrase of sentiments I've heard and read lately and to me, it's a slippery slope that confuses the true message of the Gospel.

Let me be clear - do my statements above suggest that I don't think Social Justice is an important issue? No. By no means. I will explain further where I believe the nuance lies, but I am not dismissing the history of oppression and marginalization that blacks, Native Americans and others have suffered in the United States, over it's history. I am not saying that anyone is free to wipe their hands from doing hard work related to racial reconciliation; that is important work that needs to be done, of that there is no question.

Jesus makes many statements in the Gospels about what our attitude, as disciples, should be towards the poor, the widowed, the sick, the prisoner, etc. Matthew 25 comes to mind, "whatever you did for the least of these brother and sisters of mine, you did for me." Luke 4 also comes to mind - the scroll that Jesus reads when he emerges from the wilderness, which is a quote of Isaiah 61, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Others for consideration: James 1:27, Galatians 2:9-10, Matthew 6:1-4, Proverbs 14:31)

In talking about Luke 4, there is some nuance, and the nuance lies in the 'when' - if you are a Kingdom Now type of person - what evidence do you have to point to that Jesus' Kingdom is being established right now? Do we have any less strife now, on nearly any level you want to talk about, than we did 500 years ago? To boil it down all the way, was Jesus saying that he came to proclaim freedom for the prisoner, now? Was he saying that he came (the first time) to reverse oppression, now? I would argue that the unequivocal answer is no. I think what Jesus is saying in Luke 4 is that He came to give hope - to proclaim that there is a day coming when the prisoner will be free, when the oppressed will no longer be oppressed - when the blind will see and the lame will walk. In other words, Jesus came to tell us exactly what his Kingdom will be like, to show us glimpses of what His Kingdom is like (with miracles) and to tell us how to we can be a part of it. Most the miracles that Jesus performed during his ministry were related to provision and healing - the 'first fruits' of what His kingdom will be like - a window, if you will, into what is to come. Were those miracles performed in order to suggest that we can have all of that now...no, it was to say, "hey guys, I'm going to do what I've said, all along, that I'm going to do and it's worth persevering in your faith to see that happen, whether in your earthly lifetime or not."

And what about the suffering that Jesus PROMISES to those who follow him (Matt 10:38, Matt 24:9, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23)? How much social justice will Christians feel when the tide of public opinion turns against them (which it most certainly will at some point) and they are shouted down, beaten and killed for faith in Jesus?

I think it is more than fine to preach messages about how we are to care for our fellow man - but if that message is not paired with the Gospel - we are only shallowly teaching people to save others from suffering in this world, and potentially delivering them to an eternity of suffering in Hell. Let me say that again in a different way - if anything that we do in the service of others, as Christians, is not paired with the eternal hope of Salvation that can be had by trusting and believing in Jesus' sinless death on the cross, then we are simply alleviating temporary suffering on this side of His return and potentially damning people to eternity of suffering in hell. The true message of the Gospel, which Jesus preached, is "repent and believe" - it is the same message that John the Baptist preached and the same message taught by the Prophets in the Old Testament. There are certainly ways we can emulate the life of Jesus in caring for the poor, sick, widowed, imprisoned and oppressed, but none of what Jesus did in those efforts was ever devoid of telling people the Truth about the coming Kingdom.

Paul is very clear that in this world - our problems will continue on until Jesus returns. Sickness, death, and suffering will all be present right up until Jesus restores everything. At the end of 2 Corinthians 4, Paul says

"But we have treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. [...] So we do not lose heart. Through our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (7-12, 16-18)

Paul and the disciples were not suffering beatings, imprisonment and death because they were going around caring for the poor/widowed/imprisoned and healing people. No, they were suffering because of the truth about the Kingdom - for the message they carried that says that in order to inherit the Kingdom, we have to submit ourselves and our very lives to His authority; that we have to take up our crosses with Him and follow Him.

 

As a result of everything I have just said, the Church has an extremely difficult job. If taken too far, the issues of the world become distractions that take us away from truly following Jesus. As my pastor likes to say, the gospel is Jesus + Nothing = Salvation. In very emotionally heated times, it can become easy to get caught up in a good cause, without remembering that the only cause that will ultimately matter is that of the Gospel. Does this abdicate anyone from responsibility? No - but that is the difficulty. How do Christians be in the world but not of it? To truly care for our fellow man is to sit with them in their suffering, yes, but also to share the hope of something better - to share with them the hope that one day the King is going to return and set everything right. It is an acknowledgement, inherently, that everything in this world, good and bad alike, is temporary. It is an acknowledgement that try as we might, without Jesus, nothing will truly be fixed - that suffering, injustice, sickness and death are a part of this fallen world until He returns.

So how are we counseling people? Are we pointing them to Jesus - are we most concerned about their souls, with everything else coming second? Are we willing to sit with someone in their suffering and deliver a true message of hope?

A Preview of The End

Man - what a difference a month makes. On February 21st, my wife and I left for a week-long vacation to Mexico and on March 21st, Illinois was placed on "shelter-in-place" orders due to this stupid COVID-19 thing...and that's to say nothing about the difference in weather between Cabo and Chicago! At the end of last week, I felt like asking people, "how was your month this week?" Time and everything else, it seems, has slowed way down and left a lot of us with time to think. I don't know about you, but my mind hasn't always been going to the healthiest of places. Thankfully, I have a few people in my life who remind me of what's important and that's what I want to talk about here.

As a Believer, I have found myself awfully weak lately. We're supposed to have this Hope right? We're supposed to trust and run to Him with our doubts and problems, right? While it's true that I have found myself on my knees more, I cannot say I've been a shining example of hope and trust. Those friends I mentioned, they have been reminding me about where all this is going - and now I'm starting to come around to thinking that this is just a preview, a practice run if you will, for the end of this Age.

Here's what the Bible has to say about what it will be like when Jesus returns:

"Don't assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter again her mother, a daughter-in-law again her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be the member of his household. The person who loves father or mother more than Me is not worth of Me; the person who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever doesn't take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone finding his life will lose it, and anyone losing his life because of Me will find it." - Matthew 10:34-39

"Wail, for the Day of the Lord is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man's heart will melt. They will be terrified, pains and anguish will take hold of them; they will writhe like a woman in labor, they will look at one another in astonishment, their faces aflame." - Isaiah 13:6-12

"For the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near; it will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations." - Ezekiel 30:3

"Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, for what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? It will be darkness and not light; as when a man flees from a lion and a bear greets him, or goes home, leans his hand against a wall and a snake bites him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light, even gloom with no brightness in it?" - Amos 5:18-20

"But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; avoid such men as these." - 2 Timothy 3:1-5 

"But before all these things [the last days], they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name's sake. It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be hated by all because of My name" - Luke 21:12-17 (corollary passage in Mark 13:9-13)

It doesn't sound like a cake walk right? It sounds hard and arduous. It sounds like something that would really shake you, and perhaps cause you to abandon your faith, if you didn't really trust deep down that God is going to do what he said he is going to do. My question for all of us, is what if this happens in our lifetimes? Maybe it doesn't, but what if it does - are our hearts and minds prepared for that kind of trial and difficulty?

This is where the importance of discipleship comes in. Jesus talks about "taking up your cross daily" and about finding a "narrow road". Paul talks a lot about 'running the race' and about perseverance. These statements and metaphors imply that being a disciple of Jesus requires something significant from us. So often, in church, we hear about the "free gift" of God, of grace for sinners and the promise of Eternal Life. What we don't hear about as much is that though the gift is free, it is also extremely expensive in terms of what it requires from us...our very lives. I don't think that means we have to physically die for Jesus - but it certainly means that we have to die to ourselves. Figuring out what this means and what it looks like for us personally is a lifetime effort, but nevertheless, that is the call. Jesus couldn't have been more explicit about it.

So join me, during this time, in becoming more firmly rooted in the Messiah, in the promises of God made to Israel, through which we can have hope for Eternal Life, a renewed Earth, and a new body of Life. This current trouble, though light and momentary, is just a preview of much harder times that will accompany Jesus' return and we need to be about the business of preparing ourselves and each other.

...To The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel

How many times have you read or heard Matthew 15:24?

"He answered them, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel."

A companion verse is in Luke's gospel, a little less specific, but similar in tone, "For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost." (Luke 19:10) In this instance, Jesus is speaking to Zacchaeus, and it is important to note that Zacchaeus was a Jewish tax-collector, Jesus refers to him as a 'descendant of Abraham'.

The question begs itself, what does Jesus mean by "only to the lost sheep of The House of Israel?" I think the answer to this question lies at the very heart of God and demands Gentile believers consider and come to terms with some very difficult truths. These truths have been distorted over the past 2,000 years and the consequences are subtle, yet potentially profound.

The simple fact that no one, Jew or Gentile, would disagree with, is that Jesus himself was Jewish. He was born to Jewish parents, he was a descendant of the House of David, he was circumcised on the 8th day (Luke 2:21) according to Jewish law and tradition (Leviticus 12:3), and he was brought up and raised in the Jewish custom. He went through years of training and school to become a Jewish Rabbi, who were considered the foremost experts in writings of the Law and the Prophets (what we call "the Old Testament") and who were given the responsibility to teach the People of Israel. This would have, most likely, included memorizing the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, along with other writings. There's no getting around it - Jesus was a Jew in every possible way, and not only that, He had been steeped in the entire history and heritage of the Jewish people. He spent the vast predominance of his time speaking to the people of Israel and to their teachers and leaders. Furthermore, all of Jesus' Apostles were Jewish and all of the New Testament writers are Jewish. Paul, in particular, was a Pharisee ("Pharisee of Pharisees" Philippians 3:5) before his encounter with Jesus which meant that he was also an expert in the Law and the Prophets. Before coming to terms with who Jesus was, he was literally killing followers of Jesus because of the claims that they were making about Jesus (namely, that he was the Messiah) - that's how much of a Pharisee he was... Put simply - the ENTIRE Bible is steeped in Jewish culture and thought.

So the questions we must wrestle with are - does the fact that Jesus was Jewish (of the House of Israel) matter? What does removing the Jewishness of Jesus do to our understanding of who he was and what he was doing? Perhaps even, "if we don't acknowledge Jesus' Jewishness, and seek an understanding of the culture He himself was speaking to, is it even possible to rightly understand who He was and what He was about?"

I have few answers, but many questions.

I cannot take credit for this insight, but one thing I have come to realize recently is, you either view the Bible as having continuity between the Old and New Testaments, or you view Jesus as having done something different, or started something new, in the New Testament (discontinuity). Another way of saying it would be - either you view Jesus as further revelation of who God is, providing a perfect sacrifice and then pointing us to His return or you view Jesus (or Paul) as having started something new, changing God's plan part-way through the story.

This leads us to a brief but important discussion on something called 'supersessionism' (also called "replacement theology"). It's a seminarian term that simply refers to this idea, which is running rampant in the church today, which suggests that Jesus ushered in a 'new covenant' which supersedes the 'old covenant' which was made directly and exclusively to the Jewish people. Supersessionism is the ideology of those that claim that The Church is "the new Israel" or that the Israel of the Old Testament has been replaced by The Church. Proponents of this view will point to Jeremiah 31:31-32 and Hebrews 8:8-9 (which quotes the Jeremiah 31 passage):

"The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt - a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord." (Jeremiah 31:31-32)

"For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: "The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord."" (Hebrews 8:7-9)

Jesus also speaks of the 'new covenant', when he is eating the Passover meal with his disciples. He says, "In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant of My blood, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."" (Matthew 26:28) So, Jesus certainly has something to do with the New Covenant, but when you read the totality of Jeremiah 31, an image of Jesus being the fulfillment of this prophecy in his first coming, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The overall tone and spirit of Jeremiah 31 is that of complete liberation and salvation - much more of a Heavenly motif and feel than an Earthly one. I would like to suggest (and again, this is not my insight but something I have learned from others) that what Jeremiah is referring to is chapter 31 is actually talking about the second coming of the Messiah. Read it for yourself with that lens and tell me that doesn't make more sense. To me, it is an image of God regathering His people to himself and the 'new covenant' he talks about is that of perfect union or marriage. He says, "...no longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another "Know the Lord," because they will all know me..." Not only that, but Jesus himself says that the New Covenant is in His blood, but is unto the forgiveness of sins. We are told to, as believers, to ask for forgiveness continually, in this life, but ultimately, we are looking to that Day when we stand before him and our sins are not counted against us, making us worthy to inherit Eternal Life.

What Jesus is doing here (Matt. 26) is revising the sacrificial system, not doing away with the Old Covenant. In ancient times, the Israelites had a system, established by God through Moses for how they could be forgiven of unintentional sin. Depending on who they were - if they sinned and became aware of it, they were to bring an animal to the temple, with the help of the priest they placed that sin upon the head of the animal which was then slaughtered; the blood was sprinkled around the alter and the animal was sacrificed.

Jesus is saying there is now a new way - as Hebrews says, "a new and perfect Sacrifice" - a single Sacrifice that covers all Sin, for all time. He is saying to his disciples, "I will bear your sin, I am the offering to the Lord on your behalf and placing your trust in my sacrifice is how you will be able to stand before me on That Day and not have your sins accounted to you." As Jeremiah says, it is not like the other covenants that God has made, where there was some onus on the people of Israel to hold up their end...no, this Covenant is unilateral. "If you trust in Jesus and in his Sacrifice for you on the Cross, that is the means by which you can stand blameless before him when He returns." Jesus did all the work - our side of the deal is to trust that God accepts Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf. To bring it all the way back around - those who put their trust in Jesus' blood

Are you starting to see what I'm saying when I talk about how critical it is to know the Jewish history and tradition within the Bible in order to accurately and rightly understand what Jesus and his Apostles are saying/doing?

Speaking personally now, I have struggled and wrestled with this a lot over the past several months - currently, I feel I have a strong grasp on the fact that our faith is a Jewish faith, but I'm wrestling with what to do with that, not in a political way, but as a Gentile disciple. It is difficult to wrap our minds around the fact that God would choose to be identified by an ethnicity, of this there is no doubt. But it's true - He is the (self-identified) 'God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob' - he is the 'God of Israel'. He chose Abraham and through that line, came Jesus and out of that comes the offer of salvation to the whole world...but it is still a Jewish faith. The Jewishness of it is the background of the story that we need in order to fully/accurately understand what Jesus, Paul and the other Apostles are talking about. In other words, the 'Jewishness' of the gospel in inextricable - to extricate it is, quite possibly, to have a different gospel than the one Jesus was preaching because it ignores the context and expectation around it.

The Government Won't Save Us

In recent days, the conversation around President Trump and his "Christianity" has been re-kindled, mostly in light of Christianity Today publicly calling for his removal. If you're not familiar with the story, the president of CT issued an editorial calling for the removal of President Trump from office. You can read the editorial for yourself here.

As I have listened to the thoughts of friends and family in recent days, I would like to suggest the story many of us are telling ourselves, is wrong. Let me break that down:

First, to say that President Trump is immoral and therefore anyone who votes for him is casting their lot with him is, at best, logically false. As anyone who has spent any time following politics knows, our options are not always very good. In fact, most of the time, they are downright cringe-worthy. To paint the picture more specifically - our up-coming choice in 2020 will likely be Trump vs. a very progressive Liberal agenda, both economically and socially. On the social-side of that aisle is a very anti-Christian set of ethics and morals and on the economic side of that aisle is a land of much higher taxes and a boatload of 'free' stuff. To speak for myself, the social stuff doesn't bother me much - this is not a Christian country, and the laws of our land should reflect that, to a point (I will always fight against abortion). With that being said, the economic agenda is truly concerning. When the government puts it's hand in something, that hand never leaves. At the end of the day, voting for Trump may be unpalatable, but the alternative is equally unpalatable and voting for a 3rd party in this country is perhaps noble, but largely unproductive.

Second, there seems to be an illusion that there is some kind of functional difference between Democrats and Republicans. Politicians in Federal office exist, on balance, to a) further their own careers and b) build their own base of power. Few and far between is the congressman or congresswoman who is there to actually represent their constituency or stand on some moral ground. As an example, lost in all of the Trump impeachment stuff was a large spending bill passed by our U.S. Federal Government that was co-signed by many Republicans, and which will be signed by President Trump. In general, I do think Democrats are more likely to raise taxes and increase government spending, but Republicans in recent years seem to be all too eager to do the same. One difference I do see though, is in the future economic plans trumpeted by each party. The 'free stuff' in particular, is of concern.

Back to this underlying story - when I see fellow Christians getting all wrapped up in and bent out of shape by politics I find myself asking, "what are you putting your hope in?" Wanting to affect national policy on issues like abortion or marriage is a worthy pursuit, but Christians should not be surprised when things don't go the way we would like them to. In fact, we should be surprised if they do because folks, this isn't going to get any better. The world we live in will continue to become more and more anti-Christian until the Day that Jesus returns. Over the last 100+ years, we have been very lucky to live in America where Christian values were held up and where we have been free to exercise our faith - both those are quickly coming to an end. You see the evidence all around you - right now it is in legislation, but eventually, the World will not tolerate a Biblical set of values. As we have seen with the gay-rights movement, being apathetic towards homosexuality is not enough, it must be celebrated and affirmed in order to satisfy the people in that movement. Climate Change is another area where I see this; no longer are dissenting voices tolerated, there are now calls to jail people who would cast doubt on anthropogenic global warming. The truth of Scripture is already being bent and altered within certain denominations in order to soothe the "itching ears" of it's hearers (2 Timothy 4:3) and eventually, the World is not going to tolerate a Biblical worldview.

So, to the question "what are you putting your hope in?" - Jesus tells us that in this world, we will have trouble (John 16:33), that we should expect persecution (Matthew 5:11) and that we need to take up our cross daily and follow Him (Matthew 16:24). Paul says that the trials and suffering in this life are light and momentary affliction when compared to the Eternal weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). We, as Christians, are primarily pursuing righteousness in light of the coming Judgement, not a better life here and now. Does that mean we are totally un-engaged with life in this world? No, definitely not, but it also means we are not putting our hope in the things of this World, or in it's leaders.

So, to the Evangelical who would vote for Trump, I say to you, "I understand that this is not a simple issue. There is a lot of complexity here and I don't believe that just because you would vote for him, that you are co-signing on everything he personally represents." To the Evangelical who is against Trump I would say to you, "I completely understand! Mr. Trump doesn't appear to be a very good person and many of his views, values and morals are not in keeping with Christianity." But to all of us, I would say, "Fix your eyes on Jesus and His return! Focus on living your life in a way that is righteous and pleasing to Him - do what you can within your own sphere of influence to help and care for others. Do not put your hope in government or in the person who is President."

In Mark 12, Jesus says, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what it God's." Jesus knows that we have earthly responsibilities - paying taxes, voting, etc - and that those things affect our life and the lives of many others, but what Jesus is saying here is 'those things that you do should not define you - your things, your money - those are used for Worldly pursuits, but your life, devote your life to God and to pursuing righteousness.'

Just my thoughts - I will not judge my fellow man for their voting choices because these issues are complex and multi-faceted. I will also continue to pray for our President as Paul instructs in 1 Timothy 2. But most of all, I want to live a life in pursuit of righteousness, as a result of faith, and unto the Day of Jesus' return so that I might hear from Him, "well done, good and faithful servant."