New Testament Use of the Old Testament, The Gospels

How to Transform the Current Political Climate

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Our country is in one of the greatest battles we have been in, and it is not a battle for the White House but a battle for our soul. It matters little which candidate gets elected. We could have the best President we have ever had, and if our integrity is gone, there is nothing that President could do to save us. Or we could have the worst President we have ever had, and if our nation is righteous, the effect of that President is going to be minimal. Therefore this post is not about which of the candidates is the better option but about what it means to be followers of Jesus in a very charged, divisive political and social climate. I want to focus in particular on Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies in Matthew 5:38-48.

This passage is part of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus starts this sermon with the beatitudes, where he announces that the ones God truly blesses are the poor, the mournful, the meek, those longing for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted (Matthew 5:3-12). Then Jesus calls for his disciples to be different than the religious teachers of their time (Matthew 5:13-20). They teach the law of Moses, but it doesn’t really hit home to them, so in a series of statements Jesus notes what the disciples have heard about the law and how his teaching is different (Matthew 5:21-48). Then he highlights the problem of the other teachers: they do things merely to be seen by others as righteous. Not so the disciples of Jesus: we are to practice righteousness in secret, so that our reward will come from the God who sees what is done in secret (Matthew 6:1-18). It is in this midst of this that we find this teaching.

Eye for Eye and Tooth for Tooth?

Matthew 5:38-48 includes the fifth and sixth laws that Jesus addresses: “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth” and then “Love your neighbor.” Both of these can be easily misinterpreted. “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth” is a partial quote of a longer instruction about how the justice system in Israel is to be set up. Exodus 21:12 calls for the death penalty in ancient Israel when someone has murdered another person, but the next two verses qualify this: If the murder was not premeditated, there should be cities of refuge where the killer can flee and be protected from the person who wants to avenge the death of their kin. Verses 18-19 qualify this further: If someone strikes a person and injures him, he is not to be put to death but instead is “to pay for the loss of time and to arrange for full recovery.” Then verses 23-25 give the rule: “you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” This was not intended to be literal, because the next two verses specify what could serve as compensation for damage to an eye or tooth, and Jews in Jesus’ day also understood this to allow for monetary compensation at whatever an eye or a tooth was deemed to be valued at.[1] The purpose of this law was to set down rules for restitution and compensation and to prevent people from seeking vengeance that would be inappropriate for the crime.

Jesus recalls the law and then says, “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person,” and he gives four examples: if someone hits you, let him hit you again; if someone sues you for one article of clothing, give him all your clothes; if a Roman soldier demands that you carry his pack a mile, carry it twice as far; if someone wants to borrow from you, give what he wants (Matthew 5:38-42). Now Jesus is using hyperbole, making overstatements to get his point across, but his basic point is this: The law, “eye for eye and tooth for tooth,” gives you rights, but Jesus wants his disciples to stop thinking in terms of rights and start thinking in terms of love.

You have a right to be compensated, but don’t use that right. I once had a man I was ministering to steal my wallet. I reported my credit cards stolen, and the credit company asked me if I would be willing to help them identify the person who stole the card before they would refund the $200 in charges on my card, and I said, “no.” Or some of you may be familiar with the story of Les Miserables, where the Bishop of Digne tells the police that the silver they found on Jean Valjean was a gift, and then he offers Jean Valjean another gift. This is what Jesus is talking about: Jesus calls for us to cut our losses and continue in love.

Think about how rarely we see this in America right now. We have utterly failed to live in a Christian manner. That’s not the fault of unbelievers; that’s the fault of the church here! We have been given principles that could transform the world, and instead we have become like the world, caring more about our “rights” than about following the teaching of Jesus! As we get closer to election day, I have watched my Christian friends on Facebook posting deceptive things about Trump or about Biden to try to turn people against whichever candidate they hate. Do you know what the Bible calls this? Bearing false witness against our neighbor. It is a violation of one of the Ten Commandments! I received a political ad in the mail Friday that gave three quotes by one of the Presidential candidates, and I decided to look up these three quotes. In two of them the ad left out an important part of the sentence that would change the meaning of what the candidate said. To quote someone in a way that makes it sound like they are saying something they would not say is to misquote the person. This happens on both sides of the aisle, and it’s not just among those making ads, but among Christians as we talk about the candidates. We have fallen more in love with the ideas of our political party than with the teachings of Jesus, and once our beliefs become more important than the truth, we lose our ability to hear the truth altogether!

Long gone is the day when a Presidential candidate could hear a woman say, “I don’t trust [your opponent, because] he’s an Arab,” and the candidate would respond, “No, ma’am. He is a decent family man and citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.” Long gone is the day when a Presidential candidate could hear a man say “I am afraid of [your opponent becoming President],” and the candidate could say, “He is a decent person and we do not need to be scared of him being President.” If America loses its soul that’s one thing, but if Christians in America will follow the national hatred of enemy rather than Jesus’ call to love our enemies, the church in America will close its doors.

If we fail to love our enemies, we fail to be poor in spirit, mournful, meek, hungry and thirsty for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and the persecuted, and if we fail here, our blessing is gone.[2] Think about Jesus: Jesus was mocked and struck. His garments were taken from him. When they forced him to carry his cross, he carried it as far as he could. When they asked him to give his life, he freely laid it down. When these same things happen to us, should we be like Jesus or like the world?[3] If we want to call ourselves Christians, we have to be more focused on love than on our rights. We have to lay down the American way and take up the way of Jesus, take up our cross, and love others when we are wronged.

The apostle Paul says, “Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:17-21, NRSV).

What does this mean? It means that when we hate our enemies, we become like them, but when we love our enemies we can defeat the evil in them and potentially transform them to be like Jesus! Martin Luther King said, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”[4]

Love Your Neighbor and Hate Your Enemy?

This brings us to the second statement Jesus makes: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:43-45, NRSV).

Now the law of Moses does not say to “hate your enemy.” Instead it says if you see your enemy’s ox or donkey running away, you should help your neighbor retrieve it (Exodus 23:4-5), and you should even treat foreigners as you would treat citizens (Leviticus 19:33-34). But because Leviticus 19 said “love your neighbor,” some people debated who we needed to love (see Luke 10:25-37).

In our passage, Jesus connects love for our enemies with being children of God (“that you may be children of your Father in heaven”). A true child does what the Father does. God doesn’t  cause his sun to rise only for the righteous, and he doesn’t send rain only for the good. God blesses both friend and foe, and we should do the same. The Apostle Paul says, “Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2, NRSV). If God is truly your Father, you will live as God does, by love. Remember the beatitudes: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:7-9, NRSV). This is what it means to be a Christian: we love those the Father loves, and that is everyone!

Jesus continues: “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:46-48, NRSV). If the previous verses showed the who God loves, these verses show who the godless love.[5] The tax collectors of Jesus’ day had turned their backs on their own country and agreed to work for the enemy, but even they loved people who loved them. The Gentiles worshiped other gods, but even they would express care for their fellow countrymen. If that’s all we are doing – loving people who love us and caring for our own country – then we are no better than the godless. If we want to call ourselves children of God, love for the lovely is not enough. Our love must extend to our enemies!

In today’s society our expectations are so much lower than Jesus’s expectations were. We don’t aim for love, we aim for “tolerance.” We have bumper stickers with the word “coexist.” The sentiment is nice, but the tax collectors and Gentiles of Jesus’ day could have expressed the same message. They tolerated their enemies well enough. The Christian call is much higher: “love your enemies.”

The law about loving our neighbor is found in Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19 starts with God saying to the Israelites, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” God then gives a series of instructions about what this means: revere your parents, keep the sabbaths, do not worship idols, offer proper sacrifices (Leviticus 19:3-8). These are instructions about how to love God with all your heart. Then God continues: Do not harvest all your crops, but leave some for the poor and for immigrants (19:9-10). Do not steal or deceive others (19:11-13). Do not mistreat the underprivileged (19:14). Do not show favoritism (19:15). Do not profit from the loss of others (19:16). Do not hate your neighbor or take vengeance against anyone (19:17-18). And then it concludes with the words, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18, NRSV).

When Jesus quotes Leviticus 19:18 at the beginning of this section and then closes this section with “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” which paraphrases Leviticus 19:2 (cf. Deuteronomy 18:13, LXX), he is thinking of this whole section of Scripture. What does it mean to love our neighbor? It means to do the things listed in Leviticus 19. It means to feed the hungry, to welcome the stranger, to provide clothing for the needy, to visit those in prison (Matthew 25:31-46). It means when you find a foreigner beaten and left for dead, you nurse him back to health (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus gives countless examples in his ministry that build upon the teaching in Leviticus 19. This isn’t just “tolerate your enemies.” This isn’t just “coexist.” This is a radical love for our enemies.

Here is where we are failing. We are fighting the wrong battle. We are fighting with words and votes rather than with radical love for our enemies. That’s why America seems to be falling apart at the seams. The church has lost its voice. Our voice was always love, not words. As soon as we forgot that, we went from being Christian to simply being American.

Consider the way of Jesus: he was born into a condition far worse than the one we live in. The Romans had taken over Jerusalem. Soldiers marched down the streets and enforced heavy taxes on the people. The Romans had let a group with some Jewish sensibilities have some autonomy, but the Herodians demonstrated that they had little interest in the common people. There was a Jewish high priest, but even he would ask the Romans to crucify Jesus. Could Jesus have stopped this? Could Jesus have overpowered them all? Could Jesus have called down a legion of angels to drive them all out of Jerusalem? Yes. But this is not the Christian way. We don’t win by taking over the government. We don’t win by overpowering our enemies. We win by loving our enemies. Jesus set aside his rights, he was not governed by fear, he overcame evil with good. The way we defeat evil is by starting with the evil within.

Application

How can we do this? I want to suggest three ways we can work on loving our enemies in the current political climate:

  1. Trust God. Our tendency to act more like the world than like Jesus is rooted in fear of an uncertain future. If we can replace this fear with faith, we will find it easier to put our fleshly ways to death. Jesus knew that a loss in the short run would be the greatest gain of all in the end, because he trusted God to turn evil into good. We don’t need to be afraid of either candidate getting elected. We can trust that God can work through either candidate.
  2. Repent of our sinfulness, especially in the way we have engaged in political discussion. Even when we are not portraying our political enemies in an unfair light, we are often insensitive to the people we talk with about politics. Love is more important than winning arguments. Let us repent of our focus on politics rather than the kingdom of God. Let us repent of our engagement in the way of the world rather than the way of Jesus. And let us do better in this regard.
  3. Listen to people who differ from you. We have a tendency to read only the articles and watch only the videos that say what our “itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3, NIV). We tend to listen to people who disagree with us only in order to argue with them. The Bible says we should be “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19, NRSV). If we haven’t gotten to the point where we understand why some Christians vote differently than we do, we probably haven’t listened carefully enough to the other side.

We have been fighting hard (and often unfairly!) to get our favorite political candidate elected. But who gets elected is not what matters. What matters is what happens inside our hearts. Lay down the hate, and embrace love. Only in this way will the darkness be driven out of America. Trust God to take care of the institutions, and work on your heart. Love your enemy, and live in the only way that has the power to transform the world! God bless you all, and God bless America.

[1] See Josephus, Ant. 4.280, and b. Ketub. 32ab; cf. Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 196.

[2] W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, International Critical Commentary (New York: T&T Clark, 1988-1991), 1:539.

[3] Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:546; Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-15 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 52–53.

[4] Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (Boston: Beacon, 1963), 47.

[5] Keener, Matthew, 204.

Eschatology, Hell, Rethinking Bible Verses in Context

“Where Their Worm Does Not Die and Their Fire Is Not Quenched” (Mark 9:48)

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When we read the Bible, we come to it with a lot of assumptions: assumptions about what words mean, assumptions about theology based on what we were previously taught, assumptions about what the passage means based on what others have said the passage means. Often these assumptions are correct, but because we live in a world so different from the biblical authors, sometimes our assumptions prevent us from hearing the text on its own terms. As an example, consider a conversation I had with a friend over lunch while we were both working on our doctorates at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. My friend had just revealed that he was an annihilationist, which troubled me greatly because I was certain that the Bible teaches the eternal conscious torment of the wicked in hell. I immediately responded: “That doesn’t work biblically, because Jesus said that hell is a place ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched'” (Mark 9:48, ESV). I do not recall my friend having offered an interpretation of this, but instead he jokingly asked me what these “eternal hell worms” are like, and I was even more troubled that my friend did not take the Scripture as seriously as I did. But was I being fair to my friend? And was I being fair to the biblical text? Now after eleven further years of study, I can see how many assumptions I was bringing to the text:

  1. I assumed that when Jesus used the word gehenna (translated in verse 47 as “hell”), he was talking about the place all the wicked souls go when they die rather than the valley outside Jerusalem known by the name Gehenna.
  2. I assumed that the purpose of the worm and the fire were to torment souls rather than to consume bodies.
  3. I assumed that because the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched, the human who had died exists forever.

All of these sounded like safe assumptions to me for years, but are they? And are they the assumptions the original audience would have made when Jesus said these words or when Mark wrote them down? Let’s consider them one-by-one.

fire

What Did Jesus Mean by Gehenna?

Gehenna (also known as “the Valley of Hinnom”) was the name of a place Jesus and his disciples were very familiar with. The city of  Jerusalem looked down into the valley of Hinnom and two of the main roads to/from Jerusalem passed by it. Popular thought says that it was a garbage dump where people burned their trash, but I am aware of no evidence that this was the case in the time of Jesus. In the time of Jesus Gehenna was particularly significant because it was the subject of biblical history and of biblical prophecy.

According to 2 Chronicles 28:3, King Ahaz, who reigned in Jerusalem from 732 to 716 BC, “made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel” (ESV). King Manasseh did the same two generations later (2 Chronicles 33:6). To prevent this from happening again, Manasseh’s grandson, King Josiah, “defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech” (2 Kings 23:10, ESV).

But Gehenna is also an important location in biblical prophecy. Isaiah mentioned that Topheth (in the valley of Hinnom) will be the place that the king of Assyria will be judged: “For a burning place [lit. Topheth] has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it” (Isaiah 30:33, ESV). For Isaiah, who had prophesied in the days when King Ahaz burned his sons at Topheth, Gehenna would be a place where God would burn the Assyrian king!

Jeremiah prophesies that God is going to destroy Jerusalem because of the acts of kings like Manasseh:

For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the LORD. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, to defile it. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere. And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away….

At that time, declares the LORD, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. And they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. And they shall not be gathered or buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. [Jeremiah 7:30-33; 8:1-2, ESV]

In Jeremiah 19, Jeremiah actually goes to the Valley of Hinnom after Josiah has defiled Topheth and smashes a clay pot there and says about Jerusalem:

Thus will I do to this place, says the LORD, and to its inhabitants, making this city like Topheth. And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be defiled like the place of Topheth—all the houses upon whose roofs offerings have been made to the whole host of heaven, and libations have been poured out to other gods.

You can see why Gehenna became an important place in Jesus’ preaching. Not only was it remembered as a place where kings burned their sons, but it was also identified as a place of future judgment, whether for Israel’s enemies (Isaiah 30:33) or for Jerusalem itself (Jeremiah 7, 19, 32). When Jesus referred to Gehenna, his original audience would not have thought of a place where wicked souls go when people die, but of the valley outside Jerusalem where both Isaiah and Jeremiah said war victims would die and have their bodies either burned or exposed to the elements. They did not bring to Jesus’ words images of Dante’s Inferno or even images of Hades, such as the one Jesus gives in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:23-28). Gehenna was not Hades and Hades was not Gehenna in their minds. Hades was where souls went when a person died, but Gehenna was where bodies were discarded.

What Is the Purpose of the Worms and Fire?

When we think in terms of corpses, the images of worm and fire take on a different sense. Corpses are not in agony as they burn or are eaten by worms. To read Mark 9:48 as describing eternal conscious torment is to misread it. This passage is not about torment but about the final destruction of the body. That this passage concerns corpses is clear when we recognize that Jesus is quoting the end of Isaiah here. Isaiah ends with a picture of Jerusalem’s restoration, God’s victory over Jerusalem’s enemies, the nations coming to it to praise God in Jerusalem, and the corpses of those who rebel against Jerusalem rotting outside the city: “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh” (Isaiah 66:24, ESV).

The words Jesus quotes in Mark 9:48 come straight from Isaiah 66:24, which is not about souls but about “dead bodies” (Heb. peger). These bodies are not in torment but are “an abhorrence to all flesh,” that is, a hideous sight that serves as a reminder of what happens to those who oppose God. Later rabbis would connect this statement about the dead bodies outside of Jerusalem with Jeremiah’s prophecies about Gehenna. Jesus also merges these two prophecies, using the word Gehenna in verses 43, 45, and 47, and then Isaiah’s words in verse 48. Was Jesus thinking in terms of Jeremiah’s prophecies about the valley of Hinnom?

Jesus’ teaching in Mark 9 happens as he is on his way to Jerusalem. His disciples have just tried to stop someone not under their authority from casting out demons in Jesus’ name (Mark 9:38) and Jesus warns them that if they cause people to turn away from Jesus, it would be better that they have a millstone tied around their neck and be thrown into the sea (Mark 9:42), because the coming judgment will be a far worse death: Gehenna, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:43-48). Jesus even says that if their hand or foot or eye causes them to sin, they should cut it off or tear it out, because it would be better to be crippled or maimed than to be thrown into Gehenna. So Jesus gives alternatives to Gehenna: either cut off whatever causes you to sin so you can avoid being among the rebels of Isaiah 66:24, bury yourself in the sea, or you will experience the prophesies of Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Later Jesus will quote a phrase from earlier in Jeremiah 7. Remember that Jeremiah 7 is where Jeremiah says the valley of Hinnom will come to be called the valley of slaughter. One of the reasons Jeremiah gives for the destruction of Jerusalem here is that they have turned the temple into “a den of robbers” (Jeremiah 7:11). When Jesus overturns tables in the temple and says they have made the temple “a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17), he is implying a further fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy of destruction, as can be seen in Jesus’ statement that not one stone will be left on another (Mark 13:2). In all of this, Jesus is warning of a fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecies: if you don’t repent, the Romans will destroy this city and you will be thrown into Gehenna, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. This is not about torment of the soul but about bodies becoming an abhorrence, left to the elements in the valley outside Jerusalem, being devoured by worms and consumed by fire.

This means that my first two assumptions when I quoted this verse to my friend at Trinity were wrong. I was misreading this text because I assumed that Jesus was talking about the destination of souls after death and I assumed that Jesus was talking about torment of souls rather than corpse desecration. It is now time to consider my third assumption, that the wicked souls are immortal because “their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched.”

Are the Wicked Immortal?

The idea that souls last forever is a basic idea of Western thought, but it is not originally a Jewish idea. The idea arises in Plato’s Phaedo and becomes common in Greek thought, and some Jews in Jesus’ day adopt this view as their own, but many do not. It is at odds with Jewish conceptions of an ongoing connection between the body and the soul. When we examine the views of Jesus, we find little evidence that Jesus or the apostles adopted the Greek idea of the inherent immortality of the soul. Instead, they see immortality as a gift given by God only to those who believe (Matthew 19:16-21, 29; 25:46; Mark 10:17-21, 30; Luke 10:25-28; 18:18-22, 30; John 3:14-16, 36; 4:13-14, 36; 5:24; 6:27, 40, 47, 54, 68; 10:28; 12:25, 50; 17:2-3; Acts 13:48; Romans 2:6-11; 5:21; 6:22-23; Galatians 6:8; 1 Timothy 1:16; 6:12; Titus 1:1-3; 3:7; 1 John 1:2; 2:25; 3:15; 5:11, 13, 20; Jude 21). This is why Jesus says that that those who do not believe will not live eternally but will “perish” (John 3:16) or that souls can be “destroy[ed]” in Gehenna (Matthew 10:28). This is why Paul says the wages of sin are “death” (Romans 6:23) and that the wicked will “perish” (Romans 2:12; 1 Corinthians 1:18; 15:18; 2 Corinthians 2:15; 4:3; 2 Thessalonians 2:10) or be “destroyed” (Romans 9:22; Philippians 1:28; 3:19; 1 Thessalonians 5:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:9; 2:3; 1 Timothy 6:9). This is why the author of Hebrews speaks of the wicked being “consumed” (Hebrews 10:27) or Peter speaks of “the destruction of the ungodly” (2 Peter 3:7) or John in Revelation describes the lake of fire as “the second death” (Revelation 20:14).

If you come to the Bible with the assumption the soul is naturally immortal, you start seeing all of this language of perishing, destruction, consumption, and death as metaphors, and you reread Jesus’ promise of eternal life as if it were a promise of a different kind of eternal life than the wicked naturally experience. But neither Jesus nor any of the biblical authors brought this assumption to the text. They came with the assumption that the body and soul are connected, and that if the body is destroyed, so is the soul.

This is why burial was so important. Jews (at least the ones who maintained the view of the connection between the body and the soul) would never burn the bodies of their dead like the Romans did. For bones to be exposed to the elements or burned would have been seen as a threat to the soul’s continued existence and to the person’s ability to experience the resurrection.

Isaiah’s image, which Jesus takes up, is a scary image of judgment. Jesus sees this as a very real threat for the people of his day. Notably neither this image nor the word Gehenna (or any other word for “hell”) is taken up by Paul or anyone preaching outside the land of Israel. What Jesus is talking about in Mark 9 is a potential danger for Jerusalem, one that Jerusalem experiences to an extent before that generation passes away, during the Roman siege of Jerusalem.

But didn’t Jesus say their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched? Those worms died, and the fires of Rome are no longer burning. But let’s read that text again. Was Jesus saying those worms would live forever, or simply that they would not die before finishing their job of consuming the corpses? Was Jesus saying that the fire would burn forever, or that the fire could not be quenched before it burns up all that remains there? In a helpful blog post by Joseph Dear, he notes that in Ezekiel 20:47 and Jeremiah 17:27, temporal judgment is described in terms of fire that “will not be quenched.” An unquenchable fire does not mean that the person who burns in that fire continues burning forever. It means that the fire finishes its job.

If a case can be made for eternal conscious torment of souls, it must not be made from Mark 9:48. On the contrary, Mark 9:48 seems to point the opposite direction. It quotes an Isaiah passage about the destruction of bodies and alludes to the Jeremiah prophecies about judgment in the valley of Hinnom. It uses images (worm, fire) that imply consumption and destruction. To my annihilationist friends against whom I used this verse in the past as a proof-text, I am sorry. And to Jesus, whose words I used to support my own views without really listening to them, I am sorry. To the reader, I encourage you to learn from my mistakes, and I lay this before you as an invitation to study Scripture more deeply. Keep asking questions. Keep probing. Look for connections to Old Testament prophecies. Research the original meaning of words like gehenna. Read verses in context. And together, let us learn to interpret the Bible faithfully and with joy at the depths of God’s revelation!

Rethinking Bible Verses in Context

Is the Heart Deceitful? Rethinking Jeremiah 17:9 in Context

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heart

There are a number of verses in the Bible that we tend to quote without having studied the context, and often theologies are built on these contextless verses. Today I want to probe one Christian favorite and see if we can better understand what this verse really means.

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

“I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10, NIV)

In Christian circles today, Jeremiah 17:9 is often understood to mean that the heart cannot be trusted, and therefore you should not “follow your heart,” but we can see by the end of the verse that this is not what Jeremiah is saying: “Who can understand it?” The deceitfulness of the heart is seen here in its unwillingness to be understood, not in its attempts to lead you down a path of sin. What does Jeremiah mean by this? A little context will help.

Jeremiah 16:1-17:4 is a prophecy of the coming judgment upon Judah, with a word of hope (16:14-15) mixed in. This is common in Jeremiah, as God raised up Jeremiah in the last days of Judah’s independence as a nation. By the end of Jeremiah’s life, Jerusalem would fall for its wickedness. But God’s love for Jerusalem and for his people was real and meant that a restoration was coming. In Jeremiah 29:10-14, God will promise that after seventy years of punishment, he will restore his people. Of course, seventy years is a long time to wait for restoration, and most of the people living in the time of Jeremiah would not live to see this day! But Jeremiah 17:14-18 gives a word of hope for the immediate future:

Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed;
save me and I will be saved,
for you are the one I praise.
They keep saying to me,
“Where is the word of the LORD?
Let it now be fulfilled!”
I have not run away from being your shepherd;
you know I have not desired the day of despair.
What passes my lips is open before you.
Do not be a terror to me;
you are my refuge in the day of disaster.
Let my persecutors be put to shame,
but keep me from shame;
let them be terrified,
but keep me from terror.
Bring on them the day of disaster;
destroy them with double destruction.

Jeremiah is mocked by the people he prophesies to, but he knows that God is his refuge who will let his persecutors be terrified but keep him from terror. He will be saved.

So what is this section from verses 5 to 13 that moves Jeremiah from this word of destruction to this confidence that he will be saved? It is a reflection on God’s justice! “The one who trusts in man … and whose heart turns away from the Lord” is under a curse (17:5) and “will not see prosperity when it comes” (17:6), but “the one who trusts in the Lord” is blessed (17:7) and does not need to fear in the hard times (17:8).

The problem, of course, is that only God knows the heart! Who is the one whose heart is turned from the Lord, and who is the one whose confidence is in the Lord? We may try to discern this ourselves, but “the heart is deceitful above all things” (17:9). Jeremiah’s point seems to be that someone could profess that they have put their trust in the Lord and even think that they have put their trust in the Lord, when all of this is a mask for what is really going on in their heart. Likewise, someone could seem to have a fickle faith, but at their core is a trust that is in the Lord and not in men. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

None of his hearers understood Jeremiah’s heart. To them he looked like a prophet who didn’t trust God. They sang songs about Zion and the temple of the Lord that made them confident that Jerusalem would not fall (were they singing Psalm 46?). The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Jeremiah’s answer is that God can understand it. God knows that the trust his opponents were putting in the Lord was not a real trust, while Jeremiah’s sense that God would let Jerusalem fall was a true faith. “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve” (Jeremiah 17:10). When the Lord searches the heart of Jeremiah, he finds goodness. Is Jeremiah’s heart “deceitful”? Only in the sense that if people in his day tried to understand it, they would judge him wrongly. Is the heart of Jeremiah’s opponents deceitful? Jeremiah says it is in the sense that people would look at them as people of faith.

Jeremiah 17:9 does not mean that we cannot trust our hearts. It means that we do not see people’s hearts the way God sees them. In this sense the heart is deceitful. Does this mean we have no hope of understanding our hearts? No. The infilling of the Holy Spirit gives us the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) so we can start to see things as God sees them. But we should also be cautious about assuming either our goodness or our wickedness, because appearances can be deceiving. Place your trust in God, and he will give you a pure heart (Psalms 51:10), and he will give you the desires of your heart (Psalms 37:4), and that is a good thing!

Eschatology

Hades, Heaven, and the New Earth (Book Introduction)

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For the last year and a half, I have been writing a book titled Hades, Heaven, and the New Earth. It is still a work in progress, but to give you an idea of what I am doing, here is the latest draft of the book introduction:

As I write this introduction, the #4 song on Christian radio is Chris Tomlin’s “Home”:1

This world is not what it was meant to be
All this pain, all this suffering
There’s a better place waiting for me in Heaven
Every tear will be wiped away
Every sorrow and sin erased
We’ll dance on seas of amazing grace in Heaven, in Heaven

I’m going home where the streets are golden
Every chain is broken
Oh I wanna go, oh I wanna go
Home where every fear is gone
I’m in Your open arms where I belong
Home

Chris Tomlin is, as always, brilliant, and his song inspires a much-needed hope for millions of Christians. But what many do not realize is that Chris Tomlin’s lyrics repeatedly allude not to biblical “Heaven” imagery but to biblical “New Earth” imagery. In short, the destination of followers of God has changed in the past, and it is going to change again. When believers die, they go to Heaven, which will be their temporary home. But when Christ returns, believers will live on a New Earth. The New Earth is described in Revelation 21 as a place where “he will wipe every tear from their eyes” (21:4), a place where the streets are golden (21:21). Often Christians today read Revelation 21-22 as if it describes Heaven, but it is John’s description of the “heavenly Jerusalem,” which comes down to the New Earth. Sure, it is a city that is being prepared for us in Heaven, but it is not yet what it will be. The image of every tear being wiped away was John’s way of envisioning a future state that believers still await. According to Revelation 6:10, before the return of Christ, martyrs are crying out with a loud voice, “How long, O holy and true Lord, will you not judge and avenge our blood from those dwelling on the Earth?” It is only after a final battle and the creation of the New Heavens and the New Earth that believers experience the final rest described in Revelation 21.

This is not to say that Heaven won’t be so great or that Chris Tomlin has gotten it all wrong. Paul said it is better by far to depart and be with Christ (Philippians 1:23). I imagine tears will be wiped away as soon as we reach Heaven. Perhaps as we await the New Earth our spirits will already be in the heavenly Jerusalem. Certainly we will be “with Christ.” As MercyMe has put it:

I can only imagine what it will be like
When I walk by your side
I can only imagine what my eyes will see
When your face is before me
I can only imagine, I can only imagine

Surrounded by You glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you Jesus
Or in awe of You be still?
Will I stand in your presence
Or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah?
Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine, I can only imagine

This book is not written to downplay believers’ experience in Heaven. Rather it is written to let believers know that Heaven is only the appetizer and the God has a full table set for us.

In the pages that follow we will explore what happens to people when they die. Chapter 1 will demonstrate that the Old Testament expectation was Sheol or Hades, a place where one’s existence is less than their earthly experience. Many Christians do not know what to do with passages like Psalm 6:5 where David says that no one remembers God or praises him after death. This chapter will demonstrate a thoroughgoing Old Testament expectation of a shadowy existence in Hades after death.

Chapter 2 will discuss the glimpses of hope that are found in the Old Testament. While the general Old Testament portrayal of the afterlife is grim, those who know God’s character conclude that this cannot be the end of the story. From this emerges a hope for the resurrection of the dead – not upon death, but in the future on the day of the Lord. Something cataclysmic must happen before believers can be delivered from Hades and experience the resurrection.

Chapter 3 investigates the first of two cataclysmic events – upon Jesus’ death, his spirit left his body with a shout and descended to Hades so quickly that “the Earth shook, and the rocks were split, and the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Matthew 27:51-52). After his resurrection Jesus has “the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:18) so that its gates no longer prevail against God’s people (Matthew 16:18). This means that since Christ’s descent into Hades, believers have a new destination: Hades has been replaced (for the believer) with Heaven.

Chapter 4 discusses what such a disembodied existence in Heaven is like. It is temporary, as believers anticipate the resurrection of their bodies and the renewal of the Earth. At the same time it is blissful and an experience of the Lord’s presence that surpasses our earthly experiences. So whereas Hades was a step down from earthly existence, Heaven is clearly an improvement. But it is still not the resurrection hope that was expressed in the Old Testament and throughout the New Testament. For such a hope to become the reality, another cataclysmic event is needed: the return of Christ.

Chapter 5 explores the second coming of Christ, which will involve a sequence of events: the revival of Israel and the rebellion of the Lawless One, Jesus’ return, the resurrection of the dead, the rapture of the living Christians, the millennial reign, the final judgment, and the renewal of the Earth. The goal of all of this is the redemption of “all things” (Colossians 1:15-17, 20). This means that God plans to redeem not just humanity, but the Earth and the rest of creation as well (Romans 1:19-21). It also means that Jesus will transform our physical bodies (Philippians 3:21). Just as Jesus’ tomb was empty because his physical body was raised, so will our tombs be empty.

The Bible describes two final destinations for humanity – the Lake of Fire and the New Earth. These are the focus of Chapters 6 and 7. Like Heaven, Hell is a very often misunderstood concept in Christianity today. Notions of the devil tormenting people for eternity are rooted more in later church tradition than in Scripture. In the Bible, Gehenna is a place where the soul is “destroyed” (Matthew 10:28) or “consumed” (Matthew 3:12). Later Christians came to think of Hell as a place of eternal torment, due to a misreading of the Bible’s language of “unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43) as implying unending torment. This misunderstanding is probably rooted in Greek notions of the immortality of the soul, which oppose the biblical concept of humans as mortal. Chapter 7 surveys the biblical teaching on this subject.

Chapter 8 then investigates the renewal of the Earth. The idea of a “New Earth” is not one in which something entirely distinct from this Earth is created. Just as our bodies are transformed in the resurrection, so the Earth is transformed in the renewal. Peter compares the process to that of “the former world” in Noah’s flood (2 Peter 3:6). It is a New Earth, but it is a New Earth because Christ is “making all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

Chapter 9 explores the difference that understanding this can make in the way we think, speak, and act. Many Christians have never thought about the distinction between our spirits going to Heaven when we die and our transformed bodies inhabiting the New Earth when Jesus returns. Blurring these lines has caused us to care less about both our bodies and the Earth. Sometimes we have become, as the saying goes, so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.

This book also makes a difference in the way we read and understand the Bible. Many Christians ignore passages that teach a different afterlife expectation than the traditional Christian one. We must let the Bible challenge our theology rather than thrusting our theology upon the Bible. Chapter 10 investigates how evangelicals have come to silence biblical afterlife teaching that does not fit our theological traditions and makes suggestions about how we can better let Scripture be Scripture.

If this book causes us to think more deeply about our hope as Christians and inspires us to live Christ-centered lives in the midst of a confused and broken world, it will have accomplished its purpose. One day “we will be like Jesus, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). In the meantime we can explore this hope, because “everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). Let us begin!

1 Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs, May 27, 2017; http://www.billboard.com/charts/christian-songs/2017-05-27.

Uncategorized

Death as a Mythical Creature in the Bible

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Grim Reaper
Grim Reaper – Lost his Sting! by Waiting for the Word (https://www.flickr.com/photos/waitingfortheword/)

Did you know that Death is a mythical creature in the Bible? Just as Motu is an enemy of Ba’lu in Canaanite mythology and Thanatos is a negative god in Greek mythology, in the Bible Death (Hebrew maveth, Greek thanatos) is an enemy who sends messengers (Prov 16:14), has a son named Calamity (Job 18:13-14), ensnares people (Psalm 18:4; etc.), leads them to the Underworld (Ps 49:14), and devours them (Hab 2:5). Yet the Bible teaches that the Lord will himself ransom his people from Death (Hos 13:14) and devour Death (Isa 25:8). The Lord swallows up the great swallower! Paul speaks of Death as having “reigned” (Rom 5:14, 17), but Jesus’ resurrection means that Death does not reign over Jesus (Rom 6:9), and so Jesus will defeat all of his enemies, the last one being Death (1 Cor 15:26, 54-57). Christ has taken away Death’s keys (Rev 1:18), and though Death is one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, bringing destruction wherever he goes (Rev 6:7-8), Jesus will force him to give up the dead that he has swallowed (Rev 20:13) and will throw him in the Lake of Fire (Rev 20:14).

Isaiah

Here I Am Lord (Isaiah 6)

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One of my favorite hymns is “Here I Am, Lord” by Dan Schutte.

In continuing my series of posts on Isaiah I want to look more closely at the context of this famous Isaianic passage. This is the “Call of Isaiah,” where Isaiah is commissioned for his prophetic ministry. The passage begins with a statement that Isaiah’s vision took place “in the year the King Uzziah died” (Isa 6:1). This is a significant time in Israel’s history. Uzziah had been a good and prosperous king. During his 52-year(!) reign the borders of Judah and Israel expanded to include a territory that had been unprecedented since the time of Solomon. These were good years for God’s people. But they were marred when the good king Uzziah “became proud, to his destruction,” trying to take on a priestly role by burning incense in the temple (2 Chron 26:16, ESV). God struck Uzziah with leprosy, and for the rest of his life Uzziah was excluded from the house of the Lord (2 Chron 26:21). By the time Uzziah died, the Assyrian empire had already expanded enough that it was clear who was going to be the next superpower. This was a time when Israel’s optimism was dying and its impending doom was evident.

In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.  [Isaiah 6:1]

Uzziah may not have been able to enter the temple, but there was a king who could – Yahweh.  There was a king who would never be struck down with leprosy – Yahweh. There was a king who was high and lifted up, far beyond Uzziah and Tiglath Pileser III – Yahweh. There was king who would never die – Yahweh.

Isaiah saw him. And he saw him as glorious. The seraphim cried out that “all of the earth is filled with his glory” (6:3). So great was his glory that “the thresholds of the doorways shook” and “the temple was filled with smoke” when the seraphim cried out. So great was his glory that Isaiah cried out:

Woe to me! For I am ruined!
For I am a man of unclean lips,
And I live among of a people of unclean lips
for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh Tsebaoth!  [6:5]

No one is holy enough to see God and live. But an exception is made for Isaiah. Like Esther, when she stood before the king and he extends his gold scepter that she may live, so Isaiah stands before the King of Kings, and a glowing coal from the altar is extended to him. The seraph tells Isaiah:

Behold, this has touched your lips,
and your wickedness has been removed
and you sin has been atoned for.  [6:7]

What a beautiful picture! This sinful man can have his sins removed in an instant … to the point that he can see God and live! What excitement must have entered Isaiah! And he is so excited that when he hears the Lord say, “Whom should I send? Who will go for us?” Isaiah eagerly jumps up: “Here I am! Send me!”

Notice that Isaiah did not hear where he is going or for what purpose. All he knows is that there is a message that must be proclaimed, and Isaiah is eager to be the messenger. After seeing how God can remove the sin of “a man of unclean lips” in an instant, it seems obvious to Isaiah what the mission is. After all, he “lives among a people of unclean lips.” Give him a few coals from the altar, send him off, and things are going to be great! Who cares that the great King Uzziah is no longer leading the people? God himself is on the throne! Who cares that the Assyrians are advancing? They are no match for Yahweh! I can almost see Isaiah with his hand up in the air, jumping up and down: “Ooh, ooh, pick me! Pick me!” And then he gets the message:

Go and tell this people:
“Listen intently, but don’t understand,
Watch closely, but don’t get it.”

Harden the heart of this people,
Deafen its ears, and blind its eyes,
Lest they see with their eyes
And hear with their ears
And understand with their heart
And turn that he would heal them.  [6:9-10]

Ouch! Not the message Isaiah was hoping to preach! Isaiah’s mission is to have a “failing ministry” – at least according to modern Christianity’s definition of success and failure. The possibility of healing is there! Just like Isaiah’s sin was taken away, so could the sin of the people be taken away if only they would see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return to God. But that was not God’s plan. God’s plan was to have Isaiah preach while the people harden their hearts.

Then I said, “Until when, Lord?”  [6:11]

How long does it need to be this way?

Until cities are desolate, with no one living in them,
And houses, with no man,
And the land is desolate, a wasteland,
And Yahweh casts man out,
And the forsaken area is multiplied in the land.
And though a tenth remain in her,
It will be burned again.
Like the terebinth and the oak,
Which when they are cut down become a stump,
The seed of holiness is its stump.

Ugh! Destruction and then more destruction. This is Isaiah’s message. The people must be taken out of the land. Indeed, this is the same thing Moses had proclaimed centuries earlier (Deut 28, 31-32), but perhaps Isaiah had hoped for something better in his time. Don’t we all? Don’t we all hope that people will repent and the Lord will pour out blessing on all of us? But that’s not always the case. Sometimes when we eagerly say, “Here I am! Send me,” we are signing up for something much less pleasant. But this too is the Lord’s will. There is a time to build up and a time to tear down.

The good news in all of this is that there will always be a seed of holiness. God leaves the stump when he cuts down the tree. And there is hope for the stump and for the seed, as we will see in future chapters. But for now, we must remember that it is our mission to preach, even if the effect of our preaching is to harden the hearts of those who listen. Judgment is coming. But even in this we can see the Lord seated on a throne.

Isaiah, New Testament Use of the Old Testament

The Tenants of the Vineyard (Isaiah 2-5 and Mark 12:1-12)

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Isaiah 2:2-4 gives a glorious description of the future of Zion:

It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the LORD
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go the law,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.  [Isaiah 2:2-4, ESV]

Surprisingly the rest of the chapter will be very negative in its assessment of Jerusalem. In between the positive and the negative are these words:

O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the LORD.  [2:5, ESV]

This is the cry of Isaiah, because as Isaiah said at the end of Chapter 1, God is going to avenge himself on the leaders of Judah and bring justice to the fatherless and the widow. This will be the theme of Chapters 2 and 3:

And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,
and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low,
and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.  [2:17, ESV]

It is not until Isaiah 3:10 that we get positive words:

Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them,
for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.  [3:10, ESV]

But then the words immediately turn negative again. This is because Isaiah 2-5 is directed against the leaders of Judah. God has compassion for those mistreated by the corrupt leaders of Judah, and God here announces to these leaders their doom:

My people—infants are their oppressors,
and women rule over them.
O my people, your guides mislead you
and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.

The LORD has taken his place to contend;
he stands to judge peoples.
The LORD will enter into judgment
with the elders and princes of his people:
“It is you who have devoured the vineyard,
the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
What do you mean by crushing my people,
by grinding the face of the poor?”
declares the Lord GOD of hosts.  [3:12-15, ESV]

In Chapter 5 Isaiah will sing the song of God’s vineyard, how God did everything for the vineyard and yet it did not yield good grapes for him, and so God will let the vineyard be destroyed. Jesus takes up this theme in Mark 12, but with a slightly different emphasis. Whereas Isaiah 5 speaks of the destruction of the vineyard, Mark 12 speaks of the judgment of the tenants and of the giving of the vineyard to others. Clearly Jesus is interacting not only with the song of the vineyard in Chapter 5, but also with God’s plan in Isaiah 1-4 of taking out the corrupt leaders in Judah and replacing them with godly leaders. The leaders in Mark recognize this, for Mark 12:12 says:

And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them.  [ESV]

Matthew and Luke both close Jesus’ parable with an allusion to Isaiah 8:14-15, where the Lord becomes a stumbling block to both houses of Israel. The corrupt among God’s own people will find the Lord to be a stumbling block and will be destroyed for that very reason. Two chapters later in Luke Jesus follows this up with a promise to the apostles:

I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.  [Luke 22:29-30, ESV]

We see here Jesus’ goal: to rid Israel of its ungodly leadership. This was the goal of Isaiah when he ministered in his day. God has compassion on the poor, and he will not tolerate the abuses of the poor that take place under ungodly leadership.

This makes me wonder about the way I lead. Do I do so in a way that the poor will be cared for? Do I listen to the voices of the oppressed? It was a great threat for the early church when in Acts 6 it becomes clear that the Hellenist widows are being neglected in the daily distribution. The apostles are attempting to care for the poor and are failing. But they quickly set things right, appointing Spirit-filled leaders who will make sure that no one gets neglected. How is the church doing today? Are the poor overlooked? Are there those who are oppressed? Is the vineyard failing to bear fruit because of oppressive leadership? We must watch ourselves, lest the Lord become a stumbling block to us!

As I read Isaiah or the Gospel of Luke or Deuteronomy or the Epistle of James I am constantly confronted with a message of care for the poor. Having been taken advantage of by some who are poor in America, I find myself holding back from caring for the poor. Having been brought up in a Republican environment I am tempted to resist government intervention in the market. But I cannot let these experiences and views drive me to a place where the poor and oppressed are neglected. What am I going to do to combat the fact that those who are born to poor families tend to not get as good of an education and to not have as many opportunities to succeed in life? What will the church do to make sure justice is available to all? I don’t have the answers to these questions, but I cannot read Isaiah and not ask these questions. Friends, let us not be the haughty who will be humbled. Let us be the righteous, who “shall eat the fruit of their deeds.” “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD.”

Isaiah, New Testament Use of the Old Testament

Isaiah 1-2 and the Gospel

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As I read Isaiah 1-2 I cannot help but think of Jesus — not because I see Isaiah 1:18 as a direct prediction of the work of Jesus (see my previous post), but because I see the hope that is expressed by Isaiah as fulfilled by Christ. I hear Yahweh’s lament in Isaiah 1:2-4 (ESV):

Children have I reared and brought up,
but they have rebelled against me. . . .
Ah, sinful nation,
a people laden with iniquity,
offspring of evildoers,
children who deal corruptly!
They have forsaken the LORD,
they have despised the Holy One of Israel,
they are utterly estranged.

and I think of John Chapter 8, where Jesus has a debate with the leaders of Israel over who their father is.

We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, “You will become free”? (John 8:33, ESV)

Oh, the irony! Israel has been enslaved for centuries, and Jesus offers freedom, and the Jewish leaders deny they are enslaved! So Jesus basically tells it like it is – they think they are sons of Abraham, but they are really sons of the devil (John 8:34-47). Likewise Isaiah sees Israel as “offspring of evildoers” (Isaiah 1:4, ESV).

But Isaiah has a hope for Jerusalem, and so does Jesus. Isaiah speaks at the end of Chapter 1 of God’s vengeance upon his foes (1:24). At first one may think the Assyrians are in view here, but they are not. It is “you” — the leaders in Jerusalem who are oppressing the fatherless and the widow — that God is turning against (1:25). And God plans on replacing them with judges like at the beginning (1:26).

Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.

God has a plan for Jerusalem:

It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the LORD
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go the law,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah 2:1-4, ESV)

Remove the sin from Israel and you remove its oppression. “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32, ESV). The Book of Acts will pick up on this idea in Isaiah 2:3 of “the word of the Lord” going out “from Jerusalem”:

And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. (Acts 6:7, ESV)

Samaria received the word of God (Acts 8:14)

The Gentiles also received the word of God (Acts 11:1)

But the word of God increased and multiplied. (Acts 12:24, ESV)

So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. (Acts 19:20, ESV)

These statements and others show that Luke (the author of Acts) views the history of the church as the partial fulfillment of Isaiah 2:3 — partial because swords are not yet being beaten into plowshares, but the fulfillment in part confirms that the fullness is indeed coming. Luke structures the Book of Acts according to the statement of Jesus that “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). According to Isaiah 2:3, Jerusalem is where the word must begin. According to Isaiah 49:6 it must go to all of the promise land (all Judea and Samaria) and also “to the end of the earth”:

It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. (Isaiah 49:6, ESV)

Now nations flow to Zion — not Zion as defined by the religious elite in Jerusalem, but Zion as defined by Jesus.  The first thing that happens in Acts before the word of the Lord goes out is that a replacement for Judas is chosen — a twelfth leader is selected. This is in fulfillment of Jesus’ words in Luke 22:28-30 (ESV):

You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Isaiah’s hope that Zion would be renewed is fulfilled in the gospel. The corrupt leadership in Jerusalem is replaced by Jesus and the Apostles, and the word of the Lord begins to go out from Zion. There is still more coming of Isaiah’s promises, but you cannot help but think that Isaiah longed to see the days of Jesus’ ministry. Those days are here for us to experience, whether we are naturally part of Israel or are “the nations” — Gentiles given Israel’s blessings by God’s grace. For those of us who are “the nations,” the natural response according to Isaiah is this:

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.

Isaiah

Come Now, Let Us Reason Together (Isaiah 1:18-20)

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Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be eaten by the sword;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Isaiah 1:18-20 (ESV)

Oftentimes Christians quote a verse with little knowledge of its context. As I am reading through Isaiah right now I thought I would share some thoughts on reading this verse not as an isolated promise text, but as a part of Isaiah’s literary masterpiece.

Typically you will hear 1:18 quoted without reference to 1:19-20. When this is done it sounds like God is saying, “I have a deal for you: I will take away your sin and replace it with purity.” But this is only part of the deal. Not only does God wash away the sins of his people but he also offers the benefits of purity: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.”

In verses 21-23 God describes the city of Jerusalem as a city where the poor are oppressed and uncared for. In this sense “the faithful city has become a whore” (1:21). It is because of this that Israel is facing calamity, both physically and militarily (1:5-8). The cry of the whole chapter is:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.

Isaiah 1:16-17 (ESV)

The emphasis on widows and orphans runs throughout Isaiah. It is this line of thought that is reflected well in James 1:27:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Isaiah describes other attempts at religion in his first chapter. The people are bringing God a “multitude of … sacrifices” (1:11), but the religion of Israel is an abomination to God (1:10-15). At the end of the chapter we see hints that Israel is pursuing Canaanite worship rituals, which Isaiah says will result in their death (1:29-31).

The central point of the chapter (where we began in verses 18-20) is then this: You need to wash your sins away so that you can eat the good of the land rather than be eaten by the sword! A little bit of historical context may help here. Isaiah prophesied “in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah” (1:1). The days of Uzziah were good days for the nation. Both the northern kingdom (Israel) and the southern kingdom (Judah) were expanding during this time. These were the best years for Israel/Judah since the days of Solomon. But by the end of the 8th century BC the northern kingdom would fall to the Assyrians, and Judah too would be invaded with the Assyrians laying siege to Jerusalem.

It is not clear when in this time frame Isaiah said these words, but based on verses 5-9 it is likely that these words came toward the end of the period. Judah had seen Israel fall and was in danger of falling itself.  Sacrifices likely abounded as the people tried to appease Yahweh (and perhaps other gods as well, though Hezekiah himself worked to put an end to idol-worship and to focus people on Yahweh-worship). But God wanted one thing: justice for the oppressed.

As I think about how to apply this today, I realize that I must be a Christian who fights for justice. Other religion is no religion at all. We can make all kinds of prayers and sacrifices for God, but if we freely benefit off of the oppression of the poor in the process, God will not hear our prayers. God would say to the Christian today, “Come now, let us reason together. Your sins have been like scarlet; let’s change that. If you agree to this, I will bless you. If you do not, you will experience my wrath.” Of course God’s blessing does not always mean eating the good of the land in this life and his wrath does not always mean military defeat. But the basic message remains the same. We need to fight for justice, or God will bring us to justice. Lord, help us.

 

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