Greg Beale in A New Testament Biblical Theology (Baker, 2011) —
Jesus’ life, trials, death for sinners, and especially resurrection by the Spirit have launched the fulfillment of the eschatological already-not yet new-creational reign, bestowed by grace through faith and resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to advance this new-creational reign and resulting in judgment for the unbelieving, unto the triune God’s glory. (163)
1 Corinthians 1:7–9,
as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who will sustain you to the end,
guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful,
by whom you were called into
the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Do you know what Paul is saying here?
“As you wait.” We’re waiting for something. So that’s what this is called. Waiting. More specifically, we’re waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus is not here right now, not in his person. I can’t see him or touch him or hear his voice. Jesus, the Messiah (to be clear), the Lord (to be clearer). Our Lord Jesus Christ (to say it best). He will be revealed. He will appear. Cue John: we shall “see him like he is” (1 John 3:2).
This is what we’re waiting for.
And Jesus will sustain you to the end. So this waiting is a sustained waiting and it’s not sustained by ourselves. Jesus, the one for whom we’re waiting is the one who is sustaining our waiting. He knows we’re waiting. He’s not out to lunch. He sees us. He knows. He knows it’s not easy. He knows that some waiting are starving because of famine, that others are persecuted because of their government, that others are tempted because of riches, that others don’t have the Old Testament in their language. He knows and he will sustain us.
And that’s to the end. The end, oh that’s explained in the next line: “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (there’s that best title again, “our Lord Jesus Christ”). The end is the “day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s the day when he will be revealed. Bring the OT in here, the great day of YHWH, the day of judgment and salvation. The wicked are put down and the righteous are saved. That’s the end. And it’s to this end that the Jesus of whom we’re waiting to be revealed will sustain us.
And this sustaining to the end will mean that he keeps us guiltless. We will be guiltless. Innocent. But we’re not. We’re sinners. We sin. We’ve got lots of guilt.
But he died for us. He bore our guilt. He took it upon himself. He suffered in our place. He went to the cross and absorbed the wrath of God that should have been blasted against us, forever. Our sins are forgiven. Removed. His rightousness, all the benefits of being in him are now ours. And he speaks our faith in this great work. He prays for our faith in this great work so that it won’t fail. And as guiltless as we are in him is as guiltless as we’ll be on that day.
Let me explain why. God is faithful.
This is the ground. God is faithful. That’s why it’s going to go this way. God the Father who elected us, the one by whom we have been effectually called, he is faithful. He doesn’t say things he doesn’t do. All his works, well, work. No mistakes. No hiccup. He called us and he meant it.
And this calling, this is into the fellowship of his Son. His Son, the one with whom he is well-pleased. The one of whom is also “Jesus Christ our Lord” (there it is again). The Father has called us into fellowship with him. Fellowship. You mean, like, communion? Participation? Union? Yes, yes. That’s it. Fellowship. The Father has called us into fellowship with his beloved Son. See, I told you we’d be guiltless. We’re in Christ. In him. Fellowshiping with him, sharing in his inheritance, delighted in by the Father as his own workmanship, created in Jesus. In Jesus the Messiah who is our Lord.
We’re waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain us to the end, who will make us guiltless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom we’ve been called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, the one for whom we’re waiting. The one who is sustaining the wait.
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Psalm 16:11,
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
“Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.” David begins Psalm 16.
Immediately, we see the language of faith (cf. Psalm 2:11). David trusts in the Lord. He doesn’t merely acknowledge that God exists, but he understands his entire existence in relation to God’s supremacy.
“I have no good apart from you” (verse 2). “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot” (verse 5). “I have set the Lord always before me” (verse 8).
It’s this life of faith that leads up to verse 11. David shows us what it means to trust in the Lord. And the life of trusting the Lord makes David’s heart glad, indeed his whole being rejoices and his flesh also dwells secure (verse 9). Why does his flesh dwell secure? It’s because the Lord will not abandon his soul to Sheol. The Lord won’t let his holy one see corruption. In short, here is resurrection.
This is the theme of Psalm 16 that continues into Psalm 17 (cf. Psalm 17:15). And it has Messianic overtones. In fact, the apostles tell us that this is about Jesus (Acts 2:19–36). David is speaking here, but as Peter proclaimed, “he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption” (Acts 2:31).
It’s better for us that this is about Jesus. If it’s about Jesus then it’s about us, too. For just as Christ was raised, we’ll be raised (1 Corinthians 15:17–20). More than a promise, we have an actual demonstration. There’s an empty tomb out there to remind us.
So it’s about resurrection. And when David starts in verse 11, “You make known to me the path of life,” that’s what he’s talking about. The path of life is not mainly about the here and now. Calvin writes, “It is to form a very low estimate, indeed, of the grace of God to speak of him as a guide to his people in the path of life only for a very few years in this world” (Commentaries, 233). There are tons of things in Holy Scripture about life in this world, but this isn’t one. The path of life isn’t about balancing your checkbook (though that’s a good thing), neither about the way of wisdom (not in this psalm, anyway), nor about the how-tos of faith (even when we need them).
The path of life is being united to God such that we’ll never be without him.
The path of life is what God makes known to us — not as a trail to follow, but as a promise to embrace.
That’s the glorious shift in Psalm 16. It begins with our faith in God and ends with God’s faithfulness to us. He will not abandon us. No he won’t! He won’t. He makes known to us the path of life. Life beyond the grave. Life that ushers us into his presence where there is fullness of joy, at this right hand where there are pleasures forevermore.
So we dwell secure here. Our being rejoices. We are glad. We can go forth today and tomorrow and next knowing that not even death can separate us from God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. We know how this thing will turn out.
We will be with him.
Read the original post at Fighterverses.com.
Romans 10:13–15,
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
This is one of the mountain peaks of Holy Scripture. This significance of this text can hardly be overstated on a couple levels. For one, there is just the good these verses bring to us — we’re told how we can be saved. And then, overall, these verses encapusalte so much of the Bible, of Paul’s theology, of how it all comes together with the people of Israel and the Gentiles, the law and faith and righteousness and how Jesus is what it’s all about.
Leading up to verse 13, Paul tells us how Israel has misread the Scriptures. He lays out in detail Israel’s failure to understand God’s righteousness, that is, their ignorance of Jesus (Romans 10:3–4). Paul then goes to the Torah in Romans 10:5 to draw a parallel between that word and Jesus.
Jesus has come down from heaven — we don’t go up to him. Jesus has been raised from the dead — we don’t go bring him up. The point here: it’s not human striving. It’s here. The word is here. Jesus has done it all already and this is what we’re proclaiming. Do you believe?
If you believe (Paul must be excited here!), if you believe, if you confess, you will be saved!
These two expressions, believing and confessing, describe the one reality of faith and lead up to the two Old Testament verses quoted in Romans 10:11 and Romans 10:13. Believe in your heart because everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame (Isaiah 28:16). Confess with your mouth because everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Joel 2:32).
This is good news. No more white-knuckled laboring to establish our own righteousness. No more vain endeavors to impress God by how good we think we can keep his law. No more more searching up or down for someone to come help us.
Jesus Christ has come to this earth, God became man. He walked in our shoes and persevered in every way imaginable. Where we can’t but fail, he was faithful and obedient and righteous and true. And then he went to the die for us. The King went to suffer for his people. He took upon himself all of our guilt and shame, all the wrath we heaped up for ourselves by our rebellion against God.
Jesus died for us, and was buried. Then on the third day, he was raised from the dead, and he appeared to Cephas, the twelve, and later to about 500 folks. He was resurrected to be received by faith. For us to turn from our sin and embrace him. He is now ascended and reigning. His kingdom is coming. His word is being proclaimed.
This very word, the one here. The word that declares God has acted. God has done it. The dead-end roads of our efforts are exposed. Now, here is the word, and everyone who believes will be saved. Here is the word — you have heard it — here is what Jesus has done, will you call on him?
Read the original post at Fighterverses.com.
Seth Godin:
Fitzgerald nailed it when he described Jay Gatsby’s attitude: “What would be the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?” It’s easy to fall so in love with the idea of starting that we never actually start. (Poke the Box, 75)
One of Godin’s goals in this little book is to expose the truth about failure — it’s not as bad as we all think.
And yet, the fear of failure is paralyzing. It’s the great deterrent to our starting things, to our taking risks. It is, as Godin explains, the dirt that buries us in the status quo program of the world around us.
Now, in my opinion, the biggest and simplest takeaway from reading Godin is how much more what he says applies to the Christian than to the secular professional.
Godin is brilliant in trying to convince his readers to step forward, to fly in the face of fear, to “start.”
And Jesus says this:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18–20)
Whatever it is caught in the brain storm of your starting, let it have this verb in its sights: make disciples.
Be about sharing the gospel and your very own self with people in order to present them mature in Christ (1 Thessalonians 2:8; Colossians 1:28).
Jesus has given us the commission, with all authority in heaven and earth. And he is always with us, always, with all authority in heaven and earth.
Pastor John writes,
When the threat of death becomes a door to paradise the final barrier to temporal risk is broken. When a Christian says from the heart, “To live is Christ and to die is gain,” he is free to love no matter what. . . . To every timid saint, wavering on the edge of some dangerous gospel venture, Jesus says, “Fear not, you can only be killed” (Luke 12:4). (A Call for Christian Risk)
How can we be afraid?
Go.
[Original post at Desiring God]
Humility and gratitude are not virtues that we have to clinch our fists to create. Just stop a minute and look around. What do you have that you have not received?
I love this question. I love the Apostle Paul for asking it in 1 Corinthians 4:7. And I love how it levels me, puts me down, shuts my mouth. It’s one of those power tweets in the Bible that doesn’t let you walk away the same person.
What do you have that you have not received?
Stop, ask, think.
Be bewildered by the grace of Jesus.
A Song of Ascents
Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! (Psalms 120:5)
The first “Song of Ascents” tells us Israel is in exile.
Glance through the surrounding pages to see this same superscript is repeated. In fact, Psalms 120–134 are all introduced “A Song of Ascents.” Understood in its context, this refers to Israel’s “coming up” out of Babylonian captivity. As each psalm shows us a little more we begin to see the journey from exile to Jerusalem.
Psalm 121 reminds us that the Lord is our keeper, he’ll keep our going out and coming in (verse 8). Psalm 122 directs us to a restored Jerusalem as our hope and prayer (verse 5). And a “restored Jerusalem” is a Jerusalem under the kingship of Messiah (verse 6). Then Psalm 123 defines our hope — “our eyes look to the Lord our God.” (verse 2). The Lord
alone is our salvation. And Psalm 124 assures us of this by recounting Israel’s deliverance from Egypt (verses 1–5). Psalm 125 interjects a vision of Jerusalem once more. Mount Zion (Jerusalem) is the picture of one who trusts in the Lord. This person, like Jerusalem, will not be moved but abides forever. Psalm 126 longs for this reality, “Restore our fortunes, O Lord!” (verse 4).
But wait. Right now we’re in Meschech. Reading Psalm 120 puts us surrounded by the tents of Kedar. Where they hate peace.
And as it was with the psalmist so it is with us, the readers. “We mourn in lonely exile here.” But it’s not lonely because the Son of God has come. He came and lived and suffered and died and was buried, then raised and ascended and enthroned. That’s when he sent the Spirit, the Helper, who indwells us now as a guarantee and validates our sonship by his witness (John 14:15–17; Ephesians 1:14; Romans 8:16).
So we’re not lonely, but we are waiting.
Jesus said he’d come back (John 14:3) — we’ve not yet seen his face. Paul said our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20) — do you read the paper here?
Then Peter gives us (yes, all Christians) a helpful phrase: “elect exiles” (1 Peter 1:1, 17). That’s what we are. We’re exiles. We’re waiting.
And waiting is hard to do. We get the sorrowful part in 2 Corinthians 6:10. It is an age of groaning (Romans 8:23). It feels a lot like Meschech.
________
A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon
Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord . . . (Psalm 127:3)
So Israel is in exile, but there is hope. Our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us (Psalm 123:2). These are the “Songs of Ascents” after all. Israel is coming up out of her captivity. We are headed to a restored Jerusalem.
From exile to a restored Jerusalem. We’ve seen this idea by the time we come to Psalm 127 and now it get’s a little clearer. Exactly how is this movement going to happen? How will we go from here to there?
Let’s talk about children.
This moving from here to there is only going to happen if the Lord himself does it. All our waiting is vain unless he shows up. And children are a heritage from the Lord. The sudden shift to children is no accident. The psalmist is refining our hope. The restored Jerusalem and the Lord‘s work are associated with the blessing of children.
But it’s not just any children. Not at this point in the story, not in this “drama of the Son.” Since Genesis 3:15 we’ve been looking for one born of a woman. Then for the offspring of Abraham (Genesis 12:3). Then for the descendent of David, the Son whose kingdom will be established forever (2 Samuel 7:13). We’re looking for this Son. He’s the locus of our hope.
The superscript is another step to help us see this. This psalm in the Songs of Ascents has an additional line. “A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.” Solomon? Yes. A son of David. The psalmist wants us to know that all our waiting is targeted on this Son. So the line about Solomon makes us think “David’s son” and, perhaps, it also means to put Solomon in the same place as us. Maybe he knows (like we find out in 1 Kings) that he’s not the promised one.
We begin to hear the message: Solomon has come and gone . . . and we’re still looking for the Son.
And while we, after the Nativity, are not so much looking for the Son, we are looking to him. Jerusalem is not yet new and we know the only way it will be is by this One.
________
A Song of Ascents
There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. (Psalm 132:17)
Psalm 132 is the longest and clearest of the Songs of Ascents. As we’ve seen in the earlier psalms, we are coming up out of exile in hopes of a restored Jerusalem. Psalm 132 tells us why this Jerusalem is so special: it is the place of God’s dwelling and the throne of his anointed.
Two concepts come together in this city: the Lord‘s presence (the ark) and the Lord‘s reign (Davidic kingship). This is what makes it the zip code of our dreams. These two things. The place where God dwells. Where his presence is known. Where his nearness is felt. And the domain of his power. The execution of his authority. The government of his righteousness.
The psalmist is looking for this place. He wants to go there. Then in the fullness of time, in a person, God sends it all here. The presence and kingship come in a baby. A horn sprouts for David. Jesus is God with us (Matthew 1:22–23). And Jesus is the King (Matthew 2:5–6) — both of Israel and the nations (Matthew 2:11).
Don’t miss it, though. Psalm 132 isn’t really fulfilled in the Gospels. It’s more like a bullet straight to Revelation 21. The picture here is post-Golgotha. This horn of David will see his enemies clothed in shame (Psalm 132:18). He won’t be wearing a crown of thorns then.
And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb [the descendant of David]. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb . (Revelation 21:22–23; 22:16)
No longer will there by anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. (Revelation 21:3)
Here is the vision of ultimate Christmas merriment.
We know that Jesus has come and that he will come again. Christmas is the time to celebrate his birth and long for his return.
Originally posted at Desiring God.
1 Kings 18 moves me. It’s almost like your there on Mount Carmel, watching this whole thing take place. And most of the time you spend watching the showdown isn’t of the Lord‘s great answer to Elijah. The fire from heaven, the offering consumed, the people on their faces — this didn’t take that long. It wasn’t dragged out. It was short and explosive.
Most of your time is spent watching these prophets of Baal. These poor prophets of Baal. It is a sad sight. These guys are mutilating their bodies just to get a peep from their god.
Hours go by.
Hours.
And there’s nothing. Not a word. . . .
And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention. (1 Kings 18:28–29)
450 prophets of Baal, weeping and pleading, wounds all over their bodies, blood gushing out, exhausted and limping around an altar, hoping for Baal to show himself. Could it ever get any more gruesome that this? Imagine it. Seriously. Could there ever be a scene more horrible than this?
Yes.
The only scene more gruesome than a crowd of people limping around an altar, wounded all over their body with blood gushing out, begging to see a god who doesn’t exist is this: the true God of the universe hanging on a cross, wounded all over his body with blood gushing out, showing his love to a people who don’t care.
The prophets of Baal begged their god, “Answer us!” “Say something!” “At least a gesture!” “Please, anything!”
And the true God showed his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. We didn’t ask him for that. We were sinners who didn’t care anything about God, we worshipped ourselves, we were dead in our sins. And it was precisely then that God showed himself. It was while we were still weak, at the right time, that Christ died for the ungodly.
Praise him.
[This post is adapted from an earlier version at the Desiring God blog]
Psalms 23:1-2,
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.”
The beginning of Psalm 23 sounds a lot different from the beginning of Psalm 22.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1)
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1)
Both are psalms of David placed beside each other with a purpose. We are struck in Psalm 22 with a cry of desperation. We are soothed in Psalm 23 with a declaration of the Lord‘s sufficiency. As the reader, we are supposed to feel this contrast. We are supposed to read them together, walking with the voice of each verse, being led to a confidence in the Lord that declares “I shall not want.”
So there is forsakenness in Psalm 22. It’s real. David has written, but the speaker is the Afflicted One — the one who is mocked in his suffering, the one who is surrounded by dogs (or Gentile soliders), the one whose hands and feet are pierced, whose garments are divided and for which lots are cast. This is Jesus on the cross (Matthew 27:35, 39, 46; John 19:23-24).
Psalm 22 gives us the voice of Messiah in his affliction. We read him and hear his prayers, almost like a proto-Gethsemane. And then David himself steps in to command our praise in Psalm 22:23. The Lord has heard the Afflicted One’s cry (v. 24). More than that, David tells us, “The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord!” (v. 26). David is now exulting in verse 27 — “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.”
From forsaken (22:1) to heard (22:24) to satisfied (v. 26) to worshiped by all the families of the nations (22:27). This is where Psalm 22 takes us. Now how did this happen? Here is where Psalm 23 comes in (and Psalm 24 soon after).
We know that Jesus was not ultimately forsaken. There’s an empty tomb to prove it. Even though he walked through the valley of the shadow of death, he was not left alone. He was not abandoned. In fact, on the third day he was raised. He was raised and declared to be the Son of God, given a name that is above every name. The Lord was his shepherd. He didn’t lack. That’s what the resurrection is saying.
And this is why we love Psalm 23. This is not a mere poem that’s appropriately recited at graveside services. This is the Messianic hope in God’s utter faithfulness, even through the shadows of death. The Lord is our shepherd and he never forsakes us. Never.
This is a confidence in the resurrection rooted in Jesus’ own victory over death. As the Father raised him, he will raise us, too (1 Corinthians 15:23). Because we are united to Jesus, the same shepherding grace exemplified in his victory is the same shepherding grace that will be exemplified in ours.
Read the original post at FighterVerses.com.
2 Samuel 10:12 —
Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.
Part of the Lord‘s covenant with David about Messiah included rest from all his enemies (2 Samuel 7:11). The promise for a Son who would be King forever came with a vision of dominion and peace. We even see a foretaste of the Lord‘s faithfulness to the promise in David’s military victories in 2 Samuel 8. This is a continuation of the promise that links the Davidic kingship back to Numbers 24:17-20.
So when Joab makes this awesome declaration in 2 Samuel 10:12 we should view it to be in this same line of hope. Joab can say what he says because he know what seems good to the Lord. It is good to the Lord to be faithful to his promises — to sustain the house of David and bring the promised Son of David to be born many years later in the City of David. God’s faithfulness to this promise is God’s faithfulness to the radiance of his own glory, for this promise becomes the locus of the revelation of his person (John 1:1-5, 14-18; Colossians 1:15-20; 2:9; Hebrews 1:1-3)
In other words, Joab can say what he says because of Jesus. And because of Jesus, we can say the same thing: let the Lord do what seems good to him!
