George Eldon Ladd on Christ's return

From Between Two Worlds:

When Will Christ Return?

And this gospel of the kingdom
will be proclaimed
throughout the whole world
as a testimony to all nations,
and then the end will come.
—Matthew 24:14

New Testament scholar George Eldon Ladd, writing in the 1950s, comments:

The subject of this chapter is, When will the Kingdom come? I am not setting any dates. I do not know when the end will come.

And yet I do know this: When the Church has finished its task of evangelizing the world, Christ will come again. The Word of God says it.

Why did He not come in A.D. 1oo? Because the Church had not evangelized the world.
Why did He not return in a.d. 1000? Because the Church had not finished its task of world-wide evangelization.

Is He coming soon? He is—if we, God’s people, are obedient to the command of the Lord to take the Gospel into all the world.

. . .  “How are we to know when the mission is completed? How close are we to the accomplishment of the task? Which countries have been evangelized and which have not? How close are we to the end? Does this not lead to date-setting?”

I answer, I do not know. God alone knows the definition of terms. I cannot precisely define who “all the nations” are. Only God knows exactly the meaning of “evangelize.” He alone, who has told us that this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations, will know when that objective has been accomplished.

But I do not need to know. I know only one thing: Christ has not yet returned; therefore the task is not yet done. When it is done, Christ will come. Our responsibility is not to insist on defining the terms of our task; our responsibility is to complete it. So long as Christ does not return, our work is undone. Let us get busy and complete our mission.

. . .  Here is the motive of our mission: the final victory awaits the completion of our task. “And then the end will come.” There is no other verse in the Word of God which says, “And then the end will come.”

When is Christ coming again? When the Church has finished its task.

When will This Age end? When the world has been evangelized.

“What will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” (Matt. 24: 3). “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations; and then, and then, the end will come.” When? Then; when the Church has fulfilled its divinely appointed mission.

Do you love the Lord’s appearing? Then you will bend every effort to take the Gospel into all the world. It troubles me in the light of the clear teaching of God’s Word, in the light of our Lord’s explicit definition of our task in the Great Commission (Matt. 28: 18-20) that we take it so lightly. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” This is the Good News of the Kingdom. . . .  All authority is His. “Go ye therefore.” Wherefore? Because all authority, all power is His, and because He is waiting until we have finished our task. His is the Kingdom; He reigns in heaven, and He manifests His reign on earth in and through His Church. When we have accomplished our mission, He will return and establish His Kingdom in glory. To us it is given not only to wait for but also to hasten the coming of the day of God (II Pet. 3:12). This is the mission of the Gospel of the Kingdom, and this is our mission.

George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1959), ch. 9, “When Will the Kingdom Come?”

Pharoah's Heart

Great stuff from Justin Taylor:

The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart

Does your theology have categories by which to understand both God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart and then Pharaoh’s subsequent self-hardening? It’s a good test-case for biblically understanding divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

Here is a quick run-down of the key biblical data:

• Three times Yahweh declares that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart (Ex. 4:21; 7:3; 14:4).
• Six times Yahweh actually hardens Pharaoh’s heart (Ex. 9:12; 10:1; 10:20; 10:27; 11:10; 14:8).
• Seven times the hardening is expressed as a divine passive with Yahweh as the implied subject, i.e., Pharaoh’s heart “was hardened” by Yahweh (Ex. 7:13; 7:14; 7:22; 8:19; 9:7; 9:35; 14:5).
• And three times we are told that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Ex. 8:15; 8:32; 9:34).

Divine-hardening and self-hardening are interwoven, but the God’s action is primary and initiatory: the first five citations (in Exodus 4 and 7) all focus on God’s action; the important point of Pharaoh’s self-hardening only appears in the three verses of Exodus 8 and 9.

The Apostle Paul famously reflected on the theological implications of this in Romans 9, using it to demonstrate the power of God’s mercy over the human will. Note the inclusio (or literary envelope) in Romans 9:16-18, including his quote of Exodus 9:16 on God’s purpose in hardening Pharaoh’s heart:

So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

John Piper was teaching at Bethel College when he began working on these issues in the late 1970s. It resulted in a highly regarded book published in 1983, The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23. Around the same time, Greg Beale, then at Gordon-College, was making the first attempt to provide contextual exegesis of every hardening passage in Exodus 4-14. The fruit of this is in his article: “An Exegetical and Theological Consideration of the Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart in Exodus 4-14 and Romans 9,” Trinity Journal 5 (1984): 129-154.

In his essay Professor Beale asks four questions, and then after the detailed exegesis of these passages he offers his conclusions. I’ve reproduced below the questions, followed by the answers he provides.

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(1) Who is the ultimate cause of Pharaoh’s hardening?
First, our study has shown that God was the ultimate cause of all of the hardening actions throughout Exod 4-14 so that at no time was Pharaoh’s volition independent of Yahweh’s influence when he hardened his heart. This may be especially significant since the hardening may be viewed as a polemic against the Egyptian idea of Pharaoh’s deity and the belief that Pharaoh’s heart was the all-controlling factor both in history and society.

(2) If the hardening is at all associated with God, is it an unconditional or conditional judgment with respect to Pharaoh’s sin?
[I]t is never stated in Exod 4-14 that Yahweh hardens Pharaoh in judgment because of any prior reason or condition residing in him. Rather, as stated in the exegetical conclusion, the only purpose or reason given for the hardening is that it would glorify Yahweh.  Therefore, the divine hardening of Pharaoh was unconditional. All that can be said is that Yahweh deemed it necessary to include Pharaoh’s disobedient refusal in the historical plan, which was to glorify himself. . . .

(3) When Paul refutes the idea that God is unjust [Rom. 9:14] in rejecting Esau rather than Jacob before they were born [Rom. 9:10-13], does he give an understandable explanation for this refutation (gar, [Rom. 9:17]), or does he merely refute the idea without offering any rationale in defense of God’s rejection?
Neither Moses nor Paul leaves room for the possibility that God was unjust or immoral in his dealings with Pharaoh or Pharaoh had a peccatum alienum [alien guilt].  Paul alludes to Exod 9:16 in affirming the justice of God:  “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” . . . Paul seems to be alluding to Exod 9:16 as a summary of the purpose of the hardening throughout Exod 4-14–that God’s name should be proclaimed “in all the world.”  If God had not repeatedly hardened Pharaoh, there would have been no drawn out series of plagues and there would have been no proclamation of God’s omnipotence. Thus, Paul sees hardening as the key to the proclamation of the divine name. That Paul understands Exod 9:16 in terms of hardening is clear from his summary of this allusion in Rom 9:18b (“he hardens whom he wills”).

(4) Does the hardening involve God’s dealing with certain individuals or nations only on the plane of history or does it have reference to a general principle concerning God’s eternal rejection of man from salvation?
. . . God’s hardening and rejection of Pharaoh (and the Egyptians) does not appear to be limited to divine dealings only on the temporal, historical level, but appears to have a continuity with a rejection from eternal salvation. This may be evident from the following considerations in Exodus:

(1) hardening of the heart probably has implications in the spiritual realm affecting Pharaoh’s eternal destiny, since in the OT leb (“heart”) refers very often to the inner, spiritual center of one’s relationship with God, as is also true of “heart” in the Egyptian literature;

(2) this is supported by observing that Pharaoh’s hardening of his heart is referred to as “sin against the Lord ” for which he needs “forgiveness” (10:16-17; cf. 9:34).  Therefore the hardening does not merely concern Pharaoh’s intellectual-volitional faculty, but also the spiritual center of his being, since he repeatedly disobeyed God’s command and deserves judgment.  This is significant in the Exodus account, since the Egyptians viewed Pharaoh as divine and sinless while living, and believed at death he was exempt from judgment but became the god (Osiris) presiding over judgment after his death. In addition to this, other terms in the immediate context of the Rom 9 hardening statement are used there and elsewhere in the pauline corpus with reference to the eternal destinies of people, so that it would appear likely that Paul has the same concerns in Rom 9:17 and that he likewise understood the Exodus hardening.  The context also points to a concern for eternal destinies in Rom 9, since Rom 8:29-39 refers to assurance of eternal salvation and Rom 10-11 focus on the problem of why national Israel is not in such a salvific condition.

Could Paul have expressed such grief about his hardened brethern and wished himself “accursed” on their behalf if issues of eternal destinies were not at stake? Therefore the hardening is not limited to unique historical situations, but is an expression of a gnomic principle of God’s eternal dealings.  The principle of such dealings is based on God’s unconditional nature, as Paul’s use of Exod 9:16 has shown.  That such a principle is in Paul’s mind is apparent from Rom 9:18, where he generalizes the individual OT examples of the divine dispensing of mercy and hardening; the former explains God’s dealings with the Israelite remnant and Gentiles, while the latter explains the present rejection of the majority of the Jewish nation.

More top ten list from Between Two Worlds

Sam Storms: Top Ten (!) Books in 2011

Guest Post by Sam Storms

The exclamation mark after the number Ten should be noted. As you will shortly see, I failed miserably in my attempt to restrict the list to precisely ten books. Perhaps I should have titled this article, “My Top Ten Categories of Books of the Year,” insofar as I’ve included several volumes that tend to fall into the same genre. In any case, there are simply too many excellent works to exclude them because of the supposed sanctity of the number Ten. I’ll start with number ten and move to number one.

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(10) Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine, by Gregg R. Allison (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 778pp.
My good friend Gregg Allison has written a companion volume to Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology that traces the main themes of Christian theology through the centuries of church history. It is both deep and wide and will prove to be the standard evangelical contribution to this area of study for quite some time to come.

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(9) G. K. Chesterton: A Biography, by Ian Ker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 747pp., and Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy, by Paul C. Gutjahr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 477pp.
There’s a tie for number nine. These two excellent biographies are both published by Oxford and therefore are both incredibly expensive. [JT note: the Hodge one is now available in paperback, though.] But they’re worth it, especially the one on Hodge. This is in fact the first extensive biography of the great 19th century Princeton theologian, and was followed late this year by yet another written by Andrew Hoffecker (which I haven’t seen yet). When I attended Dallas Seminary in the 70′s, I read Hodge’s 3-volume Systematic Theology with a relish. I will always be indebted to his work.

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(8) No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington, by Condoleezza Rice (New York City: Crown Publishers, 2011), 766pp.
I’ve only started to dip into this massive volume, but I’ve come to greatly appreciate Condi Rice and only wish that she had entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

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(7) God’s Grand Design: The Theological Vision of Jonathan Edwards, by Sean Michael Lucas (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 224pp.
This is one of the most readable and enjoyable introductions to Edwards and his theology that you’ll find. However, I almost didn’t include it on my list, not for what it says but for what it omits. Lucas concedes “that there is a major gap in this book; there is not a significant direct reference to Edwards’s Freedom of the Will” (199). His reasons are two: First, he says “it is difficult to understand” (199), which it is. Second, he believes that it is not “very relevant to the Christian life” (199). “I know that others would disagree with me,” writes Lucas, ‘but there it is” (199). Yes, I profoundly disagree, as Freedom of the Will in many ways provides the foundation for our need of grace, explains the nature of conversion, and magnifies the sovereignty of God in our salvation. He also admits not including anything about The Life of David Brainerd. “Brainerd,” he says, “strikes me as overly morose and inward” (200). Yes, I agree, but it is still a powerful and important work. Read Lucas, but only after you’ve first read Freedom of the Will and The Life of David Brainerd!
Since I’m on Edwards, I’ll also include two more that I hope prove worthy of inclusion in a list like this. Jonathan Edwards’s Apologetic for the Great Awakening (with particular attention to Charles Chauncy’s Criticisms), by Robert Davis Smart (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011), 366pp., looks to be a winner, but I’ve only just started it. I’ve also only briefly glanced at John J. Bombaro’s Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption History, and the Reprobate (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2012), 327pp.

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(6) The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion, by Rodney Stark (New York: HarperOne, 2011), 506pp.
This is the second year in a row that a book by Rodney Stark appears on my Top Ten list. Last year it was God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, which will challenge every myth you’ve ever believed about the Crusades. In this volume, which is something of a sequel to his 1996 volume, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force, Stark conducts a fascinating survey of “selected important episodes and aspects of the Christian story through the centuries” and assesses them from “new perspectives” (2). He is quite clear that this “is not another general history of Christianity” (2), so don’t read it with expectations of finding a comprehensive treatment of church history. As always, Stark is controversial and challenging, but never dull.

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(5) Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters, by N. T. Wright (New York: HarperOne, 2011), 240pp.
What can one say about N. T. Wright? He is at one moment exhilarating and at another somewhat annoying. I found myself scratching my head at one moment and wanting to underline virtually every word and sentence the next. He is without question one of the most gifted writers in the Christian world. One has to be somewhat guarded in reading Wright, if only because of the unconscious tendency to embrace as true all he says simply because he says it so doggoned eloquently! In any case, this is an excellent book. It is something of a popularized merging of his massive and technical Jesus and the Victory of God and his smaller volume The Challenge of Jesus. In any case, get it. If you’ve never read Wright, this is a great place to start. You don’t have to agree with everything he says (I don’t) to profit immensely from his insights into to who Jesus is and what he did.

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(4) Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, by Craig S. Keener, 2 volumes (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 1172pp.
There’s no way to adequately explain the extent of information provided by Keener in these two huge volumes. He addresses virtually everything you might ever want to know about biblical miracles and their credibility. He responds to anti-supernatural critics and then proceeds to document hundreds of miracles throughout the modern world.

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(3) What Is the Mission of the Church? Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission, by Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 283pp.
This one has certainly been controversial since its release. I’m not sure why, because I found it entirely persuasive and extremely helpful.

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(2) Practicing Affirmation: God-Centered Praise of Those Who Are Not God, by Sam Crabtree (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 176pp.
I simply had to include this short yet eminently practical and pastoral book by Sam. This is a book everyone should read, and then practice. I have my staff reading it and we distributed copies to all those who lead our small groups at Bridgeway. In the long run, it may prove to be the most beneficial and edifying of all those listed here in 2011.

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(1) The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, by Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 757pp.
In case you don’t remember, or didn’t read last year’s list, I included this volume among those to look for in 2011. Its actual publication date is 2012, but I’ve got it and I’m already deep into what may well prove to be the finest single volume treatment of Edwards ever written. I’ve read virtually everything that both McDermott and McClymond have written about Edwards over the years, and it’s wonderful to see them collaborate on this incredible book. It’s big and expensive but worth every dollar!

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Until next year,
Sam

The Wexford Carol

HT: Justin Taylor

Allison Krauss and Yo-Yo Ma perform the Wexford Carol, “one of the oldest extant Christmas carols in the European tradition.”



Good people all, this Christmas time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending his beloved son
With Mary holy we should pray,
To God with love this Christmas Day
In Bethlehem upon that morn,
There was a blessed Messiah born

The night before that happy tide
The noble Virgin and her guide
Were long time seeking up and down
To find a lodging in the town
But mark right well what came to pass
From every door repelled, alas
As was foretold, their refuge all
Was but a humble ox’s stall

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep
To whom God’s angel did appear
Which put the shepherds in great fear
Arise and go, the angels said
To Bethlehem, be not afraid
For there you’ll find, this happy morn
A princely babe, sweet Jesus, born

With thankful heart and joyful mind
The shepherds went the babe to find
And as God’s angel had foretold
They did our Saviour Christ behold
Within a manger he was laid
And by his side a virgin maid
Attending on the Lord of Life
Who came on earth to end all strife

There were three wise men from afar
Directed by a glorious star
And on they wandered night and day
Until they came where Jesus lay
And when they came unto that place
Where our beloved Messiah lay
They humbly cast them at his feet
With gifts of gold and incense sweet.

Schaeffer on those who have not heard

I came across this at Between Two Worlds:

On What Basis Will God Judge Those Who Have Never Heard?

An illustration from Francis Schaeffer:

If every little baby that was ever born anywhere in the world had a tape recorder hung about its neck, and if this tape recorder only recorded the moral judgments with which this child as he grew bound other men, the moral precepts might be much lower than the biblical law, but they would still be moral judgments.
Eventually each person comes to that great moment when he stands before God as judge. Suppose, then, that God simply touched the tape recorder button and each man heard played out in his own words all those statements by which he had bound other men in moral judgment. He could hear it going on for years—thousands and thousands of moral judgments made against other men, not aesthetic judgments, but moral judgments.

Then God would simply say to the man, though he had never head the Bible, now where do you stand in the light of your own moral judgments? The Bible points out . . . that every voice would be stilled. All men would have to acknowledge that they have deliberately done those things which they knew to be wrong. Nobody could deny it.

We sin two kinds of sin. We sin one kind as though we trip off the curb, and it overtakes us by surprise. We sin a second kind of sin when we deliberately set ourselves up to fall. And no one can say he does not sin in the latter sense. Paul’s comment is not just theoretical and abstract, but addressed to the individual—”O man”—any man without the Bible, as well as the man with the Bible.

. . . God is completely just. A man is judged and found wanting on the same basis on which he has tried to bind others.

—Francis Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century, 2d ed. (Crossway, 1985), pp. 49-50.

Consider the principles set forth in Romans 2:

1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? . . .

14 . . . When Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

How to Think about Curses in the Psalms

From Justin Taylor's blog:

How to Think about Curses in the Psalms

Many psalms call on God for help as the faithful are threatened with harm from enemies (often called “the wicked”—frequently the unfaithful who persecute the godly, and sometimes Gentile oppressors). In a number of places, the requested help is that God would punish these enemies. Christians, with the teaching and example of Jesus (in passages like Matt. 5:38-48; Luke 23:34; 1 Pet. 2:19-23; cf. Acts 7:6), may wonder what to make of such curses:

From Jack Collins’s “Introduction to the Psalms” in the ESV Study Bible:

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How can it possibly be right for God’s people to pray in this way?
Many have supposed that this is an area in which the ethics of the NT improve upon and supersede the OT.
Others suggest that these only apply to the church’s warfare with its ultimate enemy, Satan, and his demons.
Neither of these is fully satisfying, both because the NT authors portray themselves as heirs of OT ethics (cf. Matt. 22:34-40) and because the NT has some curses of its own (e.g., 1 Cor. 16:22; Gal. 1:8-9; Rev. 6:9-10), even finding instruction in some of the Psalms’ curses (e.g., Acts 1:20 and Rom. 11:9-10, using Psalms 69 and 109).

Each of the psalm passages must be taken on its own, and the notes address these questions (e.g., see notes on 5:10; 35:4-8; 58:6-9; 59:11-17; 69:22-28; 109:6-20; and the note on Psalm 137, which contains the most striking curse of all). At the same time, some general principles will help in understanding these passages.

First, one must be clear that the people being cursed are not enemies over trivial matters; they are people who hate the faithful precisely for their faith; they mock God and use ruthless and deceitful means to suppress the godly (cf. 5:4-6, 9-10; 10:15; 42:3; 94:2-7).

Second, it is worth remembering that these curses are in poetic form and can employ extravagant and vigorous expressions. (The exact fulfillment is left to God.)

Third, these curses are expressions of moral indignation, not of personal vengeance. For someone who knows God, it is unbearably wrong that those who persecute the faithful and turn people away from God should get away with it, and even seem to prosper. Zion is the city of God, the focus of his affection (cf. Psalms 48; 122); it is unthinkable that God could tolerate cruel men taking delight in destroying it. These psalms are prayers for God to vindicate himself, displaying his righteousness for all the world to see (cf. 10:17-18). Further, these are prayers that God will do what he said he will do: 35:5 looks back to 1:4, and even 137:9 has Isaiah 13:16 as its backdrop. Most of these prayers assume that the persecutors will not repent; however, in one place (Ps. 83:17), the prayer actually looks to the punishment as leading to their conversion.

Fourth, the OT ethical system forbids personal revenge (e.g., Lev. 19:17-18; Prov. 24:17; 25:21-22), a prohibition that the NT inherits (cf. Rom. 12:19-21).

Thus, when the NT writers employ these curses or formulate their own (as above), they are following the OT guidelines. Any prayer for the Lord to hasten his coming must mean disaster for the impenitent (2 Thess. 1:5-10). Yet Christians must keep as their deepest desire, even for those who mean harm to the church, that others would come to trust in Christ and love his people (cf. Luke 23:34; Rom. 9:1-3; 10:1; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9). Hence, when they pray for God to protect his people against their persecutors, they should be explicit about asking God to lead such people to repentance.

With these things in mind, then, it is still possible that the faithful today might sing or read aloud even these sections of the Psalms, if it takes place in a service of worship, under wise leadership, for the good of the whole people of God.

Two Trees

From Justin Taylor:

The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil

Some exegetical notes, observations, and tentative conclusions:


1. Among all the trees in the Garden of Eden, God identified two special trees: of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil.

“And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:9)


2. God allowed Adam to eat from all the trees except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, warning him that death would result.

“The LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” (Genesis 2:16-17)


3. After being tempted by the serpent, Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and Adam did the same.
“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” (Genesis 3:6)
“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” (Genesis 3:7)

4. After eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—in part to become “wise”—Adam now possesses the knowledge of good and evil like God does, as well as knowledge of their nakedness.

“. . . the woman saw that the tree . . . was to be desired to make one wise.” (Genesis 3:6)
“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” (Genesis 3:7)
“Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.’ (Genesis 3:22b-24)


5. After Adam disobeyed God’s command regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God forbade Adam to eat from the tree of life lest he live forever in that state; therefore God guards the tree.

“Then the Lord God said, ‘. . . Now, lest [the man] reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Genesis 3:22b-24)


6. What does the Hebrew idiom “knowing/understanding/discerning good and evil” mean?

6.1. It is something God and the angels possess.


“Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:22a)
“And your servant thought, ‘The word of my lord the king will set me at rest,’ for my lord the king is like the angel of God to discern good and evil. The Lord your God be with you!” (2 Samuel 14:17)


6.2. It is something that young children do not possess.

And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.” (Deuteronomy 1:39)
“He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.” (Isaiah 7:15)
6.3. It is something that elderly people may no longer possess.

“I [=David] am this day eighty years old. Can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? . . .” (2 Samuel 19:35)
6.4. It is something that God may grant.

“Give your servant [=Solomon] therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” (1 Kings 3:9)


6.5. Perhaps it is best there to regard it at as something like “mature or independent wisdom, insight, discernment,” with the tree representing an improper way to attain it.

Franz Delitzch:

The tree of knowledge was to lead man to the knowledge of good and evil; and, according to the divine intention, this was to be attained through his not eating of its fruit. This end was to be accomplished, not only by his discerning in the limit imposed by the prohibition the difference between that which accorded with the will of God and that which opposed it, but also by his coming eventually, through obedience to the prohibition, to recognize the fact that all that is opposed to the will of God is an evil to be avoided, and through voluntary resistance to such evil, to the full development of the freedom of choice originally imparted to him into the actual freedom of a deliberate and self-conscious choice of good. By obedience to the divine will he would have attained to a godlike knowledge of good and evil, i.e. to one in accordance with his own likeness to God. He would have detected the evil in the approaching tempter; but instead of yielding to it, he would have resisted it, and thus have made good his own property acquired with consciousness and of his won free-will, and in this way by proper self-determination would gradually have advanced to the possession of the truest liberty. But as he failed to keep this divine appointed way, and ate the forbidden fruit in opposition to the command of God, the power imparted by God to the fruit was manifested in a different way. He learned the difference between good and evil from his own guilty experience, and by receiving the evil into his own soul, fell a victim to the threatened death. Thus through his own fault the tree, which should have helped him to attain true freedom, brought nothing but a sham liberty of sin, and with it death, and that without any demoniacal power of destruction being conjured into the tree itself, or any fatal poison being hidden in its fruit.

C. John Collins agrees:

God intended that through this tree humans would come to know good and evil: either from above, as masters of temptation, or from below, as slaves to sin.

7. In the book of Proverbs, the tree of life is used as imagery in conjunction with a virtuous woman, the fruit of righteousness, fulfilled desire, and a gentle tongue.
“She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed.” (Proverbs 3:18)
“The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise” (Proverbs 11:30)
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)
“A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.” (Proverbs 15:4)


8. Those in the new heavens and the new earth will enjoy the fruit of the tree of life for all of eternity.

“To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” (Revelation 2:7b)

“On either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22:2)


“Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.” (Revelation 22:14)


“If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.” (Revelation 22:19)

ESV

From Justin Taylor's blog:

The ESV

Most readers of this blog know that I’m a fan of the ESV (English Standard Version) of the Bible. Here’s a new video from Crossway from various leaders explaining why they trust and appreciate this translation:

Apple, Macs, and Steve Jobs ... iWhatever!

I'm not a big fan of Apple and all of their 'stuff'. But I have to say, this post by Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds has me rethinking my stance:

Pete from Grace City has a post about Steve Jobs, Apple, and porn. An excerpt:

Jobs has argued that he wants his portable computer devices to not sell or stock pornography.

When a critic emailed him to say that this infringed his freedoms, Jobs emailed back and told him to buy a different type of computer.

Steve Jobs is a fan of Bob Dylan. So one customer emailed him to ask how Dylan would feel about Jobs’ restrictions of customers’ freedoms.

The CEO of Apple replied to say that he values:

‘Freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin’ and some traditional PC folks feel their world is slipping away. It is.’

The interlocuter replied:

“I don’t want ‘freedom from porn’. Porn is just fine! And I think my wife would agree.”

In the most revealing line, Steve Jobs dismissed the critic thus:

“You might care more about porn when you have kids.”

Pause for a moment and consider what the above emails represent.

The CEO of one of the wealthiest, most successful international companies, responds to the email of a customer. Business prospers on the mantra ‘The customer is always right.’ Business wants the customers’ money.

But in this case, over the moral issue of pornography, Jobs is happy to tell customers to buy a different product. He argues that children and innocence ought to be preserved—and that trumps the dollar.

Google (with their motto ‘Don’t be evil’) rake in billions through pornography. Ranks of employees spend their time categorising and arranging advertising for pornography. (I know, I spent some time discussing the difficulties posed to a Christian who worked in their UK HQ.) Pornography is huge business, yet here is the CEO of Apple telling the pornography businesses to take their dollars elsewhere.

Good for Jobs.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that one cannot access such things on an iPhone. If this is a temptation for you, you might want to consider something like the free app, x3watch, recommended by Andy Naselli in his post on filtering software and other apps.

Update: Just remembered a link that might be of interest (though it doesn’t have to do with the issue of porn and Apple.) Here’s an open letter that Josh Harris recently wrote to Steve Jobs, thanking him for his work and inviting him to worship the Savior.

Assuming the Gospel

From Justin Taylor's blog, at The Gospel Coalition, known as Between Two Worlds:

In Marks of the Messenger: Knowing, Living, and Speaking the Gospel (IVP, 2010), J. Mack Stiles sets out something I’ve heard Don Carson say a number of times: “Losing the gospel doesn’t happen all at once, it’s much more like a four generation process too:

The gospel is accepted —>

The gospel is assumed —>

The gospel is confused —>

The gospel is lost.”

How do you know if your church is beginning to assume the gospel? The answer, Stiles says, is when you no longer hear the gospel. He asks a series of diagnostic questions:

Was the gospel in the sermon Sunday morning?

Could the uninitiated hear that sermon and come to real faith in Christ?

Are gospel principles governing organizational decisions?

Do you hear the gospel in people’s prayers?

Does your fellowship encourage you to say the gospel? And then is it more than just a memorized sketch? Sure, it may follow the form of “God, Man, Christ, Response,” but is it in people’s own words?

Furthermore, do you see it in their actions? Is the gospel lived out?

Is membership based on a true commitment to the gospel or just because someone wants to join an organization—or maybe write an expose?

The healthy evangelist is asking these questions and looking for answers so as to guard the gospel. Here is the critical test.

Could you have preached that sermon if Christ had not died on the cross?

Could you have developed that leadership principle had Christ not been crucified?

I’m not saying be impractical—the Bible has much to say about being practical—but make sure that the practical is tied to the message of Jesus. Otherwise we are on the road to an assumption that will lose the gospel.

(p. 41, my emphasis)

May God give us grace to be men, women, and children of, by, and for the gospel!

Six New Testament metaphors for preachers

In chapter four of Between Two Worlds ((Stott, John R. W. Between Two Worlds The Challenge of Preaching Today. Boston: Wm. B. Eerdmans Company, 1994), author John Stott presents 6 different images that the Bible uses to illustrate what a Christian preacher is.

1. The Christian preacher is a herald. (1 Corinthians 1:23)
2. The Christian preacher is a sower. (Luke 8:4-8)
3. The Christian preacher is an ambassador. (2 Corinthians 5:20)
4. The Christian preacher is a steward or housekeeper. (1 Corinthians 4:1)
5. The Christian preacher is a pastor or shepherd. (John 21:15-17)
6. The Christian preacher is an approved workman. (2 Timothy 2:15)

"What is immediately noticeable about these six pictures is their emphasis on the 'givenness' of the message. Preachers are not to invent it; it has to be entrusted to them. thus, good news has been given to the herald to proclaim, good seed to the farmer to sow and good food to the steward to dispense, while good pasture is available to the shepherd to lead his flock there. Similarly, the ambassador does not pursue his owm policy but his country's, and the workman cuts a way for 'the word of truth', not for his own word. It is impressive that in all these New Testament metaphors the preacher is a servant under someone else's authority, and the communicator of someone else's word." (136-7)

Stott to Christian scholars

"Thirdly, we need to encourage Christian scholars to go to the frontiers and engage in the debate, while at the same time retaining their active participation in the community of faith. ..As part of their own integrity Christian scholars need to both preserve the tension between openness and commitment, and to accept some measure of accountability to one another and responsibility to one another in the Body of Christ. In such a caring fellowship I think we might witness fewer casualties on the one hand and more theological creativity on the other. " ((Stott, John R. W. Between Two Worlds The Challenge of Preaching Today. Boston: Wm. B. Eerdmans Company, 1994)