Archives for December 2020

Top Ten

December 30, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Here at year’s end, it’s customary to list the year’s top ten blog posts. Here are mine:

And here are the top ten for all time:

And here is a list of my personal favorites.

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On Benedictions, Part 3: He Will Do It

December 28, 2020 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: He Who Is Able | Part 2: Every Good Thing

I think it makes sense to end the year—as many have noted, a broadly difficult one—with one more installment in the Benedictions series. This one, unlike the previous ones, is from Paul. (That statement indicates, for those of you keeping score at home, that I don’t think Paul wrote Hebrews.)

In one of his earliest letters, Paul writes to a church he planted on his second missionary journey, the second European church, in Thessalonica. The letter, which we call 1 Thessalonians, is a survey of their history with Paul (ch 1-3), and a directive for where they should go from here (ch 4-5). In the second part of the letter, he indicates his main points, or commands, by repeating their name—or more precisely, a noun of direct address: “brethren”—as if to be sure he has their attention.

Live a moral lifestyle (4.1-8).
Practice brotherly love (4.9-12).
Keep a forward perspective—live with the end in view (4.13-5.11).
Maintain a healthy life in the body (5.12-22).

There’s a sermon series in that list, certainly.

As he draws the letter to a close, he leaves them with a benediction:

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1Th 5.23).

Like many benedictions, this is phrased as a wish: may this thing happen.

But is it one wish, or two? Does the second half of the verse simply restate the first half in different words, or is it a distinct thought? That depends, I suppose, on the theological system you prefer.

Most Arminians—today most commonly identified as Methodists—hold to something called “entire sanctification,” the idea that you can reach a point in your spiritual growth—before you die—that you no longer sin. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists, said near the end of his life that he didn’t think he had reached that state, although he suspected that a friend of his, John Fletcher, had. It’s worth noting that Wesley narrowed his definition of sin to get to his belief in “perfection”:

“I believe, a person filled with the love of God is still liable to … involuntary transgressions. … Such transgressions you may call sins, if you please: I do not” (“A Plain Account of Christian Perfection”).

If you’re Wesleyan, then, this benediction may contain two wishes—one for perfection in this life, and a second for continuance of that perfection until death.

Other Christians, however, would see this as a single wish: that God would preserve us complete until the end, at which time we will be entirely sanctified, or glorified (cf Ro 8.30; 1Jn 3.2).

Since to “sanctify” something is to set it apart for special use—I often compare it to being in the fine china cabinet rather than in the cupboard over the sink—then it’s at least possible, even likely, that what Paul is wishing for here is that God would set us apart completely for himself, the act that theologians call “positional sanctification,” which happens to every believer (1Co 6.11). And thus the meat of his wish is the second part of the statement—that God would keep us in the fine china cabinet all the way to the end, the return of Christ.

Many Bible students have noted that the return of Christ is a key theme in this brief letter, appearing at the end of every chapter (1Th 1.10; 2.19; 3.13; 4.15-17; 5.23).

Now for the big question.

Is Paul just wishing into the wind, throwing coins into a well? Is God going to give him what he’s wishing for? And how do we know?

Paul’s next statement answers all these questions decisively.

He will do it (1Th 5.24b).

How do we know that?

Because the one who calls you is faithful (1Th 5.24a).

The answer to Paul’s wish—and to our fears—is rooted in the very character of God. God can no more fail to keep us than he can lie, or die, or live without loving. Such a thought is both illogical and blasphemous.

Of course he’ll preserve us and present us blameless when Christ returns. It’s the only possible outcome in a universe where God exists.

2020 or not.

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On Joseph

December 24, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Christmas is tomorrow. Since my Christmas post for last year was about Mary, it makes sense that this year I should say something about Joseph.

We know precious little about him. If, as most scholars believe, the genealogy in Matthew 1 is that of Joseph, then he was the royal descendant of David in his generation—the heir to the throne of Israel. I suspect he knew that; the Jews kept track of such things, as is evidenced by the simple fact that the genealogy is produced in Matthew 1. If he was the heir, he certainly knew that he was.

But he also knew that he would never be king. First, because Rome. Caesar Augustus would never tolerate such a thing; he had installed a puppet, Herod, and called him “king,” but Herod wasn’t even really Jewish—he was Idumaean—and the Jews hated him as an interloper and collaborator with the hated Romans.

There was another reason Joseph knew he would never be king. God had cursed his ancestor, Jehoiachin (Jeconiah, or just Coniah), the last Davidic king of Judah (Jer 22.30), saying that none of his offspring would ever rule. Some scholars think that God reversed that curse with Zerubbabel (Hag 2.23), but Zerubbabel never ruled, nor did any of his offspring clear up to Joseph’s day.

So Joseph is a carpenter (Mt 13.55), or perhaps a mason. He works with his hands, in the village of Nazareth, in Israel’s backwater (Jn 1.46).

And that’s that.

Under circumstances we’re not told, he becomes engaged to a Jewish girl. She gives evidence of true godliness. He’ll be able to support her and their eventual children. This will be good.

And then.

She’s pregnant.

He didn’t do it.

It all comes crashing down. Yet another curse.

He can’t sensibly give his life to a woman who has so deeply and thoroughly deceived him. The Law gives him an out, however; he can “divorce” her for fornication. The legal penalty is stoning, but he doesn’t want a big scene, or even personal vengeance. We’ll just handle this quietly and move on.

Like Mary, as it turns out, Joseph doesn’t understand either. It’s not what he thinks.

After 400 years of silence, God steps in to ensure the success of the hinge point of all history.

Joseph is asleep—that’s surprising in itself—and God sends a messenger in his dreams.

It’s not what you think, Joseph. Mary is not unfaithful. God is doing a work, a great work, an epochal work. Her child will save his people from their sins.

You need to adopt him.

Like Mary, Joseph knows what the social consequences of that will be. There will be a community wink and nod—we thought that’s who the culprit was. Joseph’s reputation will be ruined. What of his business? How will he support his family?

Adopt the child.

Why is that so important?

Remember the curse?

No biological son of Jehoiachin—or of Joseph—will ever sit on David’s throne. But only a descendant of David—through Solomon—can sit there.

Mary, too, is descended from David, but through his son Nathan, not Solomon (Lk 3). Her son has no claim to the throne by bloodline.

But if Joseph … adopts … the boy …

everything changes.

And there, sitting on his mat, in the dark of night, in a backwater village, a carpenter makes his decision.

He’ll trust, and obey.

Like millions of others before and since.

But unlike any of those others, at the key hinge point of all salvation history.

Next to the obedience of the Son Himself, the most important act of obedience ever.

And hardly anybody even noticed.

Joseph shows up one more time in the Bible, when Jesus is twelve. But after that, he disappears. No one knows what else this critically important man did or how or where he died.

_____

I’m not much for statements about what I’ll do when I get to heaven. I think the Lamb will be the focus of all of it.

But I hope I’ll have a chance to find Joseph and say thanks.

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On Benedictions, Part 2: Every Good Thing

December 21, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: He Who Is Able

A second New Testament benediction that has long resonated with me is this one:

²⁰Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, ²¹equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen (He 13.20-21).

As you can see, this is the way the writer of Hebrews closes his letter. I don’t name him because nobody knows who he is; Hebrews is anonymous.

That fact has bothered some people over the years; a few in the early church resisted recognizing the book’s scriptural status because since it was anonymous, its apostolic authority could not be verified. But that objection wasn’t widespread and didn’t last long, mostly because much of the Old Testament (Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Esther, Job, Jonah, maybe Malachi, and portions of Psalms and Proverbs) is anonymous, and that doesn’t seem to be an obstacle to recognition. I sometimes tell my students, “Read any nonbiblical document at earlychristianwritings.com, and then read Hebrews. The difference is stark.”

And this passage is just one example of that.

The writer prays that God may “equip [us] in every good thing to do his will.” In other words, whenever we are called upon to do anything good—which is, not coincidentally, God’s will—he will enable us to do it.

That’s a good prayer, and one that God will surely answer, because it’s a common promise in Scripture. Paul writes that we who “formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh” (Ep 2.3) are now “raised up” by God (Ep 2.6), “created … for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ep 2.10). Earlier Paul had written that even in difficulties and trials, “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1Co 10.13).

Years ago my Calvinist systematic theology professor said, “You don’t have to sin. In any given moment, a believer can choose to do the right thing.” I was afraid he was going to lose his Calvinism Card over that one. :-)

He got that idea from these passages, and many others, that tell us that through God’s grace, we can win in the daily battle with sin, and we can accomplish the good that God calls us to do.

How does God do that? The writer tells us: by “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight.” God does it by changing us, a little bit at a time, from the inside out. He uses many means to accomplish that change—most obviously, the indwelling Spirit, who is the agent of our sanctification (2Th 2.13; Ro 8.13; Ga 5.22-23). I’ve written before about some of the other means.

Can God accomplish what he’s promised? The writer gives us evidence. This is the God “who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep.” This is the God who raises the physically dead; it’s reasonable to think that he can raise the spiritually dead as well.

He raised him, the writer tells us, “though the blood of the eternal covenant.” This is a God who makes promises and then keeps them. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed since he made the promise; he will remember and respect and keep his promises forever. That’s the kind of person he is.

So he can keep his promises, and he will keep his promises, “until angels sing a funeral dirge over his grave”—which will never happen, because he will never die.

And now, may that God do that work for you.

Part 3: He Will Do It

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On Benedictions, Part 1: He Who Is Able

December 17, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In the series just concluded, I noted that biblical benedictions are sometimes suggested as representing early hymnic material. I’d like to take just a couple of posts to discuss a couple of the more well-loved biblical benedictions.

The one that comes first to my mind is the one my childhood pastor ended every Sunday morning service with. After the closing prayer there would be a musical interlude while the congregation stood with heads bowed. During that time he would walk to the back of the sanctuary in order to greet us as we left; and from there, with unamplified voice, he would call out over us,

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling
And to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
To the only wise God, our Saviour,
Be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.
Amen (Jude 24-25).

Decades later I still miss those words of blessing from the back of the room.

Those words are indeed strong and filled with grace, and they deserve a closer look.

We should begin by noting a couple of variants in wording—

Some manuscripts don’t have the word wise. Some have suggested that perhaps the idea came to a copyist’s mind from Romans 16.27.
Some manuscripts end with “before all time and now and ever.” Since Jude has a noteworthy fondness for groups of three, this would make sense.

This passage is an ascription of greatness to God; he is the one being “blessed” by the benediction. His greatness as described here is fourfold:

Glory
Majesty
Dominion
Power

He is a God of authority, whose authority manifests itself in brightness, in impressiveness, in ability to see that his will is done. His greatness is beyond all other; there is no second place.

And to what does he apply his sovereign power in this passage?

To us. To his people.

To keep us from stumbling, and then—consequently—to present us blameless at the end before his all-seeing eye.

But I do stumble. A lot.

So what does this mean?

Context.

Jude is writing about false teachers (Jude 4), who present an imminent danger (Jude 3) to the church. He is concerned that some will be led astray by these “clouds without water,” “trees without fruit,” “wandering stars” [planets]—lights that you can’t count on for purposes of navigation (Jude 12-13).

To strengthen the believers against this error, Jude urges them to remember what the apostles taught (Jude 17), to pray in the Spirit (Jude 20), to look ahead in anticipation of Christ’s return (Jude 21).

Will they succeed? Will they endure?

Oh, yes. God is able to prevent them from stumbling, and to present them blameless at the end.

This passage doesn’t promise that we’ll never stumble into sin. But it does promise that God’s grace can enable us to persevere to the end—to stand before his throne still blameless, still washed by the blood of Christ, still cleansed from the sin in which we all too readily engaged.

Yes, our obedience matters. Yes, we must resist sin. But in the end our victory comes not because we were strong enough to persist in resisting, but because God carried us through to the end.

He is able to do that.

And he will.

Because he is great, and he is good.

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom (Lk 12.32).

Part 2: Every Good Thing | Part 3: He Will Do It

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On Biblical Hymns, Part 8: God and Us

December 14, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Let’s look at one more place where Paul may have quoted an early hymn. It’s earlier in Paul’s writings than any of the others we’ve examined.

There is but one God, the Father,
from whom are all things
and we exist for Him;

and one Lord, Jesus Christ,
by whom are all things,
and we exist through Him

(1Co 8.6)

The parallelism and stanza structure of these lines is apparent. Commentator Mark Taylor observes, “The grammatical structure, precision, and conscious parallelism of the formulation … indicates its traditional character. … Whether or not Paul is transmitting a pre-formed received tradition or whether he himself crafted the pithy statement, cannot be known for sure.”

I’ll observe that since Paul is never shy about quoting other writers (e.g. Ti 1.12), there’s no reason this passage, and the others we’ve examined, couldn’t be in that category.

Of the 6 passages we’ve looked at so far, 4 have been focused on the Son, and 1 on the Father. The first one, from Colossians 1, included both persons, presenting Christ as the agent of accomplishing the Father’s plan. Similarly, this one, from early in Paul’s writings, distinguishes the Father and the Son, contrasting the persons, interestingly, in parallel.

And here it gets a little tricky. The contrasts are in the prepositions: “from whom” vs. “by whom,” and “for Him” vs. “through Him.” The reason it’s tricky is that in Greek, as in most languages, prepositions are pretty flexible; they have a broad range of meaning. For example, these statements have very different meanings:

I eat ice cream with a spoon.
I eat ice cream with chocolate sauce.
I eat ice cream with my wife.
I eat ice cream with delight.

It’s a truism in New Testament studies that anybody who bases his theology on a Greek preposition is foolish.

But Paul has set this passage up so that the prepositions are doing the heavy lifting. So we’re going to have to let them carry some weight. Let’s think a little about the contrasts.

It will help us, as always, if we consider the context. Paul is discussing the controversy in the Corinthian church between those who think it’s OK to eat meat that’s been offered in sacrifice to idols, and those who think it’s wrong. He begins his lengthy discussion—it includes all of chapters 8, 9, and 10—by laying a theological foundation:

There are no gods besides God; there is no “god” behind any idol (1Co 8.4).
Thus everything in the world—including meat—is made by God.
Since everything God made is good, then meat is good.

His argument is going to get relatively complex, as we can deduce from its length. I’ve written on that before. But for our purposes here, we simply note that Paul is speaking of God’s creative work. And he’s going to distinguish the roles that the Father and the Son play in that work.

First, Paul notes that “all things” are “from God [the Father]” and “by Christ.” Traditionally, interpreters have taken this to refer to the Father’s “administrative oversight” of creation—envisioning, planning, designing, specifying—and the Son’s active agency in doing the creating. We might say that the Father is the architect of creation, while the Son is the contractor. Which one, then is the Creator?

Yes. :-)

Then Paul says that we exist “for” the Father and “through” the Son. Again, this seems to suggest the Father as administrator and the Son as agent.

But we face a danger here. There are not two Gods; God is one. And so Paul begins his comparison and contrast of the two persons with a clear statement that “there is but one God.” He identifies him as the Father here, but elsewhere (e.g. Ro 9.5) he makes it clear that he does not see the Son as anything less.

God is multiple in one sense, and singular in another. Here we have the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity.

There is more to this God than you will ever comprehend. But He invites us to know, love, and live with him forever.

Sing of him. Sing of his marvelous works. 

Sing it in private and in public. Sing it to those you love, and to those you don’t. Make it what everyone who knows you thinks of when they think of you. 

Sing.

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On Biblical Hymns, Part 7: If and Then

December 10, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

As of the previous post, we’ve considered all 5 of the possible hymns listed in the series introduction. But as I noted there, the list is anything but certain. I’d like to look at a couple of other candidates.

Since we were in 1Timothy for the last two hymns, let’s go to 2Timothy for this post:

¹¹Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him, we will also live with him;
¹²if we endure, we will also reign with him.
If we disown him, he will also disown us;
¹³if we are faithless, he will remain faithful,

for he cannot disown himself (2Ti 2.11-13).

Paul calls this “a trustworthy saying.” There are four of those in the Pastorals (1Ti 1.15; 4.9; 2Ti 2.11; Ti 3.8). Scholars debate whether this label indicates some kind of official proverbial status, or whether he’s just saying the equivalent of our “You can take that to the bank!” The four passages have different topics and characteristics, but this one, given the extended parallelism and rhythm, strikes some interpreters (e.g., Hayne Griffin in The New American Commentary) as hymnic.

Like the other hymns in this series, this one is about Christ, who is clearly the one in view in the clause “if we died with him.” Its focus is the importance of our relationship with him. This is a constant theme of Paul’s; he seems obsessed with the idea of believers being “in Christ,” a phrase he uses 67 times, but which occurs only 3 times in all the rest of the New Testament (and one of those, Ac 24.24, in a narrative about Paul’s preaching; the other 2 are in 1Peter).

In the Father’s mind, we were “in Christ” before the world was created (Ep 1.4), and whatever your view of precisely how we came to be in him through conversion, the Scripture is clear that all believers are now in him. He died on the cross in our place, and when we believed, we were placed into his body, the church, over which he is the Head (Ep 1.22). We are locked in an eternal embrace.

That being the case, we benefit from his victory in two ways, delineated in the first couplet:

If we died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him.

If we are counted as beneficiaries of his substitutionary death, then we benefit as well from his resurrection, since it guarantees ours, he being “the firstfruits of those who sleep” (1Co 15.20). And if we demonstrate the genuineness of our profession by enduring to the end, we will receive the kingdom that he has prepared for us (Lk 12.32). His faithfulness, his success, showers us with benefits.

But there’s an “other hand,” and there always has been. Adam’s family included Cain; Abraham’s family included Lot’s wife; the mass of Israelites who came out of Egypt were a “mixed multitude” (Ex 12.38); and the church (even during the ministry of the apostles) included false professors, even false teachers, who “were not really of us” (1Jn 2.19). What of those?

There’s a second stanza:

If we disown him, he will also disown us;
if we are faithless, he will remain faithful,

for he cannot disown himself.

The good Shepherd knows his sheep, and they hear his voice, and they follow him. If they don’t recognize his voice, then they belong to a different shepherd, and they will make that plain over time. The end of that way is death.

But the fact that some other shepherd’s sheep gets lost is no reflection on the good Shepherd. He is faithful, dutiful, attentive, absolutely trustworthy. He cares for his sheep, and he never loses a one of them. The faithlessness of someone else’s sheep is no reflection on him.

If you’re in Christ, you’re a part of his body. He’s not going to go off and leave you somewhere; the very image is absurd. He’s going to care for you and deliver you safely to the ultimate, eternal fold.

Sing of him. Sing of his marvelous works. 

Sing it in private and in public. Sing it to those you love, and to those you don’t. Make it what everyone who knows you thinks of when they think of you. 

Sing.

Part 8: God and Us

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On Biblical Hymns, Part 6: Eternal Glory

December 7, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Christ As Firstborn | Part 3: Every Knee Will Bow | Part 4: Morning Light | Part 5: Manifested, Vindicated

There’s another probable early hymn in 1Timothy; it occurs near the end of the letter and functions as a closing benediction:

He who is the blessed and only Sovereign,
the King of kings and Lord of lords,
¹⁶who alone possesses immortality
and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.
To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen (1Ti 6.15b-16).

If you’ve been with this series from the beginning, you may notice here one of the marks of potential early hymns: the passage begins with a relative pronoun referring to God—in this case, the Father, who is distinguished from the Son in 1Timothy 6.13 and who is said in 1Timothy 6.15a to be the one who will bring about the return of Christ (the “appearing,” or “epiphany” in Greek).

The word epiphany is used 6 times in the New Testament, always by Paul, and all but one in the Pastorals (Timothy and Titus). In 2Thessalonians 2.8 it’s associated with “brightness,” and in Titus 2.13 it’s called “glorious.” The word is used only of God’s appearing (never of an ordinary human’s, even a VIP’s), and in secular Greek it’s always used of divine appearances.

Who is the one who will bring this glorious appearing of the God-man to fruition? How shall we describe the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? The opening couplet tells us that he is “the blessed and only Sovereign”: he is in charge of all things, and only he is in charge of all things.

Well, what about earthly kings? How does their sovereignty compare to his? The second line of the couplet gives us the answer: all those kings have a King, and all those lords have a Lord, who is God. In practical terms, there is no other sovereign. He alone is in charge.

We should remember that as Paul writes this epistle, he has appealed to Caesar—specifically Nero—and, after waiting 2 or more years in Rome for a hearing, he has been acquitted and released. (That’s the way I see it, anyway.) Just before or just after the writing of this letter, a fire burns much of Rome, and Nero, apparently to divert popular anger against him, blames the Christians. Driven by his increasing madness, he begins to persecute Christians, throwing them to the lions in the Coliseum and notoriously using them as torches to light his garden parties.

It seems that he can do whatever he wants with Christians, or anyone else under his dominion.

It seems.

But in fact, Paul—who will lose his head to Caesar’s executioners in just a few years—reminds us that things are not as they seem. There is only one God, and he is sovereign over all—even over sovereigns. Over those elected, and those not elected. Over those placed in authority by popular acclaim, and over those who seize power by brute force and rule in cruelty and dishonor.

He is sovereign, appearances be what they may.

The evidences of his sovereignty are inescapable.

First, he lives forever. Nero is dead. Charlemagne is dead. England’s Bloody Mary is dead. Hitler is dead.

And everyone now in power, however great, whether good or evil, will soon, in the grand providence of God, be dead—as will you and I, if the Lord tarries. The mightiest kings of the earth lose their power and are mockingly welcomed to the world of the dead by those who have preceded them (Is 14.3-21).

Only God lives forever. Only he is truly sovereign.

There’s another evidence.

He dwells in unapproachable light—beyond what we humans are even capable of surviving. He is glorious.

I was once lying on a beach—I won’t say where—and along came a man in swim trunks, shirtless, clambering barefoot over some rocks in a jetty. I soon realized that he was a powerful US Senator—and I was struck by how ordinary he looked. No halo, no cloud of glory, no retinue. Just a man, and a fairly feeble one at that.

God is not like that. He has dominion, and he will have it forever, with our consent or without it.

Sing of him. Sing of his marvelous works.

Sing it in private and in public. Sing it to those you love, and to those you don’t. Make it what everyone who knows you thinks of when they think of you.

Sing.

Part 7: If and Then | Part 8: God and Us

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On Biblical Hymns, Part 5: Manifested, Vindicated

December 3, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Christ As Firstborn | Part 3: Every Knee Will Bow | Part 4: Morning Light

The next two hymns in our series appear in the Pastoral Epistles, which were written much later in Paul’s life. The first of those is in 1Timothy 3.16—

By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness:
He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory.

Paul introduces this hymn by calling its subject matter “the mystery of godliness.” In the New Testament, a “mystery” is an old truth that is just now (finally!) being revealed. For example, Jesus begins his “kingdom parables” by remarking that he is telling “the mysteries of the kingdom” (Mt 13.11); Paul tells the Romans of the “mystery” that the Jews’ hard-heartedness was foreseen and intended to offer an opportunity for Gentiles to be brought into God’s family (Ro 11.25); he tells the Corinthians that all believers—those alive and those dead—will be transformed at Christ’s return (1Co 15.51). (You should look up the other NT references to “mystery” sometime. It’s a profitable study.)

“Godliness” is perfectly believing in, and following, God. So Paul is saying that in this hymn we’re going to learn—finally—what perfectly trusting and obeying God looks like.

And we shouldn’t be surprised that he then presents Christ to us as that perfect example.

One little technical point. The NASB, which I’ve quoted above, translates the first Greek word of the hymn as “he who.” The KJV translates it as “God.” The difference results from a textual variant, a copying error easily made (ΟΣ vs ΘΣ). If you compare several translations—a very good way to study the Bible—you’ll see that in general the modern ones go with “he who” or something similar.

I don’t think the difference matters much, if at all. Since “he who” has just been described as “the unfolding of perfect godliness,” then Paul is essentially calling Jesus “God” here anyway. Like the vast majority of textual variants, this one need not concern us.

So then. How does Jesus reveal perfect godliness?

Several organizational structures of this hymn have been suggested, but it seems to me to have 3 couplets, or pairs of lines:

He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit,

Seen by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,

Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory.

The first stanza contrasts “flesh” and ”spirit”; the second, “angels” and “peoples”; and the third, “the world” and the “up in glory.”

What does it all mean?

This one who appeared to us in the flesh—as a human—was perfectly godly in the parts we couldn’t see as well, on the inside. (Yes, I’m taking “spirit” here as a lower-case word, not a reference to the Holy Spirit. Feel free to disagree with me.) He was the real deal, one whose godliness would never disappoint us.

He has been testified to by the heavenly hosts (on the one hand) and proclaimed as Savior to the human hosts, the teeming masses of the nations of the world (on the other hand). Not quite sure what the first clause is referring to—before the incarnation (Is 6.2-3 [Jn 12.41])? At his birth, to the shepherds (Lk 2.13-14)? After his victory over temptation (Mt 4.11)? Whatever Paul intends, it’s clear that the heavenly hosts endorse the Son (Php 2.10; He 1.6).

He has been recognized here on earth by those who “received” him (Jn 1.12), and the worthiness of their trust has been verified by his ascension to the Father (Ac 1.9-11) and reception at his right hand (Ac 7.56; He 1.3-4).

“He who has seen me,” Jesus said, “has seen the Father” (Jn 14.9). We have all the example we need in order to follow God perfectly. We need only look to Jesus (He 12.1-2).

Sing of him. Sing of his marvelous works.

Sing it in private and in public. Sing it to those you love, and to those you don’t. Make it what everyone who knows you thinks of when they think of you.

Sing.

Part 6: Eternal Glory | Part 7: If and Then | Part 8: God and Us

Photo by Michael Maasen on Unsplash