Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

Chair, Division of Biblical Studies & Theology,

Bob Jones University

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Silent, but Working

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Why doesn’t God do something? Why doesn’t he show himself? Why is he silent?

Over the centuries God’s people have asked that question often. We want help. We want vindication. We want solutions.

But the question “Why doesn’t God do something?!” is deeply misguided.

There are many places in the Bible where we could demonstrate that, but I’m going to suggest the book of Esther.

When my daughters were small, this was their favorite Bible story—I suppose because it involves a strong, smart woman, and plenty of suspense, and rich irony. They would often ask me to tell it, and if I left out a line, they would interrupt and remind me—“No, Daddy, you forgot to say that the Jews don’t bow to anyone but God!”

We all know the story; I don’t need to recount it all here. But perhaps you’ve never noticed that throughout this ancient classic, God’s name is never mentioned.

It’s as though he doesn’t exist.

The closest the writer comes to mentioning God is when Mordecai—who’s apparently named for the Babylonian god Marduk—tells his cousin that perhaps she has come to be queen “for such a time as this” (Est 4.14)—implying some kind of guiding hand in history.

No, God is not mentioned. But throughout the story there’s evidence of his hand at every turn—

  • The evil king Xerxes (that’s the Greek form of the name Ahasuerus) deposes his queen because she won’t degrade herself before his drunken friends.
  • This evil king decides to replace her by a holding a sexual tryout among the most beautiful women of the land, appointing his favorite as queen and relegating the rest to his harem. This is not exactly a godly activity, though culturally allowed. Esther’s beauty gets her into the trial, and eventually he appoints her queen.
  • Her cousin happens to overhear two members of the court plotting to assassinate the king. He reports the plot, saving the king’s life, and a cuneiform tablet recording the deed is added to the voluminous court archives.
  • A proud member of the court, one who clearly has designs on the throne, is enraged by Mordecai’s refusal to bow to him and evidences his racism by planning to kill Mordecai and all his people. He builds an execution stake and goes to ask the king’s permission to execute Mordecai.
  • At the climax of the story, the king has insomnia. Of all things. He asks a servant to bring something from the archives to read; surely that will put him to sleep.
  • The servant, probably rubbing the sleep from his eyes, wanders into the warehouse, yawns, and grabs any old cuneiform tablet from Section 427Q—or whatever—and returns to the king to begin reading.
  • We all know which tablet he grabbed, probably without looking. The king learns, apparently for the first time, that an assassination plot has been foiled by a low-level government functionary.
  • He wants to reward the fellow, so he asks for ideas. “Is anybody in the court?” And there stands Haman the proud, waiting for morning—he wants to be the first in line—to get approval for Mordecai’s execution. The very Mordecai that the king wants to reward.
  • And the story goes on.

Too many coincidences. Too many unifying events in the plot development.

Somebody thought up this plot. Somebody wrote this story. And everybody who reads it, from my little daughters to the most aged saint, knows that. Now what would you think if somebody wandered into this narrative and asked, “Why doesn’t God do something?!”

We’d say he’s clueless. We’d say he needs to sit up and pay attention.

Throughout biblical history—by the most conservative estimates, maybe 4000 years—miracles are quite rare. They occur in spurts, during the lifetimes of Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, and Christ and the apostles. About 5 or 6% of the time. (If you think the earth is older than that, the percentage is even lower.)

Even in the Bible, at least 94% of the time, God’s not doing miracles. He’s doing ordinary things, directing the affairs of people and nations.

We call that providence.

And he continues that work today, in your life and mine, ordinarily, unspectacularly, beneficially, lovingly, wisely.

We need to sit up and pay attention.

Photo by Wes Grant on Unsplash

A Further Thought on Unity

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In my last post I briefly mentioned a biblical principle regarding the purpose of the church, one that I didn’t develop. Although I’ve written on it before, some 3 years ago now, I think it’s worth taking a little deeper dive on it, first, because it’s a central biblical teaching, and second, because hardly anybody seems to know about it.

Its clearest expression is in Ephesians 3. We’ll get there in a bit, but first the big picture.

God has always had high plans for mankind.

He created the first man and woman in his own image, gave them dominion over the world (Ge 1.26-27) and made them capable of reproduction. It’s become obvious since then that their DNA was remarkably robust, containing information that has resulted in all kinds of different people—different melanin levels, different ethnic features, different heights, different body types, different hair color—and different hair quantity—different personalities, different abilities, different interests, different perspectives. These differences speak most expressly of the power and brilliance of the Creator, who placed all that potentiality into the first two people and gave them the ability to pass it on down the line.

From the beginning God’s people rebelled against him—as he knew they would—and from the beginning he had a plan to restore the relationship justly and powerfully and graciously (Ge 3.15). That plan included becoming one of us himself (Jn 1.14) and doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

As the plan proceeds, God’s intention to extend it around the globe becomes obvious early. When God identifies the specific ethnic group into which the Deliverer will come, he tells its patriarch, “in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Gen 22.18). This is a big plan, and it’s going to bring together a very diverse group of people—in fact, representatives from every type.

We have to read a long time before we get a clearer picture of how it will work. Israel, a single ethnic group, isn’t the end of the story; it’s not the mechanism for bringing everyone together. Only after the Word becomes flesh (Jn 1.14), and after he crushes the serpent’s head (Ge 3.15), does God reveal the mechanism.

It’s the church. On its founding day, Pentecost, it embraces people from all over the known world (Ac 2.9-11)—and then it expands to include Gentiles from Asia (Ac 10.1-2) and Gentiles from Africa (Ac 13.1) and Gentiles from Europe (Ac 16.14).

Think of it. Within just 20 years of Pentecost, the reach of the church has expanded to every known continent—the Americas and Australia, though populated, being unknown at the time.

And God is not going to be satisfied until his people include those “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Re 5.9).

It will happen.

And the mechanism is the church.

Now we’re ready for Ephesians 3.

Paul’s major point in this letter is that under the headship of Christ (Ep 1.22-23), the church unites Jews and Gentiles (Ep 2.11-22) in one body, breaking down “the barrier of the dividing wall” (Ep 2.14).

That statement doesn’t hit us very hard, because we don’t understand what the feelings were between Jews and Gentiles in those days. It was like the relationship between Jews and Palestinians today—or the Armenians and the Turks, or the Serbs and the Croats, or the Hutu and the Tutsi.

These people are never going to be friends.

And yet Paul says matter-of-factly that Jews and Gentiles are now one in Christ, with nothing able to keep them apart. The centripetal force of unity in Christ counteracts—no, overwhelms—the centrifugal forces that normally, routinely, drive people apart. No social force can stand before the power of Christ to carry out his Father’s plan to unite all peoples in him.

At the climax of Ephesians 3, Paul writes that even the heavenly powers will be astonished at the power of God demonstrated by the unearthly unity of God’s people in the church (Ep 3.10).

What does it take to astonish somebody who goes to work in heaven every day?

By the grace of God, through the power of God, we the people of God can overcome barriers to unity that the world cannot—in ways that seize the attention and wonder of all who see.

There’s work to be done.

Photo by Wylly Suhendra on Unsplash

On Unity

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I think this is a good time to post a few thoughts on the theological and biblical basis for unity.

In the Bible, everything starts with God—not just chronologically (Ge 1.1), but essentially, ontologically; he is the grounding, as well as the beginning, of all things (Ro 11.36).

One of the most basic biblical teachings about God is that he is One (Dt 6.4). That implies a couple of ideas: first, that he is not divided; he is one in essence and thus is internally consistent. A second implication is that he is unique; there is no one like him and thus there are no other gods competing for his position (Dt 4.35, 39; Isa 44.6; Jn 17.3).

Now, those of us whose Bibles include the New Testament recognize that God exists in three persons, called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I don’t intend to go into a defense or explication of the Trinity here, but just to note that the existence of three persons in the Godhead in no way compromises the essential unity of God. Jesus himself, who is God (Jn 1.1), calls the Father “the only true God” while distinguishing him from himself (Jn 17.3) even as he notes that “I and my Father are one” (Jn 10.30).

God is united in plan, purpose, and work as well as in essence. As just one example, all three members of the Godhead unite in the work of founding and preserving the church, the expression of the people of God from the New Testament period through today:

  • Founding (Ac 2.33, 38)
  • Baptismal formula (Mt. 28.19-20)
  • Salvation (2Co 1.21-22; 1P 1.1-2)
  • Sonship (Ga 4.6)
  • Inclusion of Gentiles (Ro 15.16)
  • Gifts (1Co 12.4-6)
  • Perseverance (Jude 20-21)
  • Benediction (2Co 13.14)

The fact that God acts in unity with himself means that our actions as well should be driven by his Oneness. As early as when Israel was constituted as a nation, God based his people’s behavior and interaction on his own unity. The Ten Commandments, which were the core of Israel’s “Constitution,” are presented twice in the Scripture, in Exodus 20 and in Deuteronomy (“second Law”) 6. In both places, God begins by reminding his people that He is One (Ex 20.2-3; Dt 6.4-5).

He sees his Oneness as the basis for all we do.

In our age, as I’ve noted, we as God’s people don’t find our identity primarily in national terms the way Israel did; the church consists of people “from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue” (Re 7.9; cf Mt 28.19). What is it that unites us?

Two things. Or one, depending on how you define them. Or him.

The Scripture says repeatedly that we are one “in Christ” (Jn 15.5-6; Ep 1.3-6; 10; 22-23), who in turn is “in the Father” (Jn 10.28-30; 1Co 3.23). Our unity as God’s people, then, depends entirely on God’s unity (Ep 4.4-6; Jn 17.21-23).

The Scripture also notes that we are one “in [the] truth” (2Th 2.13; 1Ti 4.6; 2P 1.12; 2J 4; 3J 1-4)—and it’s worth noting that Christ called himself “the truth” (Jn 14.6).

When division comes to the body—something that is deeply unnatural, though not unforeseen—it is generated by falsehood:

  • False teaching (2J 9-11; Re 2.14-16)
  • False living (Mt 18.15-17; 1Co 5.1ff; 2Th 3.6, 14-15)

In those cases the church is called to isolate those introducing falsehood, thereby protecting the unity and purity of the Body of Christ (1Co 5.1ff).

So.

Being one is part of the essence of who we are as God’s people. Though falsehood can drive us apart, it should be dealt with biblically so that unity—in the truth—can be restored. And that unity, in spite of physical and cultural divisions that ordinarily drive people apart, is designed to demonstrate to others, both earthly and heavenly, that there’s something supernaturally unique in the power that keeps us together (Ep 3.1-10).

That’s a lot to chew on.

These days we ought to be chewing more thoughtfully.

Photo by Wylly Suhendra on Unsplash

On Well-Intentioned Viral Campaigns

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Last week I posted a question on Facebook:

“How does the viral posting of a photo of a white boy murdered by a black man contribute anything constructive to the conversation?”

I was not trolling, as one commenter suggested; I was actually looking for answers. So I waited, not interacting at all with the responses, just letting them accumulate and interact with one another. By posting time for this blog entry, there were 68 comments, which statisticians tell us is more than enough for useful analysis.

One of my friends—and by that I mean not just a Facebook friend, but an actual friend, whom I know, like, respect, and pray for—posted a characteristically thoughtful response, including these words:

“I feel like a fool and a horrible person if I draw attention to what happened to George Floyd (which I did) and I refuse to highlight this horrible situation with this innocent five-year-old.”

Most of the others who responded to the question—as opposed to those who just cheered from the sidelines, for one side or the other—cited media bias as their motivator: they wanted to highlight a crime that the media were ignoring, in stark contrast to the perceived media over-reporting of the Floyd episode.

As more than one commenter noted, however, there has indeed been national news coverage of both stories, despite the frequent allegation that “the media are just ignoring [the latter story].” By the time I posted my question, CNN, Newsweek, and People Magazine, as well as wire services from ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox / Cox, and even the Independent in the UK had run stories on it. It’s obvious that the Floyd story got exponentially more coverage, but the statement that the story is being “ignored” is just not true.

One commenter acknowledged that there had been national media coverage of both events, but that the latter one was not reported with any reference to race, while the racist motives of the police involved with Floyd were assumed from the outset. Significantly, the family of the boy has specifically requested that the case not be characterized as about race.

And thus arises the issue that motivated my question in the first place.

In 2018, which is apparently the last year for which reliable data are available, 255 children aged 1 to 4 were murdered. Of those, 129 were white, and 113 were black. As far as I know, there’s no simple way to determine the race of the offender in each of those cases, but we do know that of all the murders of whites, of any age, in that year (3,315), 81% (2677) were committed by other whites, and 16% (514) were committed by blacks. If we extend that ratio to the murders of children, then in that year about 25 white children aged 1 to 4 were murdered by blacks. (Feel free to check my math.)

Now, we can all agree that that number is too high.

But can you find a way to understand, when you share that story for the stated purpose of calling attention to an injustice, why many of the people you’re trying to convince might suspect that there’s a racial motive involved? Look at that horrible black man.

Why did you pick one of the 25? Why not pick one of the other 230?

In a culture where the atmosphere is already toxic, where we’re predisposed to distrust one another, we have to think carefully about the perceived motivations and implications of our actions, even when our intentions are completely above board. Audience analysis. Strategy.

We’re not going to convince anybody—change anybody’s mind—if we don’t think about these things.

And that’s what we want, right? To change minds?

One of the commenters suggested that all this is just venting—that it’s not really about conversation or discussion or making progress toward a solution. (Everything after the dash is my words, not his.) If he’s right, then we’re all in deep trouble—first, with God, because venting is just giving in to the flesh, one of the great enemies of our soul, and second, as a society, because venting is not the path to a solution and a consequent livable society, but a death spiral into chaos, to which we will all have contributed and for which we will all be guilty.

We’re going to come to a solution, if we ever do, one person at a time, by holding ourselves accountable, speaking in wisdom, and committing to be part of the solution rather than merely ratcheting up the rage.

On the Unruffled Passivity of Modern Evangelicalism

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I’ve lived pretty much my whole life in evangelicalism. My parents weren’t believers when I was born, the youngest of their children, but when I was about 5 they heard the gospel and began attending an evangelical church, where eventually all of us made professions of faith. I’ve written about that before.

That church was mainstream evangelical; I can recall a citywide crusade featuring Torrey Johnson, the founder of Youth for Christ, that our church and several others participated in. A few years later we moved across the country, where my pastor was the young Chuck Swindoll, fresh out of seminary, and my Christian high school had been founded by such evangelical lights as George Eldon Ladd, Gleason Archer, and Harold Ockenga. Then I came to Bob Jones University, which was, well, a little further to the right on the theological spectrum, you might say, and I ended up staying there the rest of my life, so far.

So my evangelical bona fides are pretty solid. Been hanging around Christians since I was just a little tyke.

Many years later—maaaany years later—I was walking down Main Street in Greenville when a young man walked up to me, handed me a tract, and started to present the gospel to me. He was a student at Tabernacle Baptist Bible College in Greenville, out seeking to share the gospel with strangers on the street.

Why do I remember that so clearly?

Because it was the first time.

It was the first time anybody had ever told me about Jesus outside of a church building or event.

I was in my mid-40s.

I’d lived in the Bible Belt for a quarter of a century, and nobody had ever told me about Jesus, unless I went to their church and asked.

And it gets worse.

Since that afternoon 20 years ago, it hasn’t ever happened again.

For all the Christians I’m around, nobody reaches out to introduce me to the gospel.

What would account for that?

Well, you might say, I’ve been at BJU for almost 50 years now, and these people all know me, and they know I’m a professor of Bible, and they know I’m already a believer.

Fair enough.

But I don’t know every Christian in this town, not by a long shot, and that was even more true back in Boston and, before that, in Spokane. And I must have interacted with any number of Christians in daily commerce, where they wouldn’t have known me.

I crossed paths every day with Christians who didn’t know if I was a believer or not.

Nobody ever told me, except for that one kid from Tabernacle—God bless him.

Am I the only person? Is this just a case of hasty generalization based on a woefully insufficient evidentiary sample?

How many people have witnessed to you outside of a church?

How does that happen to someone in my shoes? Is the church not evangelizing, or is the evangelism just going on in places where I don’t hang out?

Are we afraid? What’s an ambassador for Christ got to be afraid of?

Are we distracted? What could possibly be more important?

Have we subcontracted the job to the professionals? Where is that in the Bible?

Do we just not care? Are you kidding me?

Do we assume somebody else is picking up the slack? Well, if my experience is any measure, nobody else is picking up the slack.

The King has left us very specific instructions, with all the resources necessary to carry them out:

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mt 28.18b-20).

Are we just going to sit in our churches and wait for them to come to us? I don’t find that in Jesus’ little word “Go.”

What would our world be like if we all got serious?

Photo by Hernan Sanchez on Unsplash

On Civil Disobedience

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There’s been a lot of talk about civil disobedience lately, across the political spectrum. Since it seems to me that much of the discussion among my fellow Christians has been out of focus, I thought it might be the time to reconsider basic biblical principles.

To begin with, one of the key distinctives of evangelical Christians is biblicism, or the recognition of Scripture as the ultimate authority for faith and practice (and for everything else); back in 1989, David Bebbington defined evangelicalism with the “Bebbington quadrilateral” of biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism. For me and my house, then, the directives for addressing the question of civil disobedience are the same as for every other question: we’re going to take our orders not from Thoreau but from Scripture.

Undoubtedly the most well-known biblical statement on the question comes from Romans 13.1-7, where Paul lays down the foundational principle:

  • Civil authority is put in place by God. Obey it.

Other lesser-known passages repeat the principle (1P 2.13-14; Ti 3.1).

But that’s clearly not the whole story, for the Bible contains examples of civil disobedience and presents those examples as, well, examples for us to follow. Two of the three most well-known examples are in the OT book of Daniel; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego refuse Nebuchadnezzar’s order to bow to an idol (Da 3.9-12), and Daniel himself openly disobeys the king’s order forbidding prayer (Da 6.7-10). In the NT, Peter faces down the Sanhedrin and refuses to obey its order not to preach about Jesus (Ac 4.18-20). Perhaps less well-known is the Hebrew midwives’ refusal to kill the male Jewish babies (Ex 1.15-17).

So there’s a mitigating principle:

  • Sometimes refusing to obey civil authority is the right thing to do.

Now we have another question to ask: when should we disobey?

In the four cases mentioned above, the defied order is clearly a violation of the direct commandments of God: idol worship is clearly forbidden; prayer and gospel preaching are clearly commanded; and killing babies, of any ethnicity or sex, is a direct attack on the image of God in mankind. So we can edit our first two principles into a single comprehensive one:

  • Civil authority is put in place by God. Obey it, unless doing so is to disobey God.

So far, pretty much all Christians would agree. But here is where it gets sticky. I’d like to start into the key area of disagreement by observing further on the biblical material.

Many times in the Scripture you have evil rulers—both Israelite and Gentile—who rule godlessly. I find it surprising that you find relatively few occasions where those rulers are openly disobeyed, and the disobedient subject (we’re dealing exclusively with monarchies here) is commended. As just one example, we find Paul coming into conflict with unbelieving Jewish authorities and their Roman overlords across the empire, and Paul seems to use cleverness rather than direct disobedience. He’ll leave town—once, over the Damascus city wall (2Co 11.33), and another time leaving Thessalonica in the middle of the night (Ac 17.10). On one occasion he’ll prevent a beating by claiming Roman citizenship (Ac 22.25), and on another he’ll take the beating and then use it essentially for blackmail (Ac 16.37).

I’d like to suggest that civil disobedience in the Scripture is a last resort. Recognizing that God has intentionally and purposefully given us the authorities we have, we should seek to respect the wisdom of his providence and use all our creativity to find a way to obey evil authorities while obeying God. Only when all possibilities—all possibilities—have been exhausted are we forced to disobey earthly authorities.

Do we do that secretly or publicly? Well, Peter defied the Sanhedrin to its face; Paul sneaked over the wall at midnight. Study your Bible and make the wisest choice you can.

But I would suggest that we can’t disobey a law or mandate just because we disagree with it, or it won’t work, or it’s stupid, or it’s an abuse of authority, or it’s applied selectively, or even because it’s unconstitutional. The US system provides legal ways to address stupid or abusive or unconstitutional laws, and disobedience doesn’t seem to be a biblical option in those cases. Seek an injunction, or sue, or protest, but obey the mandate while doing so.

Photo by Claire Anderson on Unsplash

On How You’re Remembered (Strategery)

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A few days ago I posted something on Facebook that caused some controversy. It was a reflection on an issue that’s extremely controversial—how we discuss our varying responses to the current pandemic. The whole world is worked up about this pandemic, because it’s global, and significant, and consequential.

As often happens, the comments turned back to arguing about the issue rather than about how we discuss the issue, which was my original point—and the hostility of the discussion pretty well made my point, which was that some things are more important than other very important things—that some things are infinitely important.

Years ago I had an experience that significantly changed my thinking about this principle. My father got involved in a tax-protest movement and stopped filing his taxes. I got to thinking about doing the same thing.

I was young—just out of college and into grad school—and at that moment I did one of the very few wise things I did in those days.

I went to see Dr. Panosian.

He was the chairman of the History Department at BJU at the time, and one of the school’s most well-respected professors. I thought his advice would be wise.

So I sat in his office and explained what the movement was all about and asked him what he thought.

He leaned back in his chair, looked off into the distance for a few seconds, and in that remarkably deep and sonorous voice, he spoke words that changed my life.

“Dan,” he said, “someday you’re going to die.”

And I wondered, what does that have to do with tax protest?

“And when you die,” he continued, “you’re going to be remembered for something. You need to decide whether this is what you want to be remembered for.”

And with those three brief sentences, uttered in less than 30 seconds, he expressed such concise and clear wisdom that I was ashamed that I had needed his help in the first place. I should have been able to figure that out myself. What a stupid question I had asked.

When my death notice comes out, do I want people to say, “Oh, yeah, Dan. He was that tax protestor, wasn’t he?”

Not in a million years.

I want them to say, “Oh, yeah, Dan. He believed Jesus. He studied his Word and taught it to others. I’m happier and closer to Jesus because of something he said once. I’m glad our paths crossed.”

Since then, I’ve been a lot less inclined to get all fired up about less important stuff. I get involved in righteous causes, of course; but I can’t find myself getting all riled up about the Outrage of the Day. I have overriding responsibilities, and confidence in the good plan of the One who gave them to me.

That brings grace. Mercy. Peace.

It brings joy. Confident expectation (“hope,” in the biblical sense).

And focus. Focus on the long view, the eternal issues, the most important goal. Strategery.

So.

You might be wondering what happened to my Dad.

Eventually he got under conviction for breaking the law and turned himself in.

The IRS said, “Don’t leave town; we’ll look into your case and get back to you.”

A few weeks later they called him in.

They said, “Mr. Olinger, your case is very interesting. You worked a union job at the Boston paper before you retired, didn’t you?” Yep. Linotype operator at the Herald American. Closed shop.

“And you held your union seniority after you retired.” Yep. A little union trick. You don’t quit your job; you put on a “permanent sub.”

“And then Rupert Murdock came in and bought the paper—and with it he bought out all the union contracts with a cash payment.” Yep.

“Your buyout check was handled through the union office in Boston, where they withheld taxes on the settlement based on your union income level, before they sent it on to you.” Yep.

“Well, Mr. Olinger, we’ve determined that since you’re retired now and not making as much as you were in the union job, you were over-withheld on that buyout check. Here’s what we owe you. Have a nice day.”

Now, I know what was going on there. Dad had no assets for them to recover, and they knew it. So they showed mercy and grace, figuring that he’d tell his tax protester friends and that some bigger fish would be enticed by his story to turn themselves in. The IRS was thinking strategically, far beyond the current case.

The children of this world are often wiser than the children of light.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

The Mark, Part 5: On Track

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Part 1: Looking Ahead | Part 2: Down the Aisle | Part 3: The Look of the Big City | Part 4: Life in the Big City

John, the last apostle living, is writing the book of Revelation while exiled on the island of Patmos, imprisoned for preaching the gospel (Re 1.9). He has seen visions of wonderful things, including the glorious end of history and the ultimate triumph of God for the benefit of his people. We get the impression that John is often unable to put into words what he is seeing; there is nothing on earth with which to compare it. So he speaks of jasper and gold that are as clear as crystal.

He has no words.

These things are unimaginably delightful.

But John is not in the heavenly city. He’s on Patmos, which, while a very nice island, as islands go, is most certainly not paradise. And according to well-established legend, he is occupying his time with slave labor in the salt mines, at the age of 90 or so.

The nasty now and now.

We look forward to the glorious consummation of all things, but we’re not there yet. We look for the mark at the finish line, but we’re very much still in the race, on the track, still running, exerting ourselves, exhausted, just trying to make it to the end.

What do we do now?

John addresses that for his readers.

Confident Trust

After describing the glories of the heavenly city (Re 22.3-5), John turns to his readers, as it were, and says simply, “These things are faithful and true” (Re 22.6)—an assertion that he immediately documents by identifying the source, a messenger from God himself.

This is not pie in the sky. It’s not merely a psychological mind game, a crutch that enables us to hobble along through a frustrating and meaningless world.

It’s the real deal. It’s coming. And you can take that to the bank.

Obedience

And since it’s certainly coming, we can and should live in anticipation of it. Christ is coming (Re 22.7, 12), and there will be an accounting (Re 22.11-12). When you know you’re going to give an account of yourself, what do you do? You live in such a way that you can explain yourself without embarrassment. That’s just common sense.

But what about the embarrassing things you’ve already done? And the things you know from experience that you’re going to do, despite all your effort to resist?

Ah, my friend, there’s a solution for that. You clean up (Re 22.14); you “wash your robes.” In what? John has already told us: “in the blood of the lamb” (Re 7.14). You’re not righteous, but you can be made righteous by faith in the Lamb who died for you.

The Lamb invites all who are thirsty, all who wish to drink, to come and drink the water of life abundantly, at no cost (Re 22.17). That was true long before Jesus came (Is 55.1-13), and it is true today.

All you have to do is come to him.

Anticipation

And so, ready and confident, we watch, and we wait.

Warren Wiersbe observes that the book ends with a plea (“Come!” Re 22.17), a prayer (“Come, Lord Jesus!” Re 22.20), and a promise (“I am coming quickly!” Re 22.20). That promise—“I am coming quickly”—occurs 3 times in this last chapter of God’s Word to us (Re 22.7, 12, 20). The word translated “quickly” speaks of the nature rather than the timing of the event; it’s not so much that the coming will be “soon”—it was more than 2000 years away when Jesus spoke those words—as that it will unfold rapidly when it comes, “like a thief in the night” (1Th 5.2), “in the twinkling of an eye” (1Co 15.52).

And so we need to be ready. Just as there’s no time to put on your seat belt when the car gets T-boned, so you need to be ready for his certain coming.

Come to the waters, and drink.

And as we watch and wait, enjoy the race.

Photo by Béatrice Natale on Unsplash

The Mark, Part 4: Life in the Big City

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Part 1: Looking Ahead | Part 2: Down the Aisle | Part 3: The Look of the Big City

John has described the entrance of the Bride, the New Jerusalem, and has told us something of what the city looks like. Now he begins to describe life, culture, in this unprecedented city.

His opening observation (Re 21.22) is the most obvious feature, the one that drives all the rest:

God is there.

The Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb—John speaks of them as distinct persons, but also in the same breath, as if they are equals—have taken up residence in this city; John says, perhaps unexpectedly, that they are “its temple,” or “its holy place.”

Now, that’s odd. How can God, who is infinite (unconfined by space) and thus omnipresent, be said to be a “place”?

Welcome to theology, where we spend our time seeking to comprehend the incomprehensible, where things are indisputably true but deeply puzzling, where God invites us to know him but in significant ways remains beyond all knowing—and so where we are constantly reminded that we are not the smartest people in the room.

At any rate, as we’ve noted before, the Scripture portrays God as seeking, throughout history, to dwell with his people, to live in their midst. And now the partial, the anticipatory, has come to fruition. Now he dwells with us, visibly, physically(?), notably.

For the rest of the paragraph, John describes life in the city in a series of characteristics that flow directly from the fact that God Is There.

First, God’s presence illuminates the entire city and all life in it. The sun and moon are no longer needed (Re 21.23). How could one glorious presence light every corner of a city 1500 miles across? I suppose it’s reductionistic to suggest that since all the building materials are clear as crystal, there’s nothing to impede the light; this is God’s light, after all, and everything about the place is supernatural. It’s not as though a brick wall could keep the light from getting through.

It’s often been noted that this last section of the Bible often parallels the first; the entire Scripture is marked by what literary critics call an inclusio. In Genesis 1, God begins by creating light (Ge 1.3). Since he creates the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day (Ge 1.14-19), skeptics have questioned how there could be light on Day 1—and how there could be 24-hour days without a sun. The Bible doesn’t answer that question, but this passage makes it clear that there can be light—and more than sufficient light for life—without any sun at all. Does life at the beginning of Scripture resemble life at the end—light provided directly by the glory of God itself? That would certainly make sense.

It’s worth noting as well that the Lamb, who humbled himself and died in darkness, is now glorious enough to be the light of the city. The Father has indeed exalted him (Php 2.9).

There’s more to this city. Because God is there,

  • It’s safe (Re 21.25); those big imposing gates have no protective function. Omnipotence will bring that result.
  • It’s prosperous (Re 21.26). With the freedom that safety brings, there’s activity among the citizenry; there’s commerce; stuff gets done. Basically, it’s the opposite of life in a pandemic.
  • It’s clean (Re 21.27). It’s not “gritty,” the way life in most big cities usually is.
  • And finally, because God is there, the city is characterized by life rather than death (Re 22.1-2). There’s water of life, and consequently a tree of life (there’s Genesis again), whose fruits bring healing—life—to all peoples, without distinction and without discrimination. Remember what God said after Adam sinned? He moved to stop him from eating from the tree of life (Ge 3.22), perhaps because he would then be irredeemably sinful. But now, here, in the City, the time is right. The tree of life is here, and all can eat of it without fear.

The consequence of all this will be worship (Re 22.3-5). But we don’t need to wait for that. Next time, we’ll finish this series by reflecting on what we should be doing while we’re waiting for all this to happen.

Part 5: On Track

Photo by Béatrice Natale on Unsplash

The Mark, Part 3: The Look of the Big City

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Part 1: Looking Ahead | Part 2: Down the Aisle

In the first 8 verses of Revelation 21, the bride, the New Jerusalem, is presented. Now we turn for a closer look at the heavenly city and what life will be like for those who live there.

To begin with, John is informed by his heavenly guide that the city doesn’t just act like a bride (Re 21.2)—she actually is one. And her groom, it turns out, is the Lamb Himself, the one who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll (Re 5.1-12), the one who by being sacrificed—by laying down his life—has redeemed to God a people from every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation (Re 5.9).

And this bride is bedecked as befits her station. The city appears like no other.

  • The walls are constructed with stone—not just concrete, or even marble—but precious stone (Re 21.11), the kind you wouldn’t use for massive construction work, because it’s just too expensive. Pretty much all the English translations render this word “jasper,” which is the best they can do to name an unearthly material. But it’s not much like jasper, which is quartz of various colors, and opaque. We read that this stone is “clear as crystal.” And the Greek word rendered “jasper” apparently carries a reference to being cut, more than being a particular species (is that the right word?) of gem. Imagine walls made of faceted diamond! Just that aspect of the city’s beauty boggles the mind.
  • It has high walls, with 12 gates and solid foundations (Re 21.12-14). In biblical times, walls were indications of strength; the city was protected from invaders and well positioned to repel them, since defenders could stand atop the walls—on the “high ground”—and make life miserable for any foolish enough to attack. The gates, too, are defensive, specially designed to make entry difficult in multiple ways. But here’s the thing: there are no invaders. All evil has previously been destroyed in the lake of fire (Re 20.11-15; 21.8). There’s no need for defense. This is one astonishingly safe city.
  • John’s guide goes to the trouble of measuring the city (Re 21.15-16). Oddly, it’s a cube—square on the ground but as high as its length and width. What that’s going to look like architecturally—lots of stories? spires?—we’re not told, but it reminds us of something ancient. In Solomon’s Temple, the Holiest Place, where God’s personal glory hovered between the cherubim atop the Ark of the Covenant, was a cube as well (1K 6.20), of 30 feet, covered with pure gold. This city too is pure gold “like clear glass” (Re 21.18). If we had been able to stand inside the Holiest Place, we would have been astonished. This is exponentially more than that. It isn’t ordinary gold, and it isn’t ordinary construction.
  • The foundations are various gemstones; jasper shows up again, as just the first of a dozen materials (Re 21.19-20). The gates are pearl (Re 21.21)—there must be some very large oysters somewhere—which is odd, since there’s no more sea. :-) And the streets are gold, again “like transparent glass” (Re 21.21).

Often in my academic reading, I’ll finish a page and think, “I know what every word on this page means, but I have no idea what this writer is talking about.” (That happens a lot with certain unnamed twentieth-century German theologians.) When that happens, I often suspect that it’s a flaw in the writer. The purpose of writing, after all, is to communicate.

But here the problem is not with the writer. The problem here is with me. I can read the words, but the content of this passage is simply beyond my ability to visualize and comprehend. It is beyond earthly experience.

We can only imagine.

And John’s description of the heavenly city is far from finished. So far he has described just the physical things. The spiritual nature of this city—if you will, the culture, the lifestyle, the vibrant life of this city—he’ll get to next.

We’ll talk about that next time.

Part 4: Life in the Big City | Part 5: On Track

Photo by Béatrice Natale on Unsplash