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

 

Retired Bible Professor,

Bob Jones University

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On God’s Ongoing Speech

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The Reformers were well known for their battle-cry, “Sola Scriptura!”—“The Scripture alone!” They were battling the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that Scripture and tradition—as defined in the statements of the ecumenical councils and the papal encyclicals—were equally authoritative.

I’m a sola scriptura guy too. And so is everybody I work with at my school.

So my students are sometimes surprised when I tell them that the Bible isn’t the only place where God speaks—and that the Bible itself tells us that.

God speaks to us through his Word, most certainly. But he also speaks in other ways.

Theologians have long recognized two classes of revelation: special revelation, or divinely inspired prophecy, which used to happen in different times and different ways (Heb 1.1) but today is confined to his Word (Heb 1.2); and general revelation, or what he shows us through his works—most notably in creation (Ps 19.1ff); in his direction of human affairs, or providence (Dan 2.21); and in human conscience (Gn 1.26-27). God is still speaking today in those ways.

We should note, as we always do when teaching this principle, that general revelation is not authoritative or inerrant in the way special revelation is, because the world and everything in it is broken by sin; what we’re seeing today is not exactly what God created. But the heavens still declare the glory of God, and humans at their worst are able to be informed and moved by what they see all around them.

Paul is a good example of someone putting this to work in ministry. When he’s introducing the gospel to members of a Jewish synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, he references primarily the Scripture, because they know and recognize it. His sermon (Ac 13.14-41) focuses on the metanarrative of Scripture and Jesus’ fulfillment of the messianic prophecies. But shortly later, when he’s addressing pagan Greeks in Athens, he takes an entirely different approach. Rather than quoting the Hebrew Scriptures, which would mean nothing to this audience, he cites their own poets—Epimenides and then Aratus (Ac 17.28)—because anyone in the image of God is eventually going to say something worthwhile. And he argues not from biblical authority but from logic—because even imperfect images of God can be logical.

Throughout history people have found spiritual meaning in the beauties of nature. One of my favorite examples of this, because it’s both observant and deftly rendered, is a poem written by Odell Shepard in 1917. Shepard was a professor of literature at Trinity College in Connecticut and then served a term as Lieutenant Governor. In 1938 he won the Pulitzer prize for biography for his work on Bronson Alcott, Louisa May’s father.

“Whence Cometh My Help”

Let me sleep among the shadows of the mountains when I die,
In the murmur of the pines and sliding streams,
Where the long day loiters by
Like a cloud across the sky
And the moon-drenched night is musical with dreams.

Lay me down within a canyon of the mountains, far away,
In a valley filled with dim and rosy light,
Where the flashing rivers play
Out across the golden day
And a noise of many waters brims the night.

Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the slanted glade
Under bending alders garrulous and cool,
Where they gather in the shade
To the dazzling, sheer cascade,
Where they plunge and sleep within the pebbled pool.

All the wisdom , all the beauty, I have lived for unaware
Came upon me by the rote of highland rills;
I have seen God walking there
In the solemn soundless air
When the morning wakened wonder in the hills.

I am what the mountains made me of their green and gold and gray,
Of the dawnlight and the moonlight and the foam.
Mighty mothers far away,
Ye who washed my soul in spray,
I am coming, mother mountains, coming home.

When I draw my dreams about me, when I leave the darkling plain
Where my soul forgets to soar and learns to plod,
I shall go back home again
To the kingdoms of the rain,
To the blue purlieus of heaven, nearer God.

Where the rose of dawn blooms earlier across the miles of mist,
Between the tides of sundown and moonrise,
I shall keep a lover’s tryst
With the gold and amethyst,
With the stars for my companions in the skies.

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On Personal Diversity

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This probably isn’t about what you think.

I’m not talking about quotas, or intersectionality, or affirmative action.

I’m not talking about labels and classes of people.

I’m talking about individuals.

I’ve been thinking lately about how diverse human beings are. We teachers have to take some of these differences into account when we teach. Students have different academic levels, of course. They have different backgrounds that can significantly affect their readiness for the material and their ability to process it. Teachers famously think about learning modalities; I’m inclined to think that the traditional list of “visual, auditory, and kinesthetic” is far from exhaustive. I remember how revelatory it was for me when I realized that I just don’t process things auditorily, that I have to see things to remember them.

The school where I teach has a fairly large department devoted to helping students succeed by finding their strengths and making reasonable accommodations for their weaknesses. I’ve grown to appreciate the fact that as a teacher I’m responsible to make these accommodations so that each of my students—all of them created in the image of God himself—can be the best he or she can be.

Our diversity extends far beyond our academic pursuits. People have different personalities—what in theology we call “natures.” Some people, like me, like to be on stage and presenting things we believe strongly. Others literally fear public speaking worse than death. Some people are introverted; some are extroverted. (And most, I suspect, are a complicated mixture of the two.)

Our families make us different. Our cultures make us different. Our place in time makes us different. And on and on it goes.

The Bible makes all this diversity unsurprising—first, because we’re created by a God who demonstrates the richness and complexity of his creative inclinations at every hand, and second, because a major emphasis of the New Testament is the diversity of believers in the church, both because of the breadth of God’s plan for his people—they will be from every kingdom, tribe, tongue, and nation (Re 7.9)—and because of the work of the Spirit in gifting his people for a wide range of ministry. On more than one occasion (Ro 12.4-8; 1Co 12.4-31; Ep 4.11-16) Paul compares the church to a body with one essential purpose but a wide variety of parts, each of them excellent at something, able to do things for the body that other parts cannot.

And that means that while there will be similarities in how we live out the Christian life—we will reverence God, and trust and obey him, and experience the Spirit’s conviction when we sin, and respond to that conviction with repentance—there will also be significant dissimilarities.

  • We’ll have differing salvation experiences. Some of us will experience great emotion, and others not so much. This is not an indication of the genuineness of our experience; it is simply a manifestation of our way of responding to even the most significant of life experiences.
  • We’ll have differing experiences of the means of grace.
    • We’ll apprehend Scripture differently, depending on our learning modalities and a thousand other differences. Sure, we should embrace a careful and defensible hermeneutic, and not engage in exegetical fallacies; but the experience of reading, absorbing, and implementing is not going to be the same for everyone. We’re going to see things differently, and we should share those insights to add to the richness of the biblical tradition.
    • We’ll pray, and experience prayer, differently. Some will be more conversational; others will work a list, and some lists will be more complicated than others—pray for these people on Monday, these on Tuesday. Some will pray with deep emotion; others will matter-of-factly present their requests to God and with relative ease will trust him to do the best thing. The Scripture doesn’t bind us as to prayer technique, and we should be free to express ourselves to our heavenly Father in ways—loving, reverential ways—that are most effective and genuine for us.
    • We’ll worship differently. Some will be inclined toward more formal, even liturgical services, while others will flourish in the environment of the old-time camp meetin’. More power to all of you.

Recognizing the creative complexity of our God, and of his image in us, liberates us to be genuine—within the bounds of morality, of course—and to make our unique contribution to the larger body.

It’s good for us. All.

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On Benedictions, Part 2: Every Good Thing

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Part 1: He Who Is Able

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

20 Now 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, 21 equip 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

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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

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Christ As Firstborn | Part 3: Every Knee Will Bow | Part 4: Morning Light | Part 5: Manifested, Vindicated | Part 6: Eternal Glory | Part 7: If and Then

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

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Christ As Firstborn | Part 3: Every Knee Will Bow | Part 4: Morning Light | Part 5: Manifested, Vindicated | Part 6: Eternal Glory

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:

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

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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,
16 who 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

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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

On Biblical Hymns, Part 4: Morning Light

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

Our first two New Testament hymns were from Colossians and Philippians respectively, and they meditate on the person and work of Christ—the first on his exalted status as the perfect revelation of the glorious Father, and the second on his humility in becoming a servant, humility that results in the Father’s extravagant exaltation of him.

There’s another NT letter written about the same time as these two—perhaps even on the same day as Colossians—where a third hymn appears. It’s much briefer than the first two, and it can serve well as a simple response to them—an application of their teaching, if you will.

If Paul focuses in Colossians on Christ’s role as head of the church, in Ephesians he focuses on the church’s role as the body of Christ. In its first half he lays down the doctrine that Christ’s work has brought together disparate peoples into a unified body, something that only God could do (Ep 3.10). At the letter’s midpoint (Ep 4.1) he pivots to application—how should members of such a body behave in the world? Well, they ought to live differently in specific, practical ways (Ep 4.17-32). And these differences spring from the fact that whereas we used to walk in darkness, we now live in the light of Christ (Ep 5.7-13).

At this point Paul draws on what is apparently another hymn of that day:

Awake, sleeper,
And arise from the dead,
And Christ will shine on you! (Ep 5.14).

Why do we usually end our church services with a song?

There are several reasons:

  • Singing focuses our thoughts on the song’s message, encouraging us to meditate on it—and, if the song has been deftly chosen, on the key thought of the service.
  • A thought sung typically stays with us longer than one spoken—that’s why you can remember childhood songs decades later—and so will bring the key thought to us long after we’re “home from church” (now there’s an unbiblical expression!) and in need of applying it.
  • Music moves our emotions as well as our intellect, serving to motivate us to put into action what we have been convinced of as true. This is persuasion at its best and most legitimate.

Now that Paul has laid the intellectual foundation for our changed behavior, and has given us the imperative to live in a new way, he moves us to action with a simple statement in hymnic form, one that is dense with theological implication:

  • We have been sleeping. Worse than that, we have been “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ep 2.1), by nature destined for God’s wrathful judgment (Ep 2.3).
  • But Christ has awakened us. We have risen with him (Ep 2.6) and are now alive (Ep 2.5) to the same degree to which we were previously dead. We can see, and hear, and smell, and taste, and touch. A world that was previously dark is now bright and colorful and filled with potential.
  • Christ is the light. Christ, the Bible tells us (Jn 1.3; Co 1.16; He 1.2), is the Elohim of Genesis 1, the one who on the first day cried out, “Let there be light!” (Ge 1.3). He is the one who revealed himself briefly to three of his disciples as shining with the radiance of God’s glory (Mt 17.2). He is the one who will be the light of the heavenly city, which will have no more need for the sun itself (Re 21.23). And, to Paul’s point here in Ephesians, he is the one who lights our path through a dark world, enabling us as we walk to be lights to those around us (Mt 5.14).

Darkened soul, behold his glory!
Blinded eyes, receive your sight!
Sinner, leave your seat of darkness!
Rise, and come to the light!
(Eileen Berry)

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 5: Manifested, Vindicated | Part 6: Eternal Glory | Part 7: If and Then | Part 8: God and Us

Photo by Michael Maasen on Unsplash