Dan Olinger

On Discipline, Part 1: Perspective

July 22, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

No, I’m not referring to child-rearing, but to how we discipline ourselves. It’s a truism that if you aim at nothing, you’ll certainly hit it. Pretty much everybody understands that you have to set goals, and then persist in pursuing them, in order to accomplish anything worthwhile.

There’s a whole industry of advisors, people who are happy to coach you on making the best of life—whether on the secular side or on the spiritual. Reading these works discerningly and thoughtfully can be highly profitable.

More reliably, though, the Scripture addresses this topic extensively. A series of blog posts is not the place for a comprehensive survey of the biblical theology of personal discipline, but it’s reasonable to focus on a single passage that concentrates on the idea.

I find such a passage in Philippians 4. It’s a concise presentation, and a familiar one; many Christians have memorized the passage, or at least parts of it. In verses 4-9, I find a list of five aspects of our lifestyle—what the King James translators called “conversation”—that we ought to discipline in certain ways. Lord willing, I’ll devote a post to each of the five.

The section opens with Paul’s goal for his (and our) perspective:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice (Php 4.4).

Our view of things, he says, should be consistently joyful.

Several things to note about that.

First, this is Paul writing. He has not had an easy life; as he has already noted in this short epistle, he has sacrificed early professional success to follow Jesus (Php 3.4-11), and a few years earlier he has listed for the church in Corinth a litany of hardship (2Co 11.23-29). Even as he writes these words, he is under house arrest in Rome, waiting for a hearing before Caesar that threatens capital punishment. He is not speaking platitudes.

Second, he is writing to Philippi, a church founded out of a night in prison, an earthquake, and government opposition (Ac 16.13-40). He is about to say that this church has already given sacrificially to support his ministry from a distance (Php 4.16). There is nothing flippant or casual about what he is asking them to do.

Rejoice, he says. No, I really mean it, he repeats.

And furthermore, rejoice all the time.

Rejoice in the good times; rejoice in the bad. Rejoice in success; rejoice in failure.

Rejoice in house arrest. Rejoice in the inner prison.

Interestingly, Paul lives that out. He has already written here that his arrest has yielded good things (Php 1.12-14), and he will go on to say that there are now saints in Caesar’s household (Php 4.22)—though we don’t know whether they became saints as a direct result of his appeal to Caesar.

Now for the fifty-dollar question—how does he do it? How does Paul rejoice in the midst of suffering and injustice greater than you (probably) or I have ever experienced? And by extension, how are we to “rejoice … always”?

The ellipsis provides the answer: “rejoice in the Lord always.”

There’s a lot packed into that tiny prepositional phrase.

What does it mean to “rejoice in the Lord”?

At its purest, it means simply to rejoice in God himself—who he is, and what he does. Meditation on him brings great delight.

But God knows that we are dust, and he understands that we are consistently motivated by self-interest. He graciously works benefits to us, in which we can then rejoice. The blessings of salvation are profitable topics for meditation, as are answers to prayer. (Sidebar: if you don’t pray much, or at all, you’re depriving yourself of the joy that comes from seeing prayers answered.) The confidence that comes from following his will, even through valleys (Ps 23.4), is reason to rejoice. It’s a great gift to know that, really, everything’s going to be OK, and the hard times will eventuate in great good.

So our first step of discipline, according to this passage, is in our perspective: we discipline ourselves to see all things as causes for rejoicing.

This is life-changing.

More next time.

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On Magic

July 18, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

I find that a surprising number of professing Christians think in magical terms.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

I’m not talking about “stage magic,” where somebody pulls a quarter out of a kid’s ear or a rabbit out of a hat. Those folks are in the entertainment business, and everybody knows that.

No, I’m talking about real magic, witchcraft, where somebody casts a “spell” or a “hex” on an enemy, or where he wears an amulet or charm that will bring him “good luck,” or where the wife of a president consults an astrologer to see what days are auspicious for travel.

The Bible mentions such practices in several places, and always negatively—examples include

¹⁰There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, ¹¹Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. ¹²For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee (Dt 18.10-12).

²⁷Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; ²⁸But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days (Dan 2.27-28).

And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus (Ac 13.6).

¹⁹Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, ²⁰Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, ²¹Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God (Ga 5.19-21).

Why always negative?

Well, what is magic, in essence?

It’s an attempt to get the gods to do what you want.

And that is to turn the universe upside down and inside out. God is not our servant; he is not here to do what we want. We are here to do what he wants.

If I do this or this or that, God will do what I want.

That’s, ironically, godless thinking.

If I have my devotions, I’ll have a better day.

If I go to church, maybe my prayers will be answered.

If I tithe, maybe God will make me rich.

Now, obviously, God tells us to pray, and to include in those prayers—among other things—our requests:

⁶Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. ⁷And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Php 4.6-7).

He even tells us to come boldly:

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (He 4.16).

But he also cautions us to ask according to his will:

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us (1J 5.14).

This isn’t about getting him to do what we want; it’s about aligning our wishes and desires with what he wants.

And how do we do that?

We make a conscious decision to trust the goodness of his will for us and for those we love. That’s a matter of the heart.

And then we go to the effort of discovering what that will is, by filling our minds with the expressions of his will in the Scripture. That’s a matter of the mind.

And then we choose to seek that will, to ask for it. That’s a matter of the will.

We need to remember who’s boss.

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On the Unforgiveable Sin, Part 2

July 15, 2024 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1

So if I believe that there is no sin that God won’t forgive, what do we do with those “proof texts”? I have no interest in “explaining away” what the Bible says; if the Bible says something, I need to believe it. My argument here is that the Bible does not in fact say what the “unforgiveable sin” teachers claim—because they have ignored a key element in biblical interpretation: context. In all three of these passages, a thoughtful consideration of the passage’s context makes the actual teaching pretty clear.

Matthew 12.31-32

Jesus’ words here are his response to something that has just happened. Jesus has cast a demon out of a blind and mute man (Mt 12.22), and the onlookers, amazed by what they have seen, recognize the significance of the miracle as Messianic: “Is not this the Son of David?” (Mt.12.23). They are familiar with the biblical promise of a descendant of David who would reign forever (2S 7.12-16), and they also recognize the healing of a blind man as a fulfillment of prophecy (Is 35.5), specifically of prophecy about the Servant of Yahweh (Is 42.7). Just one chapter earlier, Jesus had responded to John the Baptist’s question (“Are you the Coming One?”) by noting that “the blind receive their sight” (Mt 11.5).

The onlookers respond in faith.

But there is another group watching—not to see and believe, but to gather evidence against this miracle worker and to oppose his threat to their political and religious power. The Pharisees are not interested in truth or in righteousness, but in neutralizing the threat. So they accuse him of doing the miracle through Satan’s power (Mt 12.24).

Jesus responds to the charge first by demonstrating its illogic—would Satan cast out Satan? (Mt 12.25-26). And then he turns to their much deeper problem: they are determined not to believe. No matter what he does—even Messianic miracles—they will harden their hearts against them, until the day they die. And in that day, their sin of unbelief will not be forgiven.

Why not?

Because they refused to repent, which is the only means of forgiveness. Thus there’s nothing particularly unusual about their sin; as is true of everyone, they will not be forgiven for sins of which they refuse to repent.

What happens to a hard-hearted Pharisee who sees, believes, and repents? The Bible tells us about just such a man. His name was Saul, and he was forgiven.

1 John 5.16

With the “blasphemy of the Spirit” passage accurately read, John’s reference to “the sin unto death” becomes clear. “A sin which is not unto death” is simply one of which the sinner will repent. We pray faithfully for those engaged in sin, hoping that God will one day bring them to repentance; for nothing is impossible for him.

But as he presents that encouragement, John notes that not everyone will repent; that’s the way the world works. He has already noted that genuine believers do not live out a pattern of persistent sin (1J 3.6), but there are those who will not depart from a sinful lifestyle. The classic commentator Alfred Plummer observed, “It is possible to close the heart against the influences of God’s Spirit so obstinately and persistently that repentance becomes a moral impossibility. … The soul may go on refusing offers of grace until the very power to receive grace perishes. Such a condition is necessarily sin, and ‘sin unto death.’ ”

Matthew 25.31-46

Now to the Judgment of Sheep and Goats. Why do some come to the judgment confident, only to be shocked at their condemnation? They are condemned for the same reason anyone else is condemned: they have not repented. They trusted in their good works (Mt 25.44) but had no heart to follow Christ.

God is not the kind of person who sentences his well-meaning children to a life of uncertainty and fear. I have sat with more than one student who has been spiritually and emotional crippled by his fear that, without meaning to, he has committed some unforgiveable sin.

Nonsense.

Power. Love. A sound mind (2Ti 1.7).

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On the Unforgiveable Sin, Part 1

July 11, 2024 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Every so often we hear reference to “the unforgiveable sin.” This idea typically comes from Jesus’ mention of “the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit”:

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come (Mt 12.31-32).

Some also note the mention of “a sin unto death” in 1 John 5.16:

If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.

And some note Matthew 25.31-46, where Jesus describes the Judgment of the Sheep and Goats. He notes that in that judgment both the sheep and the goats will be surprised by their outcomes; in particular, the goats will be surprised at their condemnation. “Lord, Lord!”

I’m going to put my premise right up front:

I think the idea of an “unforgiveable sin” is nonsense, first because it’s bad exegesis, and second because it’s bad theology.

First, the theology.

This idea necessitates that God is the kind of person who won’t forgive a certain sin—by implication, even if the sinner wants to repent—and who further doesn’t tell us clearly what that sin is specifically; the range of interpretations of the “blasphemy of the Spirit” passage is as wide as a Texas horizon. The result is that we never know if we’ve committed it; we arrive at the judgment thinking that we’re forgiven, but we’ve done something that we didn’t realize was unforgiveable, and down we go. Nothing personal, you understand; just following policy. Rules are rules.

This is blasphemous.

God is not that kind of person. He forgives all who come; he will turn no one away (Jn 6.37). He hasn’t identified a certain sin as one that he won’t forgive. If you come, bringing your sin with you in repentance, he will take it all, and he will cast it behind his back (Is 38.17), to the bottom of the sea (Mic 7.19), as far as the east is from the west (Ps 103.12), and he will receive you.

Come. Bring it all. This is the God who invites us, who takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezk 33.11)), who leaves the 99 to go seek the 1 lost sheep (Lk 15.4), who rejoices with all heaven at the repentance of a single sinner (Lk 15.7).

Our understanding of God must be informed—bounded—by the character that he has revealed. We may be in his image, but he is not like us in our limitation and in our brokenness, and he does not behave toward us like our enemies—or even like our friends, in many respects.

He is perfectly great, and he is perfectly good.

Now, that raises a question. What do we do with the passages noted above? Is my thesis ignoring them? Denying them?

Not at all. I’d suggest that a great many readers of Scripture are misreading them. We’ll look into that in the next post.

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God and Man, Part 17: Unity 3

July 8, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

One more thing to think about in this blog’s longest-ever series.

The Bible notes, almost as an aside, that “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Lk 2.52). That’s a remarkable statement, one that encourages us to synthesize all that we’ve been thinking about in this series.

Jesus, the God-Man, developed during his youth, apparently in the same way that all humans do. It’s easy to understand how he grew physically (“stature”), and perhaps with a little more difficulty, it’s possible to envision him growing socially (“favor with man”). But how did he develop in wisdom? And most especially, how did he develop in favor with God?

We’re beyond our limits of understanding, and as I noted in the previous post, we have no analogues to compare this unique person to. This passage tells us that the maturation occurred, and Hebrews 4.15 tells us that this maturation, like everything else in his life, occurred without sin.

But beyond that, it’s all speculation.

Did the baby Jesus walk the first time he tried? (Is it a sin to “fall down and go boom”? I don’t think so.) Was he younger than normal when he took his first steps? Was he athletically superior in his youth?

How old was he when he began to talk? Did he ever make grammatical errors? Did Mary ever have to say the Aramaic equivalent of “No, Jesus, it’s not ‘Can me and Johnny go out and play?’ but ‘May Johnny and I go out and play?’ ”? (Are grammatical errors sinful? Could the developing Jesus have made non-sinful mistakes? Was he unusually smart? Did he always get 100% on his math worksheets? Note that he said there were things he didn’t know [Mk 13.32] during the incarnation.)

Did Joseph ever say to him, “Now, Son, if you keeping holding the hammer that way, you’re going to hurt yourself”? Did he ever hurt himself?

Did his siblings know that there was something unusual about him? I find it fascinating that during his earthly ministry his brothers didn’t believe in him (Jn 7.5; cf Mt 12.46-49). Paul tells us that one of the first people Jesus met with after his resurrection was his brother James, who was apparently second oldest (Mt 13.55) and therefore the leader of the family after the (presumed) death of Joseph and the (temporary) death of Jesus (1Co 15.7). What I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall at that conversation!

These thoughts deal just with his person. What about his work?

Paul tells us that the Son is the agent of providence: “by him all things hold together” (Co 1.17). Was he running the universe in the back of his mind during the Sermon on the Mount? How about as a boy of 12 in the Temple? As a toddler? As an infant? As a fetus?

I say this reverently: was there some sort of 25^th Amendment in the Godhead, whereby the Son transferred those duties to the Father or the Spirit, or did he fully engage them throughout the incarnation? And if the latter, how did that interact with his limitation of knowledge during that time?

You and I know this person, to the extent that we can by our study of the Scriptures, the illuminating work of the Spirit, and the means of grace. But there is more to him than we can possibly know during our lifetimes, and perhaps even in eternity.

Revel in the wonder.

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On Independence Day

July 4, 2024 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Since the Fourth of July falls on a Thursday this year, and since I post on Thursdays. I’m going to interrupt the current series to say something about the holiday.

I suppose I could say something about what it means to be an American, and about the sacrifices of the many who have bestowed this blessing on us. I could engage my inclination toward theology to discuss the concept of independence as the Bible presents it, or the significance of our national identity against the backdrop of divine providence. I could meditate on the importance of celebration, or the joys of tradition, or what happens when someone uses fireworks foolishly. Or even about why the Articles of Confederation didn’t work out so well.

Maybe on a future Independence Day, one on a Monday or a Thursday, I’ll hit some of those ideas. But this time, I want to point out the day’s relationship to a very large theological theme.

Political liberty is a divine gift. The American founders recognized that fact without apology, and various leaders along the path of its history have repeated the theme—leaders as theologically diverse as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

I’ve had the privilege of being in at least two other countries—one in Asia, one in Africa—as they were celebrating their independence days. I found it oddly satisfying to rejoice with them in their freedom, to feel something akin to patriotism toward a land that was not my own. (I suppose the fact that both countries were celebrating independence from Great Britain gave my Patriot heart a certain resonance with theirs.) I’d suggest that it’s perfectly normal for God’s people to celebrate his gifts to others (Ro 12.15).

And speaking of gifts, the Bible spends quite a bit of time talking about a specific class of gifts that God gives to his people, which he calls charismata, “spiritual gifts.” He makes it very clear that God is lavish with these gifts, seeing to it that every individual believer has at least one, and distributing personally through his Holy Spirit (1Co 12.11-13). We are not to take credit for the abilities these gifts entail, for we did not earn them; God has given them freely.

But on the other hand, he expects us to steward them, to use them wisely and effectively. He expects us to develop them, to make the best use of them that we can (2Ti 1.6). We will give account for that stewardship.

In a similar way, even as we rejoice in the delights of the gift of freedom, we are not to be casual about them, for they are the gift of God. We hold a solemn responsibility to steward our freedom, to make the best use of it. I would suggest a few specific ways we can do that.

By not abusing it. I am free to do all sorts of things, but that fact does not mean that I ought to do everything I am free to do. I am free to speak my mind to political adversaries, but I will give account for every idle word that I speak (Mt 12.36), particularly words that imply my adversaries are not, like me, created in the image of God (Ge 1.26-27) and of infinite value. I am free to spend my hard-earned money on myself, but I am not free to ignore the plight of those in need.

By attempting to extend it to others. I have fellow citizens whose freedom, and other natural and constitutional rights, are being impinged; and of course citizens of multiple other countries are in a similar or worse condition. I can steward my freedom by using it to expand the freedom of others.

By defending it. My country has not called on me for military service—I learned as a teen that the government was not particularly inclined to let someone with only one working ear fly its multi-billion-dollar fighters—but I can defend it in other ways. All that requires is being attentive and inclined to take a stand.

Gratitude for God’s gifts, and stewardship of it. Most of theology is about giving balanced attention to both divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

To my American friends, Happy Fourth.

And to my other friends, I rejoice with you in God’s particular kindness to you.

Or, as we say in my region of my country, to y’all.

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God and Man, Part 16: Unity 2

July 1, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In the previous post we noted that at a point in history, the Son added to his eternal divine nature a human nature—a set of human characteristics—so that while he was still God in every respect, he also became human in every respect. But it’s important to note that his “Godness” does not become human, and his “humanness” does not become God. Why is that?

It helps if we think a bit about the difference between a person and his nature, or qualities. You and I are persons, but we’re different persons, with different characteristics. I have a list of adjectives that describe me: a nature. I’m short, bald, slim, verbal, and older than I used to be. You have a different set of adjectives—though you are of course, like me, older than you used to be as well. Our natures are distinct from our persons.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s reminded us that African-Americans are lots of things besides their ethnicity; more recently, the “Me Too” movement reminded us that women are lots of things besides their physical characteristics. I’m more than just a short person, and you’re more than just someone who’s older than you used to be.

In a similar way, Jesus’ human nature, or characteristics, remain distinct from his divine nature; they’re separate lists of adjectives. Natures aren’t persons, they’re just adjectives. So we can’t say that God the Son, the person, was mortal; his mortality was a human characteristic. Perhaps you’ve heard someone say that God died on the cross, but that is not accurate.

Now here’s where it gets beyond us. God the Son, the person, has the characteristic of immortality in his divine nature, and mortality in his human nature. And those are not contradictions; they are distinct adjectives.

But how can they both be true in the same person?

There, my friend, is the rub.

No one but the Son has ever had two natures, one human and one divine. In that respect he is unlike anyone else, God, man, or angel.

We have trouble understanding unique things, because we learn by comparing the new thing with something we already know about. “Artificial Intelligence is kinda like a really big, really fast brain.” It’s not a brain, of course, but the comparison helps us understand it.

Now, since Jesus is unique, there’s nothing to compare him to; his dual nature is not “kinda like” anyone or anything else.

So we’re stumped; we have great difficulty making any sense of it.

And we should expect that, shouldn’t we? Should finite minds easily grasp an infinite person?

Isn’t there a place for awe, for wonder, for delight as we meditate on such things?

Now, those early church fathers I mentioned in the previous post, after four centuries of exhausting speculation and occasionally violent confrontation, formulated a statement that laid out their understanding of what happened at the incarnation without any attempt to explain how it worked. That statement is called the Creed of Chalcedon, named for the city where they met to formulate it in 1451. (It’s close to Istanbul, Turkey, which at the time was called Constantinople.)

You can find that relatively brief statement here.

Now, there’s one more element in this that we ought to consider: how did the God-man, Jesus, develop from infant to adult?

We don’t know much about that, but we’ll examine what we do know, and allow ourselves to speculate a little bit, in the final post in our unusually long series.

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Part 17: Unity 3

God and Man, Part 15: Unity 1

June 27, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Now we get to the hard part. It’s not difficult for us to think of Jesus as human; he walked among us. It’s a little more difficult, but not impossible, to think of him as God, given the Trinity, the miracles, the ascension. But what’s really difficult is to think of him as both, at the same time. How does God exist in a human body? How does that even work?

Some of the greatest minds in history wrestled with that question over a span of four centuries, and at the end of a complex and tumultuous process, they said, “Well, here’s what we think happened, but we’re not even going to try to explain how.”

You see, the whole idea seems fraught with contradiction. God is omnipotent; Jesus was beaten by evil men. God is omniscient; Jesus said he didn’t know when he would come back (Mk 13.32). God is omnipresent; Jesus traveled from place to place, even speaking of his need to go someplace else (Lk 4.43; Jn 14.1-2). God is eternal and immortal; Jesus died.

What?!

And again I say, how does that even work?

Let’s start with some basics.

As both God and man, Jesus must have had a divine nature, one that existed from all eternity past. He has always had all the attributes of God. I’ve mentioned the four standard non-communicable attributes above, but he also has all the communicable attributes as well—grace, mercy, peace, love, justice, and so on.

Then, at a point in time, he became human, and at that moment he added all the attributes that make someone human—most importantly mortality, but also corporality (being limited to a body). As I’ve noted in an earlier post, he did not add the attribute of sinfulness, but that is not a necessary human attribute, since Adam and Eve were not initially sinful.

Now, the problem comes in that some of these attributes appear to be contradictory, most obviously immortality and mortality, but also corporality and omnipresence. And as we noted above, Jesus appears to demonstrate lack of knowledge, which seems to contradict omniscience.

The standard way of dealing with this is with the following carefully worded proposition: When he became incarnate, Jesus added to his eternal divine nature a human nature, thereby voluntarily (and temporarily) setting aside the independent exercise of his divine attributes and placing himself in dependence upon the Father.

Note that he did not set aside the divine attributes—say, his omnipotence—for then he would no longer be God. He set aside the exercise of those attributes.

Now, that helps us a little, but it still doesn’t solve our conundrum. I can understand how he might choose not to use his infinite strength, for example, but how does he set aside the exercise of his omniscience? How do you not know something that you know?

Have you ever been stumped doing a crossword puzzle and looked up a single answer in the back? And when you did that, you accidentally saw another answer that you hadn’t gotten to yet? And then you went back to the puzzle and tried to disremember what you saw?

Didn’t work, did it?

It’s fine to say that Jesus knew certain things—say, what people were thinking (Jn 2.25)—because the Father revealed that to him; but how can we say he’s omniscient at the same time?

We’ll continue this puzzlement in the next post.

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Part 16: Unity 2 | Part 17: Unity 3

God and Man, Part 14: Humanity 4 

June 24, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Why did God the Son become human, just like us? I think there are several reasons.

First, the Scripture had prophesied the incarnation, and God’s Word must be fulfilled. Now, obviously, this is not the primary reason; God would not have prophesied the incarnation for the sole or even foundational purpose of fulfilling an otherwise random prophecy. But it serves as a reminder that God is true, faithful, and reliable, and he does keep his promises. This teaches us, therefore, about his character, and it also assures us that he will keep his other promises as well.

Second, by becoming man, the Son positions himself as the Second Adam, the un-Adam, so to speak, who does perfectly what Adam failed to do—or undoes what Adam did, if you will. As Adam had an agreement with God to obey him, an agreement that he did not keep, so Christ enters the same arrangement of obedience, and as a man, keeps it. The incarnation is in many ways a new beginning, a second chance, and a successful one at that.

A key passage that addresses this idea is Romans 5.12-21, and especially verses 12 and 19:

¹²Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. … ¹⁸Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. ¹⁹For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

Third, the Son became man in order to substitute himself for us. The best substitute for anyone or anything is something that is from the same class of things, and so Jesus becomes human in order to stand in the humans’ place (He 2.16-17).

By far the most important element in this substitution is the paying of the death penalty for sin. As God, the Son cannot die; it is not part of his nature to die. But as man, he can (Php 2.8; He 2.9). And so, though under no compulsion to do so, God the Son became man—eternally—to rescue us from our own failure.

There is a fourth reason, and this one is by far the most difficult to understand. The Bible says that one of the results of the incarnation is that he now sympathizes with us:

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted (He 2.18).

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (He 4.15).

Of course, if we know that someone has also experienced our pain, then we find it easier to believe that he will sympathize with our pain. We see that principle worked out in human experience all the time.

But here’s why I say that this is hard to understand. Does God have to experience something in order to understand it? Does the Father, who has never experienced being human, sympathize less well with us than the Son?

We can’t say that; the Father and the Son are One, and the Father is perfect just as the Son is.

Well, then, is this sympathy that the Son has for us just an exercise in accommodation? Does God know that we’ll more strongly believe that he sympathizes because the Son has been (and continues to be) human? In this just a little trick to help us believe?

We can’t say that, either. God does not pretend just so we’ll believe.

In some way, far beyond our understanding, God the Son sympathizes with us because he is one of us. That’s what the text says, and that’s what we must believe, even if we don’t understand.

That sort of thing happens all the time in theology.

Next time, we’ll start into the really puzzling stuff.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Part 15: Unity 1 | Part 16: Unity 2 | Part 17: Unity 3

God and Man, Part 13: Humanity 3

June 20, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In the previous two posts we’ve established that Jesus’ existence as a historical person is a reasonable belief. We turn now to the biblical evidences for his humanity—that is, that he is just as human as you and I are.

We note that he began his earthly existence in the normal human way: he was gestated for nine months in the womb of his mother, and he was born through the normal process, through the birth canal. Paul writes that he was “born of a woman” (Ga 4.4), and we have multiple accounts of his mother’s pregnancy and delivery (Mt 1.18-25; Lk 1.26-56; 2.1-7).

It’s worth noting that this is very different from the “birth” accounts of some of the gods or founders of other religions. He did not arrive, like Athena, fully grown, from Zeus’s forehead (Hesiod, Theogony, 929a), or, like Aphrodite, from sea foam (ibid, 176), or, like Dionysus, from Zeus’s thigh, or, like the Japanese Momotaro, from a giant peach. His birth was normal.

But, as we all know, his birth was abnormal as well; he was born of a virgin. That abnormality was prophesied, first and obliquely in Genesis 3.15, where he is called “the seed of the woman” (a very unusual phrasing), and then directly in Isaiah 7.14, which reads, “A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Skeptics have alleged that the Hebrew word translated “virgin” here actually means just “young woman,” and on that basis the RSV famously translated it that way. Without going into all the technical details (there is some breadth to the Hebrew word), I would note that the translators of the Septuagint about 250 BC rendered the Hebrew word with the Greek parthenos (as in “Parthenon”), which unambiguously means “virgin,” and their professional knowledge should be worth something. (As Jewish scholars before the time of Christ, they were clearly not trying to set the stage for Jesus’ birth.) Further, Matthew, writing under inspiration, chose to use the Septuagint’s rendering, rather than translating the allegedly ambiguous Hebrew word directly so that he could correct the alleged error in the Septuagint. Matthew’s account, I would argue, settles the question.

By the way, there’s one more prophecy of the virgin birth, given by an angel to Mary just before she agreed to the conception (Lk 1.34-37). Mary asserts her virginity and asks how she could become pregnant, and the angel ascribes the conception to a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit.

So yes, Jesus was born of a virgin. But everything else about his acquired nature is completely human. Like other humans, he has human ancestors; we have two genealogies, one of Joseph, his stepfather (and thus only Jesus’ legal ancestors [Mt 1.1-17]), and the other of Mary, his biological mother (Lk 3.23-38). And long after his death, his “beloved disciple,” John, pauses to make the point emphatically that he was not a phantom:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; ²(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) (1J 1.1-2).

We touched him, he says. And as he writes, sixty years after Jesus’ death, he remembers that touch as though it were yesterday.

Human. Entirely, completely, comprehensively. Just like you and me.

One further point.

I would suggest that he is more human than you and I are, because he is sinless.

Wait. Doesn’t that make him less human?

I can see how we might feel that way, but a little further thought supports my claim.

We, sinful humans, are not the original design; we’re defective copies. Adam, the original, was created sinless, as was Eve, his wife. That’s the original blueprint. Sinfulness is not inherent to full humanity.

We’re busted. But Jesus, the sinless one, is the way humans were designed to be. More human, if you will.

Now, all this raises a question.

Why did Jesus become a human?

We’ll address that next time.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Part 14: Humanity 4 | Part 15: Unity 1 | Part 16: Unity 2 | Part 17: Unity 3