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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On Reading Job (the Book, not the Occupation), Part 2

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Part 1

While the question of Job’s historicity affects the way we read the book, there’s another matter that affects us far more significantly.

I’ve noticed that many Christians treat Job as though it were Proverbs. They’ll find a verse that says something they like, and they’ll post it as though it applies to us, even without context.

  • “Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5.7).
  • “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?” (Job 11.7-8).
  • “The light of the wicked shall be put out” (Job 18.5).
  • “Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous?” (Job 22.3).
  • “The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life” (Job 33.4).
  • “How forceful are upright words!” (Job 6.25).
  • “Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble” (Job 14.1).
  • “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me” (Job 19.25-27).
  • “He knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23.10).
  • “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing” (Job 26.7).
  • “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding” (Job 28.28).

These are powerful words that have been precious to generations of Christians. And I’m not saying they shouldn’t be. But there’s a pitfall here that we should be wise enough to avoid.

The quotations in the first section above are from the mouths of Job’s 3 friends. The second section is from Elihu, the young bystander. And the third section is from Job himself.

Now, what do we know about these 5 men? For starters, we know that all of them—all of them—were wrong about some things. God is much harder on Job’s friends than on Job himself (Job 42.7), but with his first words at the end of the book he makes it clear that Job too has problems with his thinking:

“Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38.2).

The word this here is singular, and the previous verse indicates that God is speaking specifically to Job. He, too, is “without knowledge.” And the extended argument that follows, all the way through Job 40.2, is directed specifically at Job.

Job responds by condemning himself (Job 40.3-5). And God’s response is not to try to soften the blow; he doubles down, so to speak, at considerable length (Job 40.6-41.34), leading Job to repeat his words of repentance (Job 42.1-6).

But before it’s over, God pays him a remarkable compliment: Job, he says, “has spoken of me the thing that is right” (Job 42.7). And then he says it again (Job 42.8). Job, he says, “I will accept” (Job 42.8).

And the rest of the story, which we know well, shows God pouring his blessings out on Job.

So there’s a lot to appreciate in and learn from the man Job, but when we read his words, and especially the words of his 3 friends and Eliphaz, we can’t take them as authoritatively true; they’re not Proverbs. Oh, they may well be true, but we don’t know that without confirming them from elsewhere in Scripture. Eliphaz certainly gives us good advice when he says, “If you return to the Almighty you will be built up; … then you will delight yourself in the Almighty and lift up your face to God. You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you” (Job 22.23-27). But his words are not true in relation to Job’s specific situation—Job’s troubles weren’t the result of his being distant from God—though they’re often true of us. We know that not because Eliphaz said them, or simply because the statement appears in the biblical book of Job, but because it is confirmed by countless other passages of Scripture, whose contexts indicate that they, unlike these, are authoritative.

Context is a really big deal. We all benefit when we pay attention to it.

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Firstborn!: You and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Part 7

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We’re working through Colossians 1.9ff, trying to determine how Paul wants us to understand the word firstborn in Col 1.15. Is he saying that Jesus is the first created being, or that he’s pre-eminent over all creation? In the previous post we’ve looked at Col 1.9-16. Here we pick up with verse 17.

  • Col 1.17: He is “before all things.” This could go either way; he could exist briefly earlier than everything else, or he could exist eternally earlier than everything else. Checkmark for both sides.
  • Col 1.18:
    • He is the head of the body. That’s about position, not time. Checkmark for “higher.”
    • He is the beginning. See v 17. Checkmark for both.
    • He is the firstborn from the dead. Now this one is particularly significant. It’s another use of the same word, by the same author, in the same context. We’re going to assume that Paul is using it the same way as in verse 15, unless we have clear clues to the contrary (as I supplied in the sample “sun set” sentence).

So is Christ the first one to rise from the dead? Clearly not; he raised people from the dead before his own death, and others rose from the dead in the Old Testament.

Is he the most important person to rise from the dead? Yes, certainly; we have that stated directly by Paul himself in 1Co 15.14, 17, and 20. (Compare John 14.19.) Checkmark for “higher.”

  • He is firstborn so that he might have the pre-eminence in all things. Checkmark for “higher.”
  • Col 1.19: All fullness of God dwells in him. If all fullness of the Father is in the Son, then he’s eternal. Checkmark for “higher.”

Let’s summarize what we’ve found. In the immediate context, there are 7 clues for “higher,” and 3 that are ambiguous. There are none that point to “earlier” unambiguously. In short, there are 7 evidences that it cannot be “earlier,” and no evidences that it cannot be “higher.”

“Higher” it is. Jesus is Lord over all creation.

That finishes the sentence and the paragraph of immediate context. Now we look further, into the surrounding context. Does Paul say anything in the rest of the epistle that would tell us whether or not Christ is a created being? We can point out a few things:

  • Col 2.3: All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ. Omniscience is a non-communicable divine attribute.
  • Col 2.9: All the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ.
  • Col 3.4: Christ is our life. Life finds its source in God, not in any creature.
  • Col 3.11: Christ is all, and in all.
  • Col 3.24: We serve the Lord Christ.

From here we extend our search further, to the epistles Paul wrote about the same time (Ephesians, Philemon, and, probably a little later, Philippians).

  • Eph 1.23: Christ is the one “who fills all in all.” Omnipresence is a non-communicable divine attribute.
  • Eph 3.8: Christ’s riches are unsearchable.
  • Eph 3.19: The love of Christ passes knowledge, filling us with all the fullness of God.
  • Eph 4.7-8: Jesus is God (cf Ps 68.17-18).
  • Eph 4.10: Again, Christ fills all things.
  • Php 2.9-11: Everyone will worship Christ.

Then we extend it to the rest of Paul’s writings.

  • 1Co 10.9: Christ is Jehovah.
  • 2Co 5.10: Christ is the Judge.
  • 2Co 12.8-9: Christ’s strength is unlimited. Omnipotence is a non-communicable divine attribute.
  • Rom 9.5: Christ is God.
  • Rom 10.12-14: Christ is Lord of all.
  • Titus 2.13: Christ is our great God and Savior.

Then to the rest of the epistles.

  • Heb 1.8: The Son is God.
  • 2P 1.1: Christ is our God and Savior.

Then to the entire NT.

  • Mk 1.2: Jesus is Jehovah (cf Isa 40.3).
  • John 1.1: The Son is God. (And no, it doesn’t say he was “a god.”)
  • John 12.41: Jesus is Jehovah of Hosts (cf Isa 6.1ff).
  • John 20.28: Jesus accepts Thomas’s description of him as God. (And no, Thomas wasn’t saying “OMG!”)

And finally to the OT.

  • Isa 9.6: Christ is the mighty God.
  • Dan 7.13-14: Christ is worshiped by all nations.

There’s much more; this is just the low-hanging fruit.

Next time, we’ll conclude.

Part 8

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Firstborn!: You and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Part 6

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We’re wrestling with Colossians 1.15, which says that Christ is “the firstborn of all creation.” What does that mean? We’ve determined that the word firstborn can mean two things: almost always, it means that the firstborn came into existence at a point in time, as the first sibling to be born; but very rarely, it can mean simply that the firstborn is pre-eminent or exalted over something else.

Which of those meanings applies here?

In the previous post I said that it is precisely at this point in the process where Christians make their big mistake. We’re talking to the Jehovah’s Witness, and we really want to win this argument, so we take them to Psalm 89.27 to show them that the word can mean “pre-eminent one,” and then we say triumphantly, “And that’s what it means here in Colossians 1.15!”

Now, hold on a minute. What did you just do?

You picked the meaning you liked the best. You picked the meaning that would help you win the argument. In other words, you didn’t do any exegesis; you didn’t “draw the meaning out of” the passage. You did eisegesis; you “read the meaning you wanted into” the passage. You made yourself the lord of the Scripture rather than its servant. You’re telling it what to say instead of listening to what it actually says.

You bad little Christian, you.

Look. The Bible is true, and the truth is our friend. We want to hear whatever it says. Every time.

So what should you have done?

You have two possible meanings, or nuances, for the word firstborn. How do you determine which one to read in this sentence?

Remember our sample sentence about the sun and chess and hair? How did you know what the word set meant in its 3 occurrences in that sentence?

Context. You looked for clues in the sentence to determine the proper meaning.

So finding that really useful nuance in Psalm 89.27 doesn’t mean that you’re done. On the contrary, it means that you’re just now ready to get started. You have the nuances; now you’re going to set out to determine the meaning. Time to look at the sentence, then the larger context of the passage, then the larger context of Paul’s writings, then the whole New Testament, and then the Bible as a whole. We have a lot of work to do.

Quick reminder. Who’s winning the argument at this point? On etymology and on usage frequency, the Jehovah’s Witness is winning by a mile. 97 to 3. Not even close.

Step 4: Intended meaning in close context

So to the sentence we go. How does Paul intend us to read this word?

If we follow the KJV punctuation, the sentence starts all the way back at the beginning of the paragraph, in verse 9. (Sentences of that length and complexity are not unusual in Paul; the longest sentence in the Bible runs for 12 verses in Ephesians 1, a sister epistle to our Colossians.) We need to read the sentence carefully, looking for clues as to whether Paul is talking about priority in time or priority in standing—whether he’s talking about being earlier or being higher.

So here we go.

  • Col 1.13: the Son has a kingdom. The king is usually the oldest son of the previous king, and he’s certainly exalted, so this phrase could go either way. A checkmark for both sides.
  • Col 1.15: this is the one we’re trying to figure out. No score.
  • Col 1.16:
    • The Son created everything. Well, now. If he created everything, then he couldn’t be created, could he? If you had written that, your freshman English teacher would have said it was a logical error. If he’s the first created being, then you should say, “For by him were all other things created.” Now, we know Paul. He’s a rabbi trained by the great Rabban Gamaliel. He wrote Romans. Even setting aside the factor of divine inspiration, how likely is it that Paul made a rookie logical mistake like that? Not very. Checkmark for “higher.”
    • And one more thing. The verse starts with the word “For.” Paul is logically connecting the fact that Christ is firstborn with the fact that he made all things. Which reading makes better sense:
      • “Christ was created first because he made all things.”
      • “Christ is over all creation because he made all things.”

That question answers itself. Checkmark for “higher.”

  • And another thing. The verse ends with the statement that all things were created “for” him. Checkmark for “higher.”

We’re just getting started. We’ll continue this little investigation next time.

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Firstborn!: You and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Part 5

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We’ve found 3 places in the OT where the word firstborn clearly does not mean “the first one to be born.” So what does it mean in those cases? Let’s work on one of those occurrences and see what we can learn.

Psalm 89.27 reads, “And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” Before we can determine what this means, we need to know who it’s talking about. And that means identifying those pronouns—or rather, the antecedents of those pronouns. Who is “I”? And who is “him”? (And yes, that’s grammatically correct, even though it sounds awful.)

Let’s start with the “I.” Who is speaking in the passage? Well, the previous verse says, “He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’ ” OK, the speaker is God; the Psalmist, Ethan the Ezrahite, is quoting God at some length beginning in verse 19.

And who is God going to make his firstborn? We see the answer toward the beginning of the quotation, in verse 20. He’s talking about David.

So. God will make David his firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.

Now, we know that firstborn here can’t mean “the first one to be born,” for two simple reasons:

  • David wasn’t the firstborn. In fact, he was the youngest of eight brothers (1Sam 16.10).
  • The verb’s all wrong. You can’t “make” someone the first one born, after he’s born. Either he’s already the first one born, or he’s not.

Well, then, what does the word mean? The last part of the verse tells us: “the highest of the kings of the earth.”

Not “the oldest,” mind you, but “the highest.” Here God is using the word firstborn to refer to someone who is over others—who is more important than those around him, who is pre-eminent.

And come to think of it, we know of situations like that in the Bible. Jacob buys the birthright from his (slightly) older brother, Esau (Gen 25.29-34); decades later the same Jacob intentionally gives his grandson Ephraim the blessing of the firstborn over his older brother Manasseh (Gen 48.13-19), to the displeasure of their father, Joseph. The younger became more important than the older.

So how did a mathematical, biological word like firstborn come to have this very non-literal nuance?

The answer is obvious. The firstborn son in a family in the ancient world had certain rights and responsibilities. In the Mosaic Law, the firstborn son received a double portion of the inheritance—so if there were 3 sons, the oldest got 2/4, and each of the other two got 1/4 (Dt 21.15-17). The firstborn would rule the family in the father’s absence; he would be “lord” over his brothers (Gen 27.29).

Since the most important characteristic of the firstborn was his pre-eminence, it was natural to make the word mean that. So the word firstborn came to mean “the pre-eminent one,” “the boss,” “the highest one.”

And that seems to be what the word means in those other two occurrences we found at the end of the previous post.

  • When God tells Pharaoh that Israel is his firstborn son (Ex 4.22), he is saying that he prefers Israel above all others—including Egypt—and that ol’ Pharaoh had better keep his bloomin’ hands to himself—and Pharaoh learns that lesson in spades through the plagues (Ex 7.14ff) and the massacre at the Red Sea (Ex 14.26-29).
  • Similarly, when Jeremiah quotes God as saying that Ephraim is his firstborn (Jer 31.9), he means that he prefers Israel (implied as included in the one tribe Ephraim) over their Babylonian captors, and he will certainly restore them to their land after the captivity.

So the word firstborn in Colossians 1.15 could have at least two possible meanings.

  • It could be used literally: Jesus came into existence by God’s creative act before anything else was created. This is the Jehovah’s Witness position, and it seems heavily favored by the word’s usage statistics.
  • Or it could be used metaphorically, as it is only rarely elsewhere: Jesus is pre-eminent over all (merely) created things.

Now right here is where most Christians make their big mistake. We’ll talk about that next time.

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Firstborn!: You and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Part 3

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Defining the key terms

So you’re deep in conversation with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and you’re discussing the deity of Christ, and the spokesman clobbers you with Colossians 1.15: Christ is “the firstborn of all creation.” He’s the first created being.

Now what?

Well, you treat this passage like any other. You follow the exegetical process to determine what it means. Since this is a short passage and a simple statement, the process will be a little simpler than if you’re working in, say, Ezekiel 40-48, so this shouldn’t take long.

Step 1: Identifying the key words

You begin by looking at the words. (Were you expecting something more, well, profound?) What are the key words in the passage? You’re going to start with the subject and the main verb, then other nouns and verbs, then adjectives and adverbs. If you were dealing with a longer passage, you’d look closely at conjunctions as well, to see how the statements fit together.

The main verb of the verse is simply a form of “to be,” which in this case is fairly simple. There are nouns—image, God, creature—which here have fairly plain meaning (image excepted, perhaps) and in any case are not the focus of the theological disagreement. Both you and the Jehovah’s Witnesses are going to agree that the key word, the central character in the disagreement, is the adjective firstborn. What does it mean that Jesus is “firstborn”? Everything hangs on the answer to that question.

Step 2: Possible meanings–etymology

Now that you’ve identified the key word(s), you need to find out what they mean. This process will involve multiple steps.

You begin with a critical observation: words mean more than one thing. If you look up any word (in any language, come to think of it) in the dictionary, it’s pretty much always going to have more than one definition. There are exceptions, mostly very technical terms—deoxyribonucleic, for example—but every biblical word I’ve ever studied has multiple definitions (or, as the scholars like to say, “nuances”).

It might seem like the logical place to start is with the question, “Well, where did the word come from?” Or, to put it more technically, what is the word’s etymology? The word firstborn looks pretty obvious, and it is: it comes from two words meaning, um, “first” and “born.” So, the first one to be born, or to come into being. Jesus is the first one to come into being.

Who’s winning so far? The Jehovah’s Witness.

You can double-check in a formal source, like the Oxford English Dictionary (at the library), or Merriam Webster’s, or even dictionary.com. They’ll all say the same thing. First. Born.

Hmm. Well, how about the Greek? I don’t recommend that people who don’t know Greek set out to “check the Greek,” for reasons both practical and professional, but I’ll save you the trouble. The Greek word is prototokos. Proto, “first.” Tokos, “born.”

Drat.

He’s still winning.

I’ll tell you a little secret, though.

Etymology is a lousy way to find out what a word means. There’s even an exegetical error called the “etymological fallacy.” The reason for that is really simple: we’re in the image of God, and God’s creative, and consequently so are we. One of the ways we show that is by coming up with creative uses for our existing words. One reason you can’t understand half the things your teenagers say is that they’re using existing words with meanings that only they and their friends know. Back in the 80s Michael Jackson decided that the word bad actually meant “good,” and we’ve been messed up ever since.

If I were to say, “When the sun set, I polished my chess set while my wife set her hair,” you wouldn’t have any problem understanding the sentence, although it would seem like an odd juxtaposition of observations. The word set occurs in that sentence with 3 completely different and unrelated meanings (to go down; a collection of objects; and to harden in place), but if you’re a native speaker of English, it didn’t even slow you down. How did you sort out the meanings?

Context. The accompanying words sun, chess, and hair told you which meaning, or nuance, I intended in each instance.

So to find out what our word firstborn means, we’re going to have to do some work with context.

Next time.

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