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

home / about / archive 

Subscribe via Email

Outside the Camp, Part 3: What It Means

by Leave a Comment

Part 1: The Background | Part 2: What It Meant

If the burning of the sin offering “outside the camp” meant that

  • Israel’s sin is so vile, so revolting, so contagious, so polluting, that its very offering cannot be burned where the other offerings—the peace offering, the thanksgiving offering—are. It’s as though the very smoke of the offering is contaminating;
  • Israel is called to reject its sin as it would reject its own sewage or its own murderers. Get rid of it. Get as far from it as you can;

then what does it mean that Jesus was executed similarly “outside the camp”?

We’ve noted that the author of Hebrews specifically ties the death of Christ outside the city of Jerusalem to the significance of the burning of the sin offering “outside the camp” (He 13.11-12). This is not a coincidental parallel; God wants us to regard the Crucifixion as a sin offering, with all the significance that an immolation outside the camp would bear in the Jewish mind.

So what can we conclude?

First, at Calvary Christ became unclean for us.

The Scripture directly states this truth:

  • The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Is 53.6).
  • For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2Co 5.21).

We’ve all heard teaching about the physical suffering involved in Roman crucifixion, and I don’t want to minimize that for a moment. Crucifixion was designed to be the most painful way to die.

But I would suggest that Jesus’ physical pain throughout that experience, as extreme and agonizing as it was, was the least of his worries.

For that time, he was guilty of all the sin of all the people who had ever lived. What kind of pain did that cause to his utterly undefiled conscience?

“Every bitter thought, every evil deed,” indeed.

But there’s even more.

Second, at the cross Jesus the Eternal Son was rejected—

  • By his own people, for alleged uncleanness (Is 53.3-4; Lu 4.28-29; Jn 1.10-11; Mk 15.6-15)—

3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows  and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not (Is 53.3).

10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him (Jn 1).

  • And by his own Father, for genuine uncleanness—as far from the Tabernacle, the visible manifestation of God’s presence with his beloved people, as he could possibly be.

Outside the camp.

Expelled. Rejected.

There could have been no greater pain, real or imagined.

“My God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken me?!”

I find it interesting that when Jesus cried these words, the bystanders thought he was calling for Elijah.

They didn’t recognize a line from their own hymnbook (Ps 22.1).

They didn’t recognize the name of their own God.

Yet he died for them.

We don’t hate our sin, or love our Savior, nearly enough.

The author of Hebrews makes a further application:

Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured (He 13.13).

We are “in Christ” (Rom 8.1):

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 

The Father no longer rejects us, but the world does. 

  • Let’s not be surprised by rejection for his sake. 
  • Let’s bear his reproach (cf Heb 10.32-34). 

When Satan tempts us, let’s respond, “I’m with him.” 

When our culture takes his name in vain, when our coworkers and neighbors raise an eyebrow, when we face a choice between listening to our conscience or listening to our civil leaders, whatever the situation, whatever the sacrifice, let’s stand up, move swiftly and resolutely to his side, and say, “I’m with him.”  

Christ, our sin offering, is sacrificed for us. 

Why should we want anything else?

Photo by Bakhrom Tursunov on Unsplash

Outside the Camp, Part 2: What It Meant

by Leave a Comment

Part 1: The Background

To understand the significance of Jesus’ death “outside the camp,” I’d like to probe a couple of questions, one in each of the next two posts:

  • What did it mean in the Mosaic economy to be “outside the camp”?
  • What, then, does it mean that Jesus was executed similarly “outside the camp”?

So first, what it meant originally.

The Old Testament uses the expression “outside the camp” 26 times in 25 verses (NASB95). Many of these occurrences refer to the disposition of the burnt and sin offerings, as noted in the previous post. But there are some other references as well—references that I think shed light on the meaning of the concept and thus help illuminate the significance of disposing of those two types of sacrifices in that way.

As you might expect, latrines were placed outside the camp (Dt 23.12-14). I speculated in the previous post whether there might be latrines in more central locations, appropriately distanced from nearby tents; but if the Israelites were following the Lord’s direction explicitly, they were walking half a mile or more every time they had to go to the bathroom.

Even today, when we set up a campsite, we designate an area for excretion that is away from the sleeping and eating areas. Why is that? For hygiene. There are substances in our excrement that can make us sick—coliforms most notoriously, but lots of other nasty stuff as well. You don’t want that junk in or near your living spaces.

There are other biblical instances of placing unclean things outside the camp. People with leprosy were forced to live away from their fellow citizens, because leprosy was communicable (Le 13.46; Nu 5.1-4). We read the specific instance of Moses’ sister Miriam being struck with leprosy and thus excluded (Nu 12.10-15), and centuries later King Uzziah suffered the same fate within the land of Israel (2Ch 26.21).

And it wasn’t just physical uncleanness; ceremonial uncleanness was isolated as well. In the wilderness, a group of Midianite prisoners of war were isolated (Nu 31.1-19), as was the family of the Canaanite believer Rahab during the conquest (Jos 6.23).

Being kept outside the camp might mean that you were unclean, a source of pollution.

But uncleanness doesn’t account for all the instances. An obviously different case is that the Tabernacle itself was moved outside the camp for a period of time after the golden-calf incident (Ex 32.30; 33.7). Surely the Tabernacle was not to be seen as unclean! So why the repositioning? I’d suggest that by worshiping the calf—which Aaron had identified as “the LORD,” Yahweh (Ex 32.5)—Israel had rejected the explicit commandments of Yahweh, even though not (in their minds) going after a different “god.” Moses reminded them of this fact by moving the Tabernacle outside the camp, as though they had expelled or rejected it.

This idea of rejection is confirmed, I think, by several instances of capital punishment being executed outside the camp. By Yahweh’s direct command, a man who had blasphemed The Name was executed outside the camp (Le 24.10-14). Similarly, again by direct divine command, a man who had violated the Sabbath was executed there as well. And in a much more familiar case, the deacon Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was driven outside the city by the Sanhedrin to be executed (Ac 6.15-7.1; 7.54-58).

This was an act of utter rejection.

I think we have a good foundation, then, for understanding what it meant for the sin offering to be slaughtered, then dragged outside the camp, and then consumed by fire.

  • Israel’s sin is so vile, so revolting, so contagious, so polluting, that its very offering cannot be burned where the other offerings—the peace offering, the thanksgiving offering—are. It’s as though the very smoke of the offering is contaminating. 
  • Israel is called to reject its sin as it would reject its own sewage or its own murderers. Get rid of it. Get as far from it as you can. 

Next time we’ll follow the application of the author of Hebrews to where it unavoidably leads us.

Photo by Bakhrom Tursunov on Unsplash

Outside the Camp, Part 1: The Background

by Leave a Comment

11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood (He 13).

There’s a book in the Christian Scriptures that is written specifically to a Jewish audience; it’s even named “Hebrews.” We don’t know who wrote it (I’m pretty sure Paul didn’t), and we don’t know exactly when it was written (though it appears to have been while the Temple was still in operation [He 10.11], and thus before AD 70) or where (though it was apparently written either from Rome or to Rome [He 13.24]). Even the name “To the Hebrews” was perhaps not original.

But it’s pretty obvious to any reader that it’s a thoroughly Jewish book. By one count there are 229 citations of or allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures in the book’s 13 chapters (that’s an average of 17 per chapter, if you’re counting), beginning in the book’s second verse, which alludes to Ps 2.8, and ending in the final paragraph (specifically He 13.20), which alludes to the eternal covenant mentioned in Ezk 37.26.

It’s a very Jewish book.

We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that if we want to understand the book, we need to understand the Hebrew Scriptures—what Christians call the Old Testament. The passage cited above is a clear example.

Jesus, the author tells us, “suffered outside the gate” in order to set us apart to God through his blood.

What does that mean?

Well, in the previous sentence the writer notes that in the Old Testament sacrificial system, the bodies of animals were “burned outside the camp”—and that Jesus’ death was a designed parallel to that practice.

There are important lessons for us in that parallel. We need to probe this passage by considering the OT practice.

The Hebrew sacrificial system is laid out for us in the book of Leviticus, the third book of the Law of Moses. We find there that the system included several types of sacrifices, which can be categorized in various ways. I like the following structure, which follows the organization of Leviticus itself:

  • Voluntary Sacrifices
    • Burnt offerings (Le 1)
    • Grain / drink offerings (Le 2)
    • Peace offerings (Le 3)
  • Mandatory Sacrifices
    • Sin offerings (Le 4-5.13)
    • Trespass offerings (Le 5.14-7.38)

Each type of offering had different requirements—a different “recipe,” if you will. Two of these types are relevant to our passage in Hebrews:

  • The burnt offering, which the priests offered twice every day (Ex 29.38-43), was burned completely on the altar; every part of the animal was completely consumed (Le 1.9, 13, 17). Then the ashes were dumped “outside the camp” (Le 6.11).
  • The sin offering, which our passage specifically mentions (He 13.11), was handled differently; just the fat and the kidneys were burned on the altar (Le 4.8-10), while the rest of the carcass was burned “outside the camp” (Le 4.11-12).

Occasionally these two types of offerings were executed together; for example, at the priests’ consecration ceremony (Ex 29.10-14; Le 8-9) and on the annual Day of Atonement (Le 16).

Now, this is a lot of work. While Israel was in the wilderness, every single day for 40 years the priests had to cart the ashes of these sacrifices “outside the camp” and dump them—and, for sin offerings, burn them and ensure that they were completely consumed.

How far did they have to drag those carcasses?

Well, if there were 600,000 men in the army at both the beginning (Nu 1.46) and the end (Nu 26.51) of the 40 years in the wilderness, then it seems reasonable that the total number of people was around 2 million. How much area would tents for 2 million people cover? It’s hard to say; how far apart were the tents? Were there latrine facilities throughout the camp, and if so, how far from the tents did they need to be? Lots of variables. But it seems to me that such a group would need at least an area a mile in diameter—which means that from the center of the camp, where the Tabernacle was (Nu 2.2), it would be half a mile or more to the periphery, plus, undoubtedly, further distance to separate the “dump” from the residential tents.

Various animals could be sacrificed, including “herd” animals (Le 1.3, 4.3)—and a bull would weigh hundreds of pounds.

Half a mile. Twice a day.

This action must have considerable significance.

We’ll look at that next time.

Photo by Bakhrom Tursunov on Unsplash

What Church Is For, Part 3: Maturity in Christ

by Leave a Comment

Part 1: Grow Up | Part 2: No Longer Children

We can’t stop our problems by just gritting our teeth and trying harder not to be bad. We need what Thomas Chalmers called “the expulsive power of a new affection,” a love for something good that drives out our earlier affection for what was destroying us.

In Ephesians 4.14, Paul has focused on the negative behaviors, but he doesn’t leave us there. In verse 15 he moves on to the new affection.

“But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ” (Ep 4.15).

The verb here is interesting. Our translation, like most in English, says “speaking the truth.” But the word “speaking” is not technically in the text. The word is a participle, all right, but it’s just the verb form of the noun “truth.” We might woodenly render it “truthing.”

Now, I’m not criticizing the translations. We don’t say “truthing” in English; we say “speaking the truth.” That’s the way the verb ought to be rendered.

But I would suggest that what Paul is commanding here is not just the surface-level, outward conformity that “speaking” might imply. It’s not just saying things that are technically true but (intentionally?) misleading.

It’s truthfulness. A deep, lasting commitment to being genuine all the way down.

If Jesus is the truth (Jn 14.6), then being committed to the truth is the only sensible way to be. Anything short of that is treason.

Note that the contrast in the context is being deceived, the way simple-minded children can be. We’re not supposed to be like that. We’re supposed to be controlled by the truth—to recognize, believe, accept, practice, and, yes, speak it.

How?

Paul gives two simple descriptors—

  • “in love.” That may mean “with love as our motivation,” and certainly our love for Christ, which issues in love for one another, can help us determine how we live out genuineness and authenticity. But it may also mean “by means of love” (what theorists call “the instrumental use”)—which means that we demonstrate our genuineness outwardly, by actions on behalf of others that serve as evidence of our inward love and compassion.
  • “into Christ.” Christ is to be our target, our goal. That means, of course, that we measure ourselves by him, that we love as he loves. But I suspect that it goes far beyond simple imitation. Christ is our focus, our aim, our goal; he is the reason we do what we do, so much so that we transcend thinking about our own interests and act sacrificially, as Christ himself “gave himself a ransom for many.” Now, we’re not going to be paying for anybody’s sins, but we can follow his example in thinking of others rather than ourselves.

Study Christ; learn Him; focus on Him; make Him the top priority (that’s what love is). As you then grow up into Him, you’ll be a person of truth rather than a victim of trickery.

If we do this kind of thinking, one person at a time, what kind of churches would we have? What kind of spiritual, mental, and emotional health would we have there?

Interestingly, Paul goes on to describe something almost like critical mass. The church fits together, with each part doing what it’s designed to do, until the body begins to construct itself. It doesn’t have to think about growing, or try harder to grow, or obsess about why it’s not growing. It just grows, because that’s what bodies do when they’re healthy.

And eventually, one great day, the church will be the kind of body that reflects gloriously on its Head.

May that day come soon.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

What Church Is For, Part 2: No Longer Children

by Leave a Comment

Part 1: Grow Up

We have some growing to do.

We’re not there yet. Even Paul says that he’s not where he needs to be (Php 3.12), and that he knows “in part” (1Co 13.12).

Paul now gives us our response—the medicine we’re supposed to take. In verse 14, he begins with the negative—“Stop this practice”; and then, in verse 15, he gives us the positive—“Here’s what you can do about it.” Today’s post focuses on verse 14.

“As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ep 4.14).

God’s people are supposed to stop being children.

Now, I should note that there’s nothing defective about a child’s being a child. We all start out as children, and for a time that’s the right and natural place to be. We love children’s simplicity, and joy, and insight. Social media is filled with videos of children’s delightfulness.

Jesus even said that we grownups need to become like children, in some sense, before we can enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18.3-4; 19.14). The simple trust of a child for his parent is a powerful thing.

But children aren’t supposed to stay children. They’re supposed to grow up.

Specifically, they’re supposed to outgrow

Inconsistency

Paul describes a boat, “tossed here and there by waves,” at the mercy of its circumstances. Children can be like that. We all know that if one child in the church nursery starts to cry, we need to get him out of there fast, or else before long every child will be crying, and the more part will know not wherefore they are come together.

We’re supposed to get over our childlike tendency to be governed by what’s going on around us.

I think of that when I see my friends on social media given over to the Outrage of the Day. Somebody somewhere decides what we’re all going to be upset about this time, and we follow like sheep, sharing posts on issues about which we know nothing but immediately have an opinion. I saw a meme the other day that said something to the effect of, “And just like that everybody went from being expert epidemiologists to being experts in international relations.”

Yeah.

Paul’s context is more specific than just general inconsistency; he’s speaking specifically about “every wind of doctrine,” or teaching, specifically teaching about the faith. I have known people—and still do—who take up every half-witted heresy that comes down the pike. It’s like distortions of Scripture get all knotted up in their brains and just hang out together like they’re the last great hope of mankind.

We need to do better. We need to develop adult judgment—wisdom—that prevents us from being tossed around like that.

Naivete

Paul changes his image in the middle of the verse. He moves from natural forces—waves and winds—to moral ones—“by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.”

The fact is that in a morally influenced world, the things calling for our attention are not always neutral distractions. Often they’re the schemes of people with evil intent. The distractors are up to something.

I’ve mentioned the delightfulness of a child’s naivete. Decades ago Johnny Carson was interviewing a boy, and the child pretty much took over the interview. He asked Johnny to do a magic trick for him, and Johnny obliged. The look of wonder on the boy’s face was pure innocence, just delightful. He really thought that quarter had come out of his own ear.

But again, children should grow up. Naivete is not a virtue in adults. We shouldn’t be buying what the ne’er-do-wells are selling. We should know the Scripture—and the world—better than that.

This post has been pretty negative, because this verse is negative. Next time we’ll look at the positive side.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

The Incomparable Christ

by Leave a Comment

We’re all thinking about the best way(s) to start off the New Year, and it occurs to me that for Christians, who are forever in Christ (Ro 8.1, 12.5; 1Co 1.30), it’s only sensible to begin the year with a meditation on him.

There are many biblical passages on which we could choose to meditate. One of my favorites is the opening paragraph of Hebrews. I’ve used it before as an indicator of the way God speaks, but it will serve well for this purpose too.

The point of Hebrews, as you probably know, is to demonstrate that the Hebrew Scriptures are fulfilled in Jesus, who is the climax of all that they anticipate. In just the opening sentence, the author tells us much about the greatness of Christ:

  • He is the heir to all of the Father’s authority (He 1.2).
  • He is the creator of all things (He 1.2).
  • He is the perfect expression of the nature of God (He 1.3).
  • Like the Father, He holds omnipotence in His very words (He 1.3).
  • He has cleansed us of all our sin debt (He 1.3).
  • He has finished His saving work and is now exalted in a position of honor in the heavenly throne room (He 1.3).

In the rest of the book, the author is going to demonstrate that Jesus is superior

  • in his person—
    • greater than the angels (He 1-2)
    • or even than Moses (He 3-4)
  • as well as in his work—
    • in the priesthood (He 5-7)
    • in the New Covenant (He 8-9)
    • and in the offering of himself as the perfect sacrifice (He 10)

The author spends the first chapter listing passages from the Hebrew Scriptures that demonstrate that Jesus is far superior to the angels—

  • Citing Psalm 2 and the Davidic Covenant in 2Samuel 7, he notes that Jesus is the Son (He 1.5), whereas the angels are commanded to worship him in Deuteronomy 32.43 (He 1.6).*
  • Angels are referred to as “servants” in Psalm 104.4 (He 1.7, 14), but the Son is described in much more elevated language in Psalm 45.6-7, Psalm 102.25-27, and Psalm 110.1 (He 1.8-13).
    • He holds lordship over the universe (He 1.8)—indeed, he holds lordship over the world yet to come (He 2.5-9)
    • He is unchanging (He 1.11-12).

In this connection it’s worth noting that while angels often announced God’s redemptive work –

  • Gabriel announced John the Baptist’s birth to Zacharias (Luke 1:13ff)
  • Gabriel announced Jesus’ birth to Mary (Luke 1:26ff)
  • An angel announced Jesus’ birth to Joseph (Matt. 1:20)
  • An angel announced Jesus’ birth to the shepherds (Luke 2:9ff)
  • An angel warned Joseph of the danger from Herod (Matt. 2:13)

… they never actually accomplished any of that work. That was all Christ’s—

  • Perfect obedience to the Law (Ro 5.19; He 4.15)
  • A perfectly atoning death as the Lamb of God (Ro 8.3)
  • His own resurrection and the consequent defeat of death (Jn 2.19, 21)**
  • His intercession for us in the heavenly throne room (He 9.24; Ro 8.34)

The Son, the Messiah, the uniquely Anointed One has proved himself not only sufficient, but superior in all the ways that matter. As we start into a new year, many of us with dread or at least apprehension, we can proceed confidently, knowing that our Forerunner has planned and prepared the way and determined the perfect outcome for his people.

The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven;
his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men (Ps 11.4).

* A textual variant has resulted in the cited material in He 1.6 not appearing in most English translations of Dt 32.43, but it’s there. That’s a really interesting story; maybe a post on it would be worthwhile.

** Of course, because of the unity of the Trinity, the Father (Ac 5.30, 10.40) and the Spirit (Ro 1.4, 8.11) are said to participate in Christ’s resurrection as well.

Photo by James on Unsplash

How It Ends, Part 5: Living in the Now—Diligent Occupation

by 1 Comment

Part 1: Taking the Long View | Part 2: Anticipating the Then | Part 3: Living in the Now—Confident Expectation | Part 4: Living in the Now—Patient Endurance

God has shown us a glimpse or two of how this life transitions to the eternal. The details are sketchy, but the overall picture is clear: we have perfect fellowship with the infinitely, eternally, unchangeably good God, and we serve him meaningfully and perfectly, having shed our personal flaws and having entered an unbroken cosmos. In the meantime, the Scripture tells us, we endure the difficulties of the present broken world because we are eagerly anticipating what is to come.

But we’re not just hanging on, waiting for the good stuff. And we’re not just passive, waiting for God to do what he’s promised.

There’s good stuff now. Lots of it. And there’s work to be done—joyously, effectively, redemptively.

Jesus himself told us how our energy should be directed during these days of anticipation.

Shortly before his death, he told a story about a nobleman who “went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return” (Lk 19.12). He gathered his servants, gave them resources, and said, “Do business with these until I come back” (Lk 19.13).

Our more familiar KJV renders that statement, “Occupy till I come.” The less formal NIV says, “Put this money to work until I come back.”

And the story ends with two servants being rewarded, on his return, for their diligence, and one being condemned for being more concerned with security than productivity.

Did Jesus intend for this story to guide our time as we wait for his return?

You think?

Jesus set the example himself. As a boy of twelve—too young to be a rabbi, at a time too early for the death his Father had planned for him—he wasn’t playing the 1st-century equivalent of video games. He was about his Father’s business. When the family was in Jerusalem—as it likely was at least three times a year, for the pilgrimage feasts—he headed for his Father’s house. And he was surprised that his parents didn’t think to look for him there first.

The Father’s business.

The Father has invested in all of his people, in different ways. We’re all good at something—some of us at many things—and we can do those things for him, and his work, and his people. There’s great joy in doing something well; God has kindly set up the world so that our greatest joy is in doing well those things for which we are gifted—and thereby accomplishing his work, showing all who see us the glories of the invisible God.

I started life on a little family farm. There’s great satisfaction in working hard all day and then seeing the visible results of your labor—the plowing, the planting, the irrigating, the weeding, the piles of harvested corn, the shucked ears hanging to dry, the ground corn meal, the well-fed cattle, the milk, the butter, the cheese, the beef. Every day there’s a new opportunity for the joy of accomplishment and the visible and tasty fruits of your labor.

This week is Thanksgiving in the USA—the meal that takes hours to prepare and more hours to clean up after, but that lasts, seemingly, just 15 minutes. Yet we all know it’s worth it—not just for the 15 minutes of turkey and gravy and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, but for the shared experience and fellowship.

How much more is our lifetime of preparation for the eternal feast worth it? Even in the preparation there’s joy of visible accomplishment—changed lives, examples of mercy and grace—and joy of fellowship, working together toward a goal that’s bigger than all of us.

When The Day arrives, his servants shall serve him (Re 22.3).

Better get some practice.

20 The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen (Re 22.20-21).

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

How It Ends, Part 4: Living in the Now—Patient Endurance

by Leave a Comment

Part 1: Taking the Long View | Part 2: Anticipating the Then | Part 3: Living in the Now—Confident Expectation

We live now in the confident expectation of Christ’s certain return.

But in spite of that bright light at the end of the tunnel, we do indeed live in a tunnel, and roses don’t grow in tunnels. The Bible has more to say about how we live as we anticipate The Light.

After lambasting those of his day who hold all the social power and oppress those who don’t (Jam 5.1-6), James turns to the unempowered—which in those days included the Christians—and says,

7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. 8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh (Jam 5.7-8).

Be patient, he says. This is the word used to describe Abraham’s waiting—for years—for a son through Sarah (He 6.15). It’s the word used to describe the Lord’s waiting for us to come to repentance (2P 3.9).  It’s the first word listed in the virtues of love (1Co 13.4).

You know people like this. You’re all torqued about something, and in a frenzy, and there’s that old guy who’s just sitting calmly, at peace, in stark contrast to your gesticulations, your full-bore linear panic. And when the panic has passed and the chaos has settled, it becomes obvious that the old guy had the sensible response—usually because this isn’t his first rodeo. It’s those with long experience who are in a position to “keep calm and carry on”—to focus on executing the fundamentals when it looks like the other team is just going to run up the score. To be the tortoise rather than the hare.

The illustration James chooses for this characteristic is the farmer. He prepares the soil, and then plants the seed, and then prays for rain.

And then waits.

Most of us, being continental Americans, are used to four seasons: spring, summer, fall, winter. In much of the world, however, particularly the tropics, there are just two seasons: dry and rainy. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in equatorial countries (Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania) where the temperature—and the day length—hardly changes at all. What changes is the precipitation. In the dry season, we’ll go weeks with no rain. In the rainy season, we hardly ever miss a day of rain. If we’re doing work in the bush villages, we have to plan to avoid the rainy season, because the dirt roads will be completely impassable with mud.

Israel’s not tropical, but it does have a Mediterranean climate, where summers are warm and dry and winters are mild and wet. The first, or “early,” rains of the rainy season normally arrive right after the Feast of Booths (Sukkoth) in the fall, allowing the farmers to prepare the soil for the spring planting. The “latter” rains show up after planting, around Passover in the spring, and precipitate (pun absolutely intended) the growth of the crops.

If you’re a farmer, you can’t make it rain; you just follow the seasonal pattern, do your job, and hope this year’s precipitation is normal.

James tells us to think like the farmer.

We actually have a better deal. The farmer doesn’t know for sure that the rain will come as it usually does; droughts do happen. But we know that the Lord is surely returning, though we can’t predict the timing.

And yes, it takes longer than a few months. So far it’s taken close to 2000 years, and for all we know, it could take 100,000 more. (Yes, it could be today; but I’ve long ago lost patience [heh, heh] with the hyperbolic date-setting exploiters.)

And so we wait.

But not idly.

More on that next time.

Part 5: Living in the Now—Diligent Occupation

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

How It Ends, Part 3: Living in the Now—Confident Expectation

by Leave a Comment

Part 1: Taking the Long View | Part 2: Anticipating the Then

If we’re living with the end in mind—an eternity living in intimate fellowship with God, and serving him perfectly—then how do we live now? What are our priorities?

Like all the most important questions, the Bible answers this one clearly. I’d like to offer three passages where the New Testament addresses the answer.

Anticipate with Confidence

In his last recorded words to his protégé Titus, whom he left on the island of Crete to oversee the churches there (Ti 1.5), Paul gives him some imperatives designed to last him for life:

11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works (Ti 2.11-15).

Some of this he has said often elsewhere: in light of God’s grace to us (Ti 2.11), we should live seriously and righteously (Ti 2.12). No surprises there.

But then he adds a descriptor, a participle, that applies specifically to what we’ve been discussing; he says we are to “look for” Jesus’ return, the event that distinguishes the present age from the next, the event to which life as we know it points. This verb describes Simeon and Anna, and indeed all the Jews of their day, living under the bondage of Rome and the hated Roman puppet Herod the Great, as they anticipated and longed for the day when they would be liberated once more (Lk 2.25, 38). It describes Joseph of Arimathea, who as a member of the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of Israel, had not consented to the council’s condemnation of Jesus and then risked his career by asking Pilate for custodianship of the body of the crucified “blasphemer” (Mk 15.43; Lk 23.51)—a body that in the eyes of the council should be thrown out in the trash with the bodies of the other two miscreants. Joseph’s most noteworthy characteristic, in the eyes of the two Evangelists, is that he “was waiting for the kingdom of God.”

That’s our verb. That’s how we’re supposed to be thinking and living—“looking for” Jesus’ return. Or, as Paul calls it here, “that blessed hope.” I’ve noted before that biblical hope is different from how we use the word today. To us, hope is something we wish for. Maybe it’s likely, maybe it’s not; as is evident from the size of the jackpots, millions of people buy lottery tickets in the forlorn hope that one day they’ll hit the big one. Some wag has observed that a public lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. They hope, many of them fervently, even religiously. But if their dreams come true, they’ll be more surprised than anyone else.

That’s not biblical hope. Hope is the anticipation of a certain future event. It’s the president-elect waiting for Inauguration Day; it’s the senior who’s just passed all his final exams; it’s the engaged couple focused intently on the coming June Saturday.

This is not wishing; it’s explosive, confident anticipation. It’s taking the future to the bank.

There’s a lot we don’t know about the future. It may hold financial setbacks, or job loss, or terminal disease, or sudden, violent death. We don’t know what life will be like for our children and grandchildren, should the Lord tarry. Even as we study prophecy, we don’t know—for sure—when Jesus will return, or when it will be in relation to the Tribulation, or what the Millennium will be like, or which ZIP Code of the New Jerusalem we’ll occupy, or what we’ll do with our time—or the absence of it.

So many unanswered questions.

But this we do know.

Jesus is coming back. For us. And for justice. And for eternal day.

Anticipate, with confidence.

Next time, more ways to live as we anticipate.

Part 4: Living in the Now—Patient Endurance | Part 5: Living in the Now—Diligent Occupation

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

How It Ends, Part 2: Anticipating the Then

by Leave a Comment

Part 1: Taking the Long View

I noted last time that there’s quite a bit of biblical material about the millennium. Assuming that the millennial passages should be taken with a reasonable amount of ordinary hermeneutic, this period will be characterized by

  • Natural peace, such as the lion lying down with the lamb (Is 11.6), after the manner of “Peace in the Valley”
  • Social peace, with nations beating their swords into plowshares (Is 2.4)
  • Spiritual peace, with the nations full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Is 11.9)
  • Political peace, as justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream (Am 5.24)

Our knowledge of the eternal state, however, is much less extensive. Most of it is confined to the last two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21-22. The environment portrayed there seems to have two outstanding characteristics:

Perfect fellowship with God

God and the Lamb light the whole city (Re 21.23)—and likely the whole world, given that “the nations will walk by its light” (Re 21.24). Recall that at the Transfiguration, Jesus’ garments shone whiter than any launderer could bleach them (Mk 9.3); that Paul was blinded by Jesus’ heavenly glory (Ac 9.8-9, 18); and that when Jesus’ closest friend, John, saw him glorified, he fell at his feet (Re 1.17).

But there, all the barriers—sin, distance, visibility—will be removed. You and I are going to enjoy the open, intimate, personal presence of the Godhead.

Perfect service for God

There we will be in a position to worship God perfectly; we’re told that “his servants will worship him” (Re 22.3), in a time when we have bodies like Christ’s resurrected body (Php 3.21), and we will be like him in other ways as well (1Jn 3.2).

We worship him today, both in private and in public, but our worship is dented by our sinfulness, by distraction, by limitations of imagination and creativity, and by all sorts of other factors. Yet even in this broken state worship is highly satisfying, both to us and to God.

I recall attending church a few years ago in Arad, Israel, with a small Messianic Jewish congregation. They met in a house on Shabbat. As I entered, a young lady just inside the door asked, “What language?” When I answered, “English,” she twisted a knob on a small black box and handed it to me with a set of headphones. I entered the living room and sat down with 30 or 40 other people seated close together.

The preacher began speaking—in Hebrew—but I heard a live translation in English. As I looked around the room, I noticed that most had on headphones, but a handful had microphones as well, and they were speaking softly as the sermon continued. I learned afterward that translations were available in German, French, Spanish, Arabic, and a North African tribal language as well as English.

I couldn’t help thinking that this was a delightful foretaste of glory divine, of the day when every kingdom, tongue, tribe, and nation will be gathered around the throne, singing and shouting the praise of the Lion of Judah, the Lamb who was slain (Re 7.9ff).

Even here, worship can be delightful.

But there, there, all those limitations will be done away. We will worship him purely and completely, and we will serve him perfectly and successfully as well.

What will that service look like? Will there be white-collar and blue-collar jobs? Will there be physical kinds of service as well as spiritual? Will God send us shooting off through the regenerated universe on missions of importance to the accomplishing of his will?

All good questions; thanks for asking them. But by God’s choice—and his grace—we don’t know the answers. All we know is that we will serve him—and serve him perfectly.

So that means—to put it in absurdly simple terms—that everything’s going to turn out just fine.

And that presents us with a question: What do we do in the meantime? How do we think? How do we make decisions? How do we feel?

How do we live?

More on that next time.

Part 3: Living in the Now—Confident Expectation | Part 4: Living in the Now—Patient Endurance | Part 5: Living in the Now—Diligent Occupation

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash