systematic theology

Jesus Is Jehovah, Part 7: “The LORD Will Come in Fire”

August 30, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Isaiah is, in many minds, the premier Old Testament prophet. He writes to a nation facing imminent invasion from Assyria: in a few years Sennacherib’s forces will take all the leadership of the Northern Kingdom into exile, effectively decapitating their status as a nation. Surprisingly, Isaiah spends much of his prophecy looking beyond that to another invasion, this one by Babylon, whose Nebuchadnezzar will similarly decapitate the Southern Kingdom in three waves, the last and most devastating one bringing the complete destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 586 BC.

Isaiah justifies God’s devastating plan by cataloguing Israel’s sins, North and South. From the beginning God offers to reason with his stubborn people (Is 1.18), but they only harden their hearts to further stubbornness. The first section of his prophecy is dark indeed.

But Isaiah, reflecting the God for whom he is a spokesman, does not leave his people in darkness. The second part of the book begins with comfort (Is 40.1) and promises that Judah will return through the wilderness to their ancestral homeland (Is 40.3), given them by this very God and promised to them, as Abraham’s descendants, for all time. Isaiah even names Cyrus, decades before his birth, as God’s instrument to return his people to their homeland—and yes, I believe that Isaiah wrote those words (Is 44.28-45.1). This good news is to be proclaimed from the high mountains, so that all can hear and rejoice (Is 40.9).

God is just, and he is good (Ps 89.14). In wrath he remembers mercy (Hab 3.2).

The best of the news is that God’s Servant will one day die for the sins of his people (Is 53.4-8), meeting God’s justice in a way that allows mercy without compromise. What a remarkable promise the prophet pictures.

At the very end of his book he wraps up the story by promising that the mighty God will restore his people to peace in their land (Is 66.12-14) and destroy these powerful enemies that have abused and exiled them; God will rush upon the enemies with an overwhelming power, infinitely greater than even their fearsome armies:

¹⁵For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. ¹⁶For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many (Is 66).

This didn’t happen in Isaiah’s time. Oh, Judah returned from captivity (Ezra 1-5), and at the command of King Cyrus (Ezra 1.1), predicted by name decades before. Messiah did die for the sins of his people (Ro 5.12, 19; 2Co 5.21). But YHWH did not come in flames of fire to incinerate his enemies.

Yet the story is not done.

Paul the Apostle writes to one of his first European churches, in Thessalonica, words that must have surprised a good number of his readers—

It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; ⁷And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, ⁸In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: ⁹Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; ¹⁰When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day (2Th 1).

Who is coming in flaming fire, to take vengeance on his enemies? YHWH, as Isaiah promised all those centuries ago? Yes, indeed; Paul calls him “Lord” three times in this passage. But not just “Lord,” the OT YHWH; he calls him “the Lord Jesus Christ.”

YHWH, the eternal and omnipotent one, is Jesus.

Part 8: “Let All the Angels of God Worship Him” | Part 9: “Your Years Shall Not Fail” | Part 10: Other Possibilities

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Jesus Is Jehovah, Part 6: Excursus—Descent into Hell

August 26, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: “Prepare Ye the Way” | Part 3: “I Have Seen the LORD” | Part 4: “Call upon the Name of the LORD” | Part 5: “He Ascended Up on High”

As I noted last time, Ephesians 4.9 says that Christ “descended first” (that is, before his ascension) “into the lower parts of the earth.” This passage serves as one proof text for the so-called “descent into hell”—that Jesus’ spirit went to hell while his body was in the tomb. This view is held by various groups across the spectrum of broad Christendom.

I don’t buy it.

First, a little exegesis in this passage. The key to the verse is the phrase “the lower parts of the earth.” What is that?

The phrase is rare, but it does appear twice in the OT. In Isaiah 44.23 it appears in contrast with heaven: “Sing O ye heavens; … shout, ye lower parts of the earth.” Here it clearly means the earth as distinguished from heaven; grammarians would call this a “genitive of apposition”—“ye lower parts, that is to say, the earth.” If this is the meaning in Ephesians 4.9 (and of its source in Psalm 68.18), then Paul is simply saying that the person who came to earth is the same one that returned to heaven—and the descent is the incarnation, not the time in the tomb.

The phrase also appears in Psalm 63.9—“Those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth.” There’s room for debate here, but I’m inclined to think that this is a reference to the grave—a place dug beneath the earth’s surface—rather than hell. There’s no clear indication in Scripture that hell is physically beneath the earth’s surface, and the Psalmist is likely saying simply that those who want him dead will be similarly judged by dying. If this is the meaning in our passage, then Paul is saying that the person who died is the same as the one who ascended to heaven.

In neither case is there any clear statement that Jesus went to hell.

Proponents of the view also mention Psalm 16.10, the Messianic prophecy that God will “not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption.” So Messiah spent some time in hell and was delivered from it.

I think not.

A key feature of Hebrew poetry is parallelism, one form of which is synonymous parallelism—saying the same thing twice in different words. An example is Psalm 2.4—“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.” It seems clear to me that Psalm 16.10 is the same structure; “thou wilt not leave my soul in hell” is saying the same thing as “thou wilt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption.” Where does corruption—decomposition—occur? Not in hell, certainly; there “the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mk 9.44). It occurs in the physical grave. And the word for “hell” in the passage (sheol) can indeed mean “the grave” (Ps 49.14).

So what is Psalm 16.10 saying? Simply that God will not leave Messiah in the grave long enough for decomposition to begin; he will resurrect him before then. As he did.

Interestingly, both Peter (Ac 2.25-31; note esp v 29) and Paul (Ac 13.34-37) confirm this understanding. Each of them preaches (at Pentecost and at Pisidian Antioch, respectively) that Psalm 16.10 was fulfilled when God raised Jesus from the grave, thereby preventing the “corruption” that certainly occurred to David’s corpse.

If any doubt remains, I’ll note that from his cross Jesus told the repentant thief, “Today you will be with me—in paradise.” It’s pretty clear where Jesus’ spirit went when his body was (briefly) in the tomb.

Part 7: “The LORD Will Come in Fire” | Part 8: “Let All the Angels of God Worship Him” | Part 9: “Your Years Shall Not Fail” | Part 10: Other Possibilities

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Jesus Is Jehovah, Part 5: “He Ascended Up on High”

August 23, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: “Prepare Ye the Way” | Part 3: “I Have Seen the LORD” | Part 4: “Call upon the Name of the LORD”

Our fourth example of a YHWH / Jesus pair of passages is interesting on several levels; there are at least two other significant interpretational issues in the OT citation. But first to the issue at hand.

Paul discusses spiritual gifts in the church in several places in his letters: Romans 12.4-8; 1Co 12.4-11 and 27-31; and finally Ephesians 4.7-16. I’ve written on those passages before.

Paul begins his final discussion by speaking of the church as the body of Christ (Ep 4.4), as he has in his earlier discussions. In Romans 12 and 1Corinthians 12 he emphasizes the diversity of function of the body’s parts, but the unity of the body itself. Here he emphasizes the benefit to the body when all its members perform their diverse functions as they should. He begins with a citation from the Old Testament that speaks of gift-giving (Ps 68.15-21).

The Psalmist is writing a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to God. This brief paragraph uses a broad range of God’s most common names: God (Elohim), Psalm 68.15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 (2x), 21; Lord (Adonai), Psalm 68.17, 19, 20; and, significantly, LORD (YHWH), Psalm 68.16, 18, 20 (there translated “GOD”).

There is no doubt who is being discussed—and addressed—in this passage. And Paul selects just the first part of one verse, verse 18, from the middle of the paragraph:

When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men (Ep 4.8).

Who ascended up on high? Well, Jesus, of course. And the man Jesus, who, after physically living and dying and being resurrected, ascended in a physical body from earth to heaven, is, in Paul’s thinking, the one being addressed in the Psalmist’s paragraph. Elohim. Adonai. YHWH.

Unless Paul is mistaken—and he’s not—Jesus is YHWH.

As I noted earlier, there are two—or more—other significant interpretational issues in this passage. The first is one you may have noticed in the citation above. Paul changes the verb, and thus the direction of giving, in the key verse. The Psalmist says God “received gifts for men”; Paul says he “gave gifts to men.” Can Paul do that? Is that a mistake?

The history of the interpretation of both Psalm 68 and Paul’s citation of it here is … complex, to say the least. Of several proposed explanations for the “inaccurate quotation,” I prefer the simple idea that Paul changed the wording intentionally to fit his theme. He does that elsewhere, as when he famously alters Habakkuk 2.4 in Galatians 3.11 and Romans 1.17, and when he alters Deuteronomy 30.12-14 in Romans 10.6-8.

Can he do that? Isn’t that dishonest?

I don’t think so, for the simple reason that Paul is inspired by the Spirit of God, who inspired the earlier texts and, as the original author, is free to modify his earlier wording for any purpose he wishes. In a similar case, Jesus himself changed the wording of Deuteronomy 6.4-5, the “Shema,” or, as he labels it, the “Greatest Commandment,” by adding a fourth descriptor, “and with all thy mind” (Mk 12.30) to the three originally included.

The second issue is in the verse that follows in Paul’s letter. Paul writes that the Christ who ascended also “descended first into the lower parts of the earth”—and that phrase has caused all sorts of discussion throughout church history. It’s the basis for the idea that while his body was in the tomb, Christ “descended into hell.” The line even occurs in the Apostles’ Creed.

Because this is such a significant idea—and because I think it’s both biblically and theologically unfounded—I’m going to take the next post to look at it more closely.

Part 6: Excursus: Descent into Hell | Part 7: “The LORD Will Come in Fire” | Part 8: “Let All the Angels of God Worship Him” | Part 9: “Your Years Shall Not Fail” | Part 10: Other Possibilities

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Jesus Is Jehovah, Part 4: “Call upon the Name of the LORD”

August 19, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: “Prepare Ye the Way” | Part 3: “I Have Seen the LORD”

The third New Testament example of applying an Old Testament YHWH citation to Jesus appears more than once, because it is at the core of the apostolic preaching—what NT scholars call the “kerygma.”

It appears at the very beginning of this proclamation, in Peter’s sermon at Pentecost. In explaining to the astonished crowd what is happening as the Christians are preaching the gospel in a broad range of verifiable languages that they have never learned, Peter announces that the crowd is witnessing the fulfillment of a prophecy from Joel, delivered as much as 8 centuries earlier:

this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
¹⁷    “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
¹⁸    even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
¹⁹    And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
²⁰    the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
²¹    And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (Acts 2, citing Joel 2.28-32a).

The first several verses of this prophecy are the focus of Peter’s application, in that they describe the phenomenon that the onlookers are witnessing: unlike as in Old Testament days, when the Spirit of God was poured out on only a few choice recipients (mostly prophets and warriors), beginning this day the Spirit is being poured out on all who believe. And here in Jerusalem a visibly diverse group of believers is prophesying a single message, in all the languages represented by the gathered Jewish pilgrims at the great annual feast of Pentecost. A wonder indeed.

But the relevant point for our discussion is the closing of this prophecy. Joel twice uses the name YHWH in the last two lines. This outbreak, Joel says, will precede the arrival of “the Day of YHWH,” a major theme in OT prophecy. And then he proclaims, “Everyone who calls on the name of YHWH will be saved.”

At this point we really haven’t demonstrated our thesis; the Jehovah’s Witness can say, “Peter is simply telling these people to call on God, Jehovah—who is not the same person as Jesus—in order to be saved.”

Fair enough.

But the passage isn’t completed yet.

Peter goes on to cite another OT prophecy, a passage from Psalm 16 predicting the resurrection, not of the Psalmist, but of the Christ (Ac 2.22-31). He then comes to his surprising conclusion—that this Jesus, who died condemned as a criminal, has been resurrected by God himself, and further is now exalted in the honored presence of God, from which position he has performed this visible wonder (Ac 2.32).

The crowd responds, “What shall we do?” (Ac 2.37). Peter replies, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ” (Ac 2.38). In whose name? The name of Jesus, the Messiah. How does one “call upon the name of YHWH”? by calling on the name of Jesus.

Lest there be any doubt, Paul adds a second apostolic voice affirming the significance of Joel’s prophecy. In his theological magnum opus, the epistle to the Romans, he writes,

if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Ro 10.9).

And then he says,

the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. ¹³For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” Ro 10.12b-13).

There’s Joel’s prophecy again, making “calling upon the name of YHWH” the condition for salvation—immediately after Paul has assured his readers that salvation comes when “you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.”

Not one, but two apostles, authoritatively citing the same YHWH passage and equating YHWH himself with the Son.

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Jesus Is Jehovah, Part 3: “I Have Seen the LORD”

August 13, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: “Prepare Ye the Way”

The second example of this phenomenon in the Gospels is a little more complicated; it involves following a bit of a logical path, but the logic is solid, and the conclusion is clear.

We begin in John 12:

³⁷But though [Jesus] had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. ³⁸This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” ³⁹For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, ⁴⁰“He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them.” ⁴¹These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.

John (the Evangelist this time, not the Baptist) is noting that despite all the sign miracles Jesus has performed, many of the observers (including, as we know, the Jewish leaders) are simply refusing to acknowledge him for who he is. That seems unbelievable; by this time in the account, Jesus has not only changed water to wine, healed the nobleman’s son, fed the 5000, and healed the man born blind, but has just raised Lazarus from the dead!

But John is unperplexed, because he knows the Scripture; this resistance has been foretold. He cites two passages from Isaiah. The first we recognize as from the famous Servant Song in Isaiah 53.1. The second is from Isaiah 6.10. Those who hear won’t believe, because God has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts.

And then John makes a stunning statement.

Isaiah said these things “because he saw his glory, and he spoke of him” (Jn 12.41).

Whose glory?

In the context of John 12, there’s only one possibility. He’s writing about Jesus.

Isaiah wrote these prophecies, John says, because he was seeing Jesus.

So we ought to take a look at the context of these prophecies.

As we’ve already noted, the first citation is from Isaiah 53, the well-known Servant Song. Christians since the very beginning of church history have recognized this chapter as a description of Jesus’ Passion. No surprises there.

But what about Isaiah 6? Most of us are familiar with the scene there too, though we might not recognize it from the portion of the passage that John quotes. This is the passage that begins,

¹In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. ²Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory.”

Who is that sitting on the throne, whose train fills the heavenly temple?

Isaiah names him first as “Adonai,” “the Lord.” (Note that the word “Lord” in verse 1 is not in all caps.) But the seraphim call him “the LORD of Hosts”—YHWH Tsebaoth. Jehovah.

And lest there be any doubt about the reference, Isaiah later exclaims, “Mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts!” (Is 6.5).

And John, the inspired Evangelist, says that it’s Jesus.

And this one works in the New World Translation too.

This is not some itinerant Galilean mystic. It’s not even an archangel, the first and greatest of God’s created beings.

He is the thrice-holy God.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Jesus Is Jehovah, Part 2: “Prepare Ye the Way”

August 12, 2021 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Part 1: Introduction

We’re looking at places where the New Testament quotes an Old Testament passage that’s talking about YHWH and then applies it to Jesus. There are two pretty solid examples in the Gospels.

The first one we meet in the entire New Testament occurs in all four Gospels. John the Baptist begins preaching, urging his hearers to repent. John’s Gospel tells us that the Jewish leadership “sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem” (Jn 1.19) to find out what he was up to. He replies, ”I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’ ” (Jn 1.23). The Synoptic writers give a bit more of his answer: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Lk 3.4 // Mt 3.3, Mk 1.3). And all but Mark note what John’s hearers would have known as he spoke: this is a quotation from the Hebrew Scriptures, specifically Isaiah 40:3.

The passage in Isaiah is referring to Judah’s return from captivity in Babylon, when God would “make straight in the desert a highway” (Is 40.3) for God’s people to return to their land. Like many prophecies, however, it has a double meaning. John the Baptist applies it to his task of preparing the way for the Messiah, the one who would come. Isaiah’s phrase “Prepare ye the way of the LORD” uses the name YHWH. John the Baptist claims to be preparing the way of Jesus; later in the same conversation, he says, “Among you stands One whom you do not know. It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie” (Jn 1.26-27). And the next day he removes all doubt regarding the one he’s referring to: “The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is He on behalf of whom I said, “After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me” ‘ “ (Jn 1.29-30).

Some months later, Jesus himself speaks of John as the fulfillment of a similar Old Testament prophecy:

⁷As these men were going away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? ⁸But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ palaces! ⁹But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and one who is more than a prophet. ¹⁰This is the one about whom it is written,

‘Behold, I send My messenger ahead of You,

Who will prepare Your way before You’ “ (Mt 11, citing Mal 3.1).

Jesus says that John the Baptist is a prophet—indeed, more than a prophet. Throughout the Bible, a prophet’s words are reliable, sourced in God himself, and thus to be heeded.

John says that he’s the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of one who would prepare the way for the LORD, YHWH.

John then says that Jesus is the one for whom he is preparing the way.

And then Jesus says that John prepared the way for him.

What are we to make of this?

The New Testament, “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1.1) opens with the clear claim that this Jesus is Jehovah, YHWH, the I AM. And it says that in the New World Translation too.

And we’re just getting started.

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Jesus Is Jehovah, Part 1: Introduction

August 5, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Undoubtedly the most astonishing claim of Christianity—one of the many that distinguish it from all other religions of history—is the Incarnation, the claim that one day on the calendar, God himself became a man and walked among us. Or, to view from the other end, that someone who was born here on earth, lived an ordinary life with all its physical limitations, and died the way we all do, was actually the eternal God, creator of heaven and earth. We could have passed him on the street without even noticing anything unusual.

That’s an extraordinary claim. (And that sentence is actually an understatement.) An extraordinary claim calls for extraordinary evidence, and from the earliest days of the Christian church it has been greeted incredulously. During Jesus’ lifetime the Jewish leadership rejected the claim outright—and the claim was clearly made at the time. There were several factors in that rejection, including the obvious political power struggles, but undoubtedly the main reason was that the claim was just, well, unbelievable. Not long after that an early “Christian” sect, Ebionism, rejected Christ’s deity while respecting Jesus as a godly prophet. A century later the bishop Arius found the claim similarly unbelievable, as well as a direct attack on monotheism, and posited that Jesus was an archangel, the first of God’s created beings, exalted and worthy of respect, certainly, but not God.

Arianism survives today in the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’ve written about them before, in a series focusing on one of their key proof texts, Colossians 1.15. Of course, there are other religious groups today that deny Christ’s deity; Judaism, Islam, Unitarianism, and Liberal Protestantism come most immediately to mind. And there’s been an ocean of ink used to print the hundreds of books and thousands of articles that defend the doctrine. There are a great many lines of argument in those publications. But I’d like to focus on just one.

One category of argument is that the New Testament directly calls Jesus God. A specific subset of that category is that the New Testament sometimes cites an Old Testament passage that uses God’s personal, covenant name—YHWH—and then applies the passage to Jesus in the New Testament context. This specific argument is particularly troublesome to Jehovah’s Witnesses, who reserve the name “Jehovah”—which is a misunderstanding of the name YHWH—for only the one true God, who in their teaching is most certainly not Jesus.

It’s interesting to me that their heretical translation, the New World Translation, has caught some of these pairings and twisted the English rendering to make them less noticeable. But it hasn’t caught them all—with the result that if you know what you’re doing, you can show a Jehovah’s Witness, from his Bible, that Jesus is Jehovah.

So I’d like to spend a few posts looking at these citation pairs. And along the way I’ll note those that “work” in the New World Translation.

By the way, it’s not difficult for anyone to create this list. Flip through the New Testament (hard copy or electronic), noting all the quotations from the Old Testament. I like to use the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) or its newer release, the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) for this, because that version prints all the citations in bold-faced type, making them really easy to pick out. The New American Standard Bible similarly prints them in ALL CAPS, but I find the bold-faced type easier to see.

Anyway, find all the quotations that include the word “Lord,” and then note the ones that are referring to Jesus specifically. In the CSB, you can check the letter footnote at the end of the quotation, where it will give you the location of the OT passage. And in the electronic version, you can click and hover over the OT reference to see the OT passage. If the word “Lord” there is in all caps—LORD or LORD—then the underlying Hebrew name is YHWH, and you’ve found what you’re looking for.

Next time we’ll start on the list. It’s substantial.

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On Muddling Through

August 2, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

⁸By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God (He 11).

I’ve heard a lot of people comment these days on the uncertainty of our lives. It seems unusual, they say, the degree to which things are in general upheaval. They tend to focus on Covid, of course, especially with the Delta variant and the looming return of restrictions of various kinds. But they note that there’s more to this feeling, especially in the significant societal and cultural changes that seem to be accelerating.

There’s a part of me that says there’s nothing new under the sun; I’ve always been skeptical of the constant claim that “young people these days have it harder than ever.” But it does seem that the pace of change is speeding up.

I know a lot of people who are pretty much in Full Bore Linear Panic over all this. At the risk of being accused of insufficient empathy, let me offer a few words of psychical stabilization. (And yes, I know that no one in the history of the world has ever been calmed down by being told to calm down.)

I’ve written before on the societal uncertainty that the pandemic has brought, but I’d like to share some further thoughts along that line.

There is a very real sense in the Scripture that we’re mostly blind and consequently just sort of muddling along through life. We’re constantly reminded that we’re not God—though by nature we’d very much like to be—and that our knowledge and wisdom are infinitesimal in comparison with his. Paul tells us that “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2Co 5.7), and the writer to the Hebrews develops that concept at considerable length in chapter 11, a portion of which appears above. Abraham, we’re told, went out, not knowing where he was going.

We all feel like that sometimes.

Maybe you know people who started life with a plan and executed it perfectly. My life, in contrast, began with making a plan and seeing it crash when I was 16, and then just sort of stumbling along as doors opened. At the time, it wouldn’t have impressed any career coaches. But in retrospect, it’s been a straight line and makes a lot of sense.

Life’s funny that way.

To one degree or another, we’re all Abraham. We come from somewhere else and are just resident aliens here, living in tents (most of us metaphorically).

Some immigrants cling tightly to their ethnic identity. When my people came over from the Rhine Valley in 1741, they settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, briefly but soon hiked down to a German colony in Newmarket, Virginia, where they helped start a Lutheran Church—that’s what Germans do, right?—and married other Germans. From my youth in Boston I recall fondly the Italian North End and Irish South Boston, and the clear cultural identity of those places.

But eventually, typically, immigrants blend in, intermarry, and assume the culture to which they’ve come. It happened to Judah in Babylon; it happened to the Olingers in America; and it happens pretty much everywhere.

In a spiritual sense, though, we don’t have that option.

We’re from someplace else, and we’ll always be from someplace else, and we can’t—mustn’t—make this place the determiner of our fortunes, our emotions, our spiritual health. The uncertainties that are part of living in a foreign place must not drive us to fear, because we have a Father who knows all and directs all, even though he often doesn’t clue us in to everything that’s going on. What looks like chaos to us looks like a beautiful fractal to him, and he’s doing something spectacular.

We don’t know what that something is, exactly, but we know whose work it is, and that fact gives us the ability to be calm in the midst of the storm, confident in the midst of uncertainty, joyous with anticipation in the midst of societal panic—not because we don’t care, or because we’re not empathetic, or because we’re just stupid, but because we know where it’s all heading.

In short, because we believe Dad—which, given his record, is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

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Christ Is Not His Name, Part 2: Responding to the Evidence

July 29, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Evidence for Messiahship

In the last post we noted the fact that Jesus is the Christ—the Messiah, the Anointed One—and that John’s Gospel narrates a series of miracles through which Jesus provides evidence of his Messiahship. I’d like to extend those thoughts in a couple of ways.

First, John’s use of the word signs for these miracles is precise. The Greeks had three words for miraculous events: “miracle” (or more literally “powerful thing”), which emphasized the power of the miracle worker; “wonder,” which emphasized the effect of the miracle on those who saw it; and “sign,” which emphasized the meaning or significance of the miraculous act. So the three synonyms addressed the three elements of the miraculous event: the one who did it, the act itself, and those who saw it happen.

John chooses to use the word that highlights what the miracles meant; as we noted last time, they demonstrate Jesus’ lordship over matter, time, space, physical and divine law, disease, and even death, and by implication, the evil forces. Anyone who directs the actions and effects of these things must be the recipient of an unprecedented anointing from God.

Second, John reinforces the meaning of these actions by including in the narrative account a record of Jesus’ teaching following the miracle.

After changing the water to wine, bringing life and joy by his creative authority, Jesus teaches about spiritual life and joy in his interaction with Nicodemus (“ye must be born again”) and with the Samaritan woman (“living water”).
After healing the nobleman’s son and the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, he proclaims that one day all will “honor the Son, even as they honor the Father” (Jn 5.23), and that the Son has “life in himself” (Jn 5.26).
After feeding the 5000 and walking on the water, Jesus presents himself as “the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (Jn 6.35). Here he builds on the earlier teaching of being born unto undying life and drinking water that slakes thirst forever. Later he claims repeatedly that he is “not of this world,” climaxing a series of exchanges with the words, “Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8.58). This is someone for whom walking on water should not really be surprising.
While healing the man born blind, Jesus proclaims, “I am the light of the world” (Jn 9.5)—and later, “I am the door,” opening, in effect, the entrance to what the light reveals.
After Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, John recounts Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet, signifying that Jesus himself is the sacrifice that empowers all of his followers to overcome death through resurrection. Later Christ speaks of himself as a grain of wheat that brings life by being planted underground (Jn 12.24)—and then, “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14.6) by whom his people will receive life eternal, and “the vine” (Jn 15.1), the source of ongoing life to all who trust in him.

So the meaning of the signs is amply reinforced. There’s no doubt about who this person is.

And yet, remarkably, he is opposed at every turn by people who really ought to know better.

After he heals the paralytic, “the Jews sought to kill Him” (Jn 5:18).
After the bread of life discourse, many disciples stopped following Him (Jn 6:66) and again “the Jews sought to kill Him” (Jn 7:1); he was accused of “having a demon” (Jn 7:20). The Pharisees accused Him of lying and having a demon (Jn 8:13, 48, 52); the religious leaders tried to arrest Him (Jn 7:30, 32, 44) and to stone Him (Jn 8:59).
After he healed the blind man, he was accused of having a demon (Jn 10:20), and they tried again to stone him (Jn 10.31) and to arrest him (Jn 10:39).
And after he raised Lazarus from the dead, they finally hatched the plan that led to His execution (Jn 11:48ff).

Will you believe, or not?

In the end, it’s really not about evidence, or the lack thereof.

It’s about whether or not you want to.

Artwork: The Resurrection of Lazarus by Giovanni di Paolo (1403-1482), from the Walters Art Museum

Christ Is Not His Name, Part 1: Evidence for Messiahship

July 26, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In the US people traditionally have 3 names: a “first name,” which is typically the one we go by; a “middle name,” which might be the one we go by if the first name might be confusing (e.g., for a “Junior”); and a “last name,” which is the family name. So to American Christians, “Lord Jesus Christ” looks like it fits the pattern—but it doesn’t. “Lord” is of course a title, not a name; “Jesus” (actually “Joshua”) is the personal name; and “Christ” is another title, from the Greek word for “Messiah,” or “Anointed One.”

These two titles were central doctrines in the early expansion of Christianity. “Jesus is Lord” was a core confession (Ro 10.9; Php 2.11), probably in contrast to the phrase central to emperor worship in the first-century Roman Empire (“Caesar is Lord!”). “Jesus is the Christ” was a central theme in the early apostolic preaching (Ac 2.36; 9.22; 17.3; 18.5, 28), which was probably based on Christ’s exposition of the Hebrew Scriptures to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24.27).

It’s no surprise, then, when John tells us that he writes his Gospel “that you [readers] might believe that Jesus is the Christ” (Jn 20.31). And how does he do that? He writes, “These are written that you might believe …” (Jn 20.31).

“These” what? We find the antecedent of the demonstrative pronoun these, as we might expect, in the previous verse: “Many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book” (Jn 20.30)—“but these [signs] are written that you might believe.”

John tells us here at the end of his book that he has structured his Gospel around a series of signs that demonstrate that Jesus is Messiah.

What are the signs? Well, John makes it simple enough to find them; you just look through the Gospel for the Greek word translated “signs” (semeion) and see what John is referring to in each use.

Here they are—

Changing water to wine at the wedding in Cana (Jn 2.11). Some commentators note that John may not be saying that this was Jesus’ first miracle ever, but that this is John’s “roman numeral one,” the first sign he’s chosen to demonstrate Jesus’ Messiahship.
Healing the nobleman’s son (Jn 4.54)
Feeding the 5000 (Jn 6.14)
Healing the man born blind (Jn 9.16)
Raising Lazarus (Jn 12.18)
When the Jews ask him for a “sign,” Jesus points obliquely to his own resurrection (Jn 2.18-19).

That’s six miracles that John specifically identifies as “signs.” It’s been common among interpreters to include one more, to make the number seven. Some include the healing of the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda (Jn 5.9), while others include the walking on the water (Jn 6.19). Yet others include both and pass over Jesus’ own resurrection, which, as I’ve noted above, is listed only obliquely.

Think about the significance of these specific miracles. In changing water to wine, Jesus demonstrates lordship over the quality of matter; in feeding the 5000, he demonstrates lordship over its quantity. If he made fermented wine—and I’m inclined to think that he did—he demonstrates lordship over time; in healing the nobleman’s son, he demonstrates lordship over space. (In the first two miracles, then, he’s Lord of time, space, and matter—the entire cosmos.) In healing the paralytic on the Sabbath, and the man born blind on another Sabbath, he demonstrates lordship over divine law; in walking on the water, he demonstrates lordship over physical law. In healing congenital blindness, he acts essentially as Creator, providing functioning eyes where there never had been any. In raising Lazarus from the dead—four days after he died—he demonstrates lordship over our greatest enemy, death. And he exponentiates that in his final sign; it’s quite an accomplishment to raise somebody else from the dead, but raising yourself from the dead (Jn 10.18) is on a different level entirely.

More than once John notes the effect that these signs had on those who saw them. Early on, people believed in him on account of the signs (Jn 2.23; 7.31; 9.16); and even Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, found them compelling (Jn 3.2), as did others on the Sanhedrin as well (Jn 11.47).

What’s the only reasonable conclusion from these well-attested signs?

Jesus is the Christ, anointed by God as prophet, priest, and king—authorized to speak to us for God, to speak to God for us, and to rule forever on the throne of his father David (2S 7.12-14).

This is the one at whose name every knee shall bow (Php 2.10). I am happily compelled to begin now.

Part 2: Responding to the Evidence

Artwork: The Resurrection of Lazarus by Giovanni di Paolo (1403-1482), from the Walters Art Museum