systematic theology

Why Prophecy Is Hard—And Why We Disagree, Part 4

December 13, 2018 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

I’ve asserted my thesis–Biblical prophecy is intentionally designed to be difficult to understand before the time of fulfillment—but to be quite clear afterwards—and I’ve given a couple of biblical passages that appear to confirm it, as well as an example to give us a more concrete understanding of the principle. Now for the hard question in any assertion—

So what?

I know people who have spent their whole lives trying to understand biblical prophecy. I know others who are troubled, or even disgusted, by the arguments and disagreements that spring from such efforts.

Why can’t we all just get along?

I think the matter we’re discussing here helps us put the modern situation into perspective.

The Bible contains a lot of prophecies that haven’t been fulfilled yet.
In many cases, God has designed these prophecies to be obscure until the time of fulfillment.
Just as Isaiah’s hearers, in trying to imagine a scenario in which Isaiah 53.9 could be fulfilled, would have been very unlikely to imagine what actually happened, so we should expect that our interpretations of the obscure prophecies will be off the mark in ways both minor and significant.
Thus it is likely that believers who love God and his Word and study it deeply will come to different conclusions about what precisely the eschatological material predicts.
The current disagreement is not a problem or evidence of some spiritual failure in the church; it’s exactly what we should expect.

So we have different views at the macroscopic level—

Premillennialists say that we should take prophetic passages just as literally as we take historical passages, because
- Changing hermeneutical horses in the middle of the stream is inconsistent, and
- Prophecies that have already been fulfilled have been fulfilled literally.
Postmillennialists say that if we really want to do that, we need to take literally Jesus’ teaching that the kingdom would come not suddenly, but slowly, over a long period of time (Mt 13.31-33).
And amillennialists say that if we want to take it literally, we’re going to have a problem with 7 heads and 10 horns. If there are clear contextual clues that we shouldn’t take it literally, then we shouldn’t take it literally. And isn’t the new covenant supposed to get away from the physical, literal, external stuff anyway, and move to the inner person of the heart (Jer 31.31-33)? And isn’t Jesus’ kingdom eternal, and not limited to a mere 1000 years (Isa 9.7)?

And even among premillennialists there are differences of interpretation—

Pretribulationists say that if we can be surprised by the Rapture (Mt 25.1-13), then it must be the very next thing to happen on the prophetic timeline.
Midtribulationists say that the Rapture is described as the two witnesses being caught up to heaven (Rev 11.12), at the seventh trumpet judgment (Rev 11.15), the “last trump” (1Co 15.52), at the midway point of the 7-year tribulation.
Posttribulationists say that both believers and unbelievers will be resurrected together at a single return of Christ at the end of the Tribulation (Dan 12.1-3).

Every one of these interpreters has a point. But they can’t all be right.

And maybe, based on what we’ve been discussing, just maybe none of them is completely right.

That means that we have to give one another some room to study, and think, and puzzle, and scratch our heads, and wonder. We need to hear one another’s arguments without making our primary goal to win the argument for our side. We need to approach this puzzle with some sense of historical and hermeneutical understanding, one that holds our own views loosely and humbly, one that waits for the Great Clarity that will come when it all comes to pass.

Humility. Tentativeness. Openness, within the bounds of clear biblical teaching.

Brotherly kindness. Cooperative investigation.

Now, I should say that I’m a pretribulational premillennialist. And I’m pretty sure I’m right. :-)

We ought to study, and think, and try to come to some sort of reasonable conclusion that accounts smoothly for all the biblical data. That’s what theology does, as a matter of stewardship of the great divine gift of the Word. We can’t just sit back lazily and be “panmillennialists—it’ll all pan out in the end.”

But we need to recognize our limits as well, and we need to recognize what those limits say about what kinds of doctrines are worth fighting over, and what kinds aren’t.

Hmmm. Maybe I’ll write about that one of these days.

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Why Prophecy Is Hard—And Why We Disagree, Part 3

December 10, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 Part 2

I’ve asserted my thesis–Biblical prophecy is intentionally designed to be difficult to understand before the time of fulfillment—but to be quite clear afterwards—and I’ve given a couple of biblical passages that appear to confirm it. Now it’s time to work with an example, making the idea a little more concrete.

One of the most well-known prophetic passages in the entire Bible, at least among Christians, is Isaiah 53. It’s the fourth and last in a series of “Servant Songs” in Isaiah, and the most well known, primarily, I suppose, because Georg Friedrich Handel included much of it in his oratorio Messiah.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows;
With his stripes we are healed;
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all;
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter;
It pleased the LORD to bruise him.

We’ve heard the lines often, and they’ve become part of our consciousness, part of our culture, especially at Christmas.

Because of that familiarity, we’re unlikely to hear it the way Isaiah’s hearers—and Isaiah himself—did. The words were not familiar to them; they had to hear them, and try to understand them, for the first time.

And right in the middle of this song the Spirit has Isaiah write something that would have been quite puzzling to him and his Israelite audience:

He made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death.

Put yourself in Isaiah’s sandals.

Whaaaaat?!

That statement doesn’t make any sense at all.

The wicked and the rich don’t die similarly, and they’re not treated the same at the time. The wicked—criminals—are executed, probably by stoning, and their bodies are thrown out with the trash into the Valley of Hinnom, where the vultures pick at their rotting corpses until only the bones remain (Prov 30.17). A very undignified treatment.

The rich, on the other hand, are celebrated and mourned in their death, and their corpses are placed reverently in the family tomb, often a cave, sometimes carved laboriously out of solid rock.

How can both of these things be true for the Servant of Yahweh? How can he die in both disgrace and honor? How can he be numbered with transgressors and yet be buried with the rich?

As I say, our familiarity with these words—and with the prophecy’s fulfillment—means that the words don’t even give us pause. We nod our heads appreciatively, envisioning the fulfillment with perfect clarity—

Executed as a criminal, between two other criminals;
Has a secret disciple, a member of the Sanhedrin, well respected and very wealthy, who uses his influence to acquire the body after execution and places it in his own personal tomb.

Well, as a friend of mine used to say, “Hindsight’s 50/50.” :-) It’s easy to understand the question if you already know the answer, and it’s easy to “solve” a problem if you already know what happens.

But Isaiah and his hearers didn’t have any of that. They scratched their heads, grimaced, and wondered.

What could this possibly mean?

It’s obscure for more than 700 years. And during those years, generation after generation wonders.

And then, in real time and in the sight of all, the prophecy is fulfilled. The promise comes to pass.

And in an instant, the wonder of puzzlement gives way to the wonder of delight, and the fog lifts and understanding comes.

So that’s what it means! Wow!

The prophecy is obscure until the time of fulfillment—but then it’s as clear as day.

This isn’t some meaningless musing of a Nostradamus, whose prophecies are so vague that they could be fulfilled by any number of unspectacular events. No, this is a specific but incomprehensible prophecy, one that is immediately recognizable at its unique and precise fulfillment.

Discovery is a really great teaching technique. You remember what you discover, especially when the discovery hits you hard, right between the eyes. Especially when you solve a puzzle that’s been stumping the experts for centuries.

Maybe that’s why God did it this way.

Next time, I’ll draw some conclusions and applications from all this.

Part 4

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Why Prophecy Is Hard—And Why We Disagree, Part 2

December 6, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

In my previous post I’ve stated my thesis:

Biblical prophecy is intentionally designed to be difficult to understand before the time of fulfillment—but to be quite clear afterwards.

Let me explain my basis for concluding that.

To begin with, this principle is directly stated in both Testaments.

In the Old Testament, we find a description of Daniel receiving a prophecy:

¹At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. ²And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. ³And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever (Dan 12.1-3).

Daniel is then told to “shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end” (Dan 12.4). So God’s intention, in this case, is that the prophecy not be generally distributed. So far, so good.

Then Daniel sees a vision of two men, one of whom asks the other, “How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?” (Dan 12.6b). To which the other responds

that it would be for a time, times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished (Dan 12.7b).

Perhaps your immediate response is, “Huh?” “Time, times, and a half a time?” What kind of an answer is that? What does it mean?

Well, you’re in good company, because Daniel himself thought the same thing (Dan 12.8a), and he asked for an explanation (Dan 12.8b). And he was told, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end” (Dan 12.9).

In other words, “Never mind; I’m not going to tell you.”

And Daniel is the prophet!

And why is the meaning withheld from the very one who’s supposed to write about it?

Because it’s not for now; it’s for later.

None of your business.

Well, that’s intriguing. God has no intention that anyone, including even the prophet, should understand the prophecy at the time it was given. No one will understand it until it’s fulfilled. Then they’ll understand.

And that’s what God intended all along.

Well, that’s Old Testament. Got anything from the New Testament?

Well, as it happens, I do. Thanks for asking.

In his first epistle, Peter describes the glories of our salvation and the plan of God that brought it about. Along the way he notes that the Old Testament prophets weren’t able to understand those things the way we have been able to (1P 1.10). Specifically, he says, they were puzzled by the apparent conflict between the reigning King, the eternal Son of David (2Sam 7), and the suffering Servant, who was executed without a defense (Isa 53). How could both of those be true of the same person? (1P 1.11).

And Peter notes that God revealed to them “that they were serving not themselves but [us],” who would come later and see those prophecies fulfilled (1P 1.12).

So in these cases, God clearly intended the predictions to be obscure, puzzling.

I should say that I don’t think this was always the case. When Jeremiah prophesied that Judah would be in captivity in Babylon for 70 years (Jer 25.11) and would then return (Jer 29.10), he understood what he was saying, and he intended his hearers to understand as well. He even bought a piece of land and buried the deed (Jer 32.9-15) to show them the kind of confidence that they should have in the Lord’s keeping of this promise.

But it was not at all uncommon for God to give a prophecy that seemed incomprehensible at the time, and he did so intentionally.

Next time we’ll look at an example of such a puzzling prophecy, one that has since been fulfilled. By studying that example we’ll be able to see more concretely how confusing such a prophecy would be initially, but how perfectly clear it would at the time of fulfillment. And that insight may help us understand why God is speaking so obscurely in the first place.

Part 3 Part 4

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Why Prophecy Is Hard—And Why We Disagree, Part 1

December 3, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

A lot of Christians are confused, and some are even troubled, by biblical prophecy. It seems really hard to understand—what’s with those wheels that Ezekiel saw? and how do you get seven heads and ten horns on a beast? Other Christians are troubled by the fact that nobody can seem to agree on how things are supposed to turn out. Some people have been predicting the Rapture for decades now—and they’ve been wrong every time. And others, who look like perfectly good Christians, chuckle, “Rapture, huh? You don’t really believe that, do you?”

There’s a reason for all this. And when you understand it—the reason, not the prophecies—you’ll realize that there’s really nothing to be upset about.

Let me see if I can clarify some things.

I should begin by defining what I’m talking about. When I say “prophecy,” I’m talking about biblical predictions, places where the Bible says that something’s going to happen in the future. Technically, everything the Bible says is “prophecy,” in the sense that it’s a message from God to humans, delivered through mouthpieces, prophets. But here I’m using the word more narrowly.

The Bible does make a lot of predictions. The first one is in Gen 3.15, where God predicts that “the seed of the woman” will crush the serpent’s head. The last one is Jesus’ statement, “Surely I come quickly,” in Rev 22.20. And there are a lot of them in between.

We can sort them into 2 groups—those that have been fulfilled, and those that haven’t. A great many of those that have been fulfilled are about just 2 events—the exiles of Israel (especially the exile of Judah to Babylon and back) and the first coming of Christ. It can be instructive to study how those prophecies were stated and then how they were fulfilled; I think that study serves as a kind of lab for how we should expect other prophecies to be fulfilled (more on that later).

Most of the ones that haven’t been fulfilled are about the end times—what we call eschatology. And there is where most of the disagreement is among biblical scholars and among everyday Christians.

So why all the disagreement?

I would suggest that it springs primarily from the way God has chosen to give his prophecies.

In short, they’re really hard to understand.

Note that I’ve said that this is “the way God has chosen” to speak to us about these things. The fact that the predictions are obscure is not some kind of defect in God’s ability to communicate, some failure on his part. And I don’t think it’s a problem with our ability to understand, either.

Why do I say that? Because there are all kinds of statements in the Scripture that we understand perfectly well. God can speak clearly when he wants to, and he is completely justified in holding us accountable for those things. He’s told us who we are, where we came from, who he is, and how we can have a relationship with him. These things are clear, and life and death hang on our responding rightly to what he has clearly told us.

But when we cross over into predictive prophecy, it seems as though everything just goes a little crazy. Suddenly we’re knitting our eyebrows, furrowing our foreheads, shaking our heads. Wheel in a wheel in a wheel, indeed.

This stuff is hard. Charles Hodge, the great Princeton theologian of the 19^th century, said frankly that nobody was qualified to interpret biblical prophecy unless he’d spent an entire lifetime doing so—and since he, Hodge, hadn’t, he wasn’t going to make any authoritative pronouncements.

So here’s my thesis.

Biblical prophecy is intentionally designed to be difficult to understand before the time of fulfillment—but to be quite clear afterwards.

God has decided, for reasons of his own, to speak this way. I’ll speculate later on a possible reason for that, but for now I’d like to spend a few posts demonstrating

that my thesis is true,
that it explains the current diversity of views about the end times, and
that it gives us some guidance on how we ought to study and apply these matters.

(If you’re expecting me to finish the series by telling you when Jesus is coming back, you’re going to be disappointed.)

See you next time.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

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On the Theology of Temporal Power

November 8, 2018 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

A while back I posted on the contrast between the weapons of political combat and those of spiritual combat. I argued the obvious point that the latter are more effective than the former, even in political combat. And along the way I stated that political power disappears rapidly and often unexpectedly.

That’s borne out repeatedly and pervasively in Scripture by both assertion (in Proverbs and often elsewhere) and example (throughout the stories of the kings, both Israelite and pagan). Shelley’s Ozymandias taught us nothing new.

A passage that particularly drives home this point is Isaiah 14. The chapter appears toward the beginning of a section on God’s sovereign plan for the nations with whom Judah regularly dealt: Babylon and Assyria, the Big Ones (13-14), Philistia (14.28ff), Moab (15-16), Syria (17-18), Egypt (19-20), Babylon again (21), Edom (21.11ff), Arabia (21.13ff), Israel (22), and Tyre (23).

After describing the military defeat of Babylon in chapter 13, Yahweh turns Isaiah’s prophecy toward the fate of Babylon’s king in chapter 14. His power having been broken, all his old enemies will join in celebrating his collapse (Isa 14.6-8). All the dead will come to mock his arrival at the gates of hell (Isa 14.9). Great and mighty kings, once unimaginably powerful on their earthly thrones, now effete in the realm of the dead, sarcastically welcome his “royal procession” from power to irrelevance (Isa 14.10-11). He who had once sent insufficiently powerful enemies to the grave (Isa 14.6) is now there himself, food for worms (Isa 14.11).

Verse 12 begins a paragraph that many interpreters see as having a double reference, describing the fall of Satan from heaven. I’m not convinced of that. I don’t see anything in the passage that couldn’t be accurate of the king of Babylon. Some point to the words “I will be like the Most High” in v 14, but my response is to ask, “Have you never talked to a politician?” There’s nothing in the reported words of the king that any US Senator hasn’t thought.

I think many interpreters are influenced by the fact that God here calls the king “Lucifer,” an accepted name for Satan. But I note that this is the only use of the name in Scripture—Satan is never called that anywhere else—and so to use it as evidence that this is Satan is circular reasoning. Since the name simply means “Light-bearer” (as the name Christopher means “Christ-bearer”), there’s no reason it has to apply to Satan. If the king of Egypt thought he was the sun god—as did Louis XIV—it’s not difficult to imagine that the king of Babylon might have called himself the Morning Star, the planet Venus.

So I don’t think “Lucifer” is actually a biblical name for Satan, and I’m inclined to think that what we’re reading here says nothing of Satan but lots about the king of Babylon and, by extension, all earthly kings. (For the detail-obsessive reader, let me answer the question hovering in your mind: I do think Ezekiel 28, addressed to the king of Tyre, has a double reference to Satan, since the context supports that.)

The upshot of all this is that those who hold political and military power also hold highly exalted opinions of themselves because of that power—opinions that are short-sighted and completely unfounded. Kings, emperors, presidents, and prime ministers all go the way of all flesh. Representative rulers lose their power when their terms expire, and even autocrats and dictators-for-life inevitably die, and regardless of the expense of the state funeral, someone else will take their place, and life will certainly go on for the people over whom they had so much power.

Is this the man that made the earth tremble—that shook kingdoms?! (Isa 14.16).

How shortsighted it is to worship at that altar! How foolish to look there for deliverance!

Come instead—boldly—to the throne of grace (Heb 4.16), to the one seated high upon a throne, whose train fills the temple, a house filled with smoke! (Isa 6.1; Jn 12.41). Come to the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, who was, and is, and is to come! (Rev 1.8).

His kingdom lasts forever, and his will is done to all generations.

Now that’s power.

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On Beginning at Moses

October 25, 2018 by Dan Olinger 3 Comments

… with a nod to my former Greek teacher and colleague Dr. Mike Barrett.

One of my favorite experiences is gaining an insight into biblical material that has never occurred to me before.

That happens to me fairly frequently, and yesterday it happened right in the middle of class, thanks to a student question.

We know that the entire Scripture is about Christ. Jesus himself made that point in a conversation he had with two disciples on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection (Lk 24.13ff). (And that passage, Lk 24.27 precisely, is where Dr. Barrett got the title for his book.) Boy do we wish Luke had seen fit to include a transcript of that conversation in his Gospel!

I suspect it was pretty much like Paul’s standard synagogue sermon, recorded in Acts 13.14ff, but with a lot more prophecies included.

Those two disciples said that their hearts burned within them when they heard these things (Lk 24.32). It’s easy to see why. Here they were realizing that the Tanakh (the Old Testament)—a document they had studied all their lives and thought they knew well—was filled with meaning that they had completely missed. It was like the old book had become completely new again; they were starting over as neophytes, going over long-familiar words and seeing completely new things in them.

It’s also easy to see why the early church became really taken with the idea of finding Christ in the Old Testament, looking under every bush—burning or not—to see if he was there. They found a lot of good examples, but sometimes they found things that weren’t even there—for example, when they decided that Solomon’s personification of wisdom in Proverbs 8 was actually talking about Christ. The heretic Arius was able to turn that unfounded interpretation against them by citing Prov 8.22 as proof, then, that Jesus was created by God “in the beginning.”

Oopski.

Mistakes like that have made more recent interpreters, including yours truly, a little wary of suggesting that Christ is somewhere in the OT where he hasn’t been widely recognized before.

So it’s with some trepidation that I share my “insight.”

[Deep breath.] Here goes.

The New Testament tells us repeatedly that Jesus, the Son, is in fact the creator of all things (Jn 1.3; Col 1.16; Heb 1.2). I take that to mean that the Father is the visionary, the designer, in creation, while the Son is the active agent, actually doing the work of creating, while the Spirit hovers over and tends to what is created (Gen 1.2). (So far, that’s a fairly standard, common interpretation.)

And I take that to mean that Elohim (“God”) in Gen 1 and the first paragraph of Gen 2 is actually the person of the Son. (Many others would argue that the name refers to the united Godhead, the essence rather than any one of the persons. That’s not a hill I’m interested in dying on, but bear with me here.)

In Gen 2.4 the name changes from Elohim to Yahweh Elohim (“the LORD God”). Does that indicate a change of person, or is the protagonist still the Son? Well, if “God” created man in Gen 1.27, and in the theological retelling of the story “the LORD God” created man in Gen 2.7, then it seems reasonable to continue to see the Son as the protagonist in the account.

Now, “the LORD God” continues as the main character through the end of Gen 3; Gen 4 begins to use the name Yahweh (“the LORD”). (Eve uses that name in Gen 4.1, and the narrator—Moses—begins using it in Gen 4.3.)

All of this serves as a reasonable basis for seeing Jesus as the one acting in Genesis 3. An additional evidence of that is that “the LORD God” is described as “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen 3.8)—and the Son is the only person of the Godhead described as physically embodied in Scripture. (But is Rev 5.6-7 an exception? Hmm.)

So, finally, here’s the thought I had in class today.

Is it actually Jesus who utters the prophecy of Gen 3.15?

Is it Jesus who, perhaps with an animated glint in his eye, tells the serpent that one day, the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head?

Wouldn’t that put quite an edge on those words? Wouldn’t it be a lot like the time David gave Goliath a list of all the things he was going to do with Goliath’s various body parts (1Sa 17.45-47), but exponentially more fearsome, and exponentially more consequential?

The Son and the Serpent, standing in the Garden, face to face, making an appointment for a battle to the death, thousands of years into the future?

I’m going to have to think about that.

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On the Unpardonable Sin

October 11, 2018 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Recently Tim Challies posted some thoughts on the question of the unpardonable sin. I’d like to extend his remarks a bit.

Most Christians have read the passages that raise this question. The unbelieving Pharisees, trying desperately to discount the power of Jesus’ miracles, have accused him of casting out demons by the power of Satan (Mt 12.22-32; Mk 3.22-30; Lk 12.8-10). Jesus responds by saying,

Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. ³²And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come (Mt 12.31-32).

So what’s he talking about?

The first thing I notice is that when you look at the commentaries, they don’t seem to know—at least, not with any certainty. There are several interpretations:

Taking the context very narrowly, Jesus is simply saying that if you lived at the time of Jesus, and you ascribed his miracles to demonic power, then you wouldn’t be forgiven. So this is a sin that nobody today can commit, because Jesus is no longer walking around on earth doing miracles.
A variation on that view is that you can still commit that sin today; if you say that Christ did his miracles by the power of Satan, then you’ve committed the unpardonable sin. This view, or the previous one, appears to be the position that Challies takes in his post.
Some suggest that the unpardonable sin is hardening one’s heart to the degree that the Spirit’s convicting call is no longer heard. This, it is suggested, is where the Pharisees now found themselves. So the problem is not so much a particular sin, but the persistence in sin that hardens the heart over time, making the sinner, in effect, spiritually deaf.
Others say that the unpardonable sin is effectively your last one; it is dying without having repented. In this view, everyone in hell has committed the unpardonable sin.

Well, this is a conundrum. We’re not even sure what it is.

I’ll tell you what it isn’t.

It isn’t that God has designated a certain sin as unforgiveable, and boy, you’d better not commit that one, and by the way, when I tell you about it, I’m going to make the definition of the sin really unclear, just to keep you on your toes.

That view seems to me to be blasphemous.

Here’s what we do know.

We do know that God delights in repentance and never turns any repentant sinner away, no matter what he’s done.
We do know that conviction of sin, and sorrow for sin, are works of the Holy Spirit, and those works are not frustrated.

So if you’re worried that you might have committed the unforgiveable sin, stop the fear and the hesitation and run to the Father, whose arms are open wide to welcome you into his family and to his dinner table. There is forgiveness for all who come. There has been forgiveness for even me. There is certainly forgiveness for you.

But here’s what else we know.

We know that if you harden your heart against the gentle pleading of the Spirit, the day will come when time runs out. It may be at the end of a long period of terminal illness, during which you have plenty of time to think about what’s ahead. Or it may come in an instant, with a vise-grip pain in your chest, or a flash of light in your brain, or the sudden sound of a horn and a screech of tires on pavement.

And when time runs out, there will be no repenting then.

It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment (Heb 9.27).

So enough of idle speculation about this or that obscure passage. Why test the limits, when repentance—hearing the convicting voice of the Spirit—is the obvious solution to the great problem of sin?

Why play such a deadly game?

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On Sin: Sometimes, It IS a Sin to Be Tempted.

October 8, 2018 by Dan Olinger 3 Comments

Part 1 Part 2

“It’s not a sin to be tempted; it’s only a sin if you give in to the temptation.”

This is one of those axioms of the Christian faith, one of those fundamental propositions that everybody says, and we all accept, first, because it makes so much sense, and second, because it makes us feel a lot better, and we need all the feeling better we can get.

Pretty much everybody teaches this principle as axiomatic. Roman Catholics do. People in the Church of Christ do. Mark Driscoll does. Rick Warren does. Pretty much every conservative evangelical church does.

But is it true?

Well, it must be true, right? If everybody says so. And if being tempted is sinful, we’re all toast, right? What chance do we have?

I’d like to suggest that The Axiom is overly simplistic—that the biblical view of temptation is slightly more complex than we’re seeing.

Here’s why.

The key biblical principle underlying The Axiom is that Jesus was tempted, and he never sinned. Since the Scripture says that directly (Heb 4.15), it is of course true.

So it is possible to be tempted without sin. But the question for us is deeper than that. Is there no temptation that is sinful in itself? Is it only entertaining or acting on the temptation that places us in a position of sin? Is no temptation sinful?

The Bible has a lot to say about the nature and sources of temptation. Paul writes that in our lives before regeneration, we found ourselves following “the course of this world, … the prince of the power of the air, … in the passions of our flesh” (Eph 2.2-3). From there Christian theologians, beginning apparently with Peter Abelard, standardized the sources of temptation as “the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

Which of these served as the source of Jesus’ temptation? Well, in the most famous temptation event—we assume that there may well have been others—his temptation came directly from the devil (Mat 4.1ff; Lk 4.1ff). It’s important to note that these temptations originated outside of him; they were imposed on him from an outside source.

The flesh, of course, is internal to us. And John tells us that the world brings to us “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1Jn 2.16)—which sounds as though it’s at least partially internal to us as well. Did Jesus face the temptation of the flesh? Or the world, in John’s sense of “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”? We have to rule both of those out, given that Jesus, conceived without sin by the Holy Spirit (Mat 1.20; Lk 1.35), did not have a fallen, sinful nature.

But what about us? Do any of our temptations come from within us? Do we ever tempt ourselves? We certainly feel as though we do, and James seals that suspicion by telling us that “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” (Jam 1.14).

I would suggest that temptation is sinful when it starts within you. It’s sinful when you do it to yourself.

And we’ve all had that experience.

There’s a part of us that rises up in rebellion against our good and kind Creator, casts aside his laws and his desires, and seeks to go our own way.

And that, my friend, is blameworthy. It’s culpable. It’s sinful.

Whether you act on those desires or not.

Now, how are we inclined to respond to that?

If I’ve already sinned in being tempted, then I might just as well go ahead and do it. Phooey.

Not so, for two reasons.

First, there are practical consequences in pursuing sinful actions, consequences that limit our future choices and which we ought to avoid.

But much more importantly, we’re God’s children; he is our father; and we ought not do those things. That is reason enough.

But all of this is overshadowed and overwhelmed by a great and glorious truth.

All your sin is obliterated. Nuked. Gone. All of it.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you.

Part 4

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On Sin: I’m Guilty of Adam’s Sin? How Is That Fair?

October 4, 2018 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1

In my last post, on the way to making another point, I briefly mentioned the biblical truth of original sin.

In its simplest terms, original sin is the sinful guilt that you came into the world with. Babies are born guilty. Specifically, they’re born guilty of Adam’s sin.

Babies? Really? But they’re so … cute, with their little round bottoms and their little pearly toes and their gas-induced smiles. We paint cherubs as babies just because they’re so, um, cute, and innocent, and stuff.

What do you have against babies, anyway? What are you, some kind of monster?

I can assure you that I like babies as much as the next guy. I worked with my wife in the church nursery for more than 20 years. And for what it’s worth, I learned there that I like my own babies better than other people’s, but I still like them a lot.

But like it or not, the Bible teaches that all of us, at birth, bear the guilt of Adam’s sin (Rom 5.12). We’re not just born with an inclination to sin; we’re born already guilty of having sinned.

I know what your response to that will be; everyone has the same response.

It’s not fair!

And, perhaps surprisingly, I’m going to agree with you on that. Back to that in a moment.

In the Mosaic Law, God said that a child could not be held guilty of his father’s sins (Dt 24.16). So why should I be guilty of Adam’s sin? How can that be just?

The answer—a partial one—is that Adam was representing us in his sin, just as a legislator can bind us with laws because his vote in Congress represents us.

But I didn’t vote for Adam! I never had a say in this!

True. Though I will note that you’ve spent your life demonstrating with your sinfulness that Adam’s apple didn’t fall far from the tree now, did it? So there’s that. Whether you’re held guilty of Adam’s sin or not, you’re still in deep, deep trouble, and Adam’s guilt isn’t going to make your outcome any worse. But that still doesn’t seem to justify holding you guilty for an act that you didn’t actually commit.

So why? Why has God set me up like this?

Ah, my friend, because what you’ve heard so far is not the whole story. When you were still a (sinful) child, you learned that waiting for the end of the story is always worth it.

So what’s the end of the story?

The official name for what we’ve been talking about so far is imputation. Adam’s sin has been imputed to you—placed on your account, like a credit-card charge—so that you are in debt for it.

But there’s more to imputation than just this.

In God’s gracious plan, your sin has been imputed, too. Your sin—every last bit of it—has been placed on the account of Jesus of Nazareth. He’s guilty of everything bad you’ve ever done.

That wasn’t fair, either.

And while you didn’t agree to receive the guilt of Adam’s sin, Jesus absolutely agreed to receive your sin.

How do you feel about the deal now?

And there’s more.

When Jesus came to earth, born as a man, he came as the Second Adam (Lk 3.38; Rom 5.18-21). Because the first Adam was your representative, you can now be represented by the Second Adam. And what benefit does that bring?

Well, when Christ willingly took your sins upon himself and bore their penalty, that wiped out your sin debt, but you were still broke. You went from owing a bazillion dollars to debt-free, but you still didn’t have any money in the bank.

The Second Adam changed all that.

In the third great act of imputation, all of Christ’s righteousness was placed in your bank account (2Co 5.21). All his perfect obedience to the Father throughout his earthly life is now your record. The Father has not only forgiven your sin, but the very record of that sin has been expunged. It’s not there. That’s why he “will remember it no more” (Jer 31.34). You are rich in righteousness, as rich as it’s possible to be. God sees you through Christ-colored glasses.

Now, you can complain about the unfairness of being guilty of Adam’s sin if you want, but that’s a stupidly short-sighted perspective.

Adam’s sin has traveled from him, to you, to Christ, who has burned it in the fires of eternal judgment. And what he has given us in its place is beyond reckoning.

Grace.

Part 3 Part 4

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On Sin: All. He Paid It All.

October 1, 2018 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

At the core of biblical teaching is the idea of the vicarious atonement—that is, Jesus, the Son of God, took our place of guilt before God (2Co 5.21) and thus took our penalty of death (Rom 6.23).

The reason we’re not constantly overwhelmed with the significance of this is that, unfortunately, we’ve gotten used to it. Most of us have been told since age 3 that “Jesus died for my sins!” and now it’s just part of our ordinary universe.

That’s too bad.

We’ve lost the sense of marvel, of wonder, at what that means.

That means …

That God created us knowing that we’d rebel against him.
That he determined to rescue us when we were not only not calling for help, but were actively fighting him off, cursing and spitting in his face, determined to drown in our sin.
That he knew that his nature required a perfect, infinite payment for our sin, a payment that only he could make.
That he knew that making that payment—the death penalty—was something he could not do without himself becoming a mortal. Cur Deus Homo?
That he thus knew that by making even one of these creatures, he was committing himself to becoming one of them—to fundamentally altering the very fabric of the cosmos, or rather, the fabric of whatever there was before there even was a cosmos.

In the beginning, indeed.

We must confess that this is mystery. It’s a place where we tread with respect, with reverence, with awe. It’s holy ground.

But it is no mystery what are the results of this magnificent plan. The Scripture reveals them to us with light and delight.

He was made sin for us, the Scripture says, that we might be made the righteousness of God. And because he stood in our place, he has paid the full price for all of our sins (Isa 53.6). All of them.

What does that mean?

He has paid for our original sin—our complicity in the sin of Adam, our first father (Rom 5.12).
- Wait! You say. I’m guilty of Adam’s sin? That’s not fair!
- We’ll talk about that next time.
He has paid for our sin nature—the fact that we’re inclined to sin, left to our own devices. Our sinfulness is not primarily because the devil made us do it; it’s primarily because we tempt ourselves (Jam 1.13-15). You’re your own tempter.
- Wait! Are you saying it’s a sin to be tempted?!
- In our case, yes, I’m saying that. We’ll talk about that the time after next.
He has paid for every sin you have ever committed. The accidental ones. The momentary flares of evil that we didn’t see coming. And even the ones we planned, hardening our hearts even as we moved purposefully toward some great evil that we recognized as evil and wanted anyway. Every bitter thought. Every evil deed. All of it.
And get this. He has paid for all the sins of tomorrow—all the sins you haven’t committed yet but assuredly will. He’s paid for those too. Yes, you’ll need to confess them when they come, and he will forgive you at that time (1Jn 1.9), restoring the relationship and fellowship that your sin will have damaged, but you will never be in peril of eternal torment for that sin, even before you have confessed it. It’s paid for. All of it.

Now, perhaps a handful of you have had a thought on reading this.

My future sins are paid for?! So what’s the problem with committing them? Why not have a little sin party, since those sins won’t count anyway?

Oh, my friend, there are two great problems with that thought. First, those sins do damage your fellowship with your God—see just above—and that is a price far too high. You can’t treat as trivial the love of one who has done all this for you.

And the second problem derives from the first. Since it’s unnatural for God’s children to trivialize his grace, then your thought calls into question whether you know his grace at all. God’s people don’t think like that.

Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?!
May it never be!
How shall we, who are dead to sin, live in it any longer?! (Rom 6.1-2)

So revel in God’s grace and forgiveness. Drink it all up to the last drop. It’s an infinite gift.

For the next 2 posts we’ll probe some further related thoughts—

Why were we born guilty of Adam’s sin? How is that fair?
How can I say it’s a sin to be tempted? Jesus was tempted without any sin (Heb 4.15), right?

See you then.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

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