Covenantide

Tag: christ

  • How Should We Read the Bible?

    How Should We Read the Bible?

    Reading Scripture Covenantally (Lesson 1)

    Introduction

    During the Second Missionary Journey, the Apostle Paul and Silas stayed briefly in the city of Berea, having fled persecution in Thessalonica after having been there for only a few weeks.  Luke, writing the account of the stay, singles out the Bereans for particular commendation, saying: “These [Bereans] were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).  Paul’s commendation is not just that the Bereans were receptive to the Gospel, which they were, but that they evaluated his claims by searching the Scriptures.  This is serious dedication to being “Bible believing.”

    A key hallmarks of historic Protestantism is a commitment to the preeminent authority of the Bible.  However, many—perhaps most—people, if they read the Bible at all, read it devotionally: a few verses or a short passage with some inspirational thoughts by the devotional writer.  Such an approach reveals more about the mind of the devotion writer than that of the Lord, who inspired all Scripture.  If we are to be truly “Bible believing,” then we need an approach that understands the Bible comprehensively and holistically.

    Books explaining how to study the Bible typically focus on two things: exegesis and hermeneutics.  Exegesis looks where a passage is situated in the overall context of a book, analyzes the logical organization and flow, and observes key words in the passage.  Knowing the original languages can be an asset in this regard.  Exegesis aims to understand what a text is saying.  Hermeneutics tries to get at what a text means.  Hermeneutics includes understanding the historical context behind the passage, assessing what the author intended, what the original readers understood it to mean, and what it can mean to us today.  Exegesis and hermeneutics go together.  Most books on how to study the Bible, however, do not go beyond this, and as a result, Christians are left to fend for themselves in reckoning how different parts of the Bible relate to one another. What Christians need is a framework to see how the Bible fits together.

    (For a fuller discussion of this issue, see the attached file)

    Lesson 1 – How Should We Read the BibleDownload
  • The Setting of Deuteronomy

    The Setting of Deuteronomy

    Deuteronomy 1:1-4

    These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2 (There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadesh Barnea.) 3 And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel, according unto all that the LORD had given him in commandment unto them; 4 After he had slain Sihon the king of the Amorites, which dwelt in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, which dwelt at Astaroth in Edrei:  (Deut. 1:1-4)

    I. On the Plains of Moab (Deut. 1:1-3)

    The Book of Deuteronomy has an inauspicious beginning relative to the grand narrative it encapsulates: “These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2 (There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadesh Barnea.) 3 And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel…” Even though modern archaeology has not identified all the locations listed in verse 1, the general vicinity is well-established as just north of the Dead Sea on the plateau of Moab in modern-day Jordan.  It is January 1406 BC, nearly forty years since the Lord their God led His people out of Egypt in the Exodus.  The people were poised to enter the Promised Land and would begin the conquest in a couple of months, on the fortieth anniversary of the Exodus (Josh. 5:10).

    In the Authorized Version (AV), verse two is punctuated as a parenthetical comment, but it brackets the redemptive history of the people of God described in the first four books of the Pentateuch.  According to the covenant He made with Abraham (Gen. 15:13-21), the Lord brought His people out of Egypt in the Exodus, to Horeb.  “Horeb” is an alternative term for Mount Sinai.  Sinai is where the Lord first called Moses to service in the encounter at the burning bush and where He led His people back to after the Exodus from Egypt.  It was at Sinai that the people faced the Lord with fear and trembling, who gave them His covenant for how they should live to reflect Him now that they had been saved.  It was at Sinai where they had almost been destroyed by that same God because of their apostasy with the Golden Calf.  It was at Sinai where Moses mediated for them and the Lord restored His covenantal relationship with after their sin.  And it was at Sinai where they then built the Tabernacle to Him.  The nation was at Sinai for just over a year, before the Lord commanded them to move out to the land which He promised their forefathers (Num. 10:11).

    Mount Seir is in the land of Edom, the descendants of Esau, Israel’s kin, which had already settled in the land which the Lord allotted to them.  The reference here in 1:2 is probably only to describe a common route of travel; the more significant reference is to Kadesh-barnea.  Kadesh-barnea was just south of the Negev, the southern part of the land of Canaan, and was to be the launching point for the conquest of Canaan.  It was from Kadesh-barnea that Moses sent the spies into the land, whose negative report about the people being giants and the land being fortified deterred the Israelites from following the Lord’s command to go up against it.  After Moses pronounced the Lord’s judgment on them for failing to trust Him, the people tried to invade the land in their own strength, only to be miserably routed.  Israel would stay at Kadesh-barnea for most of the next 38 years.  Moses’ sister Miriam would die there, his brother would die not far from there, and because of Moses’ own sin there of presumptuous against the Lord, the Lord declared that Moses himself would not be allowed to go into the land.  Kadesh-barnea and the vicinity around it was Israel’s wilderness wandering.

    II. The Words of the Mediator (1:1-3)

    “These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel… according unto all that the LORD had given him in commandment unto them” (Deut. 1:1, 3).  Thus begins Deuteronomy.  Like every other book of the Pentateuch except Exodus, Deuteronomy begins with words being spoken, but unlike those other books, Moses for the first time is identified as the one speaking, rather than God.  This fact is noteworthy in light of the structure of Deuteronomy.  Since Deuteronomy is written as a covenant, these opening verses are the preamble to the covenant.  Normally in ancient Near Eastern covenants the preamble is where the suzerain is introduced with his titles and honors.  Moses, however, is not the suzerain nor is he given any titles.  This fact highlights Moses’ role as Mediator of the covenant, the representative of the Lord speaking to the people and the representative of the people standing before God (1:3).

    At 120 years old, Moses was at the end of his life and was personally prohibited from entering the Promised Land (Deut. 1:37, 3:26, 4:21, 34:4) because he failed to honor the Lord before the people: instead of speaking the Lord’s word to give the people water, he assumed to himself the prerogative of the Lord alone, struck the rock and said he was giving them water (Num. 20:9-13).  The Lord’s Mediator was obligated to be obedient to the Lord’s command and speak the Lord’s words alone.  Moses failed to do that, and that cost him.

    No doubt, Moses feared for the Israelites’ future without him as they entered the Promised Land.  He had been with them since the Exodus in all the years of their wandering and knew too well just how stubborn and rebellious they were.  Indeed, the last of the generation which had come out of Egypt in the Exodus as adults had died off a year or two earlier (2:14-16), the result of the Lord’s judgment on them after they refused to trust Him to fight their battles in conquering the Land.  Moses almost certainly knew he was not indispensable, since it was the Lord alone who saved and sustained His people.  Nevertheless, he had been the mediator between the people and the Lord for more than forty years; with his impending death the people still needed a mediator.

    III. The Covenant and the Transition

    It is in this setting that Moses wrote the Book of Deuteronomy.  He wrote it, curiously enough, in the form of a covenant.  In the ancient Near East, a covenant was a treaty.  It bound two sovereigns together by oaths of mutual loyalty, with stipulations of obligation on one or both parties, was incentivized by blessings and curses, sealed by a formal ratification ceremony and enforced by the gods.  In most cases, a covenant was between a suzerain overlord and a vassal king and was the legal means by which the suzerain bound the vassal to himself and regulated their relationship.  At the time Moses wrote Deuteronomy, the ancient Near East was experiencing a heyday of diplomacy, yet interestingly, the biblical covenants were unique in that they are the only examples from antiquity in which a god made a covenant with his people.  There is a genuine basis then for the rhetorical question Moses asks in Deut. 4:8, “And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?”

    That the Lord would make a covenant with His people seems strange in light of the fact that covenants were basically treaties.  Making a treaty seems on first glance to be too formal, too distancing.  At the same time, it was on the basis of the God’s covenant with Abraham that He brought His people out from Egypt with great judgments, sustained them in the wilderness and, at this point in biblical revelation, was about to bring them into the Promised Land.  The formality of the covenant was the very basis for the people’s assurance that the Lord would indeed follow through on his promises in light of their sins.

    Covenants typically were made whenever there was a significant development in the relationship between the two parties; Moses’ approaching death and Israel’s pending entry into the Promised Land constituted just such developments.  Ancient kings would often use covenants with other kings—and even with their own people—to secure legal recognition for their heir apparent.  That is true in the case of Deuteronomy, insofar as Moses is transitioning leadership of the nation to Joshua, son of Nun.  Joshua had been one of the men who spied out the land forty years earlier, but unlike all the others (save Caleb), he faithfully trusted God to deliver the land to Israel.  In Deuteronomy, however, this is leadership succession with a twist:  the covenant is not focused on Joshua per se, but on God.  While Joshua would lead the people into the Land, Moses was pointing the people to their true leader, namely the Lord Himself.  It is the Lord who promised them the land, the Lord who delivered them from Egypt, the Lord who sustained them in the wilderness, and the Lord who was already fighting their battles in conquering the land.  This was Moses’ last act as Mediator.  Note that this does not diminish Joshua’s (subordinate) authority but establishes it: ancient Near Eastern covenants typically presumed the vassal would be exclusively loyal to his suzerain and if the people were loyal to the Lord, then they were to be loyal to Joshua as well.

    Although Moses transferred his leadership to Joshua, he transferred his mediatorial responsibilities to the covenant itself.  It is the covenant that would be the standard to which God’s people would be held, and in adhering to the covenant the people would be reflecting their Lord.  This was the second time in the Israel’s history the nation was poised to enter the land the Lord promised to their forefathers.  The first time was when the nation was at Sinai, and the Lord made a covenant with them there, that He would be their God and they would be His people (Exod. 6:7 cf. Exod. 19:3-6).  The covenant on the plateau of Moab reflected the evolution in the relationship between Lord and His people.  At Sinai, the Lord had just delivered His people from Egypt, and they had not yet sinned against Him.  Shortly thereafter, they sinned in disbelief and were condemned to judgment in the wilderness.  The covenant, then, was one of renewal, now with the succeeding generation and reflective of the need for the Lord to be direct with His people because of their past experience sins against Him.  It is this covenant, which extends and builds on Sinai, that was to become the constitutional foundation for God’s relationship with His people.

    IV. The Defeater of Sihon and Og (1:4)

    The Lord is not absent from this passage, and verse four describes Him as the defeater of Sihon and Og.  “Defeater of Sihon and Og” does not seem like a terribly impressive title, but it was significant for God’s people at that time.  While in the broad schema of things these were relatively minor kings, in the context of God’s relationship with His people the defeat of these kings showed the Israelites that God was fulfilling His covenants with their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to fight their battles and bring His people into the land He promised them.  This title alone would have been sufficient basis for them to trust Him and be obedient to Him.  It would have been a source of confidence and a token that He would fulfill His covenantal promises.  He who made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them could also completely defeat their enemies and overcome the challenges immediately before them.  They needed to know that.

    V. Anticipating Christ

    Moses was a Mediator between the Lord and His People.  What does this mean and why is it important?  We often think of a mediator as a middleman trying to broker a deal between two parties.  That is not what Moses did.  Rather, he sought to represent God to the people and to intercede with God on behalf of the people.  In this he spoke the Lord’s words to the people of Israel and lifted up their needs and cries to the Lord Himself.  At times, Moses interposed himself between God and Israel, mostly to protect the people from the fullness of God’s wrath toward their sins.  With Moses’s pending death, the mediatorial role that he had played in making God and His standard known to Israel was transferred, not to Joshua, but to the testimony of the Law.  In that regard, the one can say that Deuteronomy really is a kind of last will and testament of Moses.  The intercessory role Moses had during his life would be assumed in the remainder of the Old Testament by judges (in the Judges period) and later by the prophets.

    Moses foreshadowed the mediatorial role that Christ Jesus would ultimately assume.  The Father would send His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the very Word of God (John 1:1), to make God known to men and intercede on behalf of His people.  His intercession, however, goes beyond what Moses ever did: Christ actually died in place of His people on the cross of Calvary.  That is the only thing that would once and for all turn away—propitiate—the Father’s wrath toward His people’s sin.  With His resurrection from the dead, Christ’s intercessory work continues, as He lifts up the prayers of God’s people to the Father continually, because He is seated at the right hand of the Father.  It is important for us to understand that because Christ Himself is our Mediator, we do not need some other intermediary to intercede for us with God, whether deceased saints, angels, or even the Church; we can approach Christ directly.  In fact, to set any of these things up as a mediator between us and God would be to turn to them for that which only Christ Jesus can provide.  If Moses’s mediatorial role points to Christ, then His words in Deuteronomy also find their fulfillment in Christ.  In this light, reading Deuteronomy is not a mere historical exercise of looking at rules from God.  Rather it is in understanding the heart of our Lord, who has saved a people for Himself and expects this people to honor Him in how they are to live.   Moses’s readers were poised to enter the Promised Land, where they would find their rest in the God who would dwell among them.  For us, we are looking for a heavenly Promised Land, where we will find our rest in union with Christ and eternal communion with Him.

  • On the Feast of the Nativity, III

    On the Feast of the Nativity, III

    A Sermon by Leo the Great (Pope, 440-461)

    For much of the fourth century AD, the Roman Empire was consumed in combating the Arian controversy, which asserted that Christ Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, was a created being and neither fully God nor fully man. Were that the case, then Christ could not be a genuine Savior of His people. The Council of Nicaea in 325 encapsulated Christian orthodoxy in the Nicene Creed, stating that Christ was indeed fully God and fully man, but supporters of the heretic Arius sought for decades to use imperial political power to overturn the creed, touching off a bitter conflict across the Empire. The end of the conflict came in 380 AD with the triumph of the pro-Nicene Emperor, Theodosius I, over his rivals to become the sole Emperor of the Empire. The defeat of the Arians was sealed in 381 AD when the Council of Constantinople reaffirmed the Nicene Creed as reflecting the Trinitarian truth that God was one in substance (ousios) and three in Persons (hypostases).

    The first clear observance of the Feast of the Nativity–what we would now call Christmas–was held in Constantinople in 380 AD, presided over by Gregory of Nazianzus. Observance of the Feast of the Nativity, however, did not become regular within the Christian Church for some decades. During his pontificate, Leo the Great delivered a series of sermons on the Feast of the Nativity which did much to solidify observance of the feast in the Western tradition. 

    The settlement of the Trinitarian controversy led naturally to the next question, namely, how it was that Christ was both human and divine. This was worked out in a series of councils, culminating with the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. Leo the Great was active in promoting what would come to be accepted by the Church as orthodoxy and used the occasion of the Feast over several years to expound and teach that truth about Christ. While Leo’s sermons were deep in theology, they also were beautiful in describing that truth devotionally. Below is the third of Leo’s Christmas sermons, the text of which is taken from the Phillip Schaff’s Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, found in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

    On the Feast of the Nativity, III.

    I.  The truths of the Incarnation never suffer from being repeated.

    The things which are connected with the mystery of to-day’s solemn feast are well known to you, dearly-beloved, and have frequently been heard:  but as yonder visible light affords pleasure to eyes that are unimpaired, so to sound hearts does the Saviour’s nativity give eternal joy; and we must not keep silent about it, though we cannot treat of it as we ought.  For we believe that what Isaiah says, “who shall declare his generation?” applies not only to that mystery, whereby the Son of God is co-eternal with the Father, but also to this birth whereby “the Word became flesh.”  And so God, the Son of God, equal and of the same nature from the Father and with the Father, Creator and Lord of the Universe, Who is completely present everywhere, and completely exceeds all things, in the due course of time, which runs by His own disposal, chose for Himself this day on which to be born of the blessed virgin Mary for the salvation of the world, without loss of the mother’s honour.  For her virginity was violated neither at the conception nor at the birth:  “that it might be fulfilled,” as the Evangelist says, “which was spoken by the Lord through Isaiah the prophet, saying, behold the virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us.”  For this wondrous child-bearing of the holy Virgin produced in her offspring one person which was truly human and truly Divine, because neither substance so retained their properties that there could be any division of persons in them; nor was the creature taken into partnership with its Creator in such a way that the One was the in-dweller, and the other the dwelling; but so that the one nature was blended with the other.  And although the nature which is taken is one, and that which takes is another, yet these two diverse natures come together into such close union that it is one and the same Son who says both that, as true Man, “He is less than the Father,” and that, as true God, “He is equal with the Father.”

    II.  The Arians could not comprehend the union of God and man.

    This union, dearly beloved, whereby the Creator is joined to the creature, Arian blindness could not see with the eyes of intelligence, but, not believing that the Only-begotten of God was of the same glory and substance with the Father, spoke of the Son’s Godhead as inferior, drawing its arguments from those words which are to be referred to the “form of a slave,” in respect of which, in order to show that it belongs to no other or different person in Himself, the same Son of God with the same form, says, “The Father is greater than I,” just as He says with the same form, “I and my Father are one.”  For in “the form of a slave,” which He took at the end of the ages for our restoration, He is inferior to the Father:  but in the form of God, in which He was before the ages, He is equal to the Father.  In His human humiliation He was “made of a woman, made under the Law:”  in His Divine majesty He abides the Word of God, “through whom all things were made.”  Accordingly, He Who in the form of God made man, in the form of a slave was made man.  For both natures retain their own proper character without loss:  and as the form of God did not do away with the form of a slave, so the form of a slave did not impair the form of God.  And so the mystery of power united to weakness, in respect of the same human nature, allows the Son to be called inferior to the Father:  but the Godhead, which is One in the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, excludes all notion of inequality.  For the eternity of the Trinity has nothing temporal, nothing dissimilar in nature:  Its will is one, Its substance identical, Its power equal, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God; because it is a true and inseparable unity, where there can be no diversity.  Thus in the whole and perfect nature of true man was true God born, complete in what was His own, complete in what was ours.  And by “ours” we mean what the Creator formed in us from the beginning, and what He undertook to repair.  For what the deceiver brought in, and man deceived committed, had no trace in the Saviour; nor because He partook of man’s weaknesses, did He therefore share our faults.  He took the form of a slave without stain of sin, increasing the human and not diminishing the divine:  for that “emptying of Himself,” whereby the Invisible made Himself visible, was the bending down of pity, not the failing of power.

    III.  The Incarnation was necessary to the taking away of sin.

    In order therefore that we might be called to eternal bliss from our original bond and from earthly errors, He came down Himself to us to Whom we could not ascend, because, although there was in many the love of truth, yet the variety of our shifting opinions was deceived by the craft of misleading demons, and man’s ignorance was dragged into diverse and conflicting notions by a falsely-called science.  But to remove this mockery, whereby men’s minds were taken captive to serve the arrogant devil, the teaching of the Law was not sufficient, nor could our nature be restored merely by the Prophets’ exhortations; but the reality of redemption had to be added to moral injunctions, and our fundamentally corrupt origin had to be re-born afresh.  A Victim had to be offered for our atonement Who should be both a partner of our race and free from our contamination, so that this design of God whereby it pleased Him to take away the sin of the world in the Nativity and Passion of Jesus Christ, might reach to all generations:  and that we should not be disturbed but rather strengthened by these mysteries, which vary with the character of the times, since the Faith, whereby we live, has at no time suffered variation.

    IV.  The blessings of the Incarnation stretch backwards as well as reach forward.

    Accordingly let those men cease their complaints who with disloyal murmurs speak against the dispensations of God, and babble about the lateness of the Lord’s Nativity as if that, which was fulfilled in the last age of the world, had no bearing upon the times that are past.  For the Incarnation of the Word did but contribute to the doing of that which was done:  and the mystery of man’s salvation was never in the remotest age at a standstill.  What the apostles foretold, that the prophets announced:  nor was that fulfilled too late which has always been believed.  But the Wisdom and Goodness of God made us more receptive of His call by thus delaying the work which brought salvation:  so that what through so many ages had been foretold by many signs, many utterances, and many mysteries, might not be doubtful in these days of the Gospel:  and that the Saviour’s nativity, which was to exceed all wonders and all the measure of human knowledge, might engender in us a Faith so much the firmer, as the foretelling of it had been ancient and oft-repeated.  And so it was no new counsel, no tardy pity whereby God took thought for men:  but from the constitution of the world He ordained one and the same Cause of Salvation for all.  For the grace of God, by which the whole body of the saints is ever justified, was augmented, not begun, when Christ was born:  and this mystery of God’s great love, wherewith the whole world is now filled, was so effectively pre-signified that those who believed that promise obtained no less than they, who were the actual recipients.

    V.  The coming of Christ in our flesh corresponds with our becoming members of His body.

    Wherefore since the loving-kindness is manifest, dearly beloved, wherewith all the riches of Divine goodness are showered on us, whose call to eternal life has been assisted not only by the profitable examples of those who went before, but also by the visible and bodily appearing of the Truth Itself, we are bound to keep the day of the Lord’s Nativity with no slothful nor carnal joy.  And we shall each keep it worthily and thoroughly, if we remember of what Body we are members, and to what a Head we are joined, lest any one as an ill-fitting joint cohere not with the rest of the sacred building.  Consider, dearly beloved and by the illumination of the Holy Spirit thoughtfully bear in mind Who it was that received us into Himself, and that we have received in us:  since, as the Lord Jesus became our flesh by being born, so we also became His body by being re-born.  Therefore are we both members of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Ghost:  and for this reason the blessed Apostle says, “Glorify and carry God in your body:”  for while suggesting to us the standard of His own gentleness and humility, He fills us with that power whereby He redeemed us, as the Lord Himself promises:  “come unto Me all ye who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will refresh you.  Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls.”  Let us then take the yoke, that is not heavy nor irksome, of the Truth that rules us, and let us imitate His humility, to Whose glory we wish to be conformed:  He Himself helping us and leading us to His promises, Who, according to His great mercy, is powerful to blot out our sins, and to perfect His gifts in us, Jesus Christ our Lord, Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.