so that by the Judges we shall be judged.
My house (Boniface Hill) will be starting a Bible study on the book of Judges soon, and not just by Aslan's definition. As a result of this, I'll have regular posting fodder, which I'll probably write, revise, re-revise, read, question God's wisdom in perpetuating my existence, and use the posting fodder to "put Watts in 'em, boys" or some such not-necessarily-productive-but-definitely-entertaining thing (large bangs and primary colors appeal to the young). But, one post in a hundred will probably make it past the gauntlet of semi-sentience that is my mind, and this is the first of those, in my typical sophisticated and highly technical writing style of "somewhat like a list or something."
1. Judah is the royal tribe of Israel (read the blessing in Genesis something or other), so it's not surprising that they're sent in first. What is surprising is that they ask Simeon, one of the two tribes cursed for using the sign of the covenant (circumcision) as a weapon against members of the covenant (the freshly circumcised). The result of this curse was that they didn't have a parcel of land for their own; theirs was taken out of Judah's.
2. Adoni-Bezek: literally, 'Lord of the Lighning flash' or 'Lord of the Sunrise.' In either case, this Adoni is not too hard to see as a representation of Satan, the ruler of the world: he is a Jovian figure (lightning or sunrise) who dominated the seventy nations. (In Genesis nine or ten, the seventy nations of the world are listed; when seventy nations are mentioned here it's an obvious reference to the world. Therefore, Adoni-Bezek is the "ruler of the world.") It's significant that he's the first to fall. The rest of the book is the mop-up job that we botch (much as today, the war is over, but we keep losing battles), but our sin is used to demonstrate the fact that it can't stop the Grace of God, and we'll end up winning in spite of our best efforts. So quit whining, barbeque the tri-tip, raise your glass to God and sing something, blessit (inverted profanity).
3. Big toes and thumbs: not a clue, except for the obvious military ramifications (ever thrown a spear without a thumb? I thought not). Somehow it's more significant than just this, but I don't really know how; it's like the places of the body that the blood is rubbed on. So if you know, tell me, and if it's convincing, I'll add you as an admin to my blog and try to get in on your book royalties.
4. Ten-thousand: obviously a round number, but surprising in that it's four tens instead of just three.
5. Kirjath-Arba: Kiriath means city, and Arba means four, so this is plausibly four cities that merged. However, far more interesting is that Arba was the name of the father of Anak, and therefore of the Anakim (the giants with a fondness for digital sextets that terrified the Israelites so that their bodies were scattered in the desert), so this is also plausibly a city founded by him. In any case, it's occupied by giants, and Judah kills them all; one of the reasons there are so few left today.
6. Note the five kings of the Philistines, and endure typology: the fifth day of creation is when the fishies and the cheep-cheeps were made, and the fish typically represent the gentiles (hence, we're fishers of men, and in the OT fish are almost never mentioned and are absolutely never eaten, and then Jesus comes and suddenly we didn't know that other animals were made out of food). So, the five rulers of the Philistines represent the Gentile world as a whole, and anytime you see five kings, you're fully justified in thinking "uh-oh." This becomes big with Sampson, and is huge in Revelation and anything else that John wrote.
7. And finally, they start out so gloriously... Here's the pattern:
1. Creation
2. Fall
3. Decline
4. Judgment
5. Re-creation
The chief three?
1. Adam to Noah,
2. Noah to David and Ezra,
3. Daniel and Ezra to Christ and the Church.
That's all for now.
Blessings,
Jesse Broussard
Showing posts with label Miscellaneous commentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscellaneous commentary. Show all posts
Friday, July 8, 2011
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Our Wills and Fates Do So Contrary Run...
Had I simply refrained from seeking counsel, I could have started a cult by now. At least I know better than to make the same mistake twice: next time, I publish first, and apply a liberal dose of Alexander Pope to the critics ("damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer. Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike, just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike").
Below is the sarcophagus in which I have laid the remains of him who once laid low the nations, the great argument I was working on.
Our verse for dissection today, familiar and favorite of every teenager on the planet, is the fourth verse of the last chapter of the glorious book of Ephesians, which in the KJV reads "And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." In the Greek, "Καὶ οἱ πατέρες, μὴ παροργίζετε τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν ἀλλὰ ἐκτρέφετε αὐτὰ ἐν παιδείᾳ καὶ νουθεσίᾳ κυρίου." Pay especial attention to the fourth word from the end: παιδεια, hereafter simply "paideia" to save me clicking that little flag too many times. It simply means tutelage, with an implication of discipline.
Here is my thesis in a sentence: the wrath spoken of in the first half of the verse should be understood as the wrath of God.
My reasons for this are fairly simple. To begin with, there is the problem with how we typically interpret this verse, the "don't make your kids mad" approach. Even Mennonites, who diligently discipline and spank their children beginning in the first trimester, often exasperate their children. Every godly parent has to deal with furious two year-olds who find their otherwise intelligent parents inexplicably immune to flawless logic ("I want it." "You can't have it." "But I want it..."), and what parent, raising their child to love and serve God would honestly say that they have never made their child mad?
How then can we contrast making your child mad with raising them in the paideia of God? The latter does not exclude the former, it necessarily includes it. If the contrasting of the first and second half of the verse ("do not make your child angry, but rather...") does not work, then our interpretation of either the first half or second half must be in error. Otherwise, we accuse Paul of saying something along the lines of "do not go outside in the rain, but rather go outside when it's wet." The two are by no means mutually exclusive.
The only ambiguity in the verse appears in the first half, and is not at first glance obvious: "do not provoke your children to wrath..." The ambiguity lies in the fact that the indirect object, wrath, is not specifically possessed. Our assumption of it being the children's wrath is entirely due to their mutual proximity in the verse, as well as a lack of other potential owners.
However, there is a simple solution: could not the wrath belong to God as an understood possessor? He is, after all, the owner of the paideia in the second half of the sentence, and we do this type of thing (same subject for multiple objects) on a regular basis. Also, in context, it agrees with the rest of Scripture: simply read Proverbs for a Biblical view of a parent's responsibility regarding their children. The foolish child brings shame to his parents.
The other options I have found to be either weak or to do more violence to the text than this one does. You either have to import something into the sentence that simply is not there, or imply a great deal that is not implied on the first reading. This interpretation simply applies the explicit ownership (paideia of God) in the second half of the sentence to the first half of the sentence, and only does that because without that, the sentence does not make sense.
That was the interpretation I was working on. It was, however, quite neatly dismantled by Mike Lawyer's offhand comment: "parallel passage." Oopsie. So, I am a somewhat sadder, but greatly(?) wiser Jesse: I've now read Colossians.
Blessings all: I'll post new heresies as I invent them.
Jesse B
Below is the sarcophagus in which I have laid the remains of him who once laid low the nations, the great argument I was working on.
Our verse for dissection today, familiar and favorite of every teenager on the planet, is the fourth verse of the last chapter of the glorious book of Ephesians, which in the KJV reads "And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." In the Greek, "Καὶ οἱ πατέρες, μὴ παροργίζετε τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν ἀλλὰ ἐκτρέφετε αὐτὰ ἐν παιδείᾳ καὶ νουθεσίᾳ κυρίου." Pay especial attention to the fourth word from the end: παιδεια, hereafter simply "paideia" to save me clicking that little flag too many times. It simply means tutelage, with an implication of discipline.
Here is my thesis in a sentence: the wrath spoken of in the first half of the verse should be understood as the wrath of God.
My reasons for this are fairly simple. To begin with, there is the problem with how we typically interpret this verse, the "don't make your kids mad" approach. Even Mennonites, who diligently discipline and spank their children beginning in the first trimester, often exasperate their children. Every godly parent has to deal with furious two year-olds who find their otherwise intelligent parents inexplicably immune to flawless logic ("I want it." "You can't have it." "But I want it..."), and what parent, raising their child to love and serve God would honestly say that they have never made their child mad?
How then can we contrast making your child mad with raising them in the paideia of God? The latter does not exclude the former, it necessarily includes it. If the contrasting of the first and second half of the verse ("do not make your child angry, but rather...") does not work, then our interpretation of either the first half or second half must be in error. Otherwise, we accuse Paul of saying something along the lines of "do not go outside in the rain, but rather go outside when it's wet." The two are by no means mutually exclusive.
The only ambiguity in the verse appears in the first half, and is not at first glance obvious: "do not provoke your children to wrath..." The ambiguity lies in the fact that the indirect object, wrath, is not specifically possessed. Our assumption of it being the children's wrath is entirely due to their mutual proximity in the verse, as well as a lack of other potential owners.
However, there is a simple solution: could not the wrath belong to God as an understood possessor? He is, after all, the owner of the paideia in the second half of the sentence, and we do this type of thing (same subject for multiple objects) on a regular basis. Also, in context, it agrees with the rest of Scripture: simply read Proverbs for a Biblical view of a parent's responsibility regarding their children. The foolish child brings shame to his parents.
The other options I have found to be either weak or to do more violence to the text than this one does. You either have to import something into the sentence that simply is not there, or imply a great deal that is not implied on the first reading. This interpretation simply applies the explicit ownership (paideia of God) in the second half of the sentence to the first half of the sentence, and only does that because without that, the sentence does not make sense.
That was the interpretation I was working on. It was, however, quite neatly dismantled by Mike Lawyer's offhand comment: "parallel passage." Oopsie. So, I am a somewhat sadder, but greatly(?) wiser Jesse: I've now read Colossians.
Blessings all: I'll post new heresies as I invent them.
Jesse B
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Rough Draft of Daft Stuff, Referring to John 1
John is probably the most interesting of all of the gospels. He's my favorite NT writer, and ties with Solomon (Cantica Canticorum) for my favorite Scriptural author. So, here is a brief intro to reading his gospel, and then a briefer overview of John 1.
John should be read as a יוֹם כִּפּוּר (yom kippur) entrance into the temple: the first five chapters deal with water (ceremonial washing), then light and bread (holy place), then the blood and death, then the High Priest returning from the presence of God alive, signifying the Divine acceptance of the offering and the atonement for the sins of the nation. Of course, this is simplistic: taken with Revelation, it forms a chiastic whole, it has tremendously complex themes of marriage (as the Second Adam follows the footsteps of the first up a hill, into a deep sleep, has his side opened and a bride created from it as well as obeying God on a tree to be the faithful guard of the garden), Eden (his resurrection occurs in a garden, he is seen in a garden, etc), and many more that I've never discovered, but it still works well for a general overview.
Now, for chapter one. Or rather, as far into chapter one as my sleep-deprived mind feels like going. The first two divisions are quite interesting, and are made numerically: the three repetitions of Word in 1 is the foundation of 1-3, then the seven repetitions of light in 4-9 lead to the natural division that takes place between 13 and 14. 14 is lightly distinguished from what came before by a very explicit chiasm (14-18: only begotten, only begotten; grace and truth, grace and truth) that centers yet again--just in case you happened to miss the rather prevalent preceding theme of the Divinity of Christ--that centers yet again on the eternal existence of Christ: "He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me." It also calls himself as his first witness, along with Peter and James. His second witness he calls immediately after; John the Baptist.
19 is the opening bookend of another chiasm that closes in 28: from Jerusalem, Bethabara; Christ Elijah and the Prophet, Christ Elijah and the Prophet; those who sent us, those who were sent; you say, Isaiah said, with the center being focused on the office of John as the prophesied forerunner of the (Incarnated) Deity.
Verse 29 opens another chiasm, in which is a trilogy of John's actions: said, bore witness, testified. It is also the first mention of the Spirit, making this the end of the natural section of 1-34 as an exposition of God, and of Christ as God. Christ was in heaven with God; the Spirit of God is with Christ on earth. This could be viewed as another witness, but the text flows far better as a chiasm: The Word with God in the beginning, the Spirit (of God) on Christ (the Incarnation of the Word) after John; the witnesses (which are bookended by the "He who comes after is preferred before") are at the center.
29-34 (Lamb of God, Son of God); 30-33b (He was before me, He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit); 31-33a (I did not know, I did not know); Center, 32: And John bore witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him."
Also, I don't yet know what to make of it, but the trilogy of "He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me" is repeated for emphasis, but probably also for some structural theme. Were I to guess, it is a part of the overall chiastic structure, the damning Arche chiasm of the passage: 1. only begotten, 3. Lamb of God: center: 2. you don't know Him. But that's a guess, and I haven't yet gotten to the big picture, to the loose chiastic structure.
That is as far as I will go with the structural analysis for the moment. The prevalent, inescapable theme is the utter Deity of Christ, which John asserts completely by verse 14.
So, this is the focus of the first section of John 1. The Word, the second member of the Godhead, was with the First, and comes bearing the Third, as witnessed by a couple of John's, and the Pharisees, parallel to the darkness, did not comprehend the One standing among them (5, 26).
Monday, August 23, 2010
Titan Theory: Who's Your Daddy (part one)
After much debate, I am finally confident enough to start mocking all those idiots that disagree with my (recently established) position on Genesis six: the Nephilim.
To get the Hebrew out of the way: נפל is the root word used here, and it means to fall (nephel). The plural ending is added, and the root word expanded, until it becomes נפילימ, nephilim, simply "fallen ones," as in rebels or apostates. Which doesn't really help us at all.
Here, I am going to outline the problems with both theories and the answers to them (where applicable), starting with the most commonly held: that the Godly line of Seth is intermarrying with the ungodly line of Cain.
First off, the phrasing is quite odd: "the sons of God... the daughters of men..." Sons of God is used elsewhere, though it's not exactly common, and it usually means the godly humans. Granted, and gladly. The issue is with its combination with "daughters of men," which is almost never used elsewhere in Scripture, and how that leaves all the masculinity on one side.
The implication is that the men of the line of Seth saw the daughters of Cain, and married them, while the daughters of the line of Seth did no such thing, which is problematic. The only plausible explanation I have heard is that the text is attempting to demonstrate the abdication of the Godly men, and demonstrates the effects of the Godly pursuing the ungodly, perhaps as a warning to future readers. While plausible, this argument is demonstrably weak, and rather difficult to extract from the plain text. Let us leave it as a possibility, and move on to the second and greater problem: giants.
The implication of the text here gives us a bit of an issue for the line of Seth theory. The sons of God (Christians) married the lovely daughters of men (the non unattractive pagan mall rats) and had kids. The kids were giants; great heroes, revered men. Why? There is no plausible explanation for why the marriage of a Christian with a pagan results in a giant--not a single one--and there are unlimited examples to the contrary, down to the present day. The only way out of it is to try to dissociate the giants from the marriages, which fails: see Genesis 6:1 and 6:4, and compare: "Now it came to pass... In those days." What days? The giants began in those days, when the sons of God saw the daughters of men.
Taking these two together, the violence done to the text to explain away the first problem is by no means justified when we are left with such a massive problem in the theory we are trying to salvage.
On to the problems with the second theory: the sons of God are angels.
First off, angels are spiritual beings, humans are physical. How can there be attraction between them?
A couple of points: there is the 1 Corinthians 11:6-10 verse, which I'm not even going to mention here. It at least links angels and women in a suggestive way, though it tells us nothing. Also, we are exposing our ridiculous dualism here: our underlying assumption is that the spiritual and physical are totally separated. Finally, we are assuming that angels are spiritual, which, oddly enough, we have no reason to do. We are told that we host angels (Hebrews 13:2), and angels do all sorts of non-spiritual things (like eat food and slaughter people). So it is quite likely that they are either both physical and spiritual (like us), or that they can at least act like it.
Secondly, it just seems crazy.
Personally, I'd like to list this under the arguments for it being correct, and here's my rather complicated logic: 1. We are stupid and usually wrong (see the Bible).
Third: the text is focused on men, their sins, and God's response.
This seems to be the most difficult problem, but let us examine it closer. God's response to the intermarriage is to say, in essence, "Okay, that's it. I've had enough." ("I will not strive with man forever...") Also, keep in mind that it is the descendants that are primarily focused upon. Both of these fit quite well within the theory that the Sons of God are angels. Overall, the text allows for the angel theory quite easily: "man is extremely sinful, and now he is getting an influx of supernatural blood, magnifying him in every way, so that's it; I'm done with him, on to Noah."
The final problem is a problem for both theories: the nephilim (נפילימ) exist after the fall.
There are three possible explanations, and none of them involve holding their breath (for these I'm indebted to Doug Wilson).
First, the same thing might have happened again. Second, the dna for these fallen ones might have been preserved through the line of Noah (very unlikely, given the text of Genesis 6: nephilim=bad, therefore I'm going to destroy the world except one family, which will of course preserve the nephilim). The most likely theory is simply that the name was later applied to non-nephilim giants, and the appellation was what survived the flood.
Given all of these, I've got to go with the theory of the Sons of God being the angels spoken of in Jude 6 and 1 Peter 3:19-20 (time of Noah is in particular illuminating in verse 20).
Any theories, arguments I failed to mention, or any type of problem that any of you have with this, please comment.
Blessings,
Jesse Broussard
To get the Hebrew out of the way: נפל is the root word used here, and it means to fall (nephel). The plural ending is added, and the root word expanded, until it becomes נפילימ, nephilim, simply "fallen ones," as in rebels or apostates. Which doesn't really help us at all.
Here, I am going to outline the problems with both theories and the answers to them (where applicable), starting with the most commonly held: that the Godly line of Seth is intermarrying with the ungodly line of Cain.
First off, the phrasing is quite odd: "the sons of God... the daughters of men..." Sons of God is used elsewhere, though it's not exactly common, and it usually means the godly humans. Granted, and gladly. The issue is with its combination with "daughters of men," which is almost never used elsewhere in Scripture, and how that leaves all the masculinity on one side.
The implication is that the men of the line of Seth saw the daughters of Cain, and married them, while the daughters of the line of Seth did no such thing, which is problematic. The only plausible explanation I have heard is that the text is attempting to demonstrate the abdication of the Godly men, and demonstrates the effects of the Godly pursuing the ungodly, perhaps as a warning to future readers. While plausible, this argument is demonstrably weak, and rather difficult to extract from the plain text. Let us leave it as a possibility, and move on to the second and greater problem: giants.
The implication of the text here gives us a bit of an issue for the line of Seth theory. The sons of God (Christians) married the lovely daughters of men (the non unattractive pagan mall rats) and had kids. The kids were giants; great heroes, revered men. Why? There is no plausible explanation for why the marriage of a Christian with a pagan results in a giant--not a single one--and there are unlimited examples to the contrary, down to the present day. The only way out of it is to try to dissociate the giants from the marriages, which fails: see Genesis 6:1 and 6:4, and compare: "Now it came to pass... In those days." What days? The giants began in those days, when the sons of God saw the daughters of men.
Taking these two together, the violence done to the text to explain away the first problem is by no means justified when we are left with such a massive problem in the theory we are trying to salvage.
On to the problems with the second theory: the sons of God are angels.
First off, angels are spiritual beings, humans are physical. How can there be attraction between them?
A couple of points: there is the 1 Corinthians 11:6-10 verse, which I'm not even going to mention here. It at least links angels and women in a suggestive way, though it tells us nothing. Also, we are exposing our ridiculous dualism here: our underlying assumption is that the spiritual and physical are totally separated. Finally, we are assuming that angels are spiritual, which, oddly enough, we have no reason to do. We are told that we host angels (Hebrews 13:2), and angels do all sorts of non-spiritual things (like eat food and slaughter people). So it is quite likely that they are either both physical and spiritual (like us), or that they can at least act like it.
Secondly, it just seems crazy.
Personally, I'd like to list this under the arguments for it being correct, and here's my rather complicated logic: 1. We are stupid and usually wrong (see the Bible).
Third: the text is focused on men, their sins, and God's response.
This seems to be the most difficult problem, but let us examine it closer. God's response to the intermarriage is to say, in essence, "Okay, that's it. I've had enough." ("I will not strive with man forever...") Also, keep in mind that it is the descendants that are primarily focused upon. Both of these fit quite well within the theory that the Sons of God are angels. Overall, the text allows for the angel theory quite easily: "man is extremely sinful, and now he is getting an influx of supernatural blood, magnifying him in every way, so that's it; I'm done with him, on to Noah."
The final problem is a problem for both theories: the nephilim (נפילימ) exist after the fall.
There are three possible explanations, and none of them involve holding their breath (for these I'm indebted to Doug Wilson).
First, the same thing might have happened again. Second, the dna for these fallen ones might have been preserved through the line of Noah (very unlikely, given the text of Genesis 6: nephilim=bad, therefore I'm going to destroy the world except one family, which will of course preserve the nephilim). The most likely theory is simply that the name was later applied to non-nephilim giants, and the appellation was what survived the flood.
Given all of these, I've got to go with the theory of the Sons of God being the angels spoken of in Jude 6 and 1 Peter 3:19-20 (time of Noah is in particular illuminating in verse 20).
Any theories, arguments I failed to mention, or any type of problem that any of you have with this, please comment.
Blessings,
Jesse Broussard
Friday, July 9, 2010
Zechariah and Esther
This is a theory I've been working on. I'm hesitant to publicly declare it, so I decided to hide it safely away where none may find it.
It started when I was trying to figure out the significance of different types of trees in Scripture. I finally decided to just pick one type and try to track it, seeing if there are any patterns, etc, and the type I picked was myrtle. Initial results were rather scattered, but a fact that interested me was that the Hebrew for myrtle was also a name: Hadassah.
Then, ages passed, things that should never have been forgotten were eternally lost (like my keys), Gollum picked up a ring and I read Zechariah about three weeks after reading Esther: whose name in Hebrew is of course Hadassah.
Now, a great deal of my theory is dependent upon the dates for these two books, so let it be said from the outset that I believe Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther to have been contemporaries, and I think they were shortly preceded by Zechariah. I won't be defending that here; have fun tracking it down if you want.
My theory in brief: the events described in Esther were a fulfillment of the prophecies of Zechariah 2:6-13.
The ramifications of this (so far as an interpretation of Zechariah is concerned) aren't really all that great, but are kind of interesting. First, Zechariah and Ezekiel are strongly linked (Ezekiel 36's new covenant and Zechariah 3's High Priest is one of the more obvious correlations), so if this link is carried forward, it would quite possibly link the armies of Gog and Magog to the Agogite (from the Amalekites) son of Esau, Haman (see Ezekiel 39:11: Hamon-Gog and Haman are obviously very similar linguistically). Second, the "wall of fire" that the Lord will be around Israel in Zechariah 2:5 is exemplified by an arrogant, pragmatic pagan ruler.
There is more there, but I need to buttress the theory before I build it any higher.
Blessings,
JB
It started when I was trying to figure out the significance of different types of trees in Scripture. I finally decided to just pick one type and try to track it, seeing if there are any patterns, etc, and the type I picked was myrtle. Initial results were rather scattered, but a fact that interested me was that the Hebrew for myrtle was also a name: Hadassah.
Then, ages passed, things that should never have been forgotten were eternally lost (like my keys), Gollum picked up a ring and I read Zechariah about three weeks after reading Esther: whose name in Hebrew is of course Hadassah.
Now, a great deal of my theory is dependent upon the dates for these two books, so let it be said from the outset that I believe Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther to have been contemporaries, and I think they were shortly preceded by Zechariah. I won't be defending that here; have fun tracking it down if you want.
My theory in brief: the events described in Esther were a fulfillment of the prophecies of Zechariah 2:6-13.
The ramifications of this (so far as an interpretation of Zechariah is concerned) aren't really all that great, but are kind of interesting. First, Zechariah and Ezekiel are strongly linked (Ezekiel 36's new covenant and Zechariah 3's High Priest is one of the more obvious correlations), so if this link is carried forward, it would quite possibly link the armies of Gog and Magog to the Agogite (from the Amalekites) son of Esau, Haman (see Ezekiel 39:11: Hamon-Gog and Haman are obviously very similar linguistically). Second, the "wall of fire" that the Lord will be around Israel in Zechariah 2:5 is exemplified by an arrogant, pragmatic pagan ruler.
There is more there, but I need to buttress the theory before I build it any higher.
Blessings,
JB
Monday, March 23, 2009
Food for Thought
While re-reading The Lord's Service by Jeff Meyers (which everyone that ever darkens the doors of a church should do), I encountered a thought in a dark corner of my mind. Since bringing it into the light, it has grown too large already to be put back, and threatens to write up a lease agreement for the upstairs bedroom.
Could communion be defended as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? All elements seem to be there, and it is there that we eat and drink of our "dying you shall die" type of death.
Anyone with thoughts, feel free to hurl them at me.
Could communion be defended as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? All elements seem to be there, and it is there that we eat and drink of our "dying you shall die" type of death.
Anyone with thoughts, feel free to hurl them at me.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Theology Worksheet #2
3.03.09
Theology Worksheet #2
Second choice: John 9: 1-41
Worksheet #2: Structural Analysis in John’s gospel
In this worksheet, you will analyze the structure of a passage of John’s gospel. You need to perform the various operations that you performed on an OT book last term, to wit: 1) Determine or explain the boundaries of the text; 2) break down the text into its component sections; 3) explain the formal or narrative arrangement of the parts; and 4) explain the purpose or effect of the structure.
First off, thank you for letting us do John: he is my favorite Scriptural author, and my favorite Biblical character (though Phineas and Jehu are not too far behind).
John 9:1-41: I chose this section as nine is the world’s most interesting number, and this section is encapsulated within a really spiffy inclusio:
A: 9:1: Falsely declared sinful because of blindness,
A’: 9:41: Justly declared sinful because of sight.
A quick bit of background: chapters 1-12 of John contain what are commonly seen as his “seven signs,” seven great miracles that John gives (as proof of Christ’s divinity), and this is the sixth of these signs. Also, this is toward the end of John’s section on bread and light: John can be viewed as an entrance into the temple, so the first five chapters deal with water (the ceremonial washing: water into wine, woman at the well, born of water and blood, etc), the second five deal with bread and light (the showbread and Menorah: burning and shining lamp, the feeding of the five-thousand, bread of heaven, bread of life, I am the light of the world, giving light to the blind man), and so on.
There are references (which I will deal with in greater depth later) to creation (a new creation with clay), anointing (with clay, which is interesting in itself), baptism (washing in the pool), discipleship (the Pharisees’ interrogation and his response), and, very interestingly, an elusive Christ that brings to mind your comments in lecture regarding Him being the one “born of the Spirit,” of whom we cannot tell where He is from or where He is going. This theme in particular is capitalized upon in this chapter: “Where is he?” “I do not know.” “He is not from God;” “We do not know where he is from,” “You do not know where he is from,” etc. This cannot be accidental.
A quick throwaway: the clay theme may have something to do with this being the sixth of the seven signs: six is generally viewed as the number of man (made on the sixth day, six days he may work, slavery lasted six years for a Hebrew slave, six cities of refuge for the accidental slaying of a man, etc), and man is made from the dust of the ground. Personally, I would be hesitant to venture much further out on the skinny branches of two man-made hermeneutical tools, but it may bear more fruit upon later study. I found nothing all that apparent save a definite focus upon man’s relationship with man.
Also this section is chiastic: I have made it rougher than it has to be for space considerations (especially points E and E’, which could justifiably be E-R), but it is easily expanded once the basic outline is grasped. Since it is rough, there are a great number of points worth studying that may not even be mentioned, and I am open to many slight changes within this overall chiastic frame. All chapter references are chapter 9 and are omitted, and I have changed the phrasing to make the parallels more obvious.
• A: 1: Jesus and His disciples: he’s blind; is he a sinner? No.
o B: 4-5: Day and night, I am the light of the world…
• C: 6-12: sent, who is he? Receives sight.
• D: 13-16: brought to the Pharisees, not from God, can’t be a sinner.
o E: 17-21: Prophet, blind—sight, parents interrogated, born blind, he is of age, etc.
• F: 22: “they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that he was the Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.”
o E’: 23-29: Disciples of Moses (prophet), blind—see, son interrogated, blind, he is of age, etc.
• D’: 30-34: cast out by the Pharisees, must be from God, God doesn’t hear sinners.
• C’: 35-38: cast out, who is he? You have seen Him.
o B’: 39-40: Seeing and blind, I am the judgment of the world…
• A’: 41: Jesus and the “disciples of Moses:” Are we sinners? You’ve sight; yes.
The overall theme is that of the blind, “sinless” false Israel accusing Christ, the absentee defendant, while the seeing, “sinful” true Israel acts as His advocate. The parents appear to be two cowardly witnesses that, nevertheless, validate the testimony of the true Israel, who is then cast out when he successfully defends the One that sent him out, and sends him out again.
The central point (F) accents an aspect of this trial: two mindsets of the Jewish world. First, there are the captive Jews that fear their captors rather than the Liberator, and out of fear of being cast out of Israel reject Israel for the “synagogue of Satan.” Second, there are their captors, who greatly fear the Liberator and decide to excommunicate anyone that accepts Him (a rather weak threat to anyone that had accepted him, but quite terrible to anyone that was on the fence).
Two verbs in this verse interest me, so far as time is concerned. The Greek συντίθεμαι (had agreed already) is in the pluperfect tense, which is quite rare, and is like a perfect past tense: the meaning is “had once and for all agreed,” and puts one in mind of a covenant. The verb ὁμολογέω(confessed) is in the aorist, and therefore pays no heed to time: past, present, future, it doesn’t matter: the aorist includes them all. The action of this sentence then feels along the lines of “the Jews had irrevocably agreed that if anyone ever confessed Jesus as the Christ, he would be excommunicated.” No big difference is impressed upon the sentence, save perhaps a bit more force.
Another interesting tidbit is how Jesus healed this man. The man was blind from birth, and had apparently done a good deal of work to find a cure (“Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind…”), and being blind from birth was apparently viewed in no favorable light (“Who sinned, this man or his parents…” and “You were steeped in sin in your mother’s womb…”). It is not too much of a stretch to say that this hopeless beggar didn’t suffer from an excess of popularity, and I don’t think I’d be wearing white socks with my exegetical suit were I to posit that he’d been spit on plenty of times. It is of course just like God to take shame and turn it into glory, into an anointing. This may be completely off base, and there is no Scriptural leg to stand on, but I like the interpretation, and will probably keep it around.
Back to solid ground: this is a recreation story, and that without question. Jesus molds clay, anoints a blind man with it, and has him baptized. He emerges from his baptism as a new man. There is division in the “opening” of the man’s eyes, and there is separation in his excommunication from the synagogue. What God had divided, He filled: in this case, with Himself (verse 37). His separation also speaks to John’s ever-present message of light and darkness, which is obviously a pervasive theme in this story.
There are two ways to interpret John’s light vs. dark message: either good verse evil or the New Covenant being rejected by the so-called adherents to the Old. Arguments are made for both, and I think that there are times when both are equally valid. However, his message in John appears to be the latter: “and the darkness comprehended it not…” “He was sent to bear witness to that light…” etc. If this is the case, and it seems to be, then this recreation is yet again a symbol of the new creation being rejected and cast out by the old: the created light (blind man) shines (speaks truth) into the darkness (the truly blind Pharisees), but the darkness comprehended it not, and men loved darkness rather than light.
The verb anoint is a very peculiar choice of word. The translation is good, but why did John use that word? Why is the blind man “anointed” with mud? And why are we told this twice? It is obviously important, but what is important about it?
Several explanations present themselves. First, this is the Sabbath, and John, intentionally or no, sanctifies Christ’s “work” on the Sabbath.
Second, the man was about to be brought before the synagogue, and he hadn’t given any thought to what he would say. So, the image is given that Paul later refers to.
But most likely it is because Jesus says that He is doing the work of His Father just before He anoints the man’s eyes. So this can easily be taken to represent his actions on a larger scale: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me for He has anointed me…” Jesus was going around opening the eyes of the Spiritually blind, and especially in John’s eyes.
We have also seen that the work of the Spirit is portrayed differently in John than in the synoptic Gospels, and this is fitting with that theme. The anointing is what opens the man’s eyes; it is what prepares him to face the Pharisees alone, and it is what enabled him to recognize and worship Christ.
The theme of clay is also interesting, but as I have alluded to it several times already, I will only give it a brief overview here. I believe that it mostly refers to the creation theme: “He formed him out of the dust of the ground…” but it also references the curse. So, the curse is taken and placed upon the blind eyes of the man, and is done so as an anointing? Or the anointing is mixed with the curse? It is unclear, and I don’t think it matters much: the main point that can be drawn is the washing, the cleansing from the curse that is accomplished by baptism, and even this really is a bit of a stretch in my opinion.
One of the most interesting features of this chapter is the absence of Christ from it when He is so central to it. He appears at the beginning and at the end, but is nowhere to be found between his bookending cameos. He is the central figure: He is the one that is on trial (“Give glory to God we know this man is a sinner…”), and it would certainly have removed the pressure from the formerly blind man had He shown up. But He didn’t. He didn’t even wait to be thanked: the blind man first sees Him when Jesus seeks Him out.
First off, I’d just like to comment that this is about as flawless an analogy of conversion as can be made. Blind from birth, anointed and healed by the Spirit of a God we know of but don’t know, baptized into Him, violently and unpleasantly divorced from our idolatry, and then we begin to see Christ as the Son of God as He seeks us.
I think that Christ is absent from the story for one main reason (though I am sure there are others): so we can get a picture of what it is like to serve an absent Master. We are the people that put up that obscene footprints poem on our walls and think nice thoughts about gentle Jesus. We have no concept of the God that spoke to Jeremiah, asking him how he was going to manage to keep up with horses if men wore him out. We have some pagan notion in our minds that God is primarily concerned with out comfort and happiness, when we have nothing of that in Scripture or in life. This is the God that we serve: He does not come when called; He is not a tame Lion. We are to serve Him faithfully anyway.
Theology Worksheet #2
Second choice: John 9: 1-41
Worksheet #2: Structural Analysis in John’s gospel
In this worksheet, you will analyze the structure of a passage of John’s gospel. You need to perform the various operations that you performed on an OT book last term, to wit: 1) Determine or explain the boundaries of the text; 2) break down the text into its component sections; 3) explain the formal or narrative arrangement of the parts; and 4) explain the purpose or effect of the structure.
First off, thank you for letting us do John: he is my favorite Scriptural author, and my favorite Biblical character (though Phineas and Jehu are not too far behind).
John 9:1-41: I chose this section as nine is the world’s most interesting number, and this section is encapsulated within a really spiffy inclusio:
A: 9:1: Falsely declared sinful because of blindness,
A’: 9:41: Justly declared sinful because of sight.
A quick bit of background: chapters 1-12 of John contain what are commonly seen as his “seven signs,” seven great miracles that John gives (as proof of Christ’s divinity), and this is the sixth of these signs. Also, this is toward the end of John’s section on bread and light: John can be viewed as an entrance into the temple, so the first five chapters deal with water (the ceremonial washing: water into wine, woman at the well, born of water and blood, etc), the second five deal with bread and light (the showbread and Menorah: burning and shining lamp, the feeding of the five-thousand, bread of heaven, bread of life, I am the light of the world, giving light to the blind man), and so on.
There are references (which I will deal with in greater depth later) to creation (a new creation with clay), anointing (with clay, which is interesting in itself), baptism (washing in the pool), discipleship (the Pharisees’ interrogation and his response), and, very interestingly, an elusive Christ that brings to mind your comments in lecture regarding Him being the one “born of the Spirit,” of whom we cannot tell where He is from or where He is going. This theme in particular is capitalized upon in this chapter: “Where is he?” “I do not know.” “He is not from God;” “We do not know where he is from,” “You do not know where he is from,” etc. This cannot be accidental.
A quick throwaway: the clay theme may have something to do with this being the sixth of the seven signs: six is generally viewed as the number of man (made on the sixth day, six days he may work, slavery lasted six years for a Hebrew slave, six cities of refuge for the accidental slaying of a man, etc), and man is made from the dust of the ground. Personally, I would be hesitant to venture much further out on the skinny branches of two man-made hermeneutical tools, but it may bear more fruit upon later study. I found nothing all that apparent save a definite focus upon man’s relationship with man.
Also this section is chiastic: I have made it rougher than it has to be for space considerations (especially points E and E’, which could justifiably be E-R), but it is easily expanded once the basic outline is grasped. Since it is rough, there are a great number of points worth studying that may not even be mentioned, and I am open to many slight changes within this overall chiastic frame. All chapter references are chapter 9 and are omitted, and I have changed the phrasing to make the parallels more obvious.
• A: 1: Jesus and His disciples: he’s blind; is he a sinner? No.
o B: 4-5: Day and night, I am the light of the world…
• C: 6-12: sent, who is he? Receives sight.
• D: 13-16: brought to the Pharisees, not from God, can’t be a sinner.
o E: 17-21: Prophet, blind—sight, parents interrogated, born blind, he is of age, etc.
• F: 22: “they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that he was the Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.”
o E’: 23-29: Disciples of Moses (prophet), blind—see, son interrogated, blind, he is of age, etc.
• D’: 30-34: cast out by the Pharisees, must be from God, God doesn’t hear sinners.
• C’: 35-38: cast out, who is he? You have seen Him.
o B’: 39-40: Seeing and blind, I am the judgment of the world…
• A’: 41: Jesus and the “disciples of Moses:” Are we sinners? You’ve sight; yes.
The overall theme is that of the blind, “sinless” false Israel accusing Christ, the absentee defendant, while the seeing, “sinful” true Israel acts as His advocate. The parents appear to be two cowardly witnesses that, nevertheless, validate the testimony of the true Israel, who is then cast out when he successfully defends the One that sent him out, and sends him out again.
The central point (F) accents an aspect of this trial: two mindsets of the Jewish world. First, there are the captive Jews that fear their captors rather than the Liberator, and out of fear of being cast out of Israel reject Israel for the “synagogue of Satan.” Second, there are their captors, who greatly fear the Liberator and decide to excommunicate anyone that accepts Him (a rather weak threat to anyone that had accepted him, but quite terrible to anyone that was on the fence).
Two verbs in this verse interest me, so far as time is concerned. The Greek συντίθεμαι (had agreed already) is in the pluperfect tense, which is quite rare, and is like a perfect past tense: the meaning is “had once and for all agreed,” and puts one in mind of a covenant. The verb ὁμολογέω(confessed) is in the aorist, and therefore pays no heed to time: past, present, future, it doesn’t matter: the aorist includes them all. The action of this sentence then feels along the lines of “the Jews had irrevocably agreed that if anyone ever confessed Jesus as the Christ, he would be excommunicated.” No big difference is impressed upon the sentence, save perhaps a bit more force.
Another interesting tidbit is how Jesus healed this man. The man was blind from birth, and had apparently done a good deal of work to find a cure (“Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind…”), and being blind from birth was apparently viewed in no favorable light (“Who sinned, this man or his parents…” and “You were steeped in sin in your mother’s womb…”). It is not too much of a stretch to say that this hopeless beggar didn’t suffer from an excess of popularity, and I don’t think I’d be wearing white socks with my exegetical suit were I to posit that he’d been spit on plenty of times. It is of course just like God to take shame and turn it into glory, into an anointing. This may be completely off base, and there is no Scriptural leg to stand on, but I like the interpretation, and will probably keep it around.
Back to solid ground: this is a recreation story, and that without question. Jesus molds clay, anoints a blind man with it, and has him baptized. He emerges from his baptism as a new man. There is division in the “opening” of the man’s eyes, and there is separation in his excommunication from the synagogue. What God had divided, He filled: in this case, with Himself (verse 37). His separation also speaks to John’s ever-present message of light and darkness, which is obviously a pervasive theme in this story.
There are two ways to interpret John’s light vs. dark message: either good verse evil or the New Covenant being rejected by the so-called adherents to the Old. Arguments are made for both, and I think that there are times when both are equally valid. However, his message in John appears to be the latter: “and the darkness comprehended it not…” “He was sent to bear witness to that light…” etc. If this is the case, and it seems to be, then this recreation is yet again a symbol of the new creation being rejected and cast out by the old: the created light (blind man) shines (speaks truth) into the darkness (the truly blind Pharisees), but the darkness comprehended it not, and men loved darkness rather than light.
The verb anoint is a very peculiar choice of word. The translation is good, but why did John use that word? Why is the blind man “anointed” with mud? And why are we told this twice? It is obviously important, but what is important about it?
Several explanations present themselves. First, this is the Sabbath, and John, intentionally or no, sanctifies Christ’s “work” on the Sabbath.
Second, the man was about to be brought before the synagogue, and he hadn’t given any thought to what he would say. So, the image is given that Paul later refers to.
But most likely it is because Jesus says that He is doing the work of His Father just before He anoints the man’s eyes. So this can easily be taken to represent his actions on a larger scale: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me for He has anointed me…” Jesus was going around opening the eyes of the Spiritually blind, and especially in John’s eyes.
We have also seen that the work of the Spirit is portrayed differently in John than in the synoptic Gospels, and this is fitting with that theme. The anointing is what opens the man’s eyes; it is what prepares him to face the Pharisees alone, and it is what enabled him to recognize and worship Christ.
The theme of clay is also interesting, but as I have alluded to it several times already, I will only give it a brief overview here. I believe that it mostly refers to the creation theme: “He formed him out of the dust of the ground…” but it also references the curse. So, the curse is taken and placed upon the blind eyes of the man, and is done so as an anointing? Or the anointing is mixed with the curse? It is unclear, and I don’t think it matters much: the main point that can be drawn is the washing, the cleansing from the curse that is accomplished by baptism, and even this really is a bit of a stretch in my opinion.
One of the most interesting features of this chapter is the absence of Christ from it when He is so central to it. He appears at the beginning and at the end, but is nowhere to be found between his bookending cameos. He is the central figure: He is the one that is on trial (“Give glory to God we know this man is a sinner…”), and it would certainly have removed the pressure from the formerly blind man had He shown up. But He didn’t. He didn’t even wait to be thanked: the blind man first sees Him when Jesus seeks Him out.
First off, I’d just like to comment that this is about as flawless an analogy of conversion as can be made. Blind from birth, anointed and healed by the Spirit of a God we know of but don’t know, baptized into Him, violently and unpleasantly divorced from our idolatry, and then we begin to see Christ as the Son of God as He seeks us.
I think that Christ is absent from the story for one main reason (though I am sure there are others): so we can get a picture of what it is like to serve an absent Master. We are the people that put up that obscene footprints poem on our walls and think nice thoughts about gentle Jesus. We have no concept of the God that spoke to Jeremiah, asking him how he was going to manage to keep up with horses if men wore him out. We have some pagan notion in our minds that God is primarily concerned with out comfort and happiness, when we have nothing of that in Scripture or in life. This is the God that we serve: He does not come when called; He is not a tame Lion. We are to serve Him faithfully anyway.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Should Have Known
I'm still catching up on all my reading, and am on schedule. I'm also on page 226 of Dandelion Fire. As it's a zero sum game, I'm not sleeping much. The book is dizzying.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Dandelion Fire
It is less than ten minutes till Dandelion Fire is released, and I pick up my pre-ordered copies tomorrow. Yet, I won't be able to read the book for about two or three weeks. It will be the forbidden fruit, sitting on my shelf, calling my name in the night. I will wake up standing in the living room in my boxers, removing a copy from its dust jacket. I will dream about Henry, and hold long debates over who his father actually is. I will put all Harry Potter fans to shame, as the object of my obsession will have a third dimension to his character. Now I'm really starting to wonder if I'll be able to wait.
On the other hand, I have no idea how long before the Chestnut King comes out (which happens to be finished, and sitting less than three miles from my house, and less than two from my school... Juvenile Hall isn't that bad, is it?), and the sooner I finish Dandelion Fire, the longer I have to wait for that. C'est la vie.
Anyway, should you be from Humboldt, and want a signed 1st edition, leave me a comment and I'll get one for you. It goes without saying that the Moody's and Ashbach's have one on the way.
Blessings,
Jesse Broussard
On the other hand, I have no idea how long before the Chestnut King comes out (which happens to be finished, and sitting less than three miles from my house, and less than two from my school... Juvenile Hall isn't that bad, is it?), and the sooner I finish Dandelion Fire, the longer I have to wait for that. C'est la vie.
Anyway, should you be from Humboldt, and want a signed 1st edition, leave me a comment and I'll get one for you. It goes without saying that the Moody's and Ashbach's have one on the way.
Blessings,
Jesse Broussard
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Theology Worksheet (CL)
This is the first of our worksheets in theology. Due to my incredible skills in "never putting off till tomorrow what can be avoided entirely," I was up till four writing this, when it was due at seven thirty. Yet, I got a Cum Laude (second highest possible grade), so I am resolved on two points (so if the first break, the other will hold, but if both break, my britches fall down). First, if you can't tie a knot, tie a lot: I just kept talking and hitting the questions from every conceivable angle, and some of my points were apparently good. Second: I make more sense when my brain stops trying to edit what I'm saying.
Here you are. Reader beware.
J. Broussard
Theology Worksheet #1
Assignment #2: Mt. 26-27
Due: 2.12.09
I. 1. What is the source of the quotation in Matthew 26:31?2. What is the passage referring to in its original context? 3. How is that context relevant to Matthew’s gospel? 4. How does it fit into Matthew’s over-all story line?
II. 2. What is the source of the quotation in Matthew 27:9-10? What did the passage refer to in its original context? How does it fit into this context in Matthew’s gospel? How does it fit into the overall storyline of Matthew’s gospel?
III. 3. What is the source for the quotation in Matthew 27:43, 46? What do these passages refer to in their original contexts? How is Matthew using them?
I. 1. The source for Matthew 26:31 is Zechariah 13:7. 2. The original context is rather surprising. It is the last burden given to Zechariah, and therefore the last theme of his book, and is in a series of blessings that will take place “in that day”: God will remove all idols, there will be no false prophets or unclean spirits, God will provide cleansing for the uncleanness of Jerusalem and the house of David, etc. The surprising things are these: first, the previous list is not quite accurate: there will be no prophet, false prophet is never specified, and second, it is the Lord that does the striking of the shepherd.
In the first case, the prophet is assumed to be false: he “speaks lies” and does not put on a rough garment “to deceive,” he shall deny that he is a prophet and claim rather to be a “husbandman,” for, “for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.”
The use of “husbandman” here is very interesting: in its seven occurrences in Scripture, it is (aside from this use) a farming term (Gen. 9:20, Jer. 51:23, Amos 5:16, John 15:1, 2 Timothy 2:6, James 5:7). In fact, one of the uses actually puts the husbandmen and the one raising cattle side by side: Jer. 51:23: “I will also break in pieces with thee the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces captains and rulers.” There is then one indefinite use of husbandman found in Amos, where he is called on to mourn, but what makes him a husbandman is not mentioned. So, the only case that we have of someone being a husbandman because he tends cattle instead of a vineyard or a field is right here.
The people of God are both equated to being a vineyard and sheep, so the reference is not essential, but it is very surprising that the meaning of a word is changed or re-interpreted in this one verse alone out of Scripture. Later in this passage, the shepherd is mentioned, so why is the person here a husbandman because he tends cattle, and later a shepherd because he tends sheep? Sheep are a subset of cattle, but it would be hard to argue that a shepherd is a subset of husbandman when every other case of husbandman is farming. Cain would have been a husbandman, Abel a farmer. To be honest, I have no idea why the terms and vocations appear to be switched here. It wouldn’t just be a slip of the tongue on the part of the prophet (that would be comparable to claiming to be a carpenter because you were taught from your youth how to milk cows), and it does seem to have some importance or relevance that is utterly beyond my grasp.
But continuing on the lack of prophets: they are driven out right alongside false spirits (verse 2); they are killed by their own parents (verse 3); they are ashamed to be prophets (verse 4), and will attempt to avoid the “charge” as if it were a crime rather than an honor.
Also, the prophet appears to be a foreshadowing of Christ due to the wounding of the hands in verse five, which is very odd indeed: portraying Christ as a false prophet as well as the fountain in which the sins of Jerusalem and the people of David have their sins removed within four verses of each other? The former would be odd enough.
The second oddity was the fact that it is God that does the striking. The verse marks the segue from the blessings to the destruction of all but a remnant, in this case one third (in a passage about the death of a member of the Trinity that’s not too surprising) as opposed to Isaiah’s tenth, which will be tried by fire as if it were silver or gold, and the remnant will eventually return.
The passage has the shepherd being struck so that the sheep will be scattered in a way reminiscent of binding the strongman before plundering his house: God wants to turn His hand against the little ones, so He first strikes the (His) shepherd and scatters the sheep. This is not necessary from the structure, but it is implied. The strangeness of two members of the Trinity working at what appear to be opposite goals is very stark and very unusual: a far cry from “if you have seen me you have seen the Father” is this “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man [that is] my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.” However, with the end in mind, this does appear to be consistent: God protects Israel both in the letter and in the Spirit of the law.
3. So the overall context of the passage quoted is that of the judgment upon Israel and the removal of her protection (the shepherd) so that the sheep might be scattered. Ironically enough, this passage (which is so apt to the coming state of Israel just a few decades after this time) is quoted in application to Christ and the disciples.
Matthew is telling the story of the transfer of the Kingdom of God from Israel to Christ and all who would follow Him: Israel is changing into a New Israel. Depending on exactly when you place that change, this passage could have several meanings. For example, if that transfer has not yet taken place, then the reference is limited to the disciples running off at this precise moment (as the simplest reading gives, which is no less accurate for being simple), or to Israel being the nation that God raises up against…. Well, against Israel. Israel strikes her own Shepherd, and let the scattering begin. But if the transfer has already taken place, then the Shepherd is struck and the New Israel scatters and then returns after the resurrection. Or, from a bird’s eye view historically, we simply see the death, burial and resurrection of Christ leading into the sheep scattering to all nations and making new sheep in all nations, but I generally like to avoid fitting verses into my theology with a sledgehammer, so I’ll stick with the first and second views both being accurate, and the third view being true, but not defensible from this passage alone.
A very interesting point that merits further study would be looking at Israel as the shepherd of the New Israel, though there are obvious and massive limitations to this application, the first and foremost being that of the shepherd trying to kill the sheep for a century or two. But I think that there is still merit to be found in it.
4. Within the overall story line, this falls very near the end. The shepherd being struck is the first of two tremendous crescendos, the second of which lasts from the resurrection to the ascension and adds a twist that was unforeseeable to those within that chapter of the story.
II.1. The allusion is to Jeremiah 18:1-4 19:1-3 but more distinctly to Zechariah 11:12,13. Despite the fact that the text does quote Jeremiah as the source, I will be primarily using Zechariah, as I believe that his reference is the one that is intended, though the similarity between the two texts is great enough that the difference will end up being, in many respects, negligible.
Also, I believe that Zechariah may well have been familiar with Jeremiah’s account of buying the field (Jer. 18-19), and I think that he would have linked his prophecy with that of Jeremiah in his own mind, especially by the language of the siege. There are not all that many places that condemn people to cannibalism, so if Zechariah was at all familiar with Scripture, I think it very probable that he would have had Jeremiah in mind.
2. The original context was Zechariah playing the part of a shepherd and receiving his payment. The chapter is quite complex (he both feeds and is paid by “the poor of the flock”) and seems that it would lend itself to various interpretations, but I believe this to be the most straightforward of them.
Zechariah begins tending to a flock of sheep, and then declares that he will cease to feed them: “ I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another.” Obviously sheep do not eat each other, so the analogy is very apparent, and appears to refer to one siege or another, but a particularly violent one in which a city is reduced to cannibalism.
He then breaks covenant (Beauty), and states that “it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it [was] the word of the LORD.” There appears to have been an event that vindicated him in his prophetic utterance, but what it was is not made clear. He then requests that if his employers see fit, that they pay him, but if they do not, don’t. They pay him thirty pieces of silver that he in turn “casts to the potter.”
He then declares that the brotherhood between Israel and Judah is broken, and the Lord declares that “I will raise up a shepherd in the land, [which] shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces.” After this declaration, God condemns the “idol shepherd that leaveth the flock,” stating that the sword will be upon his arm an his right eye, that his arm shall be dried up (withered) and his eye utterly darkened (so he will lose his strength and sight).
3. This context is really quite horrifying, and its horror is only accented by its accuracy. It is quoted just before Matthew’s account of the trial of Christ, which culminates in the sickening “His blood be on us and our children.” As Christ is being led away to Pontius Pilate, Matthew finishes the story of Judas returning the money to the faithless shepherd (chief priests) that had condemned the flock. The apathy of each account reflects the other: Zechariah’s “that that dieth, let it die” chillingly echoed by the priests’ “What is that to us? See thou to that.” Then the faithless shepherds buy the potter’s field (to bury strangers in), completely oblivious in their calm and reasoned folly (more Hellenistic than anything they fought against) to the connections between themselves and Zechariah’s shepherd, and missing out entirely on the dual accounts of Zechariah and Jeremiah acting as two witnesses that testify against them to their death.
Each account is fulfilled, and the siege followed soon after. The father’s words “on us and our children” condemned their sons to eat each other as the dying ox of the Old Covenant strained to pull the weight of the cart it was never meant to pull—the shade trying to pull the flesh; man straining to accomplish what the God-Man had just completed.
4. In the overall story, it is the middle: the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end. In Matthew, it is again toward the end: it is the reason for the judgment that falls on Israel in the next generation. The final betrayal of Christ effectively ends the story of Israel: they are no longer those that prevail with God, but those that have nailed God to a tree. They are Israel in nothing but name, and in their desperation to grasp their birthright, they lose it irrevocably.
The account of the chief priests is probably the clearest sign of where exactly Israel was on their path to utter depravity. The priests, having just managed to set in motion the death of God, debate what to do with their unexpected refund. It was, after all, the price of blood, they say, so it isn’t lawful to be used on the temple. This while the One that sat on the mercy seat is being led out to hang on a tree overlooking their temple, their golden god. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. How much longer could such a people be allowed to endure? For Matthew, who makes this story so understated and horrifying, this seems to be one of the final blows against Israel, as the vast majority of the rest of the story is told from the perspective of the Romans or the disciples; the Jews never enter it in any significant way again. They have obviated themselves, and Matthew moves on to tell us the remainder of Christ’s life, death, burial, resurrection and ascension, as well as to pass on the final instructions that He left us with.
III. 1. These are both taken from Psalm 22, though recited in reverse order.
2-3. In the original context, they are quotations from a Psalm of absolute despair, of the kind that would get someone institutionalized today. It is full of pleas and complaints, of asking where God is, and why He isn’t saving His servant. It is, oddly enough, one of the Psalms in which David doesn’t proclaim his innocence, though he does call upon the earth to praise the Lord, as well as promising to do so himself.
The imagery was, for David, symbolic: his bones were not literally out of joint, nor his hands pierced, though he felt as if they were, and with great cause. We don’t know who played the part of the bulls of bashan or the dogs in the case of David, but with Christ, it was the Jews and Romans. This would be particularly detestable for the Jews, as the dogs are unclean, as are the lions, and, according to most myths, unicorns would be as well.
However, the particularly astonishing part is the fact that this Psalm was actually quoted: “He trusted in God, let God save him, if He will have him.” It seems that this would have been quoted by the Jews (as the Romans didn’t much care for “God” in the singular), and as the quote is verbatim. It still is odd—it would be like someone volunteering to play the part of the Japanese for the “Battle” of Nagasaki: how is that going to turn out okay? Why would a Jew be quoting from the part of a villain in the Psalms? Of course, the quotes are probably not as clean-cut as when Matthew delivers them to us, and I’m sure that we do the same thing on a fairly regular basis.
For Matthew, these verses serve to further vindicate Christ and condemn the Jews. He places Christ in the middle of a Psalm that was written about Him, and all the Jews would have noticed this placement. As they viewed Christ to be a blasphemer, this would be particularly unforgivable to them, as well as being typecast as dogs. The problem to them would be how accurate it had been: crucifixion being described so perfectly by one who had never seen it, as well as the quotations, the casting of lots for the clothing, the gall to drink and, of course, the resurrection on the third day, which is a particularly aggravating detail.
Matthew seems particularly conscious of the need to vindicate Christ in these chapters: he is the only one of the gospel writers that mentions all of the miracles that accompanied the death of Christ, as well as the conversion of the centurion. It could be that, as Matthew was the first to write his gospel, and was writing to Jews, that he was more conscious of the stigma associated with the death of a blasphemer, and went out of his way to show that Christ was vindicated by the miracles and signs. This would explain why he extends the verse “And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared to many.” I have already demonstrated a few instances of Matthew’s being concerned with the number of witnesses, and he here seems to be doing the same. John, I believe, takes something from this in his first epistle: “That which our eyes have seen and our hands handled…”
Beyond this, Matthew would of course be still somewhat amazed, and his recitation of events bears similarity to the type of narrative that a person will give when in shock. We all too often have difficulty speaking to someone that doesn’t believe in miracles, and this after two thousand years of testimony to back us up; how much more he, when he was writing of events that were this staggering, this earth-shaking, and no one else had written of them?
Here you are. Reader beware.
J. Broussard
Theology Worksheet #1
Assignment #2: Mt. 26-27
Due: 2.12.09
I. 1. What is the source of the quotation in Matthew 26:31?2. What is the passage referring to in its original context? 3. How is that context relevant to Matthew’s gospel? 4. How does it fit into Matthew’s over-all story line?
II. 2. What is the source of the quotation in Matthew 27:9-10? What did the passage refer to in its original context? How does it fit into this context in Matthew’s gospel? How does it fit into the overall storyline of Matthew’s gospel?
III. 3. What is the source for the quotation in Matthew 27:43, 46? What do these passages refer to in their original contexts? How is Matthew using them?
I. 1. The source for Matthew 26:31 is Zechariah 13:7. 2. The original context is rather surprising. It is the last burden given to Zechariah, and therefore the last theme of his book, and is in a series of blessings that will take place “in that day”: God will remove all idols, there will be no false prophets or unclean spirits, God will provide cleansing for the uncleanness of Jerusalem and the house of David, etc. The surprising things are these: first, the previous list is not quite accurate: there will be no prophet, false prophet is never specified, and second, it is the Lord that does the striking of the shepherd.
In the first case, the prophet is assumed to be false: he “speaks lies” and does not put on a rough garment “to deceive,” he shall deny that he is a prophet and claim rather to be a “husbandman,” for, “for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.”
The use of “husbandman” here is very interesting: in its seven occurrences in Scripture, it is (aside from this use) a farming term (Gen. 9:20, Jer. 51:23, Amos 5:16, John 15:1, 2 Timothy 2:6, James 5:7). In fact, one of the uses actually puts the husbandmen and the one raising cattle side by side: Jer. 51:23: “I will also break in pieces with thee the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces captains and rulers.” There is then one indefinite use of husbandman found in Amos, where he is called on to mourn, but what makes him a husbandman is not mentioned. So, the only case that we have of someone being a husbandman because he tends cattle instead of a vineyard or a field is right here.
The people of God are both equated to being a vineyard and sheep, so the reference is not essential, but it is very surprising that the meaning of a word is changed or re-interpreted in this one verse alone out of Scripture. Later in this passage, the shepherd is mentioned, so why is the person here a husbandman because he tends cattle, and later a shepherd because he tends sheep? Sheep are a subset of cattle, but it would be hard to argue that a shepherd is a subset of husbandman when every other case of husbandman is farming. Cain would have been a husbandman, Abel a farmer. To be honest, I have no idea why the terms and vocations appear to be switched here. It wouldn’t just be a slip of the tongue on the part of the prophet (that would be comparable to claiming to be a carpenter because you were taught from your youth how to milk cows), and it does seem to have some importance or relevance that is utterly beyond my grasp.
But continuing on the lack of prophets: they are driven out right alongside false spirits (verse 2); they are killed by their own parents (verse 3); they are ashamed to be prophets (verse 4), and will attempt to avoid the “charge” as if it were a crime rather than an honor.
Also, the prophet appears to be a foreshadowing of Christ due to the wounding of the hands in verse five, which is very odd indeed: portraying Christ as a false prophet as well as the fountain in which the sins of Jerusalem and the people of David have their sins removed within four verses of each other? The former would be odd enough.
The second oddity was the fact that it is God that does the striking. The verse marks the segue from the blessings to the destruction of all but a remnant, in this case one third (in a passage about the death of a member of the Trinity that’s not too surprising) as opposed to Isaiah’s tenth, which will be tried by fire as if it were silver or gold, and the remnant will eventually return.
The passage has the shepherd being struck so that the sheep will be scattered in a way reminiscent of binding the strongman before plundering his house: God wants to turn His hand against the little ones, so He first strikes the (His) shepherd and scatters the sheep. This is not necessary from the structure, but it is implied. The strangeness of two members of the Trinity working at what appear to be opposite goals is very stark and very unusual: a far cry from “if you have seen me you have seen the Father” is this “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man [that is] my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.” However, with the end in mind, this does appear to be consistent: God protects Israel both in the letter and in the Spirit of the law.
3. So the overall context of the passage quoted is that of the judgment upon Israel and the removal of her protection (the shepherd) so that the sheep might be scattered. Ironically enough, this passage (which is so apt to the coming state of Israel just a few decades after this time) is quoted in application to Christ and the disciples.
Matthew is telling the story of the transfer of the Kingdom of God from Israel to Christ and all who would follow Him: Israel is changing into a New Israel. Depending on exactly when you place that change, this passage could have several meanings. For example, if that transfer has not yet taken place, then the reference is limited to the disciples running off at this precise moment (as the simplest reading gives, which is no less accurate for being simple), or to Israel being the nation that God raises up against…. Well, against Israel. Israel strikes her own Shepherd, and let the scattering begin. But if the transfer has already taken place, then the Shepherd is struck and the New Israel scatters and then returns after the resurrection. Or, from a bird’s eye view historically, we simply see the death, burial and resurrection of Christ leading into the sheep scattering to all nations and making new sheep in all nations, but I generally like to avoid fitting verses into my theology with a sledgehammer, so I’ll stick with the first and second views both being accurate, and the third view being true, but not defensible from this passage alone.
A very interesting point that merits further study would be looking at Israel as the shepherd of the New Israel, though there are obvious and massive limitations to this application, the first and foremost being that of the shepherd trying to kill the sheep for a century or two. But I think that there is still merit to be found in it.
4. Within the overall story line, this falls very near the end. The shepherd being struck is the first of two tremendous crescendos, the second of which lasts from the resurrection to the ascension and adds a twist that was unforeseeable to those within that chapter of the story.
II.1. The allusion is to Jeremiah 18:1-4 19:1-3 but more distinctly to Zechariah 11:12,13. Despite the fact that the text does quote Jeremiah as the source, I will be primarily using Zechariah, as I believe that his reference is the one that is intended, though the similarity between the two texts is great enough that the difference will end up being, in many respects, negligible.
Also, I believe that Zechariah may well have been familiar with Jeremiah’s account of buying the field (Jer. 18-19), and I think that he would have linked his prophecy with that of Jeremiah in his own mind, especially by the language of the siege. There are not all that many places that condemn people to cannibalism, so if Zechariah was at all familiar with Scripture, I think it very probable that he would have had Jeremiah in mind.
2. The original context was Zechariah playing the part of a shepherd and receiving his payment. The chapter is quite complex (he both feeds and is paid by “the poor of the flock”) and seems that it would lend itself to various interpretations, but I believe this to be the most straightforward of them.
Zechariah begins tending to a flock of sheep, and then declares that he will cease to feed them: “ I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another.” Obviously sheep do not eat each other, so the analogy is very apparent, and appears to refer to one siege or another, but a particularly violent one in which a city is reduced to cannibalism.
He then breaks covenant (Beauty), and states that “it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it [was] the word of the LORD.” There appears to have been an event that vindicated him in his prophetic utterance, but what it was is not made clear. He then requests that if his employers see fit, that they pay him, but if they do not, don’t. They pay him thirty pieces of silver that he in turn “casts to the potter.”
He then declares that the brotherhood between Israel and Judah is broken, and the Lord declares that “I will raise up a shepherd in the land, [which] shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces.” After this declaration, God condemns the “idol shepherd that leaveth the flock,” stating that the sword will be upon his arm an his right eye, that his arm shall be dried up (withered) and his eye utterly darkened (so he will lose his strength and sight).
3. This context is really quite horrifying, and its horror is only accented by its accuracy. It is quoted just before Matthew’s account of the trial of Christ, which culminates in the sickening “His blood be on us and our children.” As Christ is being led away to Pontius Pilate, Matthew finishes the story of Judas returning the money to the faithless shepherd (chief priests) that had condemned the flock. The apathy of each account reflects the other: Zechariah’s “that that dieth, let it die” chillingly echoed by the priests’ “What is that to us? See thou to that.” Then the faithless shepherds buy the potter’s field (to bury strangers in), completely oblivious in their calm and reasoned folly (more Hellenistic than anything they fought against) to the connections between themselves and Zechariah’s shepherd, and missing out entirely on the dual accounts of Zechariah and Jeremiah acting as two witnesses that testify against them to their death.
Each account is fulfilled, and the siege followed soon after. The father’s words “on us and our children” condemned their sons to eat each other as the dying ox of the Old Covenant strained to pull the weight of the cart it was never meant to pull—the shade trying to pull the flesh; man straining to accomplish what the God-Man had just completed.
4. In the overall story, it is the middle: the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end. In Matthew, it is again toward the end: it is the reason for the judgment that falls on Israel in the next generation. The final betrayal of Christ effectively ends the story of Israel: they are no longer those that prevail with God, but those that have nailed God to a tree. They are Israel in nothing but name, and in their desperation to grasp their birthright, they lose it irrevocably.
The account of the chief priests is probably the clearest sign of where exactly Israel was on their path to utter depravity. The priests, having just managed to set in motion the death of God, debate what to do with their unexpected refund. It was, after all, the price of blood, they say, so it isn’t lawful to be used on the temple. This while the One that sat on the mercy seat is being led out to hang on a tree overlooking their temple, their golden god. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. How much longer could such a people be allowed to endure? For Matthew, who makes this story so understated and horrifying, this seems to be one of the final blows against Israel, as the vast majority of the rest of the story is told from the perspective of the Romans or the disciples; the Jews never enter it in any significant way again. They have obviated themselves, and Matthew moves on to tell us the remainder of Christ’s life, death, burial, resurrection and ascension, as well as to pass on the final instructions that He left us with.
III. 1. These are both taken from Psalm 22, though recited in reverse order.
2-3. In the original context, they are quotations from a Psalm of absolute despair, of the kind that would get someone institutionalized today. It is full of pleas and complaints, of asking where God is, and why He isn’t saving His servant. It is, oddly enough, one of the Psalms in which David doesn’t proclaim his innocence, though he does call upon the earth to praise the Lord, as well as promising to do so himself.
The imagery was, for David, symbolic: his bones were not literally out of joint, nor his hands pierced, though he felt as if they were, and with great cause. We don’t know who played the part of the bulls of bashan or the dogs in the case of David, but with Christ, it was the Jews and Romans. This would be particularly detestable for the Jews, as the dogs are unclean, as are the lions, and, according to most myths, unicorns would be as well.
However, the particularly astonishing part is the fact that this Psalm was actually quoted: “He trusted in God, let God save him, if He will have him.” It seems that this would have been quoted by the Jews (as the Romans didn’t much care for “God” in the singular), and as the quote is verbatim. It still is odd—it would be like someone volunteering to play the part of the Japanese for the “Battle” of Nagasaki: how is that going to turn out okay? Why would a Jew be quoting from the part of a villain in the Psalms? Of course, the quotes are probably not as clean-cut as when Matthew delivers them to us, and I’m sure that we do the same thing on a fairly regular basis.
For Matthew, these verses serve to further vindicate Christ and condemn the Jews. He places Christ in the middle of a Psalm that was written about Him, and all the Jews would have noticed this placement. As they viewed Christ to be a blasphemer, this would be particularly unforgivable to them, as well as being typecast as dogs. The problem to them would be how accurate it had been: crucifixion being described so perfectly by one who had never seen it, as well as the quotations, the casting of lots for the clothing, the gall to drink and, of course, the resurrection on the third day, which is a particularly aggravating detail.
Matthew seems particularly conscious of the need to vindicate Christ in these chapters: he is the only one of the gospel writers that mentions all of the miracles that accompanied the death of Christ, as well as the conversion of the centurion. It could be that, as Matthew was the first to write his gospel, and was writing to Jews, that he was more conscious of the stigma associated with the death of a blasphemer, and went out of his way to show that Christ was vindicated by the miracles and signs. This would explain why he extends the verse “And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared to many.” I have already demonstrated a few instances of Matthew’s being concerned with the number of witnesses, and he here seems to be doing the same. John, I believe, takes something from this in his first epistle: “That which our eyes have seen and our hands handled…”
Beyond this, Matthew would of course be still somewhat amazed, and his recitation of events bears similarity to the type of narrative that a person will give when in shock. We all too often have difficulty speaking to someone that doesn’t believe in miracles, and this after two thousand years of testimony to back us up; how much more he, when he was writing of events that were this staggering, this earth-shaking, and no one else had written of them?
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Adams as Priests
Something that has been on my mind over the last few weeks: the parallel between Adam and Christ as Priests.
INTRODUCTION
The priestly office, it is generally agreed, involves guarding the relationship between God and His people from external enemies and internal pollution. A priest must first keep himself and his own pure, then must protect the temple so that there is no hindrance to God's people meeting with God. As such, it is an office that is concerned with guarding the life of the people of God (John 17:3).
PART ONE
Now, look at the way, particularly the order in which Adam (who was placed in the garden as a priest, to guard and tend it) failed:
1. He failed to protect the garden from external enemies--he allowed the dragon to enter;
2. He failed to protect his own--he allowed Eve to be deceived by the dragon;
3. He failed to protect himself--he was not deceived, but simply, high-handedly rebelled by obeying the dragon.
A brief aside: it was not until his ultimate rebellion that he was expelled from his position as priest and given the task of attaining the position that he had just rejected. We can see then, that God is not a legalistic God--He allowed Adam to fail two times without judging or condemning him for them.
PART TWO
Now we can look at Christ, Who fulfills Adam chiastically:
3'. He protected Himself through His threefold temptation by the dragon (part of which included refusing to take food for Himself);
2'. He protected His own--He ministered to Israel for three years, casting out the dragon (demons) and correcting the deceptions that Israel was under;
3'. He took the garden back from the dragon by replacing the fruit that was taken off of the tree (He was the fruit that was placed on the tree, fulfilling the principle of "eye for an eye"), and by doing so, expelled the dragon from the garden forever, restoring in Himself and then in us the temple that we had failed to protect.
A parallel aside: it was not until His death on the cross, His refusal to refuse the position given Him as priest that Christ succeeded in regaining what we had given away.
PART THREE
A few miscellaneous notes:
Adam was not simply assigned to protect and guard the garden, but to extend its boundaries to the four corners of the earth. Our assignment from the Second Adam mirrors this: we are to disciple the nations and populate the earth by declaring the victory of Christ.
There are three offices given to men, and in hierarchical order they are Priest, King and Prophet. In the new covenant, all Christians are Priests by definition (1 Peter 2:9), all are Kings in Christ, and all are Prophets in Christ. These latter two I will explore as the urge takes me, but to very briefly and inadequately define: Kings have the same assignment that priests do, but it is extended, and includes many more grey areas. If you have a family, you are a Priest and a King in that family, either well or poorly. The Prophet is one who has access to the very counsel of God Himself, and is called to rebuke Kings that are out of line. Draw your own conclusions; I leave you here.
CONCLUSION
The theme of Priest, King, Prophet is continued through Genesis, culminating in Joseph, who was the best picture of Christ that Genesis offers us. Look for it. It also extends to the people of Christ corporately, though it has not yet been fulfilled there.
Blessings,
Jesse Broussard
INTRODUCTION
The priestly office, it is generally agreed, involves guarding the relationship between God and His people from external enemies and internal pollution. A priest must first keep himself and his own pure, then must protect the temple so that there is no hindrance to God's people meeting with God. As such, it is an office that is concerned with guarding the life of the people of God (John 17:3).
PART ONE
Now, look at the way, particularly the order in which Adam (who was placed in the garden as a priest, to guard and tend it) failed:
1. He failed to protect the garden from external enemies--he allowed the dragon to enter;
2. He failed to protect his own--he allowed Eve to be deceived by the dragon;
3. He failed to protect himself--he was not deceived, but simply, high-handedly rebelled by obeying the dragon.
A brief aside: it was not until his ultimate rebellion that he was expelled from his position as priest and given the task of attaining the position that he had just rejected. We can see then, that God is not a legalistic God--He allowed Adam to fail two times without judging or condemning him for them.
PART TWO
Now we can look at Christ, Who fulfills Adam chiastically:
3'. He protected Himself through His threefold temptation by the dragon (part of which included refusing to take food for Himself);
2'. He protected His own--He ministered to Israel for three years, casting out the dragon (demons) and correcting the deceptions that Israel was under;
3'. He took the garden back from the dragon by replacing the fruit that was taken off of the tree (He was the fruit that was placed on the tree, fulfilling the principle of "eye for an eye"), and by doing so, expelled the dragon from the garden forever, restoring in Himself and then in us the temple that we had failed to protect.
A parallel aside: it was not until His death on the cross, His refusal to refuse the position given Him as priest that Christ succeeded in regaining what we had given away.
PART THREE
A few miscellaneous notes:
Adam was not simply assigned to protect and guard the garden, but to extend its boundaries to the four corners of the earth. Our assignment from the Second Adam mirrors this: we are to disciple the nations and populate the earth by declaring the victory of Christ.
There are three offices given to men, and in hierarchical order they are Priest, King and Prophet. In the new covenant, all Christians are Priests by definition (1 Peter 2:9), all are Kings in Christ, and all are Prophets in Christ. These latter two I will explore as the urge takes me, but to very briefly and inadequately define: Kings have the same assignment that priests do, but it is extended, and includes many more grey areas. If you have a family, you are a Priest and a King in that family, either well or poorly. The Prophet is one who has access to the very counsel of God Himself, and is called to rebuke Kings that are out of line. Draw your own conclusions; I leave you here.
CONCLUSION
The theme of Priest, King, Prophet is continued through Genesis, culminating in Joseph, who was the best picture of Christ that Genesis offers us. Look for it. It also extends to the people of Christ corporately, though it has not yet been fulfilled there.
Blessings,
Jesse Broussard
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Hell and Repentance
In Rhetoric class, we were asked a hypothetical question: "If someone in hell truly repented, would they be freed?"
Obviously, we all believe in the eternality of hell, and none of us are saying that it would be possible. But hypothetically, were a person in hell to truly repent, yes, they would be freed. Hell is not an eternal punishment for a lifetime of sins, but an eternal punishment for an eternity of sins. And it is what is desired by those who go there.
Amen.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Beyond my ilk...
As you will probably know, I hold to a preterist interpretation of most of Scripture, and I believe that we are currently in the millenial reign of Christ. This puts me in somewhat sparse company, though not quite as much so as I used to believe. This means that I hold almost all of Revelation to have been fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 a.d. This position is consistent with Scripture, and, I believe, is the most consistent with Scripture. The symbolism in the book of Revelation is found all throughout Scripture (just read Ezekiel), and should be understood symbolically.
Well, I came across an interesting similarity in two very odd passages. One is in Zechariah, and the other, of course, is to be found in the Revelation of Saint John.
Zechariah chapter one, verse seven begins the vision of the horses. The weight of orthodox exegesis holds these horses to be the church, though others are inclined to view the horses as angels. The Man is quite obviously Christ (Meredith Kline's treatment of Zechariah, Glory in our Midst, is commendable, though in some places greatly lacking).
Anyway, the Revelation passage is quite famous, and provides a basis for lots of pathetic movies and self-consciously dramatic quotes: head bowed, eyes looking up through strands of hair, the absolute stillness, and then, "I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him..." It is chapter six, the horses and the riders.
A brief comparison of these passages would seem to indicate that the Rider of Revelation is in all cases Christ, which is quite consistent with the text--just read it over and over, paying attention to what is given to the Rider. This would imply that the horses of Revelation are the Church--the ones controlled and used by Christ.
Not definitive, and I wouldn't make it a point of fellowship (saving that for infralapsarianism), but nothing if not thought provoking.
Well, I came across an interesting similarity in two very odd passages. One is in Zechariah, and the other, of course, is to be found in the Revelation of Saint John.
Zechariah chapter one, verse seven begins the vision of the horses. The weight of orthodox exegesis holds these horses to be the church, though others are inclined to view the horses as angels. The Man is quite obviously Christ (Meredith Kline's treatment of Zechariah, Glory in our Midst, is commendable, though in some places greatly lacking).
Anyway, the Revelation passage is quite famous, and provides a basis for lots of pathetic movies and self-consciously dramatic quotes: head bowed, eyes looking up through strands of hair, the absolute stillness, and then, "I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him..." It is chapter six, the horses and the riders.
A brief comparison of these passages would seem to indicate that the Rider of Revelation is in all cases Christ, which is quite consistent with the text--just read it over and over, paying attention to what is given to the Rider. This would imply that the horses of Revelation are the Church--the ones controlled and used by Christ.
Not definitive, and I wouldn't make it a point of fellowship (saving that for infralapsarianism), but nothing if not thought provoking.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
