The Exodus-to-Temple Pattern

Jeffrey J. Niehaus argues convincingly in his Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology that a regular and repeating pattern of salvation occurs in the Ancient Near East (ANE).  He writes, “The basic structure of the idea is this:”

A god works through a man (a royal or prophetic figure, often styled a shepherd) to wage war against the god’s enemies and thereby advance his kingdom.  The royal or prophetic protagonist is in a covenant with the god, as are the god’s people.  The god establishes a temple among his people, either before or after the warfare, because he wants to dwell among them.  This can mean the founding (or choice) of a city, as well as a temple location.  The ultimate purpose is to bring into the god’s kingdom those who are not part of it (Jeffrey J. Niehaus, Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2008], 30).

Developing this basic schema, Niehaus demonstrates how the Old Testament and New Testament recapitulate this eschatological temple-building motif.   This pattern can be witnessed in the life of Moses, when YHWH calls the reluctant shepherd to defeat Pharaoh and liberate Israel, with the ultimate goal of tabernacle worship with God’s covenant people.  Moreover, in the life of David, YHWH summons a shepherd to crush the head of the enemy, to free the people of Israel, and to establish his covenant people in the land—a land where YHWH has set his name.  The culminating act of temple-building in 1 Kings is the high point of the OT, and sets the stage for a greater Spirit-anointed, Divine warrior/savior, who will construct the final dwelling place for God in the NT.

The same kind of pattern can be found in a variety of New Testament passages. Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7, Paul’s preaching in Acts 13, 17, and passages like Ephesians 2:11-22, and the whole book of Revelation show the exodus-to-temple pattern outlined by Niehaus.  In fact, in regards to the work of Christ, Niehaus writes,

God wages war through his Son and prophet, the Good Shepherd, Jesus, against the powers of darkness.  He liberates people from those powers and establishes them as his people by a new covenant.  He establishes a temple presence, not only among them but in them (the church and individually its members) (ibid., 31).

They look forward to a heavenly city (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 11:10; Rev. 21:2).  Theologically, it is important to remember that these people were God’s enemies…until he waged warfare, set them free from their vassaldom to sin, and established his covenant with them, making them his own vassals…Christ is also Creator or Co-creator.  He creates a “new heaven and a new earth,” with a temple presence that recalls Eden with its river and tree of life” (ibid, 31-32).

Reading the Bible along these lines, it is becomes apparent that the God of the Bible works in a regular and repeating way throughout redemptive history, and that the NT writers were conscious of these biblical-theological structures and interweaved them into the very fabric of their thinking, preaching, and writing.

For a short list of resources that observe this phenomenon, see See David Pao, Acts and the Isaianic New Exodus (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002); Rikki Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus in Mark (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1997);  the articles found in Heaven on Earth: The Temple in Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Simon J. Gathercole (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2004).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

May We Boast in the Cross

The apostle Paul writes in Galatians 6:14, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”  The apostle’s earnest desire is to make his life a living ‘boast’ in the cross of Christ.

We ought to do the same.  Any and all things that deny the cross should be confessed and crucified—for that is why Christ died, to atone for our cross-denying sins.  Yet, the sins which may deny Christ most may not be the easiest to spot.

Today, Scotty Smith points out five ways that we deny Christ in his prayer for fresh grace.  He writes,

When I mute my heart to the insult of grace—minimizing my need of the gospel, I deny your cross.

When I think, even for one moment, that my obedience merits anything, or makes you love me more than you already do, I deny your cross.

When I put others under the microscope and measure of performance-based living—copping a critical spirit and judgmental attitude, I deny your cross.

When I wallow in self-contempt and shame—disbelieving and dismissing your great love lavished upon us in the gospel, I deny your cross.

When I’d rather do penance than repent and collapse upon the riches of grace, once again, I deny your cross. 

May we learn to spot our cross-denying tendencies and run back to the hill where grace flows freely–the hill of Calvary.  In this way, the cross itself empowers us to deny our denials, and it reminds us of the sinfulness of our ever present self-sufficiency.

May we boast in the cross today by confessing our denials.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Evangelicals Redeeming St. Patrick from Rome

Maybe it is just me, but I don’t remember a year where Saint Patty’s Day has elicited such a response by evangelicals.

Previous years have collected a few blog posts.  See Russell Moore’s “What evangelicals can learn from Saint Patrick“ and Kevin DeYoung’s “Who was Saint Patrick?“  But this year evangelicals have sought to deliver Patrick from the clutches of the Catholic Church, and have produced dozens of blog posts. (Okay, maybe not dozens, but in the spirit of exaggerated legends, like those of St. Patrick, we’ll say dozens).

Why?  Maybe it is the coordination of St. Patrick’s Day and the Lord’s Day; maybe it is the recent election of Pope Francis I; or maybe it is the fact that the paganization of America and (Western Europe) has stimulated evangelicals to find a new hero.  For all those reasons, Patrick is worthy of our consideration and imitation.  The following posts will give you a good introduction to Patrick and will spur you on to tell the lost about Christ.

David Mathis, “The Mission of Saint Patrick“

Mark Driscoll, “Get to Know Saint Patrick“

John Downey, “Get to know the REAL ‘Saint’ Patrick“

Philip Jenson, “Saint Patrick the Irish Evangelist“

Timothy Paul Jones, Church History Made Easy DVD

If you know of other evangelical blogs highlighting Patrick, let me know and I will update.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, dss

Saint Patrick: Separating Missionary Fact from Fictitious Malarkey

What comes to mind when you think of St. Patrick’s Day? 

Leprechauns.  Ireland.  Wearing green.  Or drinking green beer.  If that is it, you may want to re-read the record books.  

A few years back, Russell Moore gave a brief history lesson on the real Patrick that should make every missionally-minded Christian sit up and take notice.  Drawing on the Philip Freeman’s 2007 book, St. Patrick of Ireland: A Biography, Moore summarizes Freeman’s work:

Freeman helpfully retells Patrick’s conversion story, one of a mocking young hedonist to a repentant evangelist. The story sounds remarkably similar to that of Augustine—and, in the most significant of ways, both mirror the first-century conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Freeman helpfully reconstructs the context of local religion as a “business relationship” in which sacrifice to pagan gods was seen as a transaction for the material prosperity of the worshippers. Against this, Patrick’s conversion to Christianity was noticed quickly, when his prayers of devotion—then almost always articulated out loud—were overheard by his neighbors.

The rest of the narrative demonstrates the ways in which Patrick carried the Christian mission into the frontiers of the British Isles—confronting a hostile culture and institutionalized heresy along the way. With this the case, the life of Patrick is a testimony to Great Commission fervor, not to the Irish nationalism most often associated with the saint. As a matter of fact, Freeman points out that Patrick’s love for the Irish was an act of obedience to Jesus’ command to love enemies and to pray for persecutors.

Likewise, Kevin DeYoung, also from the archives (ca. 2011), provides a brief missionary biography of Patrick.  He says,

Here’s what most scholars agree on: Patrick–whose adult life falls in the fifth century–was actually British, not Irish. He was born into a Christian family with priests and deacons for relatives, but by his own admission, he was not a good Christian growing up. As a teenager he was carried by Irish raiders into slavery in Ireland. His faith deepened during this six year ordeal. Upon escaping Ireland he went back home to Britain. While with his family he received a dream in which God called him to go back to Ireland to convert the Irish pagans to Christianity.

In his Confessio Patrick writes movingly about his burden to evangelize the Irish. He explicitly links his vocation to the commands of Scripture. Biblical allusions like “the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth” and “I have put you as a light among the nations” and “I shall make you fishers of men” flow from his pen. Seeing his life’s work through the lens of Matthew 28 and Acts 1, Patrick prayed that God would “never allow me to be separated from His people whom He has won in the end of the earth.”  For Patrick, the ends of the earth was Ireland.

According to one historian (again I am citing DeYoung’s research) “[Patrick] was the first person in Christian history to take the scriptural injunctions literally” (Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity, 86)  meaning that he was the first person to take the Great Commission as a command.  Rightly, Patrick read Matthew 28:19 as a calling for him, and so he left home to take the gospel to pagans of Ireland. 

This literal and personal reading of disciple-making needs to be reissued today, because some still think Jesus’ words are for someone else. Tragically, they relegate Jesus’ missionary imperative to a bygone era or for some special class of people.  Yet, as Patrick’s life and labors show, when men take seriously the call to be a disciple-making disciple, God will bring great blessings.  Fifteen centuries later we have much to learn from Patrick.

I encourage you to read the rest of Moore’s blogpost (What evangelicals can learn from Saint Patrick) and DeYoung’s foray into history (Who was Saint Patrick?).  Together these two brief posts will help you determine fact from fiction.  They will give you many reasons to thank God for the missions-minded Brit who brought the light of the gospel to the whole nation of Ireland.

May Patrick’s brave example spur us on to share the gospel with our own pagan nation and hostile neighbors. 

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

The Ongoing Priesthood of Jesus Christ

The kingdom of Christ and the kingship of Christ have received most scholarly attention in recent years.  (In truth, the kingdom of Christ has rightly received great emphasis since the Christ declared that the kingdom of God was drawing near).  Comparatively, the priesthood of Jesus Christ has often been slighted, misrepresented, or put in second (or third) place behind Christ’s status as king or prophet.  However, this ought not be so.

The New Testament frequently displays Christ doing priestly activities (atonement, intercession, teaching, etc.), and in places like Hebrews, the author displays him as the high priest par excellence.  On this important role, John Murray provided an insightful reflection on the “inter-permeation” between Christ’s priesthood and kingship.  While Christ’s kingship is often affirmed, it is often disfigured because of its separation from Christ’s kingdom.  Murray nicely unites the two.

In context, he points to 1 John 2:1-2; Rom 8:34; and Heb 7:24-25 as places where Christ’s ongoing priesthood is explicitly mentioned.  He argues that Christ’s priesthood should be recaptured if we are to fully appreciate the exalted work of Christ. Here is his main argument.

Truly Christ executes his kingly office as head over all things to his body the church. But Christ is a priest upon his throne, and we must not allow the consideration of his kingly office to eclipse that aspect of Christ’s heavenly activity with which we are now concerned. There is here an inter-permeation of the various offices. What we are concerned with now is to recognize that his specifically high priestly ministrations are more operative and pervasive in the church upon earth than we are frequently disposed to to appreciate. And when his specifically priestly function is duly appreciated, new perspectives are opened up in the interpretation of the activity of our exalted Lord. . . . This adds new richness to our conception of the relation he sustains to his people and enhances our understanding of the significance for us, as individual believers and as members of the body which is the church, of the activity which Christ in heaven continues to exercise in reference to God on behalf of those whom he has purchased with his blood (John Murray, “The Heavenly, Priestly Activity of Christ,” in Collected Works of John Murray, vol. 1 [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976], 47).

In light of the attention given to the papal election of Pope Francis and the Catholic Church’s confused understanding of priesthood (and kingdom), it is vital that Protestants recapture a biblical understanding of priesthood.  It begins with understanding what Murray has argued.  We must understand how the ongoing priesthood of Christ, the priesthood of believers continue to this day and how those two realities are related.  Murray’s article is a helpful starting place.  Hopefully, in the days ahead, Protestants will be better equipped to affirm the finished work of Christ’s atonement and the ongoing work of his intercession and royal-priestly session.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

A Case for Using Commentaries Earlier Rather Than Later

In his lucid book on the doctrine of Scripture, Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God, Timothy Ward makes a helpful observation regarding the use of commentaries.

I have sometimes been encouraged by others, both as a preacher and as a Christian who reads Scripture for myself, only to turn to Bible commentaries as a very last resort, when, after much wrestling and searching for myself, I still could not make out the sense of a passage—or perhaps just to check that what I thought was its meaning was not entirely off-beat. There is certainly merit in not simply turning to learned books to find ‘the answers’, as a lazy short-cut to avoid wrestling with Scripture for myself. Yet increasingly, when reading Scripture, I find myself wanting to turn to a good Bible commentary sooner rather than later.

My reason is this: a good commentary will give me an insight into the consensus view on the meaning of each passage held by the generations of believers who have come before me. Working within that framework seems to be a sensible, humble and faithful place to start. For most Christians, who lack the time, resources and perhaps also the inclination to do the research themselves, good preaching will be a crucial means by which that historic consensus on Scripture’s meaning is conveyed to individual believers. For that, of course, the preacher needs to be, as he should be, well educated in biblical, historical and systematic theology (173).

Surely, prudence must be exercised with the use of commentaries and their non-use or delayed-use.  There can be a kind of latent pride associated with not using commentaries, but as Ward points out there can also be an unhealthy over dependence.

Either way, we cannot abandon the tradition of the church.  We must learn how to glean from the past without becoming enslaved by it.  His counsel, therefore, merits consideration and frees us who labor in the Word to turn to the commentators as we need, not just after we have merited their comments.  In the end, we must give a final account for our own interpretations (2 Tim 2:15), but since the church (and its ministerial tradition) exist as a pillar and buttress of the truth, it is good and right to read the Scripture with the Reformers, the Fathers, and others who help us see what Scripture is saying.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

For Your Edification (3.15.13)

For Your Edification is a weekly set of resources on the subjects of Bible, Theology, Church, and Culture.  Let me know what you think or if you have other resources that growing Christians should be aware.

Walking Wisely WHEN and WHERE You Work. Phillip Bethancourt, a friend of mine and the Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management at Southern Seminary, posts some wise words on making job decisions and orienting your vocation around the gospel of Jesus Christ and the way that Jesus has made you.

The Doctrine of Inerrancy Kevin Vanhoozer has provided a helpful defense and explanation of an important theological concept–the doctrine of inerrancy.  This is the belief that “Scripture, in the original manuscripts and when interpreted according to the intended sense, speaks truly in all that it affirms.”  Vanhoozer’s piece nicely outlines what inerrancy is and is not.

Bonhoeffer Question & Answer. Eric Metaxas, author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and social media lobbyist for religious liberty, converses with Jason Meyer and John Piper on the person, ministry, and influence of German Pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

For Your Edification, dss