John 14:1-3 and the Rapture (Part 3)

John 14:1-3 and the Rapture (Part 3)

In Part 2 of this series, we presented four options for understanding what Jesus meant at John 14:1-3:

We also suggested a grading scale for evaluating these options:

  • Grade A: Explicit teaching.
  • Grade B: Implicit teaching.
  • Grade C: A principal or logical conclusion—an inference.
  • Grade D: A guess or speculation.
  • Grade E: Poor or non-existent support.

See the other articles in the “rapture series” here. See this entire article on “John 14:1-3 and the Rapture” as a single PDF here.

Now, let’s look at Option 1:

Option 1 can only be maintained by heavily freighting John’s words with presuppositions from elsewhere. This position is almost universally proposed by dispensational premillennialists.

  • It requires Jesus to return twice; (a) once for believers to transport them to heaven, and (b) again to imprison Satan and establish His kingdom (the event historically referred to as the second coming). Unfortunately, John 14:1-3 itself does not explicitly or implicitly support a two-stage return, nor does 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 which we already examined.
  • It requires us to see a hard distinction been (a) the ethnic people of Israel, and (b) the Jews and Gentiles which comprise “the church.” Because of this distinction, advocates read the Old Testament prophesies about the tribulation as a time of trouble specifically for the ethnic people of Israel—the “church” is not involved. Therefore, Jesus must transport the church away beforehand, and so this passage is about that escape. However, this passage and its context says nothing about that.

Option 1 advocates offer several arguments for their position:

  1. If this passage were about Jesus’ second coming, then He would have mentioned the cataclysmic events of Matthew 24,[1] so He must be talking about something else—the pre-tribulational rapture.

Jesus already discussed those events, and nobody repeats every detail of a subject whenever a topic comes up. John’s gospel is famous for covering different ground than the other three,[2] he wrote 20 or 30 years later than Matthew,[3] and John 14 occurs in a different place in the timeline of Jesus’ ministry. In short, this is a weak argument from silence.

  1. Matthew 24 never mentions “my Father’s house,” but John 14:1-3 does.[4] Therefore John 14:1-3 is about something else—the pre-tribulational rapture.

This wrongly assumes “my Father’s house” must refer to a fixed place “up there,” in heaven. It’s also another weak argument from silence, for the reasons listed above.

  1. The persecution at John 15 is not characteristic of the tribulation.[5] Therefore John 14:1-3 is about something else—the pre-tribulational rapture.

However, in John 15 Jesus is not speaking about the tribulation but a different subject entirely. This objection falls.

  1. In John 14:1-3, Jesus never mentions a return with a trumpet blast accompanied by angels who will gather the elect from the four corners of the earth (Mt 24:30-31). Therefore John 14:1-3 is about something else—the pre-tribulational rapture.[6]

Again, this argument assumes that each biblical author will repeat everything another author says about the same topic. This is not the way human communication works. There is no place in scripture where any author incorporates everything everyone else has said on a particular subject. John was not writing a prophecy encyclopedia nor was Jesus lecturing on the topic—John was memorializing Jesus’ farewell address.

  1. If John 14:1-3 is about the second coming, that means believers will endure the great tribulation. But the tribulation is for the ethnic people of Israel, not the church. Therefore John 14:1-3 is about something else—the pre-tribulational rapture.[7]

Perhaps this is true, but neither this passage nor its context says anything about that. This is an objection from complete silence. If “the church” (as dispensationalists understand it) is not snatched away from earth before the tribulation, then it will be here during this terrible time. So, one writer suggests it would have been “cruel” of Jesus to not mention the tribulation at John 14:1-3 if He intended “the church” to endure it—that, if true, Jesus had “kept” this information from them.[8] A case can be made (and has been made over the centuries) that Matthew 24 already explains everything—just not along dispensationalist lines.

Arguments from silence are weak—and so is this one.

  1. The disciples have a heavenly hope for union with Christ, not an earthly one.[9] Therefore John 14:1-3 is about something else—the pre-tribulational rapture.

This is a conclusion, not an argument. The hope of all believers is community with God—Abraham was “looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God,” (Heb 11:10). This is the heavenly country (that is, the “country” with heavenly attributes[10]) that arrives at Rev 21-22, which contains the city which God has prepared for all believers (Heb 11:16). Community with God in renovated physical bodies (1 Cor 15:50-55) in a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 22)—that is our future.

  1. John 14:1-3 requires the saints “to dwell for a meaningful time with Christ in His Father’s house.”[11] Therefore John 14:1-3 is about something else—the pre-tribulational rapture.

Again, this makes the mistake of assuming “my Father’s house” must be a fixed place “up there” in heaven. This is incorrect. It also overlooks the solution that Jesus in John 14:1-3 simply refers to believers being in the Father’s presence (i.e., His “house”) upon their deaths.

  1. John 14:1-3 parallels 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, which is about the pre-tribulational rapture. Therefore, John 14:1-3 is about the pre-tribulational rapture.[12]

Unfortunately, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 doesn’t explicitly or implicitly teach any such thing, as I’ve discussed.  

  1. The “Father’s house” is in heaven, not on earth.[13] Therefore John 14:1-3 is about something else—the pre-tribulational rapture.

If “the Father’s house” truly cannot be here on earth, then by this logic Jesus’ parents did not find Him in His Father’s “house” when He was 12 years old (Lk 2:49), and the Christian community is not a “spiritual house” (1 Pet 2:5) or God’s “building” (1 Cor 3:9) or His “temple” (1 Cor 3:16-17), and God’s “tent” or “dwelling place” will not be here on earth with His people (Rev 21:3), and the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb will not be the new Jerusalem’s “temple” (Rev 21:22). Fortunately, the “Father’s house” is a figurative shorthand that refers to “the Father’s presence” in various contexts.

  1. John 14:1-3 is about believers going to heaven, whereas at the second coming Jesus is returning to earth. Therefore John 14:1-3 is about something else—the pre-tribulational rapture.[14]

This is a reasonable argument. However, it’s undercut by two weaknesses. First, once again “my Father’s house” is not tied to a fixed place “up there,” but is a figurative reference to God’s personal presence wherever He might be. Second, just because the text suggests Jesus transports believers away from here, it doesn’t give a blank check to a complicated two-stage return for Christ that’s dependent on speculation from elsewhere in scripture. There is a much simpler option—that believers “go to heaven” when they die.[15]

All told, evidence supports a “D” rating for John 14:1-3 being about the pre-tribulational rapture. It’s a perspective build entirely on guesswork from elsewhere. It swamps the text and freights it with a load its words cannot reasonably bear. This doesn’t mean the pre-tribulational rapture is false—it just means it isn’t in this passage.

Arguments from silence can be helpful supports that prop up explicit and implicit bible teaching from elsewhere. They’re backing vocals that ought never be trotted out to carry the entire concert. So it is with John 14:1-3.

In the next and last article, we’ll look at the other three options to understand what Jesus meant at John 14:1-3.


[1] “… the wars and rumors of wars; the famines, pestilences and earthquakes; the great tribulation; the false prophets, etc. of which there is not a word in all of the Upper Room Discourse,” (Carl Armerding, “That Blessed Hope,” in Bibliotheca Sacra, 111:142 (April 1954), p. 150).

[2] See, for example, I. Howard Marshall, New Testament Theology (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004), pp. 491f.

[3] David deSilva tentatively suggests a date in the early 70s for Matthew (An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove: IVP, 2018), p. 215). N.T. Wright and Michael Bird offer up a date between 80-100 (The New Testament in Its World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019), p. 579), while Grant Osbourne suggests a date in the mid-to-late 60s (Matthew, in ZECNT (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), pp. 43-44). John’s Gospel is typically dated in the late 90s, shading to perhaps very, very early in the second century (cp. deSilva, Introduction, pp. 343-344).

[4] Armerding, “Blessed Hope,” p. 150.

[5] Armerding, “Blessed Hope,” p. 150.

[6] Armerding, “Blessed Hope,” p. 151.

[7] Armerding, “Blessed Hope,” p. 151. “And it is this purpose which distinguishes the coming of the Lord as promised in John 14 from His coming as the Son of man as predicted in Matthew 24.”

[8] Jonathan Pratt, “The Case for the Pre-tribulational Rapture,” in Dispensationalism Revisited: A Twenty-First Century Restatement (Plymouth: Central Seminary Press, 2023), p. 251.

[9] John Walvoord, “The Future Work of Christ Part I: The Coming of Christ for His Church,” in Bibliotheca Sacra, 123:489 (January 1966), p. 13). “This was an obvious contradiction of their previous hope that Christ was going to reign on earth and quite different in its general character. It indicated that their hope was heavenly rather than earthly and that they were going to be taken out of the earth to heaven rather than for Christ to come to the earth to be with them.”

“In making the pronouncement in John 14, Christ is holding before His disciples an entirely different hope than that which was promised to Israel as a nation. It is the hope of the church in contrast to the hope of the Jewish nation. The hope of the church is to be taken to heaven; the hope of Israel is Christ returning to reign over the earth,” (Walvoord, The Rapture Question, revised and enlarged (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979), p. 71).

[10] In the sentence, “heavenly” is an attributive genitive: νῦν δὲ κρείττονος ὀρέγονται τοῦτʼ ἔστιν ἐπουρανίου.

[11] Richard Mayhue, “Why A Pretribulational Rapture?” in Masters Seminary Journal, TMSJ 13:2 (Fall 2002), p. 246.

[12] Armerding, “Blessed Hope,” pp. 151-152; Mayhue, “Pretribulational Rapture,” p. 246; Pratt, “The Case for the Pre-tribulational Rapture,” in Dispensationalism Revisited, pp. 250-251.

[13] Walvoord, The Rapture Question, p. 71. “Christ returns to the earthly scene to take the disciples from earth to heaven. This is in absolute contrast to what takes place when Christ returns to establish His kingdom on earth.”

[14] Lewis S. Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. 5 (reprint; Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1976), p. 164.  

[15] Walvoord dismisses this as “spiritualizing,” which is a common slur in the dispensationalist lexicon (Rapture Question, p. 71).

John 14:1-3 and the Rapture (Part 2)

John 14:1-3 and the Rapture (Part 2)

In the first article, we set out to study what Jesus meant at John 14:1-3. Some Christians believe this passage speaks about the pre-tribulational rapture of the church to heaven, clearing the way for the tribulation here on earth. Is that right?

We began by looking at the context around Jesus’ words, which is His long goodbye talk at John 13:33 to 16:33. In this article, we’ll finish up the context, lay out four possible ways to understand Jesus’ words at John 14:1-3, then propose a “grading scale” to weigh these options. The next two articles in this series will examine these four positions in detail.

See the other articles in the “rapture series” here. See this entire article on “John 14:1-3 and the Rapture” as a single PDF here.

1c: Convo on Phillip’s implicit question (vv. 14:8-21)

Philip, perplexed, asks to see the Father. Jesus explains that Father and Son (and Spirit) mutually indwell one another in a mysterious way (Jn 14:10-11). This interwoven nature helps explain why the one God can eternally exist as three co-equal and co-eternal Persons.[1] This is why to “see” Jesus is to “see” the Father—to be with Jesus by means of trusting His Good News is to be “in God’s presence.”

But still—Jesus is physically leaving! He must leave so He can wage His divine campaign against the kingdom of darkness from on high through us (Jn 14:12).[2] Where does this leave us, then?

Well, Jesus promises to not leave us as orphans. The Father will send “another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth,” (Jn 14:16-17). Unlike those outside God’s family, we will know this Spirit because He’ll reside with us and be inside us (Jn 14:17).[3] And so He won’t abandon us as orphans: “I will come to you” (Jn 14:18). On that day—that is, the day when the Advocate comes to dwell inside us—we will participate God’s inner life because we’ll be part of this mutual indwelling. “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you,” (Jn 14:20).

1d: Convo on Judas (not Iscariot’s) question (vv. 14:22-31)

When the Spirit takes residence inside us, Father and Son come along with Him: “we will come to them and make our home with them,” (Jn 14:23).

And yet, despite all this talk about being both absent and somehow “with us” at the same time, the fact is that Jesus is physically leaving us. Sure, the Spirit will be His proxy in the interim and, as we’ve seen, Father and Son will also tag along—but there is no physical, tangible “God with us” after the ascension.

Jesus realizes this will be a problem, because He returns to the theme and says it’s best that He leaves (Jn 14:28). If they love Him (and, by extension, love the victory over sin and Satan that His ministry is all about), then they should be glad that He’s headed back to the Father’s throne room. The scriptures “show” us the three Persons who comprise the One God by highlighting the “distinct and harmonious offices in the great work of redemption”[4] that each performs. In this case, Jesus casts a spotlight on the Father’s role in planning this divine rescue plan: “the Father is greater than I” (Jn 14:28). That is, as our vicarious surrogate and representative, Jesus is carrying out the Father’s plan—and that plan has Him leaving here and returning to the Father’s personal presence. By telling them about His departure He’s simply preparing them for this physical separation beforehand, so they’ll trust Him when it happens (Jn 14:29).

1e: Convo about the divine helper (vv. 15:26 to 16:15)

Jesus casts the Spirit’s role, and He and the Father’s spiritual presence within us via the Spirit, as an aid for evangelism (Jn 15:26-27). They must understand this, or else they might fall away from the faith (Jn 16:1). Bad times are coming, and true believers must stick with Him—this is Jesus’ point throughout John 15 (see esp. Jn 15:9-10). “I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them,” (Jn 16:4).

Jesus has carefully meted out more information over time. He didn’t mention His long absence and the community’s mission beforehand “because I was with you, but now I am going to him who sent me,” (Jn 16:4-5). This is a physical departure for another place, returning to His words at John 14:2-4.

Though both Phillip and Thomas have asked Jesus where He’s going (Jn 13:36, 14:5), Jesus knows their questions are actually grief-stricken exclamations borne of shock (Jn 16:5-6). I must go, Jesus explains, because if I don’t, then the Advocate won’t arrive and carry out His mission through you all (Jn 16:7-11). But, when the Spirit arrives, He’ll guide believers into all truth—i.e., they’ll understand it all soon enough (Jn 16:13-14).

“Jesus went on to say, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’” (Jn 16:16). His meaning is unclear, but it’s best to see Jesus as speaking about the resurrection on Easter morning and the 40 days of instruction which follow.[5]

1f: Convo about the resurrection reunion (vv. 16:16-28)

The disciples are once again confused—the concept of Jesus’ death and resurrection makes no sense to them (Jn 16:17-18).

Jesus ignores their questions about the “why” and “how” of His departure, and instead reassures them that “it’ll be worth it all” when He returns (Jn 16:20-23). Their joy at beholding Jesus’ glorified and resurrected person, coupled with the power of the Holy Spirit poured out from on high at Pentecost, will turbo-charge their zeal to take His Good News to Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Therefore, their joy will be irrepressible and complete (Jn 16:22, 24).

During the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension, Jesus will no longer speak to them figuratively— “I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father,” (Jn 16:25). Indeed, Luke tells us: “He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God,” (Acts 1:3).

Jesus then ends His long farewell address by pivoting back to where the discussion began—to His long-term departure, not simply the interval between Good Friday and Easter morning: “I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father,” (Jn 16:28).

Throughout the farewell address, Jesus refers to His departure and return in at least three different contexts; (a) His physical departure to the Father’s presence and eventual physical return, (b) His physical departure to the Father and His spiritual return via the Holy Spirit, and (c) His physical departure by death and His physical return on Easter morning. He dips in and out of these contexts repeatedly; first one, then the other, then still another. This means the reader cannot assume an “obvious” reading of John 14:2-4, but must follow the train of Jesus’ thought throughout the entire farewell address to make a reliable conclusion.

2: What does Jesus mean at John 14:1-3?

This much is clear:

  • Jesus speaks of a physical departure to a place where the disciples cannot follow (Jn 13:33). He identifies His destination as “to the One who sent me,” (Jn 7:33; cp. “just as I told the Jews” at Jn 13:33). The One who sent Him was God (Jn 1:14, 18).
  • Peter asks why they cannot follow Jesus to this destination (Jn 13:36-37).
  • Jesus responds by asking the disciples to trust Him (Jn 14:1). The discussion still centers on Jesus’ physical departure.
  • His destination is the Father’s personal presence, which he figuratively refers to as “my Father’s house.” Assuming the likeness of a kindly innkeeper, Jesus says He’s headed off to prepare “rooms” for all believers and will one day return to bring Christians to His Father’s “house.”

It seems there are four possible options for understanding John 14:2-3, and they each rely on different definitions of “my Father’s house.”

Table 1

2a: A grade scale for bible study

I suggest the following grading scale to evaluate the strength of a passage’s teaching:[6]

  • Grade A: Explicit teaching. The passage either (a) makes some direct statement in proper context, or (b) directly teaches on the specific issue (e.g., justification by faith, Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus as the only way of salvation, the virgin birth, etc.). Hold closely and aggressively to doctrines with Grade A support.
  • Grade B: Implicit teaching. Though there may not be a specific statement in context, or a direct passage about the subject using the summary terms the Church has developed over time, there is only one responsible conclusion (e.g., doctrine of the Trinity, two-nature Christology, baptism of professing believers only). Hold closely and aggressively to doctrines with Grade B support.
  • Grade C: A principal or logical conclusion—an inference. The issue is the application of a general principle from scripture in context, and/or a logical conclusion or inference from the data in proper context. “Because A, then it makes sense that B, and so we have C.” It isn’t the only conclusion possible, but it is a reasonable one (e.g., presence of apostolic sign gifts today, the regulative principle of worship, music styles in worship). Agree to disagree on doctrines with Grade C support, because the evidence is not conclusive for one position or the other.
  • Grade D: A guess or speculation. No explicit or implicit scriptural support, evidence falls short of a persuasive conclusion from the data, and it’s built on shaky foundations—“because A, then it makes sense that B, and therefore it could mean C, and so D.” It’s an educated guess based on circumstantial evidence (e.g., who wrote the Book of Hebrews). Hold very loosely to issues with Grade D support—never force your guess on another believer.
  • Grade E: Poor or non-existent support. No explicit or implicit evidence, no logical conclusion or inference from data, and cannot be taken seriously even as a guess. The passage doesn’t support the issue at hand. Ditch passages with Grade E support.

In the next article, we’ll look at Option 1 from the table, above.


[1] This is called “perichoresis,” which Erickson helpfully defines as: “Indwelling or mutual interpenetration. An ancient teaching that understands the Trinity as consisting of three persons, so closely bound together that the life of each flows through each of the others,” (Concise Dictionary, s.v., “perichoresis,” p. 152).

[2] Calvin, John, p. 2:90. Alvah Hovey, Commentary on John, in American Commentary (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1885), p. 286.

“A very wonderful promise! But has it been fulfilled? We think it has. For if we look at the wonders of the Day of Pentecost, together with the events that followed in the rapid spread of the gospel during the apostolic age, it does not seem extravagant to regard them as greater than any which took place during the ministry of Christ. And if we compare the spiritual results of the three most fruitful years of the ministry of Paul, of Luther, of Whitefield, or of Spurgeon, with the spiritual results of Christ’s preaching and miracles for three years, we shall not deem his promise vain. And if it be urged against the latter instances that miracles are wanting, it may be replied that supernatural works in the realm of spirit are superior, rather than inferior, to those in the world of sense—that to raise a soul from death unto life is really a greater act than to raise a dead body from the grave.”

[3] Gk: ὅτι παρʼ ὑμῖν μένει καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσται.

[4] 1833 New Hampshire Confession of Faith, Article II. 

[5] This is Chrysostom’s interpretation and it’s followed by many modern interpreters (“Homily LXXIX,” in NPNF1, vol. 14, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. G. T. Stupart (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1889), p. 291).

There are two other reasonable options to understand Jn 16:16f.

First is that Jesus speaking of the coming of the Spirit—they will soon not see Him any longer, but nevertheless they will “see” Him by the illumination of the Spirit. This hinges on the two different words for “see” which John uses, and the conclusion that if John were speaking of them physically “seeing” Jesus soon, he would have used the same word for “sight” in the sentence. But he didn’t. So, there must be some distinction between the two words, and the latter can be interpreted as a mental or spiritual perception (BDAG, s.v., sense A.4). John Calvin is an eloquent champion for this view (Commentary on the Gospel According to John, vol. 2 (reprint; Bellingham: Logos, 2010), p. 147). More recently, Edward Klink advances this proposal (John, ZECNT (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016; Kindle ed.), loc. 18998f). This interpretation is plausible but seems too cute by half. Jesus’ insistence on them seeing Him again and being filled with joy (Jn 16:20f) seem to indicate something more than spiritual enlightenment.

A second option is that Jesus is speaking of His second coming. But His audience never saw the second coming. It seems hollow if Jesus assured them all that they’d soon see Him, but He really meant that the Christians alive at His second coming would see Him.

[6] I am indebted to Paul Henebury’s “Rules of Affinity” as the inspiration for this grading scale. I did not use his grading scale or his descriptions, but I did take his general concept.

John 14:1-3 and the Rapture (Part 1)

John 14:1-3 and the Rapture (Part 1)

Many American Christians have been raised in a church culture that stresses that Jesus will return to “rapture” or snatch away “the church” before the Great Tribulation. They believe “the church” is a different people than ethnic Israel, with a complementary but distinct future.[1] Because this great tribulation is “a time of trouble for Jacob” (Jer 30:7), it is not for “the church.” Therefore, the rapture is the point where “the church” slips out the door just before this tribulation begins.

They believe this rapture will involve (a) resurrection of all believers who died since Pentecost, and (b) a simultaneous snatching away of all believers still alive, all to (c) meet the Lord in the air for transport to heaven while tribulation rages here. Later, Jesus will return from heaven with “the church” to end this great tribulation—this is the second coming.

This is part of a “pre-tribulational” (i.e., Jesus will return before the tribulation), and “premillennial” (i.e., Jesus will establish His kingdom to trigger the millennium) framework called dispensationalism.

Many of these Christians point to John 14:1-3 as proof of the rapture of “the church.” This article will consider what Jesus says at John 14:1-3. First, we’ll examine the entire context of Jesus’ farewell talk at Jn 13:33 to 16:33. Second, we’ll examine four common interpretations about what Jesus said at Jn 14:1-3. Third, we’ll propose a solution.

See the other articles in the “rapture series” here. See this entire article on “John 14:1-3 and the Rapture” as a single PDF here.

1: The long convo—Jesus says goodbye

It’s silly to interpret something without context. You watch a video clip of something that looks terrible, but the whole clip shows it in it’s true light. It’s the same with the bible. So, to get what Jesus says at John 14:1-3, we must consider everything He says during a very long talk after the last supper.

Here’s the outline—and this is “kind of a big deal” because Jesus constantly talks about different ways in which He’ll “come back” and reunite them to the Father. Skip this if you want, but you might want to refer to it later.

  • Jn 13:33-35: Jesus’ announcement about His physical departure, and therefore the necessity of brotherly love as the mark of the true Christian community
    • Jn 13:36 – 14:4: Dialogue on Peter’s question.
      • Believers must trust Jesus. He will physically return to the Father’s personal presence, and eventually bring believers into His Father’s presence, too. Yet, they already know “the way”!
    • Jn 14:5-7: Dialogue on Thomas’ question.
      • Believers are, in a real sense, in the Father’s presence right now by means of trusting in Jesus’ Good News—He is “the way” to the Father’s “house.”
    • Jn 14:8-21: Dialogue on Philip’s implicit question.
      • Jesus and the Father mutually indwell one another, and this is why when you “see” one you “see” the other. Jesus must return to the Father’s presence to direct His campaign against the kingdom of darkness from on high. Meanwhile, He sends believers the Holy Spirit so we aren’t left as orphans. Jesus will reveal Himself to (i.e., be “seen” by) those who love the Father, by means of the Spirit.
    • Jn 14:22-31: Dialogue on Judas (not Iscariot’s) question
      • Jesus will only show Himself to those who love Him, which means those who obey His teaching. The Spirit, through whom Jesus is “with us,” brings believers peace and teaches them. Jesus warns the disciples about all this beforehand, so they’re prepared for the day.
  • Jn 15-16: Jesus and the disciples “walk and talk” on the streets of Jerusalem
    • Jn 15:1-25: Be sure to stick with Jesus.
      • Fruit is the mark of a true Jesus follower, and the defining fruit is brotherly love.
    • Jn 15:26 – 16:15: The work of the Spirit in the New Covenant.
      • Jesus must physically return to the Father and “pass the baton” (as it were) to the Spirit. He will be their Advocate and teacher, and so they’ll be able to endure.
    • Jn 16:16-28: Jesus on His resurrection reunion.
      • The disciples will see Him “after a little while,” (Jn 16:16) and then their grief will turn to joy (Jn 16:20, 22). At that time, Jesus will speak plainly to them about the Father (Jn 16:25).
    • Jn 16:29-33: Farewell address ends

1a: The mic drop—Jesus says goodbye (vv. 13:33-35)

Our passage opens after Judas has bolted from the Last Supper and fled into the night. He’s on his way to betray Jesus to the Jewish authorities (Jn 13:27-30).

Jesus, perhaps taking a deep breath as He sees the walls closing in on Him, explains that both He and God will be “glorified” by what’s about to happen. It’s so certain that Jesus speaks as if His arrest, torture, and execution are already a done deal: “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him,” (Jn 13:31). The word “glorify” here is a churchy term, and it means to be held in honor, or clothed in splendor.[2] Basically, Jesus will be honored triumphantly,[3] and so too will God.

Jesus then explains: “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come,” (Jn 13:33).

Where is Jesus going? Clearly, it’s back to the Father’s side in heaven (cp. Jn 17:1ff). Now, heaven is not a physical location “up there” in the clouds. Satellites go “up there.” Manned space missions go “up there.” Heaven is not in outer space—it’s best understood as a different dimension where God dwells.[4] It’s the place from which Jesus came (Jn 3:13; 17:1f) and to which He returned at His ascension: “he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence,” (Heb 9:24). It’s the place where God dwells (“Our Father in heaven …” Mt 6:4). It’s the place where believer’s inheritances are kept for them (1 Pet 1:4-5; cp. Mt 6:20). Heaven is God’s throne room (Mt 5:34). Perhaps, then, we should see “the kingdom of heaven” as meaning something like “the kingdom of God’s presence” which has “come near” in Jesus (Mk 1:15)—His reign.

Because heaven in our context is God’s holy presence, then we should remember that God is not a stationary rock—He moves. In fact, the Christian story ends with this declaration: “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them,” (Rev 21:3). The story moves from (a) crude representations of God’s throne room under the figures of the tabernacle (Ex 25:9), to (b) the New Testament explanation that these figures taught us in advance about Christ’s sacrifice (Heb 9:1 – 10:18), and finally (c) to Father and Son sharing a throne here on earth, in a new creation (Rev 21:1 – 22:5).

The Apostle John sees “the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,” (Rev 22:12). The celestial city represents the pure community of God’s presence just as Babylon is the community of evil and wickedness (Rev 17-18), and one day it will no longer be just “the Jerusalem that is above” (Gal 4:26)—it will be here. No longer will our citizenship in “Mount Zion … the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb 12:22) be an abstraction that we can’t see and touch—it will be here.

More than a place, this “heaven” here on earth is also a state of being. There are no tears, no pain, no sorrow, no sin— “nothing impure will ever enter it … no longer will there be any curse,” (Rev 21:27; 22:3). “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away,” (Rev 21:4). One writer says: “Heaven is the life willed for us originally in creation by God the Father, lived for us by the Son, and finally enabled by the Spirit.”[5] Isaiah speaks of a “new heavens and a new earth” with very physical and earthly descriptions of perfect fellowship in an ideal society (Isa 65:17-25). No old age, no infant mortality, endless crops of plenty, satisfaction from work, blessedness from the Lord, perfect fellowship with Him and each other—it’s all there.

Belinda Carlisle was right— “heaven” will indeed be a place on earth, because heaven is God’s personal presence which brings blessedness and community with Him. This is why the Apostle Peter, casting his mind on promises like these, wrote: “… in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells,” (2 Pet 3:13).

God has long promised to re-create the fellowship and community our first parents ruined (Zech 2:10; Ezek 48:35), and by the end of the story He will have made good on that promise. This means that “heaven” is not static. New York City doesn’t move, nor does London—but “heaven” does, because “heaven” is where the Lord is.

So, what does Jesus mean in John 13:33 when He says: “Where I am going, you cannot come?” He means (a) that He’s soon returning to the Father’s personal presence (“I am coming to you now …” Jn 17:3), and that (b) the disciples cannot yet come with Him. Why not? Because they’re still alive, and so will remain here. To be absent from the physical body is to be physically present with the Lord in that other place (2 Cor 5:8). But, for now, we who are alive must wait.

1b: Convo on Peter’s question (vv. 13:36 to 14:4)

Peter and the others then ignore Jesus’ urgent pleas for them to show love to one another (Jn 13:34-35), and instead press Him about His departure (Jn 13:36-37)—what’s that all about?

Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”

Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”

Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”

How could He leave? What’s going on? Where is He going? After an incredulous aside to Peter (Jn 13:38), Jesus murmurs some comforting words: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me,” (Jn 14:1). The word might be better translated as trust (not “believe”), but the point is that Jesus’ departure is not an abandonment.

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going (John 14:2-4).[6]

This “house” is figurative imagery to express the place where the Father lives—i.e., His personal presence.[7] This is why Jesus referred to the temple, that grand and living object lesson, as “my Father’s house” (Lk 2:49; Jn 2:16)—because the Father lived inside.[8] This is why the Apostle Paul says the Christian community is God’s “house” (1 Cor 3:6; 1 Tim 3:15)—because God’s Spirit dwells in our midst. It’s why the writer of the letter to the Hebrews explained “we are his house,” (Heb 3:6). The temple is God’s “house” (Ps 69:9, cp. Jn 2:17; Lk 19:46).

But “my Father’s house” is not a physical structure anchored to a particular place. God does not live at 777 Eternity Drive. Instead, “my Father’s house” is a figurative reference to God’s personal presence. In the same way, the real throne room in heaven to which Jesus returns is “my Father’s house” because God is there.

We’ve seen that there is no physical house, and there are no real rooms. These are metaphors. Jesus is saying that He won’t abandon them. Adopting the imagery of a friendly innkeeper, Jesus promises that He’s leaving to prepare “rooms” for each one of them in the Father’s personal presence (i.e., “my Father’s house”). And one day Jesus will come back and bring them face to face with God so they can all be there with Him together. In fact,[9] they already know how to get to the Father’s house themselves (Jn 14:4).

We continue looking at Jesus’ farewell talk in the next article.


[1] See Charles Ryrie, The Basis of the Premillennial Faith (New York: Loizeaux Brothers, 1953),ch. 7. Ryrie’s book should be titled The Basis of the Dispensational Faith, because premillennialism is not necessarily dispensationalism.

C. I. Scofield wrote: “Comparing, then, what is said in Scripture concerning Israel and the Church, he finds that in origin, calling, promise, worship, principles of conduct, and future destiny—all is contrast,” (Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth (reprint; Philadelphia: Philadelphia School of the Bible, 1921), p. 11). Scofield’s student, Lewis S. Chafer, lists 24 contrasts between Israel and the Church (Systematic Theology, vol. 4 (reprint; Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1976), ch. 3)!

[2] See BDAG, s.v., sense 2; LSJ, s.v., sense 2.  

[3] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “glory (v.1), sense 1,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/4382797103.

[4] See (a) Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), pp. 1125-1133, (b) Alvah Hovey, Biblical Eschatology (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1888), pp. 156-160.

[5] Thomas Oden, Life in the Spirit: Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (San Francisco, HarperCollins, 1992), p. 460.

[6] The Greek here is pretty straightforward. Any mysteries in this verse aren’t hidden here: Gk: ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ τοῦ πατρός μου μοναὶ πολλαί εἰσιν εἰ δὲ (emphasis) μή, εἶπον ἂν ὑμῖν ὅτι πορεύομαι ἑτοιμάσαι τόπον ὑμῖν; καὶ (additive) ἐὰν πορευθῶ καὶ ἑτοιμάσω τόπον ὑμῖν, πάλιν ἔρχομαι καὶ παραλήμψομαι ὑμᾶς πρὸς ἐμαυτόν, ἵνα (purpose + subjunctive) ὅπου εἰμὶ ἐγὼ καὶ (adjunctive) ὑμεῖς ἦτε (subjunctive = paired with ἵνα) καὶ (emphasis) ὅπου (obj. gen.) [ἐγὼ] ὑπάγω οἴδατε (intensive perfect) τὴν ὁδόν (direct obj.).

“In my Father’s house are many rooms. Surely, if this weren’t true, would I have told you all that I am leaving to prepare a place for you? And, if I am leaving to prepare a place for you all, I will come again and take you along with me, so that you will also be where I am. In fact, you already know the way to the place I am going.”

[7] BDAG, s.v., sense 1b.  

[8] Although God never indwelt the second temple, you get the point.   

[9] The NIV drops the conjunction in the phrase: καὶ ὅπου ἐγὼ ὑπάγω οἴδατε τὴν ὁδόν. The conjunction is likely ascensive or perhaps emphatic—the result is the same; the previous thought is focused and further developed.

1 Thessalonians 4 and the Rapture

1 Thessalonians 4 and the Rapture

Many American Christians have questions about something called “the rapture.” These questions are often tied to a particular flavor of premillennialism called “dispensationalism.” According to this framework, “the rapture” means “the idea that Christ will remove the church from the world prior to the great tribulation.”[1] They believe the rapture is before the Great Tribulation, so it is “pre-tribulational.” This teaching relies heavily on 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, along with other supporting passages. This article will evaluate whether this passage teaches a pre-tribulational rapture.

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Paul begins a new subject at 1 Thessalonians 4:13.[2] Maybe the church had written to Paul with this question, or maybe Timothy had relayed it in person (1 Thess 3:6f). Regardless, Paul doesn’t want the church in Thessalonica to be upset and grieve, as if they had no hope.

Why are they upset? We don’t know how the issue came up, but wrong ideas seem to taken root in the congregation about Jesus’ return. This isn’t surprising, because Paul didn’t spend much time with them before he was run out of town (Acts 17:1-9).

What is this hope that ought to stop them from grieving? Paul explains:

For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

Paul explains[3] that, because Jesus has died and rose again, in the same way[4] God will bring with Jesus those who have died (“fallen asleep”) while in union with Him. So, anyone who believes that Jesus is the hinge upon which God’s single plan to rescue us and this world turns—that is, any believer—will be resurrected and be with Jesus forever. This means there is hope, whether the believer is alive or dead.

According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep (1 Thessalonians 4:15).

In fact, the believers who are alive when Jesus returns will not be “first in line” to see Him. The dead believers will not be left behind. What does this mean? Paul explains …[5]

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

The reason dead Christians won’t miss anything is because Jesus Himself will come from heaven and resurrect “the dead in Christ” first. Jesus will come very publicly, very loudly—accompanied with both a piercing battle cry[6] and the sound of a blasting trumpet. So, the dead believers will be resurrected first—but what about the believers who are still alive when Christ returns?

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever (1 Thessalonians 4:17).[7]

After the dead in Christ are resurrected in the same way Jesus was (i.e., miraculously), those who are still alive will be caught up, snatched, or suddenly seized away[8] into the clouds to meet Jesus in the air as He returns. The word Paul uses, which the NIV translates as “meet,” suggests an advance reception for an arriving dignitary.[9] This happens right after the resurrection of the dead believers, so that together they will meet Jesus in the air as one group. And so, Paul concludes, in this way all believers will be with the Lord for all time.

The point is that dead believers have reason to hope. They will miss nothing. So, when Paul makes his conclusion at the end of v.17, he’s drawing those strands together. He’s answering a question about whether the dead in Christ will miss out when Jesus returns. The answer is no, both dead and living believers will meet the Lord together in the air. In this manner, all believers will be with Jesus forever.

Therefore encourage one another with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:18).

So, does 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 teach that the Lord will remove the church from the earth before the Great Tribulation? No, it does not. The passage isn’t about the rapture at all. It’s about how those who are in relationship with Jesus, whether alive or dead, always have hope that they’ll be with Him forever when He returns. To be sure, the passage contains the rapture, but that isn’t the same thing as being about the rapture.

Paul doesn’t directly answer the question about rapture timing. He doesn’t address that issue at all. He simply says that, when Jesus returns, both dead and living believers will meet Him in the air as one group and be with the Lord forever.

  • Two-stage return for Jesus. Does the group (a) then ascend back to heaven with Jesus, (b) clearing the way for the Great Tribulation on the people of Israel, and then (c) return to earth with Jesus afterwards?
  • Single return for Jesus. Or does the group simply fall in behind Jesus in the air as He continues His return—in which case this meeting is like a divine triumphal entry in which they met Him “half way”?

You must bring in other passages to make the case for a pre-tribulational rapture, which sees a two-stage return for Jesus. I’ll examine the most common support passages in follow-up articles. But the evidence in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 does not explicitly support any particular timing for the rapture. The closest Paul comes is the word he uses for this “meeting” with the Lord in the air (v. 17), which suggests a public welcome for Christ when He returns to His holy city.[10] In other words, there is a hint of support here for a single return for Jesus.


[1] Millard J. Erickson, The Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology, revised ed. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), s.v. “Rapture, Pretribulational view of the,” p. 167.

[2] The NIV omits the transitional conjunction δὲ.

[3] The conjunction at the beginning of v.14 is explanatory (γὰρ).

[4] The adverb of manner at v. 14b (οὕτως) explains that our dying and rising again will happen in the same way as Jesus.’

[5] The conjunction at the beginning of v.17 (ὅτι) is explanatory.

[6] BDAG, s.v., “κέλευσμα,” p. 538; LSJ, s.v., p. 936.

[7] Gk: ἔπειτα ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες (nom. apposition) οἱ περιλειπόμενοι (nom. apposition) ἅμα σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁρπαγησόμεθα (paired with ἡμεῖς) ἐν νεφέλαις εἰς ἀπάντησιν τοῦ κυρίου εἰς ἀέρα· καὶ (conclusion) οὕτως πάντοτε σὺν κυρίῳ ἐσόμεθα.

“And then we—those who are alive and are still here—will be snatched away together with them into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, in this way we’ll be with the Lord for all time.”

[8] BDAG, s.v., “ἁρπάζω,” sense 2, p. 134; LSJ, s.v., sense 2, p. 246.

[9] See (a) BDAG, s.v. “ἀπάντησιν,” p. 97, (b) LSJ, s.v., (c) Erik Peterson, TDNT, s.v., p. 1.380–381. See also the context of the usage at Mt 25:6 and Acts 28:15.

[10] “According to 1 Th. 4:17, at the second coming of the Lord, there will be a rapture εἰς ἀπάντησιν τοῦ κυρίου εἰς ἀέρα. The word ἀπάντησις (also ὑπάντησις, DG) is to be understood as a tech. term for a civic custom of antiquity whereby a public welcome was accorded by a city to important visitors. Similarly, when Christians leave the gates of the world, they will welcome Christ in the ἀήρ, acclaiming Him as κύριος,” (Peterson, TDNT, s.v. “ἀπάντησις,”p. 1:380-381).

What is the New Perspective(s) on Paul?

What is the New Perspective(s) on Paul?

The “New Perspective on Paul” (“NPP”) is a re-calibration of the traditional Protestant understanding of “justification.” NPP has now been a force in New Testament and Pauline scholarship for nearly three generations. This article aims to present a positive statement of NPP. It is a summary, not a critique—so there will be no critical interaction.

First, we briefly sum up the traditional Protestant understanding of “justification.” Next, we survey five aspects of the NPP that differ from the traditional framework.

The Traditional Protestant Understanding of Justification

In light of the New Testament revelation, “justification is God’s declarative act by which, on the basis of the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning death, he pronounces believers to have fulfilled all of the requirements of the law that pertain to them.”[1] The person “has been restored to a state of righteousness on the basis of belief and trust in the work of Christ rather than on the basis of one’s own accomplishment.”[2]

God reckons or imputes Christ’s righteousness to the believer as a judicial declaration—communicating His righteousness to us “by some wonderous way,” transfusing its power into us.[3] For God to “justify” someone means “to acquit from the charge of guilt.”[4] This He does “not as a creditor and a private person, but as a ruler and Judge giving sentence concerning us at his bar.”[5]

One Baptist catechism explains that God “does freely endow me the righteousness of Christ, that I come not at any time into judgment.”[6] Millard Erickson writes: “it is not an actual infusing of holiness into the individual. It is a matter of declaring the person righteous, as a judge does in acquitting the accused.”[7] Union with Christ makes this possible in what Francis Turretin styled a “mystical … communion of grace by mediation. By this, having been made by God a surety for us and given to us for a head, he can communicate to us his righteousness and all his benefits.”[8]

The Baptist, 1833 New Hampshire Confession explains that justification:[9]

  1. Includes the pardon of sin, and the promise of eternal life on principles of righteousness;
  2. that it is bestowed, not in consideration of any works of righteousness which we have done, but solely through faith in the Redeemer’s blood;
  3. by virtue of which faith his perfect righteousness is freely imputed to us of God;
  4. that it brings us into a state of most blessed peace and favor with God, and secures every other blessing needful for time and eternity.

John Calvin explains that “being sanctified by his Spirit, we aspire to integrity and purity of life.”[10] In other words, good works are the fruit of salvation. Thomas Oden summarizes: “Justification’s nature is God’s pardon, its condition is faith, its ground is the righteousness of God, and its fruits are good works.”[11]

A Survey of Five Aspects of the New Perspective(s) on Paul

There is no single “new perspective,” and it is a mistake to assume that (say) N.T. Wright and James D.G. Dunn speak with one voice on NPP. What unites the new perspective isn’t so much a single consensus on Paul, but more a shared understanding of first-century Judaism.[12] “There is no such thing as the new perspective … There is only a disparate family of perspectives, some with more, some with less family likeness, and with fierce squabbles and sibling rivalries going on inside.”[13]

The NPP is not “new” because it displaces the “old” perspective. “Rather, it is ‘new’ because the dimension of Paul’s teaching that it highlights has been largely lost to sight in more contemporary expositions … The ‘new perspective’ simply asks whether all the factors that make up Paul’s doctrine have been adequately appreciated and articulated in the traditional reformulations of the doctrine.”[14] Dunn explains that the new perspective “is not opposed to the classic Reformed doctrine of justification. It simply observes that a social and ethnic dimension was part of the doctrine from its first formulation …”[15]

We will survey the NPP by looking at five related issues:[16]

  1. The new perspective on Paul arises from a new perspective on Judaism.
  2. The significance of Paul’s mission is the context for his teaching on justification.
  3. What does Paul mean when he writes about justification by faith in Christ Jesus and not works of the law?
  4. What does “justification” mean?
  5. What is the relationship between works and salvation?

The new perspective on Paul arises from a new perspective on Judaism

Judaism was not a religion of works-righteousness, but of grace. The Reformed (or “Lutheran”) perspective errs by reading the Protestant-Catholic divide back into Paul’s polemics in Galatians and Romans. “The degeneracy of a Catholicism that offered forgiveness of sins by the buying of indulgences mirrored for Luther the degeneracy of a Judaism that taught justification by works.”[17]

The NPP objects to this framework. Instead, it sees a “symbiotic relationship implicit in Israel’s religion (and Judaism) between divine initiative and human response.”[18] Israel’s obedience to the law was not about amassing good works to wipe away sin—it was simply a response to God’s covenant faithfulness.

E.P. Sanders coined the term “covenantal nomism” to describe this ethos and said it was “the view that one’s place in God’s plan is established on the basis of the covenant and that the covenant requires as the proper response of man his obedience to its commandments, while providing means of atonement for transgression.”[19]

The “righteousness of God” was saving righteousness, not judgment. Luther came to realize this, but Dunn writes that “it wasn’t a new insight for the bulk of Second Temple Judaism; it was rather an axiom that was fundamental to Judaism itself.”[20] Dunn asks whether “traditional Christian antipathy to Judaism has skewed and distorted its portrayal of the Judaism against which Paul reacted?”[21]

So, it is a mistake to read Paul as if he were reacting against crude legalism. Indeed, Paul’s “zeal for God” (Phil 3:6) was “not simply zeal to be the best that he could be,” but a zeal to attack Jews who were violating these boundary markers and thus being unfaithful to the covenant they did not realize was now obsolete.[22] Paul did not attack legalism—he attacked a now-outmoded Jewish nationalism.

The significance of Paul’s mission is the context for his teaching on justification

Paul’s great burden was to proclaim that God’s community included both Jew and Gentile—and this was unacceptable to the Judaism of his day. The Torah taught the Israelites to be different, to be set apart. Dunn says, “no passage makes this clearer than Lev 20.22-26,” which reads (in part): “You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you,” (Lev 20:23).

So, Dunn argues, this “set-apartness” ethic is what motivated the agitators we read about in Galatians. It is this clash which is “evidently the theological rationale behind Peter’s ‘separation’ from the Gentiles of Antioch.”[23]

Judaism was not missionary minded. Why should it? Judaism was primarily an ethnic religion, the religion of the residents of Judea, that is, Judeans. So it was natural for Second Temple Jews to think of Judaism as only for Jews, and for non-Jews who became Jews. This was where Christianity, initially a Jewish sect, broke the established mold. It became an evangelistic sect, a missionary movement, something untoward, unheard of within Judaism.[24]

Even Jewish Christians found it difficult to fathom the Gospel going to Gentiles (see Peter at Cornelius’ home in Acts 10:27-29, 44-48). This conflict—the “who is a child of God and therefore what is required to become one?” question—drove his teaching on justification. “The social dimension of the doctrine of justification was as integral to its initial formulation as any other … A doctrine of justification by faith that does not give prominence to Paul’s concern to bring Jew and Gentile together is not true to Paul’s doctrine.”[25]

For the new perspective, the concern that Paul’s concept of justification by faith addresses is not a universal human self-righteousness instantiated in a Pelagian-like, works driven Judaism. Rather, it is a problem specific to the setting of the early church, where a dominant (Jewish) majority was attempting to force the Gentile minority into adopting the Torah-based symbols of the (Jewish) people of God in order to gain access to the (Jewish) Messiah Jesus. As such, Paul’s teaching on justification is nothing like the “center” of his theology—let alone the “article by which the Church stands or falls.”[26]

What does Paul mean when he writes about “justification by faith” in Christ Jesus and not “works of the law”?

“But, if Judaism was essentially a religion of grace, then why did Paul reject it?”[27] That is the question! To what was Paul objecting when he railed against “works of the law?”

Well, because Judaism was a religion of grace, this means legalism is not the true issue, and we are mis-reading Paul if we think it is. Because the “works of the law” are not about legalism, they must be about something else—but what? Well, the cultural wall against which Paul kept hitting his head was about whether Gentiles could come into God’s family, and what this “coming in” looked like.

The Jewish agitators believed the “coming in” meant observing certain Jewish “boundary markers” like circumcision, the Sabbath, and the laws about cleanness and uncleanness—that is, becoming Jews. God gave them to keep His people separate from the world. Dunn explains “works of the law” also included “the distinctively Jewish way of life”[28]—a sort of sociological identity to which the boundary markers pointed.

But Jesus has now come and fulfilled these good but temporary boundary markers. They no longer tag someone as “in” or “out” of the covenant—faith in Christ and indwelling of the Spirit is now the boundary marker. This is the dividing line. This is what Paul meant when he spoke against “works of the law.”

Paul taught and defended the principle of justification by faith (alone) because he saw that fundamental gospel principle to be threatened by Jewish believers maintaining that as believers in Messiah Jesus, they had a continuing obligation to maintain their separateness to God, a holiness that depended on their being distinct from other nations, an obligation, in other words, to maintain the law’s requirement of separation from non-Jews … For Paul, the truth of the gospel was demonstrated by the breaking down of the boundary markers and the wall that divided Jew from Gentile, a conviction that remained the central part of his mission precisely because it was such a fundamental expression of, and test case for, the gospel. This is the missing dimension of Paul’s doctrine of justification that the new perspective has brought back to the center of the stage where Paul himself placed it.[29]

What does “justification” mean?

Dunn explains that “justification by faith” means trusting in Jesus alone for salvation, and not relying on obsolete Jewish boundary markers as covenant preconditions for God’s acceptance (i.e., “works of the law”). Jesus is enough. According to Dunn, Paul’s target is not grace v. legalism, but grace v. outmoded nationalism.

N.T. Wright explains that righteousness is not a changed moral character, but a new declared status—acquittal.[30] The true scene is the lawcourt, not a medical clinic.[31]

It is the status of the person which is transformed by the action of “justification,” not the character. It is in this sense that “justification” “makes” someone “righteous,” just as the officiant at a wedding service might be said to “make” the couple husband and wife-a change of status, accompanied (it is hoped) by a steady transformation formation of the heart, but a real change of status even if both parties are entering the union out of pure convenience.[32]

He breaks decisively with the traditional perspective by saying that “righteousness” is not a substance which can imputed or reckoned to a believer.[33] This is dangerously close to the Roman Catholic concept of righteousness as an infusion of grace.[34] No, Wright argues, God is not “a distant bank manager, scrutinizing credit and debit sheets.”[35] Christ has not amassed a “treasury of merit” that God dispenses to believers.[36]

But “righteousness as declared status from God” is not the whole story. Wright sets his NPP framework by insisting we read all of scripture through a “God’s single plan through Israel for the world” lens. This means “righteousness” is more than acquittal, because this declared status takes place in a particular context. It is “absolutely central for Paul” that one understand “the story of Israel, and of the whole world, as a single continuous narrative which, having reached its climax in Jesus the Messiah, was now developing in the fresh ways which God the Creator, the Lord of history, had always intended.”[37]

For Wright, this is the hinge upon which everything turns. “Paul’s view of God’s purpose is that God, the creator, called Abraham so that through his family he, God, could rescue the world from its plight.”[38] He sums up this “single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world” hinge as “covenant.”[39]

This is the prism through which we must understand (a) the nature of the law and the believing life, (b) what “works of the law” meant to Paul, and (c) the apostle’s relentless focus on the Jew + Gentile family of God.

In Paul’s day, Wright notes, Jews were not sitting around wondering what they must do to get to heaven when they die. No—they were waiting for God to act just as He said He would (i.e., to show covenant faithfulness), because they counted on being part of His single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world.[40] They were in “exile,” and waiting for a Savior who would be faithful to God’s promises to them.[41]

The Gospel is not simply about us and our salvation. It is about God’s plan. “God is not circling around us. We are circling around him.”[42] We are making a mistake, Wright says, if we make justification the focus of the Gospel. The steering wheel on a car is surely important (critical, even!), but it is not the whole vehicle.[43] In the same way, justification is one vital component of a larger whole—God’s “single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world” plan.

God had a single plan all along through which he intended to rescue the world and the human race, and that this single plan was centered upon the call of Israel, a call which Paul saw coming to fruition in Israel’s representative, the Messiah. Read Paul like this, and you can keep all the jigsaw pieces on the table.[44]

Because the Christian story hinges upon this covenant, Wright interprets the “righteousness of God” as God’s covenant faithfulness to do what He promised for Abraham. This faithfulness consisted of three aspects: (a) eschatology—God’s “single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world” unfolding in time, and (b) lawcourt, and (c) covenant.

Paul believed, in short, that what Israel had longed for God to do for it and for the world, God had done for Jesus, bringing him through death and into the life of the age to come. Eschatology: the new world had been inaugurated! Covenant: God’s promises to Abraham had been fulfilled! Lawcourt: Jesus had been vindicated-and so all those who belonged to Jesus were vindicated as well! And these, for Paul, were not three, but one. Welcome to Paul’s doctrine of justification, rooted in the single scriptural narrative as he read it, reaching out to the waiting world.[45]

What is the relationship between works and salvation?

Paul declares that it is “the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom 2:13), and that God will repay each person for what he has done (Rom 2:6). Jesus is the judge at the law-court, and “possession of Torah, as we just saw, will not be enough; it will be doing it that counts …”[46]

Wright says traditional interpretations of these passages have “swept aside” the implications of Paul’s words. Judgment is—somehow, someway—based on works. It is “a central statement of something [Paul] normally took for granted. It is base line stuff.”[47]

This “judgment” is not a reward ceremony for believers where some will get prizes and others will not. No, it is an actual judgment at which everyone (including but not limited to Christians justified by faith) must present themselves and be assessed.[48] To critics who are alarmed at Wright’s insistence on this point, he replies: “I did not write Romans 2; Paul did.”[49] Indeed, “those texts about final judgment according to works sit there stubbornly, and won’t go away.”[50]

Christians are to “do” things to please God. Joyfully, out of love. To those who accuse him of teaching believers to put their trust in something other than Jesus, Wright declares: “I want to plead guilty …”[51]

The key, Wright argues, is the Holy Spirit who sets us free from slavery and for responsibility—“being able at last to choose, to exercise moral muscle, knowing both that one is doing it oneself and that the Spirit is at work within, that God himself is doing that which I too am doing.”[52] The believer “by persistence in doing good” seeks glory and honor and immortality (Rom 2:7). It is not a matter of earning the final verdict or ever arriving at perfection. “They are seeking it, not earning it.”[53]

This seeking is by means of Spirit-filled living that is a bit of a synergistic paradox—“from one point of view the Spirit is at work, producing these fruits (Galatians 5:22-23), and from another other point of view the person concerned is making the free choices, the increasingly free (because increasingly less constrained by the sinful habits of mind and body) decisions to live a genuinely, fully human life which brings pleasure—of course it does!—to the God in whose image we human beings were made.”[54]

This is the kind of life which leads to a positive final verdict.[55]

The present verdict gives the assurance that the future verdict will match it; the Spirit gives the power through which that future verdict, when given, will be seen to be in accordance with the life that the believer has then lived.[56]    

Both Sanders and Dunn are more to the point and suggest Christianity is kinda, sorta a new flavor of covenantal nomism. Dunn writes that the Torah was both the way of life and the way to life, that we cannot play the two emphases off against one another, and that “NT teaching has the same or at least a very similar inter-relationship.”[57]

As Israel’s status before God was rooted in God’s covenant initiative, so for Paul, Christians’ status before God is rooted in the grace manifested in and through Christ. And as Israel’s continuation within that covenant relationship depended in substantial measure on Israel’s obedience of the covenant law, so for Paul the Christians’ continuation to the end depends on their continuing in faith and on living out their faith through love.[58]

The difference is that the New Covenant believer has the Spirit, and so the Christian must walk by the Spirit and “to fulfill the requirements of the law.”[59] Sanders sees Paul as more transforming old categories than dressing them in new clothes. The apostle uses “participationist transfers terms” to describe his doctrine of salvation:

The heart of Paul’s thought is not that one ratifies and agrees to a covenant offered by God, becoming a member of a group with a covenantal relation with God and remaining in it on the condition of proper behaviour; but that one dies with Christ, obtaining new life and the initial transformation which leads to the resurrection and ultimate transformation, that one is a member of the body of Christ and one Spirit with him, and that one remains so unless one breaks the participatory union by forming another.[60]

If you break the union (by defecting and not repenting), then you are out—“good deeds are the condition of remaining ‘in’, but they do not earn salvation.”[61]

What does it matter?

This matters because the NPP will interpret Galatians and Romans quite differently.

  • Judaism is a religion of grace, forgiveness, and atonement—not of legalism.
  • This means Paul is not fighting against legalists. Luther and the Reformers are wrong on this point. So is every major creed and confession the Protestant world has produced in the past 400 years. Like people staring up at the sun and assuming it orbits the earth, the traditional perspective sees but does not understand.[62]
  • Paul’s real problem is a mis-guided Jewish nationalism its agitators do not realize is now obsolete.
  • So, the “works of the law” Paul rails against are not legalist impulses but Jewish “identity markers.” Being a covenant member means an obligation to be set apart and to “live Jewishly.” The agitators do not realize this is now superseded in union with Christ. So, in this context, “justification by faith” means observing Jesus and the indwelling of the Spirit as the new boundary markers.
  • The traditional understanding of “justification” is wrong. It may mean observing these new boundary markers instead of the old (Dunn). Or, according to Wright, it might mean “covenant faithfulness,” in that God is bringing His “single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world” to fruition (eschatology), on the basis of His declaration that Jesus acquits His people of their legal guilt (lawcourt), because He made promises to Abraham He intends to fulfill (covenant).

This alternative grid produces quite different interpretations of seemingly “obvious” passages. For example, the apostle Paul writes this about ethnic Jewish people:

For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness (Romans 10:2-3).

According to N.T. Wright, this “zeal … not based on knowledge” refers to the mistaken impression that Israel was not the center of the world. God intended to work not just for them, but through them for a greater plan for the world. As far as “establishing their own righteousness” goes, Paul means that “they have not recognized the nature, shape and purpose of their own controlling narrative … and have supposed that it was a story about themselves rather than about the Creator and the cosmos, with themselves playing the crucial, linchpin role.”[63]

In other words, these passages are about misguided Jewish nationalism, not legalism. Christians (especially pastors) should be familiar with the broad outlines of this newer interpretive grid. Pondering these challenges will both sharpen dull edges in our own understanding and strengthen convictions in the face of alternative challenges. It might even change some minds—the Spirit still has more to teach His church!


[1] Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), p. 884.

[2] Millard Erickson, The Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology, revised ed. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), s.v. “justification by faith,” p. 108

[3] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (reprint; Peabody: Hendriksen, 2012), 3.11.23 

[4] Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.3.

[5] Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger, vol. 2 (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992–1997), 16.3.2.

[6] Hercules Collins, An Orthodox Catechism: Being the Sum of Christian Religion, Contained in the Law and Gospel, ed(s). Machael Haykin and G. Stephen Weaver, Jr. (Palmdale: RBAP, 2014), A55.

[7] Erickson, Christian Theology, p. 884.

[8] Turretin, Institutes, 16.3.5.

[9] 1833 New Hampshire Confession of Faith, Art. V, quoted in Phillip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. 3 (New York: Harper & Bros., 1882), pp. 743-744.

[10] Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.1.

[11] Thomas Oden, Classical Christianity: A Systematic Theology (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2009), p. 584.

[12] James K. Bielby and Paul R. Eddy, “Justification in Contemporary Debate,” in Justification: Five Views (Downers Grove: IVP, 2011), p. 57.

[13] N.T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), loc. 233-234.

[14] James D. G. Dunn, “New Perspective View,” in Justification: Five Views, pp. 176, 177.

[15] Dunn, “The New Perspective on Paul: Whence, what and whither?” in The New Perspective on Paul, revised ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005),p. 36.

[16] Three of these issues are from Dunn, “New Perspective View,” p. 177.

[17] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” p. 180.

[18] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” p. 181.

[19] E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 40th anniversary ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017), p. 75.

[20] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” p. 182.

[21] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” pp. 182-183.

[22] Dunn, “Whence, what and whither?” pp. 12-13.  

[23] Dunn, “Whence, what and whither?” pp. 30-31.

[24] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” pp. 186-187.

[25] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” pp. 189.

[26] Bielby and Eddy, “Justification in Contemporary Debate,” in Justification: Five Views, p. 60.

[27] Bielby and Eddy, “Justification in Contemporary Debate,” in Justification: Five Views, p. 58.

[28] Dunn, “Whence, what and whither?,” in New Perspective, pp. 27-28.  

[29] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” p. 195.

[30] Wright, Justification, loc. 987.

[31] Wright, Justification, loc. 994.

[32] Wright, Justification, loc. 1002-1005.

[33] “If ‘imputed righteousness’ is so utterly central, so nerve-janglingly vital, so standing-and-falling-church and-falling-church important as John Piper makes out, isn’t it strange that Paul never actually came straight out and said it?” (Wright, Justification, loc. 453-454).

[34] Wright, Justification, loc. 1938.

[35] Wright, Justification, loc. 2216.

[36] Wright, Justification, loc. 2747-2748. “We note in particular that the ‘obedience’ of Christ is not designed to amass a treasury of merit which can then be ‘reckoned’ to the believer, as in some Reformed schemes of thought …”

[37] Wright, Justification, loc. 307-309.

[38] Wright, Justification, loc. 1041-1042.

[39] Wright, Justification, loc. 649f.

[40] Wright, Justification, loc. 546f.

[41] “[M]any first-century Jews thought of themselves as living in a continuing narrative stretching from earliest times, through ancient prophecies, and on toward a climactic moment of deliverance which might come at any moment … this continuing narrative was currently seen, on the basis of Daniel 9, as a long passage through a state of continuing ‘exile’ … The very same attribute of God because of which God was right to punish Israel with the curse of exile—i.e., his righteousness—can now be appealed to for covenantal restoration the other side of punishment,” (Wright, Justification, loc. 601-602, 609, 653-655).

In his Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013; Kindle ed.), Wright helpfully explains: “… the covenant, YHWH’s choice of Israel as his people, was aimed not simply at Israel itself, but at the wider and larger purposes which this God intended to fulfil through Israel. Israel is God’s servant; and the point of having a servant is not that the servant becomes one’s best friend, though that may happen too, but in order that, through the work of the servant, one may get things done. And what YHWH wants done, it seems, is for his glory to extend throughout the earth, for all nations to see and hear who he is and what he has done …

The particular calling of Israel, according to these passages, would seem to be that through Israel the creator God will bring his sovereign rule to bear on the world. Israel’s specialness would consist of this nation being ‘holy,’ separate from the others, but not merely for its own sake; rather, for the sake of the larger entity, the rest of the world,” (pp. 804-805, emphases in original).

[42] Wright, Justification, loc. 163-164.

[43] Wright, Justification, loc. 948f.

[44] Wright, Justification, loc. 326-329.

[45] Wright, Justification, loc. 1131-1134.

[46] Wright, Justification, loc. 2163-2164.

[47] Wright, Justification, loc. 2183-2184.

[48] Wright, Justification, loc. 2174.

[49] Wright, Justification, loc. 2168.

[50] Wright, Justification, loc. 2200-2201.

[51] Wright, Justification, loc. 2220.

[52] Wright, Justification, loc. 2230-2232.

[53] Wright, Justification, loc. 2266.

[54] Wright, Justification, loc. 2267-2270.

[55] “Humans become genuinely human, genuinely free, when the Spirit is at work within them so that they choose to act, and choose to become people who more and more naturally act (that is the point of ‘virtue,’ as long as we realize it is now ‘second nature,’ not primary), in ways which reflect God’s image, which give him pleasure, which bring glory to his name, which do what the law had in mind all along. That is the life that leads to the final verdict, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’” (Wright, Justification, loc. 2279-2282).

[56] Wright, Justification, loc. 3058-3060.

[57] Dunn, “Whence, when and whither?,” pp. 74-75.  

[58] Dunn, “New Perspective View,” pp. 199-200.

[59] Dunn, “Whence, when and whither?,” pp. 84-85.  

[60] Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 513.

[61] Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 517.

[62] Wright, Justification, loc. 101-114.

[63] Wright, Justification, loc. 2966-2967.

What is Providence?

What is Providence?

Providence is what Christians call “God governing things to turn out like He decided.” Either God is trying really hard to make something work, or He directs and controls reality. The scriptures tell us the second option is the right one. But, how does this work? This bible study considers what the scriptures have to say about this issue, and why it matters for your life.

Here are three resources that you might find helpful when considering this topic:

  1. Thomas Watson, “A Body of Divinity,” pp. 89-95.
  2. 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, ch. 5.
  3. 1618 Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 13.

Romans 1 isn’t “about” homosexuality

Romans 1 isn’t “about” homosexuality

Christian brothers and sisters often read Scripture in very different ways. I suspect it goes back to two things; (1) what theologians call “prolegomena”—how we “do” theology, and (2) what Scripture is—its nature. The latter will often inform the former.

Is Scripture a yet-to-be systematized “code book of theological ordinances?”[1] A “store-house of facts”[2] or a “transcript from God”[3] waiting to be classified by inductive reasoning?  Christian Smith calls this the “handbook model” of interpretation,[4] where the Scriptures are a compendium of teachings on an endless array of subjects—romance, politics, the 2nd Amendment, economics, and even dieting.

Did God give us the Bible so we could distill from it advice for dieting? Alternative medicine? Cooking? Gardening with biblical plants? Politics? I hope we can agree not. Still, some interpreters insist we can cull disparate facts from our store-house of Scripture and discern God’s thoughts on various topics.

This is an unwise approach. At best, it makes God “say” things out of context. At worst, it makes God “say” things He actually never said—like tips on “biblical strategies” for financial freedom.

This article will provide one example—is Romans 1 “about” homosexuality? To be sure, it discusses and condemns sexual deviancy, but is that what it’s “about”? Surely not. Yet, many Christians disagree because they have an implicit “handbook” or “store-house” view of Scripture. So, Romans 1 is “about” homosexuality, and 1 John 2:2 is “about” the atonement! 

What Romans 1 is really about

Take a stroll through Romans 1-3 with me, and I’ll show you what I mean. I’ll begin at Romans 1:18 …

God is upset at everyone who rejects Him, no matter who they are—we all “silence the truth with injustice” (Rom 1:18). Why the anger? Because we ought to know God is there, that He exists, and that must mean He holds us responsible for ignoring the markers in nature that point us to Him. Who made this? Who sustains it? How did this all get here? God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and Godhead—“have been clearly seen, because they are understood through the things God has made,” (Rom 1:20). We can catch glimmers of God from creation. So, we’re all without excuse.

The problem is that we don’t care, and so our “foolish hearts were darkened,” (Rom 1:21). Just like Fleetwood Mac, we go our own way. A spiritual incompetence and degeneracy sets in, growing ever worse with the passage of time. We worship other things—absurd things (Rom 1:23). “So, God abandoned them to their heart’s desires,” which results in a further spiral down the moral abyss (Rom 1:24).

God made us to be a certain way—to find purpose and solace in (1) our vertical relationship with Him and then, as the fruit of this communion, (2) in proper relationship with one another. The problem is that, when our vertical relationship with God is twisted (the most basic foundation for reality), then our most precious horizontal relationships with one another will be twisted, too (Rom 1:24).  

This is why God abandons us to our “degrading lust” (Rom 1:26, restating v. 24)—because we chose to worship things of this world rather than God (Rom 1:25). What happens is that we twist even our closest, most precious relationships—love and sexual union—out of all bounds (Rom 1:26b-27). Just as we didn’t acknowledge God, so God chooses in some circumstances to not acknowledge us (Rom 1:28)—to stop restraining our evil impulses, to walk away and leave us to destroy ourselves, as it were.

What results is akin to abandoning a garden for two seasons—a real mess (Rom 1:29-31). In all this, Paul has been describing the same consequence (not a compounding one)—we ignore God, so He lets us go our own way. Sexual deviancy is the penultimate fruit of that sad equation. There are others—all of which damage or destroy our relationships with one another. This is a knowing and willful insurgency, at least on some level (Rom 1:32; cf. Psalm 2:1-3).

So much for the “outsiders,” those who weren’t entrusted with God’s revelation. Surely “insiders” are in a much better state?

This is where Paul launches a broadside against proud externalism—against the same kind of glib smugness that Jesus criticized so powerfully (Lk 18:9-14). Gentiles are so awful, so degenerate, so messy in their sin—who can stand it? Some might be tempted to say (in their hearts, even if not aloud), “Thank God we Christians aren’t like those LGBTQ kooks!”

Well, Paul says, we so-called “insiders” aren’t necessarily better off at all. Don’t judge others when you commit some of the same crimes (Rom 2:1). See, for example, Ted Haggard. God’s love is meant to lead to repentance—to a real change in heart and life (Rom 2:4). After all, God will repay everyone according to their works (Rom 2:6; cf. Ps 62:12). This is the same warning John the Baptist gave (Lk 3:1-14). God can make even stones into children of Abraham—He wants loving obedience, not dead externalism.

Being an insider, being an Israelite, is meaningless in and of itself (Rom 2:7-10). “God does not have favorites,” (Rom 2:11). It’s the ones who actually do the law who are counted as righteous (Rom 2:13), and that means merely being “an insider” gets you no points. In fact, Paul suggests “insiders” will be judged more severely in the end because they had more information (Rom 2:12).

So, he declares, if you’re an “insider” who is an awful hypocrite and an embarrassment to God, you actually have nothing (Rom 2:17-23). “As it is written, ‘The name of God is discredited by the Gentiles because of you,’” (Rom 2:24; cf. Isa 52:5 LXX). The external marks of “membership” in God’s family are pointless in and of themselves—“circumcision is an advantage if you do what the law says,” (Rom 2:25; emphasis mine). In fact, if an ethnic “outsider” loves God by doing what He says, he is a truer believer than a fake “insider” (Rom 2:26).   

Paul says being “in the family” has nothing at all to do with being an Israelite. An “outward circumcision” that doesn’t touch the heart, the spirit, the affections, is nothing (Rom 2:28). “Instead, it is the person who is a Jew inside, who is circumcised in spirit, not literally” (Rom 2:29) who is a true “Jew,” that is, a true member of God’s family, a true child of Abraham (Gal 3:26-29). 

“So, what’s the advantage of being a Jew? Or what’s the benefit of circumcision?” (Rom 3:1). Paul knows Israelites will be tempted to scoff and demand answers. What’s the advantage, then? Well, plenty! Jews were trusted to be custodians of God’s truth (Rom 3:2). But, God’s faithfulness doesn’t evaporate because of an insider’s unfaithfulness (Rom 3:3-4). This doesn’t mean our faithfulness doesn’t matter, of course (Rom 3:5-9).

“So, what are we saying?” Paul asks (Rom 3:9). This is the heart of his message—the destination he’s been working towards since the first chapter of the letter—“both Jews and Greeks are all under the power of sin,” (Rom 3:9). Romans 1 isn’t “about” sexual deviancy. Romans 2 isn’t “about” pride and externalism. The letter condemns both in the strongest terms. But, Romans 1-3 is about something much simpler—no matter who you are (a homosexual, a trans individual, a proud Baptist, or an adulterous hypocrite), you’re a slave to sin right now unless you trust in Jesus. There is no “inside track” to salvation. No such thing as a “beyond the pale” outsider. We’re all born as outsiders (homosexuals, trans people, proud Methodists, and angry drunks alike), and we each need Jesus to rescue us from our own private hells.  

Paul then produces a catena of quotations from Psalm 14 and 53 to show this to us—“there is no righteous person, not even one,” (Rom 3:10). The law shows this to us, it unveils who we really are, it breaks us and makes us admit to ourselves (if nobody else) that we cannot be good enough (Rom 3:19-20).

So, we’re left with a problem—how shall this breach between us and God be reconciled? As the Dread Pirate Roberts once remarked, “if there can be no arrangement, then we are at an impasse …” But, God has made an arrangement. Righteousness doesn’t come from the law at all. It comes “through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who have faith in Him. There’s no distinction,” (Rom 3:22).

This is the context for those famous words so many believers memorize: “All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, but all are treated as righteous freely by his grace because of a ransom that was paid by Christ Jesus,” (Rom 3:23-24). Most English translations have “redemption” for the CEB’s “ransom,” but that’s a word choice that’s lost its power and become “churchy” and safe. The word means liberation from slavery, from a kidnapper, after a price has been paid. In this way, through the liberation Jesus effects, God both demonstrates He didn’t “forgive and forget” about all the sins we committed in times past (cf. Heb 9:15), or the one’s we commit now. Thus “he treats the one who has faith in Jesus as righteous,” (Rom 3:25-26).

Bragging has no place among God’s children, because our righteousness is predicated on faith in Jesus, not on “keeping” the law (Rom 3:27-28). Adoption into God’s family isn’t a Jewish thing—it’s for any and everyone. “Yes, God is also the God of the Gentiles,” (Rom 3:29). Whether you’re an “insider” or an “outsider,” God can make you righteous if you have faith in Jesus (Rom 3:30). Whoever you are, your only hope is to trust in Jesus. Not in your ancestry. Not in your head knowledge of the Scriptures. But, in Jesus.

This is what Romans 1:18-3:30 is “about.” Not sexual deviancy. It contains a discussion on sexual deviancy, but only in service of a more basic point—we’ve all (every one of us—“insider” or “outsider”) sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, and only Jesus can make us righteous. Ironically, when Christians cry “Romans 1” in frustration and disgust, and shake their heads sadly at “what’s happening to our country,” they may well run afoul of Paul’s warnings from Romans 2—our own sins of hypocrisy or priggish self-righteousness may render us just as guilty

Can we do better than this?

This article is not a veiled proclamation of my own “deconstruction.” It’s an example of what I believe is a better way to read Scripture. It considers the text in its context, not as a repository of data to be molded according to taste into an a la carte buffet of categories. There are other examples:

  • 1 Corinthians 7 isn’t “about” how wives must give their husbands sex.
  • John 5:26 isn’t “about” eternal generation.
  • 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 isn’t “about” the rapture.
  • Genesis 10 isn’t “about” how mankind “failed” a “test,” making it necessary for God to initiate a new “dispensation” with Abraham.

You may sincerely believe the texts contain these things, but in no conceivable world are they “about” those subjects. And, if that’s true, then should we wrench these passages out of Hodge’s “store-house” to add them to a systematic casserole we’re cooking up to answer a question the writer wasn’t addressing, in that context?

No, we should not.   

Space is fleeting, so I’ll toss out some grenades for thought and retire into the night.

  1. It seems to me that the Wesleyan Quadrilateral is a more fruitful approach to doing theology. It guards against the frigid scholasticism Horace Bushnell warned about so passionately in his 1848 address “Dogma and Spirit.”[5] The Quadrilateral tempers a frigid rationalism and dogmatism with spiritual experience, reason, and historical theology. It promotes an evangelical catholicity, which I well know is not always reckoned as a virtue.
  2. Donald Bloesch is representative of a method which sees revelation as “truth + event.” We cognitively receive truth from Scripture, then God communicates and confronts us by the Spirit. “Revelation happened in a final and definitive form in the apostolic encounter with Jesus Christ. But revelation [in the sense of truth + Spirit-directed encounter-event] happens again and again in the experience of the Spirit in Christ.”[6] There is a conjunction between (1) the Word of God, and (2) sacred Scripture, (3) by the action of the Spirit.[7]
  3. In contrast, Hodge declares the Spirit has no true revelatory role; He only illuminates the bible.[8] Revelation is only static—an objective truth that is “there” on the page. There is no dynamic interplay of “truth + event,” where Scripture is the channel for God to speak.
  4. Many evangelical systematics follow Hodge’s “store-house” approach (e.g. Millard Erickson).[9] For example, Carl F.H. Henry declares that revelation is the (sole?) source for all truth, that we can only recognize that truth by exercising reason, that “logical consistency” and “coherence” (which I take together to basically mean “credible systemization”) are our truth tests, and that “[t]he task of Christian theology is to exhibit the content of biblical revelation as an orderly whole.”[10]

The “store-house” view of Scripture will produce a “Romans 1 is about homosexuality!” result. As you ponder that, remember this—Acts 15 is “about” Baptist polity, too!


[1] Alister McGrath, A Passion for Truth: The Intellectual Coherence of Evangelicalism (Downers Grove: IVP, 1996), p. 170. Quoted in Roger Olson, The Journey of Modern Theology (Downers Grove: IVP, 2013), p. 632. McGrath was criticizing Carl F.H. Henry.

[2] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:10. 

[3] Donald Bloesch, Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration & Interpretation (Downers Grove: IVP, 1994), p. 65.

[4] Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2012), p. 5. 

[5] See the anthology titled Horace Bushnell, ed. H. Shelton Smith (New York: Oxford, 1965), pp. 43-68.  

[6] Bloesch, Holy Scripture, p. 50.  

[7] Bloesch, Holy Scripture, p. 58.  

[8] “Although the inward teaching of the Spirit, or religious experience, is no substitute for an external revelation, and is no part of the rule of faith, it is, nevertheless, an invaluable guide in determining what the rule of faith teaches,” (Hodge, Systematic, 1:16).

[9] Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), pp. 53-65.

[10] Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 1 (Waco: Word, 1976), p. 215.

Questions and Answers … about Scripture

Questions and Answers … about Scripture

I’m writing a short book about what Christians believe by doing an exposition of the 1833 New Hampshire Confession of Faith. This is a beautiful Baptist confession that’s the basis for the GARBC Articles of Faith, and the SBC’s Baptist Faith and Message 2000, among others. My audience is the ordinary, interested Christian. I explain the Confession by asking a series of questions of each Article. Here’s the first section …

Article 1

We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction;[1] that it has God for its author, salvation for its end,[2] and truth without any mixture of error for its matter;[3] that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us;[4] and therefore is, and shall remain to the end of the world, the true centre of Christian union,[5] and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions should be tried.[6]

1833 New Hampshire Confession of Faith, Article 1

1.1. What does it mean that the men who wrote the Scriptures were “divinely inspired?”

The Apostle Paul said all scripture was “inspired by God” (2 Timothy 3:16), which means He gives it life, animates it, creates it. It means the Holy Spirit guided the authors to write just what He wanted, down to the level of individual word choice, while still retaining each author’s unique personality, style, and voice. God makes us as we are—shaping us from birth, molding our personalities and gifts. This means when He used, say, the Apostle John or Moses to write scripture, He was using special people He’d been preparing for a long time. The Apostle Peter explained spoken prophecy a similar way when he wrote that the Holy Spirit “led” people to speak for God (2 Peter 1:21).

So, this isn’t dictation, as if God seized the Apostle Peter’s hand and guided him like a robot, the way the rat Remy directed the hapless boy Linguini to cook, in the movie Ratatouille. Instead, it seemed to be an almost unconscious partnership, where God provided thoughts and impressions to people, who wrote what He wanted them to write, which is what He’d planned all along.[7] The Holy Spirit worked on people’s hearts and minds, moving them to remember and understand God’s truth, and to record it as He wanted.[8] This is why Luke tells us the Holy Spirit spoke through David (Acts 1:16), and the Apostle Peter referred to the Book of Deuteronomy and said, “God spoke long ago through his holy prophets,” (Acts 3:21).

1.2. In what way is Scripture a “perfect treasure” for us?

Because it has everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). A long time ago, one Baptist theologian wrote “[t]he Bible is the collection of writings which explains to him the life he has found in Christ.”[9] Like a fantasy epic, it slowly unfolds the true story of reality. It tells us how creation began, who we are, why we’re here, what’s wrong in this world, what’s wrong with us, how we find hope, and how this world will end. In this way, it’s a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction.

It is important to note that scripture does nothing in and of itself—it’s simply a vehicle for God to work. In order for this “perfect treasure of heavenly instruction” to work on us, we need a divine encounter + the message of the scripture + an honest reception and acknowledgment by a believing heart. In other words, the bible isn’t an IKEA instruction manual. You can’t read John 3, do what it says by rote, and “be all good.”

There must be an initial divine encounter. God must confront you for salvation in the person of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. He then confronts you for growth as you grow in the faith and read the scripture, applying the message to your life, enabling your heart to receive and be instructed by that message.  

1.3. What does it mean that the Bible has “salvation for its end”?

It means the Bible’s purpose is to tell us about the salvation God offers through Jesus Christ. There are many ways to sum up the Bible’s message. But, the basic “story” is that God is choosing and rescuing a special people to be with Him forever in His future kingdom community. Why is God saving or “rescuing” people? John 3:16 doesn’t exist for its own sake—it’s in aid of something more … something like a kingdom community. Revelation 21-22 shows us this.

Here is one way to picture the Bible’s story of “salvation for community” as an eight-episode mini-series:

1.4. Truth without any mixture of error? Is the Bible without error?

Solomon said God’s words were “tried and true, a shield for those who take refuge in Him,” (Prov 30:5). His promises are pure (Ps 12:6). The first thing to know about God’s word is that it’s true (Ps 119:160). Jesus said His word is truth (Jn 17:17). The Apostle Paul declared that God must be true, even if every person on earth is a liar (Rom 3:4).

Some Christians prefer to say the Scriptures have no errors and are therefore “inerrant.” But, as the passages above suggest, it’s more helpful to say the Scriptures are totally truthful in all they affirm, and are therefore His safe and reliable guide for His adopted children. This is more helpful because you’re framing it in a positive manner. You could say your child is “never bad.” But, it’s better to say “Peter is a nice, sweet boy.” It’s the same way with God’s word—it’s totally truthful and reliable.

The Scriptures came to us from many writers over 1,500 years. Each book came from the unique personality of its writer, each book uses the culture of its own time as the vehicle for revelation, and the writers used very different genres or styles.[10] This means we must take very good care to be sure we’re understanding it correctly, according to those personalities, cultures, and genre.[11]

For example, regarding personality, the Apostle Paul was a very educated man, which is why he wrote the Letter to the Romans and Peter did not. On culture, you’ll find it difficult to understand the prophet Hosea’s thunderous denunciation of the Northern Kingdom unless you know that he wrote it during Jeroboam II’s reign, when that kingdom was at its secular and economic zenith. When it comes to genre, if you understand that, say, Zechariah and Revelation were written in an apocalyptic style that’s intended to paint large, abstract pictures with startling imagery using figures that made sense to their own authors, in their own time … then you won’t spend time “decoding” the color of horses (Zech 1:7-17) or looking for a woman on top of a seven-headed monster (Rev 17:3f).  

The problem is when people confuse their interpretation of the Bible with the Bible itself. If you do that, when you find someone who has a different interpretation, you might say, “he doesn’t believe the Bible!” Maybe. Or, maybe not! You must always remember two things; (1) your interpretation is not always the same thing as the Bible, and (2) some questions are really hard, and scriptural evidence may indicate more than one reasonable conclusion.

Finally, remember that the scriptures aren’t an encyclopedia, a geology book, or an astronomy text. They’re a collection of books which tell us how we got here, what went wrong, how God can rescue us, and what His plans are. God could have given us inspired texts about biology, physics, chemistry, and more. But, He didn’t. He gave us revelation that is “a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction” which has “salvation for its end.” Evaluate its total truthfulness in that light.  “We must let the Bible tell us its own story and not hold it to false standards and tests.”[12]

1.5. What are the principles by which God will judge us all, one day?

There are two great questions every person will face: (1) have you repented and believed the Gospel, and if so, (2) have you served Christ with your life since your conversion?

You can think of the first question as a screening process—those who do not pledge loyalty to Christ don’t get the second question. The first question determines eternal destiny. The second question is about your faithfulness as Christ’s servant during the rest of your earthly life—your life will show what’s in your heart (Mt 12:33-35, 15:16-20, 16:24-25).

Jesus was clear about the first question. He told people to repent and believe His good news (Mk 1:15). His Gospel was about more than individual salvation; it was the promise to bring justice to a new society and liberate the oppressed (Isa 11:1-12; esp. v.4; Ps 72:4), to kill the wicked (Isa 11:4), to reverse the curse of the Fall (Isa 35:5-6; Mt 11:2-6)—all on the condition of loyalty, allegiance, of faith. It was the promise to fix this world and to fix each of us—everyone who comes for rescue. If you don’t believe the Son, God’s angry judgment remains on you (Jn 3:36).

The second great principle is about what a Christians builds atop the foundation of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 3:10-15). You’re a Christian—now what? What kind of “house” are you building on that foundation; a cheap one or a quality one? Do you use the cheapest materials, like wood, grass or hay? Or, do you use the finest ones—gold, silver, precious stones?

Christians often want to know what these “gold, silver, and precious stones” are! This isn’t the place to make a list, but surely things like (1) reading God’s word, (2) prayer, (3) a life of repentance, (4) a thirst for God to gradually change your heart, mind, and life to reflect Christ’s image, (5) membership in and service to your church community, and (6) sharing the Good News (which can take a whole lot of forms) must be on the list.

The scriptures tell us about all of this, in so many ways. It reveals these two great principles by which Christ will judge us.

1.6. What does it mean that the Bible is the “true center of Christian union?”

Christians can theoretically be on the same page, because we have the same book. The Apostle Paul said, “I encourage you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: Agree with each other and don’t be divided into rival groups. Instead, be restored with the same mind and the same purpose,” (1 Cor 1:10). How do we overcome rivalries? By bowing down, together, under the authority of God through the scriptures. By evaluating our denominational traditions and habits through the filter of the Word.

In another place, Paul wrote this:

… make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together. You are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.

Ephesians 4:3-6

How can Christians from different traditions not see themselves as enemies, but as family? How to preserve unity? By remembering that we’re each part of one body, because God called us by the same hope. There is one, triune Lord to love, one faith in Christ to confess, one baptism by the Spirit that changes our hearts, and one God the Father of us all. Where do we learn about all this, so we can be brought back to these truths? In the scriptures. This is why the Bible is the true center of Christian union. It’s the reference point for all matters of faith and life.

The question inevitably comes—why, then, are there so many Christian denominations? Well, because we disagree about interpretations of that faith and life. These are inter-family disputes that don’t change the fact that all true Christians are family. It’s a sad thing that some believers forget that.

The next question—who is a true Christian? How do we know who is inside the family, so we know with whom we ought to seek union? If a person has repented, believed the Gospel, and has Christian fruit in her life as a mark of the new birth, then she is a Christian.  

1.7. Says who? The Bible as the “supreme standard.”

Teachers are good. Pastors are called by God. Books are a blessing. But, the only infallible source of authority for the Christian life are the scriptures. This is why the bible is the “supreme standard” by which you measure anything else.


[1] 2 Tim. 3:16, 17; 2 Pet. 1:21; 2 Sam. 23:2; Acts 1:16; 3:21; John 10:35; Luke 16:29–31; Psa. 119:111; Rom. 3:1. 2.

[2] 2 Tim. 3:15; 1 Pet. 1:10–12; Acts 11:14; Rom. 1:16; Mark 16:16; John 5:38, 39.

[3] Prov. 30:5, 6; John 17:17; Rev. 22:18, 19; Rom. 3:4.

[4] Rom. 2:12; John 12:47, 48; 1 Cor. 4:3, 4; Luke 10:10–16; 12:47, 48.

[5] Phil. 3:6; Eph. 4:3–6; Phil. 2:1, 2; 1 Cor. 1:10; 1 Pet. 4:11.

[6] 1 John 4:1; Isa. 8:20; 1 Thess. 5:21; 2 Cor. 13:5; Acts 17:11; 1 John 4:6; Jude 3:5; Eph. 6:17; Psa. 119:59, 60; Phil. 1:9–11.

[7] See Augustus H. Strong’s discussion of the “dynamic theory” of scriptural inspiration, in Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1907), pp. 196, 211f. 

[8] Alvah Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (New York: Silver, Burdett and Co., 1900), p. 63.  

[9] Edgar Y. Mullins, The Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression (Philadelphia: Roger Williams Press, 1917), p. 153.

[10] For more on this, see especially Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1970), pp. 201-214. For specific principles at the intersection of science and scripture, see Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), pp. 17-117, 347-351.

[11] Donald Bloesch wrote, “The truthfulness of the Bible resides in the divine author of Scripture who speaks in and through the words of human authors, who ipso facto reflect the limitations and ambiguities of their cultural and historical milieu,” (Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration & Interpretation (Downers Grove: IVP, 1994), p. 37).

[12] Mullins, Christian Religion, p. 153. Blosech makes a similar point, “The biblical text is entirely truthful; when it is seen in relation to its divine center, God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ,” (Holy Scripture, p. 37).

A kingdom without borders

A kingdom without borders

This Sunday, I preached on Epiphany, which is when the Church around the world celebrates the revelation of the Gospel to the Gentiles, often in the person of the magi who came from the East to worship the Christ child in Bethlehem. This precious event shows us that God’s kingdom is one without borders, where anyone who thirsts for righteousness can enter in.

Here, I’ll provide the sermon, along with the introduction and concluding exhortation.

Same song, different day

Picture three scenes. They have very different contexts, but they each have something in common. Try to figure out what that is:

Scene 1: A.D. 57:[1] Paul is arrested in Jerusalem, charged with bringing Gentiles into the inner courtyard (Acts 21:27-36)—this “crime” doesn’t exist in the Old Covenant!

Scene 2: A resolution from the Clarendon Baptist Church, in Alcolu, SC, in October 1957, in the wake of cultural backlash against the Brown v. Board of Education decision:[2]

We believe that integration is contrary to God’s purposes for the races, because: (1) God made men different races and ordained the basic differences between races; (2) Race has a purpose in the Divine plan, each race having a unique purpose and distinctive mission in God’s plan; (3) God meant for people of different races to maintain their race purity and racial indentity [sic] and seek the highest development of their racial group. God has determined “the bounds of their habitation

Scene 3: Post 9/11 America. Conservative evangelical Christians ramped up their anti-Muslim rhetoric.[3] You hear repeated statements about how Islam is bloodthirsty, a religion of hate. Jerry Vines, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, declared Muhammad was a “demon-possessed pedophile.” A church member gave me a book that argued that the antichrist will be a Muslim. There arose a cottage industry of evangelical charlatans who claimed they were former terrorists who knew “the truth” about Islam. I heard a missionary’s wife refer angrily to Muslims as “bastards of Islam.

What do these three scenes have in common?

The urge to exclude people “not like us” (whatever that “us” might be, it doesn’t matter what) from God’s kingdom—implicitly or explicitly:

  • Scene 1. There is no biblical warrant for a physical barrier between Court of Gentiles and the temple proper.
  • Scene 2. No biblical warrant for segregation in God’s family based on race.[4]
  • Scene 3. The implicit (and often explicit) message was, “Muslims are dangerous, Muslims will kill you, and President Obama is likely a Muslim who wants to impose sharia law.”

What does God say about this urge, this tendency of ours, that’s common to every culture? Who can join God’s kingdom?

Our passage today, from Matthew 2:1-12, tells us all about that. We’ll tackle it in two movements–(1) the foreigners arrive in Jerusalem, and (2) the foreigners arrive in Bethlehem.

Greek translation nerdiness

I translated two portions of the passage. I put that info here, just because I can’t think of another place they ought to go. If you know Koine Greek, and you’re interested in my translation and my syntax notes, then read on. Otherwise, skip this section.

Matthew 2:1-2 translation

Now, after[5] this Jesus[6] was born in Judean[7] Bethlehem in the days of Herod the King—listen to this, now![8]astrological scholars [9] from the East arrived in Jerusalem. They were asking everyone, [10] “Where is the newborn King of the Jews?[11] We[12] saw his star from[13] the East and we’ve come to worship him!”[14]

Matthew 2:9-11 translation

Now, after they heard from the king, they went out—and look![15]the star they’d seen in the East led them onward, until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When[16] they saw the star, they rejoiced with an unspeakable joy.[17] They went[18] into the house and saw the child with Mary,  his mother, and they fell on their knees[19] and worshiped[20] the boy. Then, they opened up their strongboxes and presented the child with gifts[21]—gold, worship incense,[22] and fragrant ointment.

Exhortation

Why did God bring these Eastern scholars to Bethlehem, that night?[23] Because the angels made the same announcement to them, that they made to the shepherds up to two years before, at the same time—it just took them nearly two years to get there!

Contrast that with what passed for the “Jewish nation,” at the seat of power in Jerusalem:

  • a dying, homicidal king—with delusions of grandeur!—who hatches a plan to kill the Messiah
  • scribes who are the worst example of civil servants = they can tell the scholars how to find the Messiah, but can’t be bothered to worship Him themselves![24]

Why did nobody else follow that star that dark night outside Jerusalem, to see what it meant? It’s possible these scholars from the East will rise up in judgment with the Queen of Sheba and the people of Nineveh (Mt 12:41-42)—because they believed when they had so little revelation. But the folks who ought to have known best … didn’t believe a word of it, or were too occupied with their lives to care

What is God teaching us?

  • That His kingdom has never had nationalist borders—it’s always been open to anyone who worships and obeys Christ. 
  • That sometimes the people who “know God” don’t Him at all.

What does God want us to do with what He’s saying—how can this make us more like Christ?

  • The church must accept anyone … if they come to worship and obey Christ. The shape of truth application depends on context. In Jesus’ cultural context, it meant non-Jews could actually be part of God’s family.
  • In a 2022 American context, it could mean many things. Think of a type of person (a cultural “other,” a true believer) with whom you’d be “uncomfortable” worshiping God on a Sunday morning, and then resolve to shove your discomfort aside.
  • Gentiles in Israel, black Christians in white churches, Muslims in American churches—who will be the next?

Epiphany teaches us that the only borders around God’s kingdom should be:

  • do I believe Christ is Lord and King?
  • have I bowed before Him in worship?   

And now, here is the sermon:


[1] My date here is from F.F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), p. 475.

[2] Quoted in J. Russell Hawkins, The Bible Told Them So: How Southern Evangelicals Fought to Support White Supremacy (New York: Oxford, 2021), p. 45.

[3] See Laurie Goldstein, “Seeing Islam as ‘Evil’ Faith, Evangelicals Seek Converts,” in New York Times. 27 May 2003. https://nyti.ms/3HO1M0A. “Evangelicals have always believed that all other religions are wrong, but what is notable now is the vituperation.” See also FBFI Resolution 02.02 “Concerning Islam.”

[4] On the sociological role of this issue as early as the antebellum era, Mark Noll has written: “It was no coincidence that the biblical defense of slavery remained strongest in the United States, a place where democratic, anti-traditional, and individualistic religion was also strongest. By the nineteenth century, it was an axiom of American public thought that free people should read, think, and reason for themselves. When such a populace, committed to republican and democratic principles, was also a Bible-reading populace, that proslavery biblical case never lacked for persuasive resources,” (The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), p. 34).

[5] The participle γεννηθέντος is temporal.

[6] The article with Jesus in Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ anaphoric. John Broadus notes, “Literally, the Jesus, the one just mentioned; ‘this Jesus’ would be too strong a rendering, but it may help to show the close connection,” (Gospel of Matthew, in American Commentary, ed. Alvah Hovey (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1886), p. 15).

[7] A subjective genitive. There is more than one Bethlehem in the ancient world; e.g. Bethlehem of Zebulun (Josh 19:15). This “Judean Bethlehem” simply clarifies where Jesus was born.

[8] The particle ἰδοὺ is meant to draw attention to what follows. It’s a deliberate interjection to arrest the reader’s attention (BDAG, p. 468). Most EVV don’t translate it, which I think is a mistake. It might not make for smooth literature per se, but it’s what Matthew wrote, and we need to do something to catch the reader’s ear, in the same way.

[9] The terms “wise men” and “magi” communicate nothing. The term has its origins in the court magicians of the East (e.g. in the Babylon of Daniel’s era) who were experts in astrology, interpretations of dreams and visions, and other occult arts (BDAG, p. 608, 1). Later, into the NT era, the term broadened and referred to refer to a wide variety of men interested in dreams, magic, books, astrology, etc. (Carson, Matthew, p. 85).

It’s this last sense that fits best, here. “Matthew is probably using the word in a more general sense for the learned court advisers of Mesopotamia or Persian whose work involved studying ancient and sacred texts, as well as watching for movements of planets and stars that might be interpreted as divine messages,” (Mark Krause, “Wise Men, Magi,” in Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2016). The term could also refer to actual sorcerers or occultists, like the pre-conversion Simon (Acts 8) or the unfortunate Elymas (Acts 13). That is not likely, here.

So, I went with astrological scholars, because of the influence of the star. I could shorten it to “astrologers,” but that makes them sound a bit like New Age kooks.

[10] The participle λέγοντες is present-tense, and the context suggests they were asking repeatedly. Herod only “heard this,” they didn’t ask him directly. Herod sought them out. He could only have heard about their quest if they’d been asking many people, repeatedly. So, I translated this with an iterative flavor. It is attendant circumstance, contra. Quralles (EGGNT, Mt 2:1), whose preference for a purpose participle here would lead to an over-translated mess.

[11] A more literal rendering would be: “where is the one who was born king of the Jews?” (ποῦ ἐστιν ὁ τεχθεὶς βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων). The participle is the subject (Christ), and “king” is a predicate nominative, denoting an attribute the infant had from birth.  

[12] I dropped the explanatory γὰρ completely. 

[13] The preposition is spatial. 

[14] On “worship,” see the discussion at v. 9. Why hadn’t Jerusalem and Bethlehem embraced the boy as the Messiah, in light of the shepherd’s testimonies (cf. Lk 2:17-18)? It’d been two years, after all! Probably for the same reason some Christians today are extremely skeptical at reports that God still performs miracles. For example, few people have heard about Ed Wilkenson and his son, Brad, whom God miraculously healed of an atrial septal defect, with two holes in his heart. The boy and his father prayed for deliverance, and even had special intercession from their church, but all seemed hopeless as the boy went in for surgery. They determined the holes had disappeared, which had not been the case on x-rays done just the day before. The doctors were flabbergasted, and had no explanation. Brad is still fine, is now an adult, and played baseball later that same week. There was no surgery. See the account, with footnotes from personal interviews and review of medical documentation, in Craig Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 1:430-432.

What were these ramblings from these loser shepherds, anyway? Meh. Where’s the video evidence!? Away with them!

[15] Again, we have the particle of interjection, and it must be translated. “[L]ooking up to heaven as

they set out on their journey, they once more behold their heavenly guide,” (A.B. Bruce, The Synoptic Gospels, in Expositors Greek Testament (6th ed.), ed. W. Robertson Nicole (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910), p. 73.

[16] ἰδόντες is an adverbial, temporal participle, contra. Charles Quarles, who believes it is causal (Matthew, in EGGNT, Mt 2:10).  

[17] A literal translation would read something like “they were filled with very great joy” (ἐχάρησαν χαρὰν μεγάλην σφόδρα). The verb is passive, which is curious. It’s well-nigh impossible to replicate a passive sense of ἐχάρησαν, so in English we do an end-run around by changing the verb to something like “were filled,” or we drop the passive sense and do “they rejoiced.”

[18] ἐλθόντες is an attendant circumstance, following along after the exquisite joy they felt when they at last reached their destination, contra, Quarles (EGGNT, Mt 2:10), who thinks it’s temporal.  

[19] Πεσόντες is also attendant circumstance. 

[20] The word means “to express in attitude or gesture one’s complete dependence on or submission to a high authority figure,” (BDAG, p. 882; see also Abbott-Smith, p. 386). It could refer to reverence and submission to a human authority figure with no implication of deity (cf. Mt 20:20). However, the context here is worship to the child as the Messianic King—this is their self-proclaimed mission (Mt 2:2), and Herod and his court know it (Mt 2:3-8). One could quibble whether worship to Christ as divine is in view, or merely as “the king.” Most EVV use “worship,” except for the NEB, REB (“paid homage”) and the CEB (“honored him”). Broadus preferred “do homage,” because the scholars appeared to only honor him as king, not as deity (Matthew, p. 18).

[21] The three gifts which follow are accusatives of apposition, explaining what these gifts are—hence the em-dash.

[22] Λίβανον is a balsamic gum from the Boswellia sacra tree, native to southern Arabia and northern Somaliland. When the material hardened, it produced exquisite resin which was typically used for burning incense in religious ceremonies—including temple liturgy (e.g. Ex 30:34; see James Knox, “Frankincense, in Lexham Bible Dictionary). It is better to render it as “pure incense” or something similar; cf. Jay Adams, John Phillips = “incense,” and Julian Anderson = “fine, sweet-smelling incense.”

[23] I believe we have a solid circumstantial to argue that (1) angels announced the Savior’s birth to these Eastern scholars at the same time as they did to the shepherds in the field (cf. Lk 2:8-20), (2) that they followed the star to find the boy, (3) the star acted as a divine GPS and was not a natural phenomenon, and (4) they just now arrived after perhaps two years journey, to worship the boy. This accounts for (1) how they found out about Christ’s birth, and (2) why their knowledge (i.e. a newborn king of the Jews, born somewhere near Jerusalem) comports so well with the announcement the angels made to the shepherds.

Speculation regarding the star is generally absurd, and Broadus sums it up rather well (for the argument seems to have advanced nowhere since his day!): “Taking Matthew’s language according to its obvious import, we have to set aside the above explanations, and to regard the appearance as miraculous; conjecture as to its nature will then be to no profit. The supernatural is easily admitted here, since there were so many miracles connected with the Saviour’s birth, and the visit of the Magi was an event of great moral significance, fit to be the occasion of a miracle,” (Matthew, p. 17).

[24] Broadus: “The scribes should be a warning to all religious teachers, in the pulpit, the Sunday-school, the family; they told others where to find the Saviour, but did not go to him themselves,” (Matthew, p. 21).

Thinking about Israel and the Church

Thinking about Israel and the Church

Here are some slides about a difficult topic. You shouldn’t mistake this presentation as a definitive assessment, or even fully representative of major positions. There are too many nuances, even within the same circles, to capture here. But still, these slides do a credible job of laying out some broad guardrails to think about this issue. I present three different options, and devote several slides to each one (check the headings).

Here you are …