Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B — exegesis on the Gospel, John 15:1-8

The Fifth Sunday of Easter is April 28, 2024.

Readings for Year B can be found here.

The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):

John 15:1-8

15:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.

15:2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.

15:3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.

15:4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

15:6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

15:7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

15:8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

John MacArthur begins by emphasising the supremacy of Holy Scripture:

The Bible is the authority, the only authority, the only book that God wrote.  It contains 66 books – 39 books in the Old Testament, which is the revelation of God before Christ; 27 books in the New Testament, the revelation of God since the coming of Christ, together makes up the 66 books of the Bible.

In the Bible, God speaks.  It is His Word.  When we come together, we don’t come together to hear men speak, we come to hear God speak.  The responsibility then of the pastor and the preacher is to take the message from God and bring it to the people.  I’ve always seen myself, not as a chef, but as a waiter.  My responsibility is not to create the meal, but try to get it to the table without messing it up.  And that is the responsibility which I try to discharge, as we all do whenever we open Scripture.

So as we come to the 15th chapter of John, like anywhere else in the Bible, we are listening to God.  The writer is the apostle John.  But the writer is also God, the Holy Spirit who inspired every word that John wrote.  Because of this, the Bible is without error, it is accurate, and it is authoritative.  When the Bible speaks, God speaks.  And when God speaks, we listen, because God says to us what we must know.

The Bible should dominate every life and all of human society, for in it is contained all necessary truth for life in time and eternity.  And when a nation or a person rejects the Bible, they have rejected God, and the consequences are dire, dire.  Those who listen to God through His Word are given life and blessing, now and forever.

As I have said before, John’s Gospel is my favourite book of the New Testament. Hebrews is a close second because, even though it was written for a Jewish audience, it explains the essential tenets of Christianity. In the words of Reformed church members, it will enable you to ‘know what you believe and why you believe it’.

John’s Gospel has the most complete account of the Last Supper and our Lord’s final discourse to the Apostles. It starts in John 13 and finishes with our Lord’s prayers for the Twelve and for His people in John 17. Those are chapters one can read over and over again poring over every word.

Matthew Henry gives us a synopsis of John 15:

It is generally agreed that Christ’s discourse in this and the next chapter was at the close of the last supper, the night in which he was betrayed, and it is a continued discourse, not interrupted as that in the foregoing chapter was; and what he chooses to discourse of is very pertinent to the present sad occasion of a farewell sermon. Now that he was about to leave them, I. They would be tempted to leave him, and return to Moses again; and therefore he tells them how necessary it was that they should by faith adhere to him and abide in him. II. They would be tempted to grow strange one to another; and therefore he presses it upon them to love one another, and to keep up that communion when he was gone which had hitherto been their comfort. III. They would be tempted to shrink from their apostleship when they met with hardships; and therefore he prepared them to bear the shock of the world’s ill will. There are four words to which his discourse in this chapter may be reduced; 1. Fruit, ver 1-8. 2. Love, ver 9-17. 3. Hatred, ver 18-25. 4. The Comforter, ver 26, 27.

MacArthur tells us more:

And so we come to the 15th chapter of John.  Just to set the stage a little bit, starting in chapter 13 and running through chapter 16, we find ourselves on Thursday night of Passion Week, the last week of our Lord’s ministry. Thursday night was an important night. He gathered with the 12 disciples to celebrate the Passover on that Thursday night when the Galilean Jews would celebrate it.

They met together in a kind of secret place that we call upper room, and our Lord spent that night telling them many wonderful things, giving them many, many promises.  As that night moved on, our Lord exposed Judas as the traitor, and dismissed him.  And Judas left to go meet the leaders of Israel to arrange for the arrest and subsequent crucifixion of the Lord Jesus.  By the time we come to chapter 15, Judas is gone, and only the 11 are left, and they are true disciples.

But as we come to chapter 15, they’re no longer in the upper room.  It is deep into the dark of night.  But chapter 14 ends with Jesus saying this: “Get up; let us go from here.”  Apparently at that time, they left the upper room, Jesus and the 11, and they began their walk through Jerusalem, headed out the east side of the city to a garden where our Lord would pray in prayer so agonizing that He sweat as it were great drops of blood.  And while He was praying, they would fall asleep.  And into that garden later would come Judas, and the Roman soldiers, and the Jewish leaders to arrest Him.  And there, Judas would kiss him; the betrayal would take place; and the next day, He would be crucified.

As they leave the upper room and walk through the darkness of Jerusalem, our Lord continues to speak to them, and what He says to them is recorded in chapters 15 and 16.  Of all these things that He says, nothing is more definitive than the first eight verses of chapter 15.  Our Lord here gives not really a parable – although I guess in the broadest sense could be considered a parable because it is an illustration.  It’s really a word picture, a metaphor, a simile.

Remember Henry’s words about Christ’s desire to see the Twelve continuing to believe in Him and not turn to the Judaism of the day.

Therefore, Jesus said that He is the vine and that God is the vinegrower (verse 1).

Henry offers a brilliant analysis of this well known verse:

The doctrine of this similitude; what notion we ought to have of it.

1. That Jesus Christ is the vine, the true vine. It is an instance of the humility of Christ that he is pleased to speak of himself under low and humble comparisons. He that is the Sun of righteousness, and the bright and morning Star, compares himself to a vine. The church, which is Christ mystical, is a vine (Ps 80 8), so is Christ, who is the church seminal. Christ and his church are thus set forth. (1.) He is the vine, planted in the vineyard, and not a spontaneous product; planted in the earth, for his is the Word made flesh. The vine has an unsightly unpromising outside; and Christ had no form nor comeliness, Isa 53 2. The vine is a spreading plant, and Christ will be known as salvation to the ends of the earth. The fruit of the vine honours God and cheers man (Judg 9 13), so does the fruit of Christ’s mediation; it is better than gold, Prov 8 19. (2.) He is the true vine, as truth is opposed to pretence and counterfeit; he is really a fruitful plant, a plant of renown. He is not like that wild vine which deceived those who gathered of it (2 Kings 4 39), but a true vine. Unfruitful trees are said to lie (Hab 3 17. marg.), but Christ is a vine that will not deceive. Whatever excellency there is in any creature, serviceable to man, it is but a shadow of that grace which is in Christ for his people’s good. He is that true vine typified by Judah’s vine, which enriched him with the blood of the grape (Gen 49 11), by Joseph’s vine, the branches of which ran over the wall (Gen 49 22), by Israel’s vine, under which he dwelt safely, 1 Kings 4 25.

2. That believers are branches of this vine, which supposes that Christ is the root of the vine. The root is unseen, and our life is hid with Christ; the root bears the tree (Rom 11 18), diffuses sap to it, and is all in all to its flourishing and fruitfulness; and in Christ are all supports and supplies. The branches of the vine are many, some on one side of the house or wall, others on the other side; yet, meeting in the root, are all but one vine; thus all good Christians, though in place and opinion distant from each other, yet meet in Christ, the centre of their unity. Believers, like the branches of the vine, are weak, and insufficient to stand of themselves, but as they are borne up. See Ezek 15 2.

MacArthur points out the importance of the words ‘I am’, which God used to define Himself:

The divine nature of the Lord Jesus Christ is here declared in verse 1: “I am the true vine,” He says.  And in verse 5 again: “I am the vine.”  How is this a claim to deity?  Because of the verb “I am.”

Back in Exodus, chapter 3, when Moses came before God in the wilderness and asked His name, God said, “My name is I Am That I Am.”  The tetragrammaton: the eternally existent one; the one of everlasting being; the always is, and always was, and always will be one.  Theologians call it the aseity of God, the eternal being of God.  He is the I Am.

Throughout His preaching, teaching, healing, discipling ministry, Jesus continually declared that He is God, He is God.  He said things like, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.”

John’s Gospel, the theme of which is Christ’s deity, has several examples of this, some of which follow:

In a context of discussion about the Sabbath, He reminds them that, “The Sabbath doesn’t apply to God because God is at work all the time; and the Sabbath doesn’t really apply to Me either because I, like God, am at work all the time.”  They were infuriated that He would make such a claim.  That was in chapter 5 of John’s gospel.

Later in chapter 8 Jesus said, “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing.  It is My Father who glorifies Me of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’  And therefore if God, who is your God, glorifies Me as God, you ought to also glorify Me.”  And again they were offended at such perceived blasphemy.

In chapter 10, He even said it more concisely: “I and the Father are one, one in nature and essence.”  In that same chapter, chapter 10 and verse 38, He said, “Though you do not believe Me, believe the works that you may know that the Father is in Me and I in the Father.”

All through His life and ministry, He claimed that He is God.  Every time Jesus said, “My Father,” which He said many, many times – every time He said, “My Father,” He was underscoring that He had the same nature as God.  And His Jewish audience did not miss the claim.  They were not at all confused.

In fact, in chapter 5, verse 18, this is what we read: “For this cause, therefore, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but was also calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”  They understood that that is exactly what He was doing, exactly.  And one of the ways that He did that was by taking to Himself the name of God “I Am” and applying it to Himself.

There’s a series of those claims throughout the gospel of John.  He says, “I am the Bread of Life.  I am the Living Bread that came down from heaven.  I am the Light of the World.  I am the Door, I am the Shepherd, the Good Shepherd.  I am the Resurrection and the Life.  I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  And then He makes the stunning, inescapable claim, chapter 8, verse 58, “Before Abraham was born, I am eternally existing.”

Jesus told the Apostles that God the Father removes every branch from Him that bears no fruit; every branch that bears fruit, He prunes so that it bears more fruit (verse 2).

Gardeners will understand that reference immediately. We prune dead wood from plants so that the healthy parts grow more abundantly. Some people prune their first rosebuds so that their rose bushes produce even more buds that will flower a short time later.

Henry says:

That the Father is the husbandman, georgos—the land-worker. Though the earth is the Lord’s, it yields him no fruit unless he work it. God has not only a propriety in, but a care of, the vine and all the branches. He hath planted, and watered, and gives the increase; for we are God’s husbandry, 1 Cor 3 9. See Isa 5 1, 2; 27 2, 3. He had an eye upon Christ, the root, and upheld him, and made him to flourish out of a dry ground. He has an eye upon all the branches, and prunes them, and watches over them, that nothing hurt them. Never was any husbandman so wise, so watchful, about his vineyard, as God is about his church, which therefore must needs prosper.

II. The duty taught us by this similitude, which is to bring forth fruit, and, in order to this, to abide in Christ.

1. We must be fruitful. From a vine we look for grapes (Isa 5 2), and from a Christian we look for Christianity; this is the fruit, a Christian temper and disposition, a Christian life and conversation, Christian devotions and Christian designs. We must honour God, and do good, and exemplify the purity and power of the religion we profess; and this is bearing fruit. The disciples here must be fruitful, as Christians, in all the fruits of righteousness, and as apostles, in diffusing the savour of the knowledge of Christ. To persuade them to this, he urges,

(1.) The doom of the unfruitful (v. 2): They are taken away. [1.] It is here intimated that there are many who pass for branches in Christ who yet do not bear fruit. Were they really united to Christ by faith, they would bear fruit; but being only tied to him by the thread of an outward profession, though they seem to be branches, they will soon be seen to be dry ones. Unfruitful professors are unfaithful professors; professors, and no more. It might be read, Every branch that beareth not fruit in me, and it comes much to one; for those that do not bear fruit in Christ, and in his Spirit and grace, are as if they bore no fruit at all, Hos 10 1. [2.] It is here threatened that they shall be taken away, in justice to them and in kindness to the rest of the branches. From him that has not real union with Christ, and fruit produced thereby, shall be taken away even that which he seemed to have, Luke 8 18. Some think this refers primarily to Judas.

(2.) The promise made to the fruitful: He purgeth them, that they may bring forth more fruit. Note, [1.] Further fruitfulness is the blessed reward of forward fruitfulness. The first blessing was, Be fruitful; and it is still a great blessing. [2.] Even fruitful branches, in order to their further fruitfulness, have need of purging or pruning; kathairei—he taketh away that which is superfluous and luxuriant, which hinders its growth and fruitfulness. The best have that in them which is peccant, aliquid amputandum—something which should be taken away; some notions, passions, or humours, that want to be purged away, which Christ has promised to do by his word, and Spirit, and providence; and these shall be taken off by degrees in the proper season. [3.] The purging of fruitful branches, in order to their greater fruitfulness, is the care and work of the great husbandman, for his own glory.

MacArthur says similarly:

There are branches attached to Him.  They’re all attached.  All the branches are attached.  But the ones that don’t bear fruit are cut off, dried, and burned.  So who are they?  Let me remind you of the context.  This all begins back in chapter 13 in the upper room, and it’s pretty clear that there are two types of disciples in that upper room …

I don’t really think there’s a lot of mystery about the two branches.  What did Jesus have in His mind that night?  They had just left the upper room.  The drama that took place there over Judas, the exposure of Judas, the disciples, when Jesus said, “One of you will betray Me,” they said, “Is it I?  Is it I?  Is it I?” which is to say they had no idea it was Judas.

There was nothing manifestly obvious in the life and character and behavior of Judas that would have distinguished him as a false disciple.  He was visibly attached, and for all intents and purposes, looked like everybody else, did what everybody else did.  But, clearly, there were two kinds of people in that room that night.  There were those who bore fruit and there was that one who did not.  There were those who remained abiding in, remaining in, attached to the vine; and there was that one who’s cut off …

Judas had that very night just a few hours before walked away from Jesus terminally, finally.  He is what the Bible would call an apostate, an ultimate defector.  He had been for three years close, so close that people didn’t even know there was no life.  Judas now was on his way to the leaders of Israel to set up the deal to arrest Jesus to get his 30 pieces of silver, and to go from there to hang himself, and catapult into hell.

This is the reality of that night, and this has to be what’s behind our Lord’s thinking and speaking here.  He needs to explain to these men Judas.  Wouldn’t it seem natural to you that in this intimate talk with the beloved 11 that are still with Him, that they’re all still trying to process Judas.  He was high profile.  He was the one who carried the money, trusted.  They were trying to figure out just, “How did it happen?  Who is he?  How does he fit?  What’s going on?” and our Lord gives us an explanation.

He says, “There are branches that have an outward appearance of attachment, but bear no fruit.  They’re taken away and they’re burned.”  And He has to be thinking of Judas.  Judas, who was in close connection to Him, has left on his way to eternal hell.  And, in fact, the Bible says he went to his own place.  It says it would have been better for him if he’d never been born, Mark 14.

MacArthur clears up a point of confusion about people like Judas losing their faith and, therefore, their salvation. The truth is that Judas never had faith — or fruit — to begin with:

I’ve had some discussions with people around the world about this passage, and folks have said to me, “Well, this is proof that you can be in Christ, you can be attached to Christ, and you can lose your salvation.”  The Bible does not teach that, and the words of our Lord Jesus, in the gospel of John, are very explicit: “My sheep hear My voice – ” using another metaphor “ – and I know them and they follow Me.  And I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand.  My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.  I and My Father are one.  Together, we hold those who belong to our flock.”

In John 6, Jesus said, “All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me and I’ll lose none of them.” 

Ultimately:

This is not talking about believers, fruit-bearing branches that all of a sudden are cut off and thrown into hell.  This is talking about people who are attached, but there’s no life because there’s no fruit.

Jesus told the eleven Apostles that they had been cleansed by the word that He had spoken to them (verse 3).

In the King James Version it reads:

3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

Henry explains what Jesus meant. Part of that meaning also relates to Judas:

Now you are clean, v. 3. [1.] Their society was clean, now that Judas was expelled by that word of Christ, What thou doest, do quickly; and till they were got clear of him they were not all clean. The word of Christ is a distinguishing word, and separates between the precious and the vile; it will purify the church of the first-born in the great dividing day. [2.] They were each of them clean, that is, sanctified, by the truth of Christ (ch. 17 17); that faith by which they received the word of Christ purified their hearts, Acts 15 9. The Spirit of grace by the word refined them from the dross of the world and the flesh, and purged out of them the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees, from which, when they saw their inveterate rage and enmity against their Master, they were now pretty well cleansed. Apply it to all believers. The word of Christ is spoken to them; there is a cleansing virtue in that word, as it works grace, and works out corruption. It cleanses as fire cleanses the gold from its dross, and as physic cleanses the body from its disease. We then evidence that we are cleansed by the word when we bring forth fruit unto holiness. Perhaps here is an allusion to the law concerning vineyards in Canaan; the fruit of them was as unclean, and uncircumcised, the first three years after it was planted, and the fourth year it was to be holiness of praise unto the Lord; and then it was clean, Lev 19 23, 24. The disciples had now been three years under Christ’s instruction; and now you are clean.

Jesus then told the Apostles to abide in Him in the same way He abided in them; just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides on the vine, neither could they bear fruit unless they abided in Him (verse 4).

Henry says:

2. In order to our fruitfulness, we must abide in Christ, must keep up our union with him by faith, and do all we do in religion in the virtue of that union. Here is,

(1.) The duty enjoined (v. 4): Abide in me, and I in you. Note, It is the great concern of all Christ’s disciples constantly to keep up a dependence upon Christ and communion with him, habitually to adhere to him, and actually to derive supplies from him. Those that are come to Christ must abide in him: “Abide in me, by faith; and I in you, by my Spirit; abide in me, and then fear not but I will abide in you;” for the communion between Christ and believers never fails on his side. We must abide in Christ’s word by a regard to it, and it in us as a light to our feet. We must abide in Christ’s merit as our righteousness and plea, and it in us as our support and comfort. The knot of the branch abides in the vine, and the sap of the vine abides in the branch, and so there is a constant communication between them.

MacArthur goes further, saying that Jesus was referring to Israel as a corrupted, wild vine that did not abide in Him:

All the life comes from the vine.  It emphasizes belonging.  If you are connected, you belong.  And I think all of that is true.  But there’s another, much more important reason why He says, “I am the true vine,” and that is because there was a defective vine.

There was a corrupted vine.  There was a degenerate vine.  There was a fruitless vine.  There was an empty vine.  Who?  Israel, Israel.  That’s right.  The covenant people of God, the Jewish people.

Israel is God’s vine in the Old Testament.  In Isaiah 5, Israel as presented as a vine.  God says, “I planted My vine, My vineyard in a very fertile hill,” Isaiah 5.  And that chapter, verses 1-7, goes on to talk about everything God did to give them all that was necessary for them to bring forth grapes.  They produced beushim, sour berries, inedible, useless.  Israel was the vine.  And that metaphor carried through the history of Israel during the Maccabean period between the Old and the New Testament.

The Maccabeans minted coins, and on the coin was a vine illustrating Israel.  And on the very temple, Herod’s massive temple, there was a great vine that literally had been carved and overlaid with gold, speaking of Israel as God’s vine.  God’s life flows through the nation.  That was a symbol of Israel.  There’s much in the Old Testament.  Psalm 80 – sometime you can read Psalm 80 in its fullness – but Psalm 80 tells us the tragedy of Israel’s defection as a vine.

Just listen to a few of the words from Psalm 80: “God removed a vine from Egypt, bringing Israel out of bondage in Egypt.  Drove out the nation’s, planted the vine – ” like Isaiah 5 “ – cleared the ground before it, took deep root, filled the land.  The mountains were covered with its shadow.  The cedars of God with its bows, it was sending out its branches.  It shoots to the river.”  Then this: “Why have You broken down its hedges, so that all who pass that way pick its fruit?  A bore from the forest eats it away.  And whatever moves in the field feeds on it.”

God planted Israel and then turned on Israel in judgment.  Psalm 80 then says, “O God of hosts, turn again now, we beseech you.  Look down from heaven and see, and take care of this vine, even the shoot which Your right hand has planted.  It is burned with fire.  It is cut down.”  Yeah, that’s Israel, that’s Israel.  Ezekiel said it is an empty vine, no fruit.  Isaiah says it produces sort of toxic, useless, inedible results.

Israel had been the stock of blessing.  Israel had been planted by God.  His life would come through Israel to all who attached to Israel.  But Israel was unfaithful, idolatrous, immoral, and God brought judgment.  That’s what the Old Testament lays out for us.

The disciples, like all the other Jews, thought, “Hmm, I’m Jewish.  I’m connected to God.”  Israel, the people of God, the Jewish people, are the source of divine blessing: “I am a Jew; I was born a Jew.  I’m the seed of Abraham; I’m connected to God.”  Not so.

Our Lord comes along and says, “If you want to be connected to God, you have to be connected, not to Israel, but to me.  I am the true vine, althinos.  I am the true vine.  I am the perfect vine.  Through Me, the life of God flows.”

Paul understood that.  He said Israel has all the privileges in the book of Romans.  They have a form of godliness, but they have no life.  They don’t know God.  They’re alienated from God.  He’s the true vine.

Jesus used the word ‘abide’ again in the three verses that follow.

Again, Jesus said that He was the vine and the Apostles — and we — are the branches; He repeated that those who abide in Him and He in them bear much fruit, because apart from Him they can do nothing (verse 5).

Henry tells us:

So necessary is it to our comfort and happiness that we be fruitful, that the best argument to engage us to abide in Christ is, that otherwise we cannot be fruitful. [1.] Abiding in Christ is necessary in order to our doing much good. He that is constant in the exercise of faith in Christ and love to him, that lives upon his promises and is led by his Spirit, bringeth forth much fruit, he is very serviceable to God’s glory, and his own account in the great day. Note, Union with Christ is a noble principle, productive of all good. A life of faith in the Son of God is incomparably the most excellent life a man can live in this world; it is regular and even, pure and heavenly; it is useful and comfortable, and all that answers the end of life. [2.] It is necessary to our doing any good. It is not only a means of cultivating and increasing what good there is already in us, but it is the root and spring of all good: “Without me you can do nothing: not only no great thing, heal the sick, or raise the dead, but nothing.” Note, We have as necessary and constant a dependence upon the grace of the Mediator for all the actions of the spiritual and divine life as we have upon the providence of the Creator for all the actions of the natural life; for, as to both, it is in the divine power that we live, move, and have our being. Abstracted from the merit of Christ, we can do nothing towards our justification; and from the Spirit of Christ nothing towards our sanctification. Without Christ we can do nothing aright, nothing that will be fruit pleasing to God or profitable to ourselves, 2 Cor 3 5. We depend upon Christ, not only as the vine upon the wall, for support; but, as the branch on the root, for sap.

Jesus warned that whoever does not abide in Him is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned (verse 6).

If those words suggest eternal damnation and hell to you, you would be correct.

Henry says:

This is a description of the fearful state of hypocrites that are not in Christ, and of apostates that abide not in Christ. [1.] They are cast forth as dry and withered branches, which are plucked off because they cumber the tree. It is just that those should have no benefit by Christ who think they have no need of him; and that those who reject him should be rejected by him. Those that abide not in Christ shall be abandoned by him; they are left to themselves, to fall into scandalous sin, and then are justly cast out of the communion of the faithful. [2.] They are withered, as a branch broken off from the tree. Those that abide not in Christ, though they may flourish awhile in a plausible, at least a passable profession, yet in a little time wither and come to nothing. Their parts and gifts wither; their zeal and devotion wither; their credit and reputation wither; their hopes and comforts wither, Job 8 11-13. Note, Those that bear no fruit, after while will bear no leaves. How soon is that fig-tree withered away which Christ has cursed! [3.] Men gather them. Satan’s agents and emissaries pick them up, and make an easy prey of them. Those that fall off from Christ presently fall in with sinners; and the sheep that wander from Christ’s fold, the devil stands ready to seize them for himself. When the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, an evil spirit possessed him. [4.] They cast them into the fire, that is, they are cast into the fire; and those who seduce them and draw them to sin do in effect cast them there; for they make them children of hell. Fire is the fittest place for withered branches, for they are good for nothing else, Ezek 15 2-4. [5.] They are burned; this follows of course, but it is here added very emphatically, and makes the threatening very terrible. They will not be consumed in a moment, like thorns under a pot (Eccl 7 6), but kaietai, they are burning for ever in a fire, which not only cannot be quenched, but will never spend itself. This comes of quitting Christ, this is the end of barren trees. Apostates are twice dead (Jude 12), and when it is said, They are cast into the fire and are burned, it speaks as if they were twice damned. Some apply men’s gathering them to the ministry of the angels in the great day, when they shall gather out of Christ’s kingdom all things that offend, and shall bundle the tares for the fire.

MacArthur also relates this to Judas:

And then in verse 6, the one that is thrown away, dried up, gathered, cast into the fire and burned?  Who are the fruitless branches, and the other, who are the fruitful branches who bear the fruit, verse 2, verse 5, and verse 8?  Who are they?  Well, let me recreate for you the context.  The context is a very simple context.  This isn’t our Lord among many people.  This isn’t our Lord in the midst of the crowd.  When He says “you”, He’s directing His words at the Twelve.  In fact, in particular at this point, He’s directing His words at the eleven remaining, Judas having been dismissed … 

Judas is the branch that doesn’t stay.  Judas is the branch that doesn’t remain.  Judas is the branch that doesn’t abide.

John also spoke of such people in his Epistle:

Now, just a reference again to something else that John wrote over in 1 John chapter 2 and verse 19 – very important statement, speaking of people who defect, who do not abide, who do not stay – “They went out from us, but they were not really of us.”  John knows this now from what he learned about our Lord’s words in John 15 and the experience of Judas and others.  “They went out from us,” and it’s still happening in his experience as an apostle, “but they were not really of us; if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”  And then down in verse 24, “As for you,” he writes – he says now the same thing that our Lord said to the disciples that night – “As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.  If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.  This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life.”  “You abide in Me, and I’ll abide in you.”  John is reiterating what he heard on that Thursday night and is recorded for us in John 15. 

Jesus then talked about prayer, saying that if we abide in Him and His words abide in us, we may ask for whatever we wish and it will be done for us (verse 7).

That does rely on the request being a godly one.

Henry discusses prayer as our means of communication with Christ:

See here, [1.] How our union with Christ is maintained—by the word: If you abide in me; he had said before, and I in you; here he explains himself, and my words abide in you; for it is in the word that Christ is set before us, and offered to us, Rom 10 6-8. It is in the word that we receive and embrace him; and so where the word of Christ dwells richly there Christ dwells. If the word be our constant guide and monitor, if it be in us as at home, then we abide in Christ, and he in us. [2.] How our communion with Christ is maintained—by prayer: You shall ask what you will, and it shall be done to you. And what can we desire more than to have what we will for the asking? Note, Those that abide in Christ as their heart’s delight shall have, through Christ, their heart’s desire. If we have Christ, we shall want nothing that is good for us. Two things are implied in this promise:—First, That if we abide in Christ, and his word in us, we shall not ask any thing but what is proper to be done for us. The promises abiding in us lie ready to be turned into prayers; and the prayers so regulated cannot but speed. Secondly, That if we abide in Christ and his word we shall have such an interest in God’s favour and Christ’s mediation that we shall have an answer of peace to all our prayers.

Jesus concluded by saying that His Father is glorified by the Apostles’ — and our — bearing much fruit and becoming His disciples (verse 8).

Henry elaborates:

If we bear much fruit, [1.] Herein our Father will be glorified. The fruitfulness of the apostles, as such, in the diligent discharge of their office, would be to the glory of God in the conversion of souls, and the offering of them up to him, Rom 15 9, 16. The fruitfulness of all Christians, in a lower or narrower sphere, is to the glory of God. By the eminent good works of Christians many are brought to glorify our Father who is in heaven. [2.] So shall we be Christ’s disciples indeed, approving ourselves so, and making it to appear that we are really what we call ourselves. So shall we both evidence our discipleship and adorn it, and be to our Master for a name and a praise, and a glory, that is, disciples indeed, Jer 13 11. So shall we be owned by our Master in the great day, and have the reward of disciples, a share in the joy of our Lord. And the more fruit we bring forth, the more we abound in that which is good, the more he is glorified.

On the subject of abiding, MacArthur concludes with an answer to people who ask if we have a personal relationship with Christ:

Rather than saying, “I have a personal relationship with Jesus,” which sounds kind of like you’re somebody special, you would be better off to say, “Well, God, the eternal God, holy God, the Creator God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in me.”  What!?  But that is essentially exactly what our Lord is saying, and it’s a trinitarian presence, staggering reality.  Now, I grant you that the glorious manifestation of the children of God of Romans 8 has not yet been manifest, has not yet been made visible.  That won’t happen until we’re glorified.  So in the meantime, we are veiled, right?  We are veiled.  The world doesn’t see us.  It is important to know who we are, so I am, I am literally a body in which God lives.  He lives in me.  The Lord has come to live in me … 

How do you talk about yourself as a believer?  You talk about yourself as the residence of God, the temple of God.  Listen to what John says over in 1 John, building on these truths.  “You are from God, little children,” verse 4, 1 John 4:4, “and have overcome them;” – Listen to this – “because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.”  You worry about Satan in the world?  Don’t worry about Satan in the world.  “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”  Verse 13, “By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us.”  How do we know that?  “Because He has given us of His Spirit.  We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.  Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him.”  Verse 16, “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

I wish we’d start talking like this, right?  To abide is to remain, and for all who remain, they give evidence of a genuine salvation, and how is that defined?  It is defined as God living in us.  God living in us, taking up residence.  Colossians 1:21 says, “You were formerly alienated” – from God – “hostile, engaged in evil deeds.  He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel.”  If you remain, if you stay, if you abide, He abides in you.  This is an incredibly stunning reality.  You think about the condescension of our Lord to take on a human body, but He took on a sinless human body. What kind of condescension is it for the triune God to take on a sinful body, take up residence in us? 

With that, may I wish everyone reading this a happy and blessed Sunday.

Readings for Easter Day, Year B — exegesis on the Epistle, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Happy Easter, everyone! He is risen!

The readings for Easter Day are many. Year B’s are here.

Also available are an exegesis for another Epistle, Acts 10:34-43 (Peter’s preaching to Cornelius and his household), and the following Gospel accounts of the Resurrection: John 20:1-18, Luke 24:1-12 and Matthew 28:1-10.

Today’s Epistle for Year B is as follows (emphases mine):

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

15:1 Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand,

15:2 through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you–unless you have come to believe in vain.

15:3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,

15:4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,

15:5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

15:6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.

15:7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

15:8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them–though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

15:11 Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

John MacArthur’s sermons for this reading are from 1977, so I was astonished to read the fifth paragraph below in his first sermon on these verses:

Christians, down through the ages, have banked their destiny, have banked their destiny, have banked their life, have banked their hope on the fact that the shameful death of Jesus Christ was not the last word, but that he arose and triumphed over death, and that when He said, “Because I live, ye shall live also,” He granted to anyone who comes to Him by faith the same resurrection hope.

And it was this belief, and this belief alone, frankly, that turned the heartbroken followers of a crucified rabbi into the courageous martyrs of the early Church. It was the resurrection that gave birth to the fellowship of the saints that became the Church.

And they found, in those early years, that they could imprison them, and they could chastise them, and they could beat them, and they could verbally assault them, and they could invent ways to persecute them, and they could even kill them, but they could never make them deny the reality of the resurrection. It has always been, and will always be the cornerstone of the Christian faith.

And because that is true, the most fierce blows struck at Christianity, in its history, have been struck at the point of the resurrection. Because if you wipe out the resurrection, you get rid of everything: you eliminate salvation; you eliminate the deity of Christ; you eliminate eternal life; you eliminate the consequence of death. You just wipe it all out. And so, the resurrection is always under attack.

Some of you picked up the morning Times on Monday, after hearing our message on the resurrection last Sunday. On the front page you saw that article which stated that all Christian scholars agree that there is no resurrection. L.A. Times. And that this is something that’s just the wishful thinking of a few ancient fundamentalist fuddy-duddies who have long since lost touch with the reality of the truth.

Dear, oh dear. That’s nearly 50 years ago.

Matthew Henry explains concisely the problems that the Corinthians had with a bodily resurrection, which has been assured throughout Scripture, particularly the Old Testament. Incidentally, ancient Jews believed in bodily resurrection:

It is the apostle’s business in this chapter to assert and establish the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which some of the Corinthians flatly denied, v. 12. Whether they turned this doctrine into allegory, as did Hymeneus and Philetus, by saying it was already past (2 Tim 2 17, 18), and several of the ancient heretics, by making it mean no more than a changing of their course of life; or whether they rejected it as absurd, upon principles of reason and science; it seems they denied it in the proper sense. And they disowned a future state of recompences, by denying the resurrection of the dead. Now that heathens and infidels should deny this truth does not seem so strange; but that Christians, who had their religion by revelation, should deny a truth so plainly discovered is surprising, especially when it is a truth of such importance. It was time for the apostle to confirm them in this truth, when the staggering of their faith in this point was likely to shake their Christianity; and they were yet in great danger of having their faith staggered. He begins with an epitome or summary of the gospel, what he had preached among them, namely, the death and resurrection of Christ. Upon this foundation the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is built. Note, Divine truths appear with greatest evidence when they are looked upon in their mutual connection. The foundation may be strengthened, that the superstructure may be secured.

Paul refers to the teaching on the Resurrection that he had given to the Corinthians previously, which, he says, they in turn received and in which they stand (verse 1).

In older translations, the word ‘now’, more easily understood as a transition from the Apostle’s previous message from 1 Corinthians 14, says ‘moreover’.

Paul goes on to say that that belief is causing them to be saved, provided that they hold on to it, unless they have believed in vain (verse 2).

Henry explains Paul’s determination to ensure that the Corinthians, influenced by Greek philosophy, believe in bodily resurrection. Just as Christ rose from the dead, so shall we:

1. It was what he constantly preached. His word was not yea and nay: he always preached the same gospel, and taught the same truth. He could appeal to his hearers for this. Truth is in its own nature invariable; and the infallible teachers of divine truth could never be at variance with themselves or one another. The doctrine which Paul had heretofore taught, he still taught. 2. It was what they had received; they had been convinced of the faith, believed it in their hearts, or at least made profession of doing so with their mouths. It was no strange doctrine. It was that very gospel in which, or by which, they had hitherto stood, and must continue to stand. If they gave up this truth, they left themselves no ground to stand upon, no footing in religion. Note, The doctrine of Christ’s death and resurrection is at the foundation of Christianity. Remove this foundation, and the whole fabric falls, all our hopes for eternity sink at once. And it is by holding this truth firmly that Christians are made to stand in a day of trial, and kept faithful to God. 3. It was that alone by which they could hope for salvation (v. 2), for there is no salvation in any other name; no name given under heaven by which we may be saved, but by the name of Christ. And there is no salvation in his name, but upon supposition of his death and resurrection. These are the saving truths of our holy religion. The crucifixion of our Redeemer and his conquest over death are the very source of our spiritual life and hopes. Now concerning these saving truths observe, (1.) They must be retained in mind, they must be held fast (so the word is translated, Heb 10 23): Let us hold fast the profession of our faith. Note, The saving truths of the gospel must be fixed in our mind, revolved much in our thoughts, and maintained and held fast to the end, if we would be saved. They will not save us, if we do not attend to them, and yield to their power, and continue to do so to the end. He only that endureth to the end shall be saved, Matt 10 22. (2.) We believe in vain, unless we continue and persevere in the faith of the gospel. We shall be never the better for a temporary faith; nay, we shall aggravate our guilt by relapsing into infidelity. And in vain is it to profess Christianity, or our faith in Christ, if we deny the resurrection; for this must imply and involve the denial of his resurrection; and, take away this, you make nothing of Christianity, you leave nothing for faith or hope to fix upon.

Paul then recaps what he taught that congregation: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures (verse 3).

There are several prophecies about the Messiah’s death in the Old Testament as well as sacrificial types of Christ. For Good Friday 2024, I have two lengthy exegeses on Isaiah 52 and 53, here and here. Isaiah fully prophesies the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

Paul says that our Lord was buried and raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures (verse 4).

Henry says:

He died for our sins, according to the scriptures; he was buried, and rose from the dead, according to the scriptures, according to the scripture-prophecies, and scripture-types. Such prophecies as Ps 16 10; Isa 53 4-6; Dan 9 26, 27; Hos 6 2. Such scripture-types as Jonah (Matt 12 4), as Isaac, who is expressly said by the apostle to have been received from the dead in a figure, Heb 11 19. Note, It is a great confirmation of our faith of the gospel to see how it corresponds with ancient types and prophecies.

Paul says that the risen Christ appeared first to Cephas — Peter, Simon Peter — then the Twelve (verse 5).

Henry explains why Paul says ‘Twelve’, even though Judas had committed suicide already:

He was seen of Cephas, or Peter, then of the twelve, called so, though Judas was no longer among them, because this was their usual number …

MacArthur has more:

Verse 5 says, “And He was seen” – literally, He appeared. And we say that because Jesus was never seen by anyone to whom He did not reveal Himself after His resurrection. Mary Magdalene was in the garden. She saw Him. Did she know it was Him? No, she thought it was the gardener, and she didn’t know till He revealed Himself. Two disciples, who had been with Him for three years, walked along on the road to Emmaus. Did they know who He was? They didn’t know who He was until He revealed Himself.

In John 21, He appears on the shore, and they don’t know who He is until He chooses to reveal Himself. Post resurrection, no one saw Jesus as Jesus until He revealed who He was to a select group.

And so, He revealed Himself after His resurrection. And now Paul chronologically lists those revelations. And incidentally, since this is the oldest record of the resurrection, written even before any of the Gospels, this is the first insight into who were the eyewitnesses who saw Him. Number one was Cephas, and that’s Aramaic for rock. Greek for rock is what? Peter. And Luke 24:34 when the road to Emmaus, disciples came along, they reported to everybody else that He was seen by Simon.

MacArthur tells us why Jesus chose Peter, who had denied him three times in the early hours of Good Friday, as Jesus foretold, then wept bitterly afterwards:

Number one, I think God wanted to emphasize what grace is and what love is and what forgiveness is. And aren’t you glad He picks up the unworthy folks? Aren’t you happy about that? I am. Jesus needed Peter for a strategic ministry. You see, He can use crooked sticks as well as He can use straight ones. And He went right to Peter because He needed Peter. And after all, Peter had denied Him, but what had he done immediately after he denied Him? He went out and did what? He wept bitterly. And I think he had a broken heart. And I think the thing that Peter was so left with was that he had denied Jesus, and now Jesus was dead, and he could never make it right. So, Jesus went right to him and met with him.

Now, we don’t know about that meeting, because the Scripture doesn’t tell us about it. It was just a very private meeting. But Peter became eyewitness number one.

You say, “Well, why did they pick Peter out?”

I’ll tell you why. Who was the unquestionable leader among the twelve? Peter. Who had the greatest ministry in the first 12 chapters of the book of Acts? Peter. Who was the guy with the greatest line of credibility, with the greatest believability, with the most clout, with the greatest power, with the greatest impact on the early Church in Jerusalem? Peter. And he picks out the prime witness of the resurrection and says, “Peter believed it; he saw Him.” And they got to say, “Wow, and Peter’s something. What a man.”

Post-resurrection, Peter was indomitable, powerful. Peter believed it.

As for appearing to the Apostles:

You remember that same day it says in John 20:19, “And the same day, it being night, the disciples were in the upper room, the door being shut, and Jesus appeared to them and said, ‘Peace be unto you’”? Immediately, in John 20, after the incident with Peter, and He’s right to the upper room; and He meets the twelve. Now, there’s only 11 now, but “the twelve” became their official title. They were called “the twelve.” Even though there was only 11 because of Judas’ apostasy, they’re called “the twelve.” And so, Jesus went to be with them.

It’s recorded also in Luke 24:33 to 43.

Paul says that Jesus also appeared to 500 people, some of whom were still alive when he wrote to the Corinthians, although some had died (verse 6).

Henry tells us:

… he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, many of whom were living when the apostle wrote this epistle, though some had fallen asleep. This was in Galilee, Matt 28 10.

MacArthur says:

… he says, “After that, He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once” – at the same time. And he adds this – “of whom the greater part remain to the present time, but some have died.” He says, “Here’s a second line of evidence. Not only” – now watch this – “Not only is the resurrection validated by the character of these witnesses, but by the number of these other witnesses. You’ve not only got the twelve, whose character is impeccable, unquestionable, but you’ve got the mass of 500 people who saw the living Christ.”

So, in one case you have the quality witness; in the other case, you have – what? – quantity witnesses, the great number. Now, where did this occur? Well, some believe it occurred in Jerusalem, because that’s where so many people lived that were associated with the Church. But if you really look at the text in Acts 1, you find there were only 120 disciples in Jerusalem, when the Church was born, gathered in the upper room? There may have been some more, but it seems best to assume that Jesus’ greatest reception was not in Jerusalem, but maybe the greatest crowd of people would have been in Galilee. And in fact, perhaps the sighting of Jesus by the 500 occurred on some hillside in Galilee, when Jesus was in Galilee, as Matthew indicates, in the latter chapters, He would be. So, whatever; but somewhere in Jerusalem perhaps a little less likely, but maybe in Galilee, more likely, Jesus appeared to 500 people at once. That’s a lot of witnesses. You have any case in court that you want to have, and you drag through 500 people who all say the same thing, that’s fairly convincing.

I mean all you needed, according to the Old Testament law, was that something had to be confirmed in the mouth of – what? – two or three. God always goes overboard, everything He does. He just had 497 more than He needed.

And listen to this; this is so great. He says, “The majority of them are still alive. You check it out.” Not only the character of witnesses who would some of them be dead, but the quantity of witnesses, most of whom were still alive. “You can ask them yourself.”

Paul says that Jesus appeared to James, then to all the Apostles (verse 7).

Henry says that the last part of that verse refers to the Ascension:

… he was seen of James singly, and then by all the apostles when he was taken up into heaven. This was on mount Olivet, Luke 24 50. Compare Acts 1 2, 5-7.

MacArthur says that this particular James was His step-brother:

This is James, the brother of our Lord, the one who wrote the epistle of James. The one who became the head of the Jerusalem church in the sense that he was the leader. James, the brother of Jesus – the half-brother – the son of Joseph and Mary.

You say, “Well, what’s so important about this?”

Well, this is a witness of a different kind. Listen to John chapter 7, verse 5, “For neither did His brothers believe in Him.” Now you’ve got the testimony of His own brother who is an unbeliever …

Listen, the importance of this is the fact that here you have a witness right out of His family, who was a skeptic, who has totally been changed, and He is now a believer of the resurrection. Now, James didn’t believe that Jesus was who He claimed. James didn’t believe. John 7:5 says it. Didn’t believe. Maybe when Jesus died, James began to feel a little remorse, and maybe as he knew the circumstances of the death of his half-brother, humanly speaking, maybe he began to feel some admiration for Jesus. And Jesus wanted a witness out of His own family, because, you know, it would be hard. People would say, “Ah, don’t kid us about you resurrecting from the dead. Your own family doesn’t even believe it.”

And so, Jesus sought out James. Jesus appeared to James in resurrection form, and James believed. And James was changed. And James, it says in James 1:1, starts out his letter by saying, “James, a servant of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Well, that’s a big change for an unbeliever.

Now you’ve got not only the testimony of quality men, and of a quantity crowd, but you’ve got the testimony of a skeptic here. And right out of Jesus’ own family, an unbeliever is transformed into one who does believe. The resurrection convinced him when all the rest of the stuff didn’t, apparently. He’d watched Jesus’ life. It didn’t convince him. The resurrection did.

Then, referring to his Damascene conversion, Paul says that Jesus appeared lastly to him — as to one untimely born (verse 8).

Henry’s Bible says:

8 And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

Why does Paul refer to himself in such a context? Because he was not one of the Twelve. He came later, yet, having been instructed by Christ during his three-day conversion and later in the desert (see Galatians 1 below).

Henry explains:

It was one of the peculiar offices of an apostle to be a witness of our Saviour’s resurrection (Luke 24 48); and, when Paul was called to the apostolical office, he was made an evidence of this sort; the Lord Jesus appeared to him by the way to Damascus, Acts 9 17. Having mentioned this favour, Paul takes occasion from it to make a humble digression concerning himself. He was highly favoured of God, but he always endeavoured to keep up a mean opinion of himself, and to express it. So he does here, by observing, (1.) That he was one born out of due time (v. 8), an abortive, ektroma, a child dead born, and out of time. Paul resembled such a birth, in the suddenness of his new birth, in that he was not matured for the apostolic function, as the others were, who had personal converse with our Lord. He was called to the office when such conversation was not to be had, he was out of time for it. He had not known nor followed the Lord, nor been formed in his family, as the others were, for this high and honourable function. This was in Paul’s account a very humbling circumstance.

MacArthur says:

Paul says, “I saw Him.” When did you see Him, Paul? You weren’t even around, fella. “I saw Him. I was on my way to Damascus.” Read Acts 9. “And I was just going there, and I was breathing out fire and slaughter, and I was going to do my thing. See? And all of a sudden, I got slammed to the dirt, and there in front of me was the blazing, glorious, resurrected Christ. And I said to Him, ‘Lord, what will You have me to do?’”

Paul saw Him. He saw Him, and He was so brilliant, He blinded him. It wasn’t the blinding of darkness; it was the blinding of light, like gazing at the sun. “I saw Him,” he said. He says, “I saw Him as one born out of due time.” Literally, tō ektrōmati, from the word ektrōma which means a premature birth. Ektrōmati is an aborted fetus. Now, that’s interesting. He says, “I saw Him as an aborted fetus, an abortion, a miscarriage.”

What’s he saying? Well, it seems to suggest, initially the Greek word does, that he was born too soon. But the fact is, in relation to the 12 apostles, he wasn’t born too soon; he was born – what? – too late. Well, how do you explain that? Well, perhaps the Greek word can imply that. Some commentators feel that the Greek word simply means an untimely birth, which means he could have been born too early, like a miscarriage;, or too late, retained too long. And maybe the word can mean that. Maybe he’s simply saying, “I was born at the wrong time.” It’s possible that the Greek word could just be a general word meaning a birth at the wrong time, either early or late.

There were also those who hated Paul’s message:

… some commentators say that there may have been some people who called him “the abortion,” because it was a term of derision and despite and hatred. And the people hated him so much for his gospel of grace which counteracted their systems of law.

This is what Paul wrote the Galatians in the first chapter of his letter:

Paul called by God

¹¹ I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. ¹² I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

¹³ For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. ¹⁴ I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. ¹⁵ But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased ¹⁶ to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. ¹⁷ I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.

¹⁸ Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas^[b] and stayed with him fifteen days. ¹⁹ I saw none of the other apostles – only James, the Lord’s brother. ²⁰ I assure you before God that what I am writing to you is no lie.

²¹ Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. ²² I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. ²³ They only heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ ²⁴ And they praised God because of me.

Based on his ‘untimely birth’ in faith, Paul says that he is the least of the Apostles, unfit because of his active persecution of our Lord’s followers (verse 9), which, by the way, included Stephen the first martyr.

Henry says:

Note, A humble spirit, in the midst of high attainments, is a great ornament to any man; it sets his good qualities off to much greater advantage. What kept Paul low in an especial manner was the remembrance of his former wickedness, his raging and destructive zeal against Christ and his members. Note, How easily God can bring a good out of the greatest evil! When sinners are by divine grace turned into saints, he makes the remembrance of their former sins very serviceable, to make them humble, and diligent, and faithful.

MacArthur posits that Paul’s past life could have haunted him in his ministry:

… he uses the emphatic pronoun in verse 9, “For I, who am the least of the apostles, I’m not fit to be even called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God.”

Can’t you imagine that all through the life of that dear man, in his mind he saw the visions coming back of the people he had persecuted because they loved Jesus Christ? They were all his brothers, and he’d killed them once. “I didn’t deserve it,” he said. “The least of all.”

Paul then focuses on the free gift of divine grace that saved him, referring to it three times: by the grace of God he is what he is, His grace not having been in vain; he worked harder as an Apostle than the Twelve (Matthias replaced Judas, Acts 1) but acknowledges that was through God’s grace, not his own efforts (verse 10).

Henry points out the Apostle’s humility:

Note, Those who have the grace of God bestowed on them should take care that it be not in vain. They should cherish, and exercise, and exert, this heavenly principle. So did Paul, and therefore laboured with so much heart and so much success. And yet the more he laboured, and the more good he did, the more humble he was in his opinion of himself, and the more disposed to own and magnify the favour of God towards him, his free and unmerited favour. Note, A humble spirit will be very apt to own and magnify the grace of God. A humble spirit is commonly a gracious one. Where pride is subdued there it is reasonable to believe grace reigns.

MacArthur says that the Resurrection converted Paul:

And so, he says, “It wasn’t in vain either. But I labored more abundantly than the rest of the apostles; yet it wasn’t me, but it was the grace of God was with me.” Kopiaō, “I worked to the point of exhaustion. And God gave more abundant fruit to me than He did to anybody else,” he says. “And it wasn’t me; it was God.” He’s not extolling his hard work. He’s saying, “I worked hard, and there was a more abundant response as God’s grace worked.” It’s the idea of results in the “more abundant” rather “effort.” God’s grace did it.

How do you turn a guy going killing Christians into the greatest apostle who ever lived? How do you take somebody who’s doing everything he can to destroy the Church into the greatest proponent of the Church that ever lived? There’s only one thing that could do it. He saw the living Christ. That did it.

Finally, Paul says that, whether it was one of the Twelve or himself, they all proclaim the same — the Resurrection — and so the Corinthians have come to believe (verse 11).

Henry concludes:

… all the apostles preached the same: Whether it were they or I, so we preached, and so you believed. Whether Peter, or Paul, or any other apostle, had converted them to Christianity, all maintained the same truth, told the same story, preached the same doctrine, and confirmed it by the same evidence. All agreed in this that Jesus Christ, and him crucified and slain, and then rising from the dead, was the very sum and substance of Christianity; and this all true Christians believe. All the apostles agreed in this testimony; all Christians agree in the belief of it. By this faith they live. In this faith they die.

MacArthur points out that the scepticism surrounding the Resurrection is a relatively new ‘thing’, as we would say today:

Listen; one of the greatest testimonies to the resurrection is the unity, the uniformity of the common faith of the early Church. There weren’t a few over here who believed in resurrection, and a little segment over here who didn’t. That’s something new, folks. That’s something new. It’s only been in the age of the skeptic that all of a sudden we’ve got some part of the Church that’s the Church believing in resurrection, and some other so-called Christian church that denies it. That’s new.

Trust Scripture. Trust what you read and hear from the Bible.

Jesus Christ is risen indeed and reigns forever.

Without the Resurrection, our faith is in vain.

May all reading this enjoy a blessed and joyous Easter season. It lasts for six weeks.

Forbidden Bible Verses — Genesis 5:15-24

The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Genesis 5:15-24

¹⁵ When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared. ¹⁶ After he became the father of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons and daughters. ¹⁷ Altogether, Mahalalel lived a total of 895 years, and then he died.

¹⁸ When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. ¹⁹ After he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. ²⁰ Altogether, Jared lived a total of 962 years, and then he died.

²¹ When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. ²² After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. ²³ Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. ²⁴ Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

———————————————————————————————————–

Last week’s post briefly discussed Seth, Enosh, Kenan and Mahalalel.

John MacArthur has a note on the meaning of the names, particularly Kenan (emphases mine):

Seth, and then comes Enosh, which I told you last time is a Hebrew word for “man.” Then Kenan, which may be related to “Cain” as a word.

Now we come to the next generation.

When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he fathered Jared (verse 15). After he sired Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons and daughters (verse 16). Mahalalel lived 895 years, then he died (verse 17).

MacArthur gives us the meanings of the names Mahalalel and Jared:

Mahalalel, which in Hebrew means “praise.” Jared, which is probably connected to a root that means “descending.”

Our commentators explain God’s love and generosity in granting so many generations a long life.

Henry says that the earth was still, for the most part, a gentle and benign place:

… long life to the pious patriarchs was a blessing and made them blessings. 1. Some natural causes may be assigned for their long life in those first ages of the world. It is very probable that the earth was more fruitful, that the productions of it were more strengthening, that the air was more healthful, and that the influences of the heavenly bodies were more benign, before the flood, than afterwards. Though man was driven out of paradise, yet the earth itself was then paradisiacal—a garden in comparison with its present wilderness-state: and some think that their great knowledge of the creatures, and of their usefulness both for food and medicine, together with their sobriety and temperance, contributed much to it; yet we do not find that those who were intemperate, as many were (Luke 17 27), were as short-lived as intemperate men generally are now. 2. It must chiefly be resolved into the power and providence of God. He prolonged their lives, both for the more speedy replenishing of the earth and for the more effectual preservation of the knowledge of God and religion, then, when there was no written word, but tradition was the channel of its conveyance.

MacArthur agrees:

… the question always comes up when you study this, “Why did God let people live so long?” Well, for one, it allowed for rapid, extensive population growth. It allowed for the passing on of truth from one generation to another without having to go through too many intermediaries so that that truth was lost. As I said, there’s so much overlap, I said some would take Shem right into the time of Jacob.

And I think there are other reasons why they lived so long. The advancement of that race – and believe me, they would have been very advanced, very intelligent. They hadn’t experienced all the thousands of years of corruption that we have experienced. Very intelligent, very skilled. If you do something for 900 years, you get pretty good at it, I would expect. They would have absorbed a massive amount of information. They tell us we use one-tenth of one percent of our brains. Well, if you lived 900 years, you might fill up some of that space.

And because there was no experience from the past to hand down – you know, we are the beneficiaries today of inventions that have been made from centuries past. Well, there was no past, and so God allowed them to live a long time so that they could accumulate the necessary knowledge to advance the civilization and refine the civilization. They couldn’t learn from anything past because there wasn’t anything. Each person was permitted to live during a much longer space of time. Having no past experience to build on, they owed their knowledge to their experience, and they needed a long experience to reach the heights.

I think also they were able to discover the great foundations of knowledge and to apply them and to test them.

On the other hand, temptation would have also been great:

But at the same time, they also had to endure the immense impact of sin. While they were advancing and while they were applying their tremendous longevity, their tremendous experience, their tremendous intellect and accumulated information to an advancing culture – at the same time as men were devising greater and greater means to enjoy life, they were devising greater and greater means to express their sin, so that they became so wicked that God drowned them all.

So it allowed for them to develop intellectually; at the same time, it allowed for them to become morally corrupt, at a level of corruption more flagrant than perhaps we can imagine. You know what it is to battle temptation – don’t you? – for 60 years, 70 years, How would you do if you had to battle it for 900 years? There are some people who would like to die before they dishonor the Lord. That’s a fair wish. But if you were 60 and wondering if you could make it before 70 without dishonoring the Lord, how would you like to have to think about having to live another 800 years?

MacArthur summarises the situation:

So there was the potential for development. God always gives man that. To draw out of His planet and out of His creation the riches, and to give Him thanks and honor Him for it. But at the same time, fallen man will invariably invent ways to express his corruption.

Moving on, when Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch (verse 18), the good Enoch. After he fathered Enoch, he had other sons and daughters (verse 19). Altogether, Jared lived 962 years, then he died (verse 20).

MacArthur says:

… we are introduced to a man … His name is Enoch. It means, as we learned earlier, “dedication.” There is an Enoch in chapter 4, verse 17. That’s a different Enoch, in the line of Cain … But this Enoch, whose name also means “dedicated,” was devoted to God.

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah (verse 21).

Then something interesting happens in the narrative.

After Enoch sired Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God for 300 years and had other sons and daughters (verse 22). Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years (verse 23). Enoch walked faithfully with God, then he was no more because God took him away (verse 24).

So, Enoch lived for roughly one third of the lifespan that his relatives did. Also note that twice — in verses 22 and 24 — we see that ‘Enoch walked faithfully with God’.

Henry opens his analysis with this:

… at length there comes in one that must not be passed over so, of whom special notice must be taken, and that is Enoch, the seventh from Adam: the rest, we may suppose, did virtuously, but he excelled them all, and was the brightest star of the patriarchal age. It is but little that is recorded concerning him; but this little is enough to make his name great, greater than the name of the other Enoch, who had a city called by his name. Here are two things concerning him:—

I. His gracious conversation in this world, which is twice spoken of: Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah (v. 22), and again, Enoch walked with God, v. 24.

Henry then goes on to explain Enoch’s spiritual greatness, referred to at length in Jude:

Observe,

1. The nature of his religion and the scope and tenour of his conversation: he walked with God, which denotes, (1.) True religion; what is godliness, but walking with God? The ungodly and profane are without God in the world, they walk contrary to him: but the godly walk with God, which presupposes reconciliation to God, for two cannot walk together except they be agreed (Amos 3 3), and includes all the parts and instances of a godly, righteous, and sober life. To walk with God is to set God always before us, and to act as those that are always under his eye. It is to live a life of communion with God both in ordinances and providences. It is to make God’s word our rule and his glory our end in all our actions. It is to make it our constant care and endeavour in every thing to please God, and nothing to offend him. It is to comply with his will, to concur with his designs, and to be workers together with him. It is to be followers of him as dear children. (2.) Eminent religion. He was entirely dead to this world, and did not only walk after God, as all good men do, but he walked with God, as if he were in heaven already. He lived above the rate, not only of other men, but of other saints: not only good in bad times, but the best in good times. (3.) Activity in promoting religion among others. Executing the priest’s office is called walking before God, 1 Sam 2 30, 35, and see Zech 3 7. Enoch, it should seem, was a priest of the most high God, and like Noah, who is likewise said to walk with God, he was a preacher of righteousness, and prophesied of Christ’s second coming. Jude 14, Behold, the Lord cometh with his holy myriads. Now the Holy Spirit, instead of saying, Enoch lived, says, Enoch walked with God; for it is the life of a good man to walk with God. This was, [1.] The business of Enoch’s life, his constant care and work; while others lived to themselves and the world, he lived to God. [2.] It was the joy and support of his life. Communion with God was to him better than life itself. To me to live is Christ, Phil 1 21.

Henry tells us when Enoch’s righteousness likely began:

2. The date of his religion. It is said (v. 21), he lived sixty-five years, and begat Methuselah; but (v. 22) he walked with God after he begat Methuselah, which intimates that he did not begin to be eminent for piety till about that time; at first he walked but as other men. Great saints arrive at their eminence by degrees.

3. The continuance of his religion: he walked with God three hundred years, as long as he continued in this world. The hypocrite will not pray always; but the real saint that acts from a principle, and makes religion his choice, will persevere to the end, and walk with God while he lives, as one that hopes to live for ever with him, Ps 104 33.

He then discusses God’s taking Enoch away after 365 years:

II. His glorious removal to a better world. As he did not live like the rest, so he did not die like the rest (v. 24): He was not, for God took him; that is, as it is explained (Heb 11 5), He was translated that he should not see death, and was not found, because God had translated him. Observe,

1. When he was thus translated. (1.) What time of his life. It was when he had lived but three hundred and sixty-five years (a year of years), which, as men’s ages went then, was in the midst of his days; for there was none of the patriarchs before the flood that did not more than double that age. But why did God take him so soon? Surely, because the world, which had now grown corrupt, was not worthy of him, or because he was so much above the world, and so weary of it, as to desire a speedy removal out of it, or because his work was done, and done the sooner for his minding it so closely. Note, God often takes those soonest whom he loves best, and the time they lose on earth is gained in heaven, to their unspeakable advantage. (2.) What time of the world. It was when all the patriarchs mentioned in this chapter were living, except Adam, who died fifty-seven years before, and Noah, who was born sixty-nine years after; those two had sensible confirmations to their faith other ways, but to all the rest, who were or might have been witnesses of Enoch’s translation, it was a sensible encouragement to their faith and hope concerning a future state.

2. How his removal is expressed: He was not, for God took him. (1.) He was not any longer in this world; it was not the period of his being, but of his being here: he was not found, so the apostle explains it from the LXX.; not found by his friends, who sought him as the sons of the prophets sought Elijah (2 Kings 2 17); not found by his enemies, who, some think, were in quest of him, to put him to death in their rage against him for his eminent piety. It appears by his prophecy that there were then many ungodly sinners, who spoke hard speeches, and probably did hard things too, against God’s people (Jude 15), but God hid Enoch from them, not under heaven, but in heaven. (2.) God took him body and soul to himself in the heavenly paradise, by the ministry of angels, as afterwards he took Elijah. He was changed, as those saints will be that shall be found alive at Christ’s second coming. Whenever a good man dies God takes him, fetches him hence, and receives him to himself. The apostle adds concerning Enoch that, before his translation, he had this testimony, that he pleased God, and this was the good report he obtained. Note, [1.] Walking with God pleases God. [2.] We cannot walk with God so as to please him, but by faith. [3.] God himself will put an honour upon those that by faith walk with him so as to please him. He will own them now, and witness for them before angels and men at the great day. Those that have not this testimony before the translation, yet shall have it afterwards. [4.] Those whose conversation in the world is truly holy shall find their removal out of it truly happy. Enoch’s translation was not only an evidence to faith of the reality of a future state, and of the possibility of the body’s existing in glory in that state; but it was an encouragement to the hope of all that walk with God that they shall be for ever with him: signal piety shall be crowned with signal honours.

MacArthur has more on Enoch’s spiritual mission, referred to in Jude:

“So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” All of a sudden, the pattern is broken. We get into this seventh generation, as Jude says, “the seventh from Adam.” We meet Enoch. It does tell us how old he was when he fathered the firstborn. It does tell us how long he lived after he fathered the firstborn and gives us the same pattern. But all of a sudden it injects twice – once in verse 22, once in verse 24 – that Enoch walked with God.

And as I said, it may be that these others were righteous, we don’t know that. No such comment is made. But in the case of Enoch, it is made. He walked with God. That is a critical statement to make about a man. It breaks the pattern of the previous names.

Let me just tell you a little bit about Enoch. Turn to Jude, let’s go back to Jude for a minute. It will only take a moment to grasp what Jude says in verses 14 and 15. Jude is writing about false teachers here who’ve gone in the way of Cain, verse 11, who’ve rushed into the error of Balaam and perished in the rebellion of Korah, and he names some apostates, some false prophets. They are hidden reefs in your love feasts, clouds without water, doubly dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam, wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.

So false teachers, they’ve always abounded. They were in the way of Cain. They were in the family of Cain, the culture of Cain. And verse 14 – interesting. “And about these also Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied” – oh, this is interesting. This man, Enoch (the seventh generation from Adam through the line of Seth) prophesied against the false prophets. There were already false prophets in the world, there were already those who were lying, those who were in the way of Cain, apostate. And that’s really hard to imagine. I mean, I have to tell you, that is hard to imagine. You say, “Why?” Because they knew Adam.

And Adam could have told them who the true God was because he walked and talked with Him in the cool of the day. And Adam could have told them what the creation was like and what paradise was like, and what Eden was like, and why the world was the way it was, and all about the fall, and all about sin, and all about the curse. And it wasn’t passed down, it was firsthand information. And still they apostatized, they rejected, they rebelled against the truth that Adam knew firsthand and certainly declared.

There was an explosion of false teachers in the world. And Enoch prophesied about them. What did he say about them? He said, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds, which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” Wow. What do you have?

Already, pre-flood, in the sixteen hundred and fifty-six years, you have the development of a cultural line, an apostatizing society across the face of the earth following the way of Cain, filled with lies. They are against God. They are described here as “ungodly, doing ungodly deeds in an ungodly way.” They are called “ungodly sinners who speak against the true God.”

And Enoch prophesied. And what did he prophesy? “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment upon all.” Here was a preacher who stood up and said, “God is going to judge you.”

And right here, folks, in the fifth chapter of Genesis, we’re introduced to the first preacher who ever confronted liars and deceivers and false teachers. This is an old, old problem, isn’t it? An old, old problem. And Enoch, who walked with God, spoke for God. And he uses “came” in the past, it’s kind of a – it’s kind of a way in which the language speaks in the past to refer to something in the future that is so certain, it’s as if it’s already happened. You’re going to be judged, all you ungodly, all your ungodly deeds, and all your ungodly speeches against God are going to be judged when the Lord comes with many thousands of His holy ones.

You know what he’s looking at? I mean he’s looking right down, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, right down through history until the coming of Jesus Christ. Because, you see, the coming of Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of the Genesis 3:15 promise, that a seed would come and bruise the serpent’s – what? – head. “All you ungodly people, with your ungodly words and your ungodly deeds are going to be judged.”

And he was talking to the people in his generation, but he was talking all the way down through history. It isn’t recorded in Genesis, but it is recorded in Jude. How interesting that the Holy Spirit waits to give us the message of Enoch until the next-to-the-last book in the Bible. You shouldn’t be surprised by that. The apostle Paul named the Egyptian magicians – do you remember? He identifies them as Jannes and Jambres, and they aren’t called that in Exodus. Peter said, “Noah was a preacher of righteousness,” and you’re not going to find that in Genesis, either.

The New Testament inspired writers were given this information by God. And here was Jude, writing this epistle, told exactly what Enoch said. And Enoch warned people. “The Lord is coming. The Lord is coming with His holy angels. The Lord is coming to execute judgment against all those who have spoken against him.” There was Enoch, who rose up in his generation on behalf of the truth and confronted the false teachers.

The story continues next week.

Next time — Genesis 5:25-32

Fourth Sunday in Lent — Year B — exegesis on the Epistle, Ephesians 2:1-10

The Fourth Sunday in Lent is March 10, 2024.

This particular day is also known as Laetare Sunday, which is Mothering Sunday in the United Kingdom, not only the great feast of mothers but of Mother Church as well:

Laetare Sunday, Mother’s Day and the Golden Rose

Laetare Sunday is Mothering Sunday

My posts explain that Laetare Sunday is when clergy used to wear rose coloured vestments instead of purple. (Some still do.) It is traditionally the happy Sunday in Lent, as laetare means ‘rejoice’. The name comes from the opening words of the traditional Latin Introit, which in English translate to ‘Rejoice, Jerusalem’. Salvation is coming.

Readings for Year B can be found here.

The exegesis on the Gospel, John 3:14-21, can be found here.

The Epistle is as follows (emphases mine):

Ephesians 2:1-10

2:1 You were dead through the trespasses and sins

2:2 in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.

2:3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.

2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us

2:5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved—

2:6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

2:7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—

2:9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

2:10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Matthew Henry provides us with the context for the Ephesians:

The apostle endeavours to affect them with a due sense of the wonderful change which divine grace had wrought in them; and this is very applicable to that great change which the same grace works in all those who are brought into a state of grace. So that we have here a lively picture both of the misery of unregenerate men and of the happy condition of converted souls, enough to awaken and alarm those who are yet in their sins and to put them upon hastening out of that state, and to comfort and delight those whom God hath quickened, with a consideration of the mighty privileges with which they are invested.

John MacArthur goes back to Ephesians 1 for us:

Back in chapter 1 the apostle Paul wrote that we as believers “have obtained an inheritance,” that we have “been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that,” verse 12 says, “we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.” And then in verse 13 he mentions the gospel. Yes, we have been promised an inheritance, as verse 11 says. Yes, this was predestined. Yes, it is ours in Christ. But verse 13 marks out the role that the gospel plays: “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” All the redemptive purposes that God ordained in the past, all that He planned for the future, come to reality (as verse 13 says) when you listen to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, and you believe it.

The gospel is a message. The gospel is a word from heaven. It is there called “the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation”—those are parallel statements. The message of truth is the gospel of your salvation. Salvation is dependent upon believing the gospel, which is a true message from God. In Colossians chapter 1 and verse 5 we read this: “The word of truth, the gospel which has come to you.” Again, the Word of truth from heaven about salvation is the message of the gospel.

MacArthur elaborates on ‘gospel’ in the Greek:

The term “gospel” is used about a hundred times in the New Testament. The word itself, euaggelion, incorporates the idea of a message, therefore of communication—announcing, preaching, declaring, proclaiming. Euaggelion is the message, and eu– is prefix to the word because it makes a reference to something that is good. So what is the gospel? It’s a good message. It is the good news. Bound up in the verb form, euaggelizō, is the idea of preaching a good message. Euaggelizō is the word from which we get “evangelize” or “evangelical.” So you cannot understand the gospel unless you understand it as something to be communicated, something to be declared, announced, preached, and proclaimed. And that something is good news.

The gospel is called the gospel of God, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of the Son, the gospel of the glory of God, the gospel of peace, the gospel of the blessed God—and then in Acts 20:24 the gospel of the grace of God. It’s all the same good news. Jesus came preaching the gospel—you see that in Matthew, Mark, and Luke; He came preaching the gospel. Subject to Jesus were the apostles, and they were told to take the gospel into the world. And so when you come into the book of Acts, it isn’t long before they are preaching right away, in chapter 2. By the time you get into—a few chapters later into chapter 8, you have Philip preaching the gospel. And then you have Peter and John preaching the gospel. And then you have, around chapter 12 of the book of Acts, the apostle Paul begins to preach the gospel. And all of them are preaching, all of them are proclaiming, all of them are declaring the message from heaven that is good news of salvation.

Paul reminds the Ephesians that they were once dead through trespasses and sins (verse 1).

Henry explains:

Observed, 1. Unregenerate souls are dead in trespasses and sins. All those who are in their sins, are dead in sins; yea, in trespasses and sins, which may signify all sorts of sins, habitual and actual, sins of heart and of life. Sin is the death of the soul. Wherever that prevails there is a privation of all spiritual life. Sinners are dead in state, being destitute of the principles, and powers of spiritual life; and cut off from God, the fountain of life: and they are dead in law, as a condemned malefactor is said to be a dead man.

Paul continues talking about this dead state, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air — Satan — the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient (verse 2).

Henry continues his analysis:

2. A state of sin is a state of conformity to this world, v. 2. In the first verse he speaks of their internal state, in this of their outward conversation: Wherein, in which trespasses and sins, in time past you walked, you lived and behaved yourselves in such a manner as the men of the world are used to do. 3. We are by nature bond-slaves to sin and Satan. Those who walk in trespasses and sins, and according to the course of this world, walk according to the prince of the power of the air. The devil, or the prince of devils, is thus described. See Matt 12 24, 26. The legions of apostate angels are as one power united under one chief; and therefore what is called the powers of darkness elsewhere is here spoken of in the singular number. The air is represented as the seat of his kingdom: and it was the opinion of both Jews and heathens that the air is full of spirits, and that there they exercise and exert themselves. The devil seems to have some power (by God’s permission) in the lower region of the air; there he is at hand to tempt men, and to do as much mischief to the world as he can: but it is the comfort and joy of God’s people that he who is head over all things to the church has conquered the devil and has him in his chain. But wicked men are slaves to Satan, for they walk according to him; they conform their lives and actions to the will and pleasure of this great usurper. The course and tenour of their lives are according to his suggestions, and in compliance with his temptations; they are subject to him, and are led captive by him at his will, whereupon he is called the god of this world, and the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. The children of disobedience are such as choose to disobey God, and to serve the devil; in these he works very powerfully and effectually. As the good Spirit works that which is good in obedient souls, so this evil spirit works that which is evil in wicked men; and he now works, not only heretofore, but even since the world has been blessed with the light of the glorious gospel.

Paul says that everyone who was once unregenerate — also implying himself — once lived in the passions of the flesh, following the desire of flesh and senses, and was, by nature, a child of wrath, like everyone else (verse 3).

Henry goes on to say:

4. We are by nature drudges to the flesh, and to our corrupt affections, v. 3. By fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, men contract that filthiness of flesh and spirit from which the apostle exhorts Christians to cleanse themselves, 2 Cor 7 1. The fulfilling of the desires of the flesh and of the mind includes all the sin and wickedness that are acted in and by both the inferior and the higher or nobler powers of the soul. We lived in the actual commission of all those sins to which corrupt nature inclined us. The carnal mind makes a man a perfect slave to his vicious appetite.—The fulfilling of the wills of the flesh, so the words may be rendered, denoting the efficacy of these lusts, and what power they have over those who yield themselves up unto them. 5. We are by nature the children of wrath, even as others. The Jews were so, as well as the Gentiles; and one man is as much so as another by nature, not only by custom and imitation, but from the time when we began to exist, and by reason of our natural inclinations and appetites. All men, being naturally children of disobedience, are also by nature children of wrath: God is angry with the wicked every day. Our state and course are such as deserve wrath, and would end in eternal wrath, if divine grace did not interpose. What reason have sinners then to be looking out for that grace that will make them, of children of wrath, children of God and heirs of glory! Thus far the apostle has described the misery of a natural state in these verses, which we shall find him pursuing again in some following ones.

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which He loved us (verse 4), even when we were dead with our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved (verse 5).

Henry says:

Positively: But God, who is rich in mercy, etc., v. 4. God himself is the author of this great and happy change, and his great love is the spring and fontal cause of it; hence he resolved to show mercy. Love is his inclination to do us good considered simply as creatures; mercy respects us as apostate and as miserable creatures. Observe, God’s eternal love or good-will towards his creatures is the fountain whence all his mercies vouch-safed to us proceed; and that love of God is great love, and that mercy of his is rich mercy, inexpressibly great and inexhaustibly rich. And then by grace you are saved (v. 5) …

God has raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus (verse 6) so that in the ages to come He will show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (verse 7).

Henry explains:

1. We who were dead are quickened (v. 5), we are saved from the death of sin and have a principle of spiritual life implanted in us. Grace in the soul is a new life in the soul. As death locks up the senses, seals up all the powers and faculties, so does a state of sin, as to any thing that is good. Grace unlocks and opens all, and enlarges the soul. Observe, A regenerate sinner becomes a living soul: he lives a life of sanctification, being born of God; and he lives in the sense of the law, being delivered from the guilt of sin by pardoning and justifying grace. He hath quickened us together with Christ. Our spiritual life results from our union with Christ; it is in him that we live: Because I live, you shall live also. 2. We who were buried are raised up, v. 6. What remains yet to be done is here spoken of as though it were already past, though indeed we are raised up in virtue of our union with him whom God hath raised from the dead. When he raised Christ from the dead, he did in effect raise up all believers together with him, he being their common head; and when he placed him at his right hand in heavenly places, he advanced and glorified them in and with him, their raised and exalted head and forerunner.—And made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. This may be understood in another sense. Sinners roll themselves in the dust; sanctified souls sit in heavenly places, are raised above the world; the world is as nothing to them, compared with what it has been, and compared with what the other world is. Saints are not only Christ’s freemen, but they are assessors with him; by the assistance of his grace they have ascended with him above this world to converse with another, and they live in the constant expectation of it. They are not only servants to the best of masters in the best work, but they are exalted to reign with him; they sit upon the throne with Christ, as he has sat down with his Father on his throne.

Then Paul comes to the culmination by telling the Ephesians that, by grace, they have been saved through faith — and this was not of their (or our) own doing but rather the gift of God (verse 8), and not the result of works, so that none might boast (verse 9).

Paul means that all of this is a gift of God, not just a small portion of it.

MacArthur says:

Now I want to break that down for you. Twice—verse 5 and verse 8—you see the same statement: “By grace you have been saved,” end of verse 5; beginning of verse 8, “By grace you have been saved.” Salvation is by grace, by grace. The Reformers taught grace alone, sola gratia. Why did they make such an issue out of grace alone? Because the Roman Catholic Church teaches salvation by grace; but what they teach is that everyone has a certain deposit of grace, kind of like a pilot light of grace in them, so that you have the capacity to do what is the right thing, to do what is the righteous thing in bringing about your salvation. The Roman Catholic Church said, “Yes, we’re all enabled by grace; we’re kick-started by grace. The pilot light is lit by grace, but the salvation depends upon works. We are enabled by grace to some preliminary degree, but the achieving of salvation is a matter of works.” Well, that can’t possibly be true because verse 9 says it’s “not a result of works.” It couldn’t be more explicit than that. That negates that whole thought.

“Not as a result of works”—that’s the negative. The positive is, back to verse 8, “It’s the gift of God.” And prior to that, it’s “not of yourselves.” It’s not of yourselves, it’s not of works; it is the gift of God. You have nothing to boast in. You can’t say you cooperated with some measure of grace deposited by God, and brought about your own salvation to any degree that could allow you to be self-congratulatory.

MacArthur discusses the ever-popular social gospel in this context:

I also want you to know that the gospel is being confused today in our world. I heard one of the social justice pastors say this: “We have to say social justice is a gospel issue, or people won’t take it seriously.” Really? So because you have an agenda, a social agenda that you want to be taken seriously, you label it a gospel issue. This is very, very frequently being done, and has been done in the life of the church through its history.

In our national history there has been devastating, devastating ruin of churches and denominations and institutions because the gospel was redefined in a social way. We even remember the term “the social gospel.” Well, we’re back doing it again, taking all kinds of social causes that in themselves may be good, bad, or indifferent, and giving them a gospel label so that we can make people think they rise to the level of the absolute priority of the Word of God. If somebody wants a certain ethical issue to be given prominence, if someone has a social idea or a moral idea or some ideology, they want to label it as a gospel issue—which confuses the gospel, dilutes the gospel, adds to the gospel. And that is very, very unacceptable. And it’s a real problem, and I’ll tell you why.

In a recent survey of “Christians,” fifty percent of the people surveyed believe that salvation is earned by good works. This is fifty percent of professing Christians who believe you earn your salvation by good works. So they already are at the point where they think works are what earn salvation. And if you give them another social agenda and you make it a supposedly gospel issue, you just compound that error. The survey included the question about who goes to heaven. And the same percentage of people say, “Heaven is for those people who earn it by their good works.”

So when certain behaviors, certain actions, are elevated to the level of, “This is the gospel,” the true gospel is confused in the eyes of an already confused, professing church. The gospel is not about any behavior. It is not about any activity, any social cause, ethical cause, moral cause. The gospel nowhere is something you do; it is always something you believe. We never read anywhere in the New Testament, “Do the gospel”; all we read is, “Believe the gospel.”

Your life is a testimony. Your life is a testimony; it is a testimony of what the gospel has accomplished in your life. But your testimony will not save anyone, particularly your sort of silent testimony where you’re just living your life, even if in a noble and righteous way, because salvation’s not going to come to anybody who doesn’t hear the words of the gospel. You have to speak the gospel. The gospel is not behavior. You don’t do the gospel, you preach the gospel.

Grace is God’s gift and only His to give:

So salvation is by grace, and that Reformation term sola gratia is absolutely accurate. It is all by grace, fully by grace and grace alone. If grace is not all, then grace is not grace. If grace is mixed with law or some kind of works, then grace is not grace. Grace is unmerited favor from God, not a result of works; it is a gift of God. No one can boast in anything with regard to salvation. So that’s the foundation of understanding the gospel. It is not of works, it is a gift of God; it is by grace, undeserved kindness.

Paul ends by saying that we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life (verse 10).

MacArthur goes through the ten verses examining the components of gospel grace:

Gospel grace has these components: It is from sin, it is by love, it is into life, it is for glory, it is through faith, and it is unto good works. We’re going to look at soteriology from prepositional viewpoints. It is from sin, by love, into life, for glory, through faith, unto good works.

It’s a magnificent treatise that Paul gives us. Let’s begin where he begins: Gracious salvation is from sin. Look at the opening three verses: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” That establishes the condition of every human being. Every believer once walked according to the course of the world, once according to the prince of the power of the air. “All,” verse 3, “formerly lived in the lusts of the flesh . . . desires of the flesh and of the mind.” All of us were by nature children of wrath. This is the human condition. So before you get to the good news, you have to have the bad news, which is why the good news is so good.

With common grace, an unbeliever can still show kindness, but that does not allieviate him or her from the fallen state of sin:

So this is the condition of the whole human race. And it’s not that they’re dead because of their sins and their trespasses, it’s that they’re dead in their trespasses and in their sins—it’s the sphere in which they exist. Their condition is a condition of utter deadness, completely unable to respond to God. No life in them. They are totally cut off and alienated from the life of God.

… and secondly, they are therefore subject to whatever is going on in the world around them, and they cannot elevate above it.

Furthermore, Satan is at work in this sphere:

But it’s not only around them; at the end of verse 2 it says he “is working in the sons of disobedience.” It isn’t just that Satan has surrounded them with this world of temptation that panders to their deadness, it is that he operates in them; and that is laid out in verse 3: They all live “in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” Not only are they characterized by disobedience, so “[children] of disobedience,” they’re characterized by wrath, so “children of wrath”—and they’re all in the same condition.

MacArthur makes clear that salvation does not involve temporal things. It involves the spiritual realm and salvation from sin:

So this is the first reality to understand about the gospel: We’re not rescuing people from abuse. We’re not rescuing people from something done to them in this life or some other generation of life. We’re not rescuing people from bad marriages. We’re not rescuing people from inequities. We’re not rescuing people from poverty. That is not the gospel message. We are rescuing them from sin at a massive and all-encompassing level. So the gospel is a message: the good news that you can be rescued from sin.

God accomplishes this through His infinite love for us:

There’s a second principle, very important: The gospel is not only from sin—this is wonderful—it is by love. Salvation is from sin by love. Verse 4, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us live together with Christ.” God loved us. This is the amazing reality. It’s the word agapaō or agapē, the most elevated word for love. And it’s almost like the apostle Paul didn’t even try to use adjectives, so he just said, “Great love,” which is far below what it deserves, adjectivally speaking. “But God,” who is “rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us” …

And then His love reaches a peak at the cross, does it not, where He places His Son to die in the place of those whom He loves. The love of God is best measured by death because Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down”—what?—“his life for his friends.” And that’s what God did. There’s no such story in any other religion. So salvation, the gospel, is from sin and by love—this great, incomprehensible love of God.

There’s a third reality in verse 5: Salvation is into life. And we just read it: “Even when we were dead in our transgressions, [He] made us alive together with Christ.” So you were dead, and He made you alive. Because of the richness of His mercy, the greatness of His love, the extensive expression of His grace, He made us alive. How did He do that? He made us alive together with Christ.

So He placed us into Christ; and in Christ we died, and in Christ we rose. We were dead in our transgressions until He placed us into Christ. This is an amazing thing. In eternity past God knew upon whom He would set His love. And when Christ went to the cross, God placed all the sins of all who would ever believe—though they hadn’t even lived, He knew the path of their sin, He knew the full record of their sin (our sin!)—and He placed it on Christ and punished Christ for it as if we were there. And we died then. And all you can do as a penalty for sin is die: “The wages of sin is death” … We died. We died in Christ, and we rose in Him to newness of life.

… We have died with Christ, and now we live in Him. This is the amazing, amazing reality of being united to Christ in His death and resurrection. And He said, “Because I live, you shall live also,” right?

Salvation is from sin, by love, into life, and number four: Salvation is for glory. Verses 6 and 7—God who loved us, God who placed us into Christ, is the one, verse 6, who “raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” This is just staggering.

… He is at the right hand of the Father, and so are we. Obviously this hasn’t yet happened. But in the purposes of God, the sovereign purpose of a timeless, eternal being, it is done, it is done. Salvation is not about fixing things in this life, salvation is about glory in the life to come, and in the meantime enduring the difficulties of this life and counting it all joy when you have to endure them, because the [testing] of your faith strengthens it …

Salvation is from sin, by love, into life, for glory. Number five: Salvation is through faith. That gets us to those familiar words in verses 8 and 9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Again, saved through faith.

Well, is faith a work? Is faith something I exercised, and therefore apprehended salvation? No, because we just read, “Not of yourselves,” verse 8; “not . . . of works,” verse 9. So whatever faith is, it isn’t from you, and it isn’t your works. Maybe a good way to illustrate what faith is: You’re breathing right now, but you’re not thinking about it. It would make life very difficult if we had to remember to take a breath. But we don’t because there’s air pressure exerted on our lungs that causes us reflexively to breathe. And as a believer, faith is the breathing that comes under the pressure of sovereign, saving grace. Breathing is not something we do on our own, it’s something grace produces in us.

Finally, ‘good works’ refers to spontaneous fruits of faith:

… we were created like everything else that God creates, making no contribution to our creation. But verse 10 says, “For good works”—there is where the good works show up. You’re created by God in Christ unto good works. “We are His workmanship”—love that: poiēma, from which we get the word “poem,” which is a work of art. A beautiful poem is a work of art. We are God’s masterpiece. We’re not finished yet, but we are His masterpiece. And what He does with His masterpiece is produce good works, because that’s what He prepared beforehand for us to do. That’s what we walk in.

So this is where we show our compassion, our love, our affection. This is where we do deeds of kindness and mercy and all the righteous things, all the righteous behaviors that the Bible calls us to. But they are not the cause of our salvation; they are the result of our salvation. So that’s the gospel. So I’ll say to you this: Always preach the gospel, and always use words.

May everyone reading this enjoy a blessed day and, for the mothers in the United Kingdom, a very happy Mothering Sunday.

Second Sunday in Lent — Year B — exegesis on the Epistle, Romans 4:13-25

My sincere apologies for not being able to prepare the Sunday exegesis on Saturday.

The Second Sunday in Lent is February 25, 2024.

Readings for Year B can be found here.

The exegesis for the Gospel, Mark 8:31-38, can be found here.

The Epistle is as follows (emphases mine):

Romans 4:13-25

4:13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

4:14 If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

4:15 For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

4:16 For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,

4:17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) –in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

4:18 Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.”

4:19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.

4:20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,

4:21 being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

4:22 Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

4:23 Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone,

4:24 but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,

4:25 who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Last week’s readings focused on Noah, including the Epistle.

It should be noted that Abraham and Noah were Gentiles.

Abraham is the spiritual father in faith to both Gentiles and Jews. He had the first and the true blind faith. He did whatever God asked him and he trusted that God would keep up His side of the bargain.

You can read the preface to today’s verses in Romans 4:6-12. Paul points out that there was no circumcision when God called Abraham. Furthermore, there was no law. Therefore, God imputed righteousness to Abraham based on his unswerving faith (verse 13).

Matthew Henry says (emphases mine):

Abraham was the father of believers, because to him particularly the magna charta was renewed. (1.) The father of believing Gentiles, though they be not circumcised. Zaccheus, a publican, if he believe, is reckoned a son of Abraham, Luke 19 9. Abraham being himself uncircumcised when he was justified by faith, uncircumcision can never be a bar. Thus were the doubts and fears of the poor Gentiles anticipated and no room left to question but that righteousness might be imputed to them also, Col 3 11; Gal 5 6. (2.) The father of believing Jews, not merely as circumcised, and of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, but because believers, because they are not of the circumcision only (that is, are not only circumcised), but walk in the steps of that faith—have not only the sign, but the thing signified—not only are of Abraham’s family, but follow the example of Abraham’s faith. See here who are the genuine children and lawful successors of those that were the church’s fathers: not those that sit in their chairs, and bear their names, but those that tread in their steps; this is the line of succession, which holds, notwithstanding interruptions. It seems, then, those were most loud and forward to call Abraham father that had least title to the honours and privileges of his children. Thus those have most reason to call Christ Father, not that bear his name in being Christians in profession, but that tread in his steps.

Paul then condemns the notion that the law saves. It cannot save us, because we can never live up to it. Paul says that, if the adherents of the law are the saved ones, faith such as Abraham’s is null and void, as is God’s promise of justification by faith (verse 14).

Paul says that the law brings wrath — God’s anger against sinners — but where there is no law, such as in Abraham’s case, neither can there be any violation of it (verse 15).

For this reason, justification — and salvation — rest on faith, so that God’s promise rests on grace and be guaranteed to all Abraham’s descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also those who share his faith, for he is the father of all of us (verse 16).

John MacArthur recaps Paul’s exposition thus far:

… this is the heart and soul of the Christian faith. We must understand salvation, right? This is the blueprint. Now, Paul approaches Abraham from three perspectives. First of all he says Abraham was justified by faith not works; that’s verses 1 to 8. Then he says he was justified by grace not law; that’s verses 9 to 17. Then he says he was justified by divine power not human effort; that’s verses 18 to 25. And they overlap and they crisscross, but those are the basic threads or themes in each section. He was justified by faith not works, by grace not law, by divine power not human effort.

Now we already looked at verses 1 to 8 and we saw that Abraham was justified by faith not works. There are no works involved. Verse 3 is the sum of it, “Abraham believed God and righteousness was put to his account,” because he believed. And that’s the essence of it.

Now we’re looking at the second section, verses 9 to 17. And the key to this section is found in verse 16. The first section, it was by faith not works, and here it was by grace not law. And verse 16 says, “Therefore it is of faith (as we saw in the first eight verses) in order that it might be by grace.” You see, if salvation is a matter of simply believing and you can’t do anything then it has to be a gift from God, doesn’t it? It has to be by grace. Salvation is not earned. If you can’t earn it, if it has to be by faith, then it has to be a gift of God’s grace. What is grace? It is God’s absolutely free favor to an undeserving sinner. God’s absolutely free favor to an undeserving sinner. Abraham was justified, that is, made right with God. Abraham was brought into a right relationship with God because he believed, and that because God was gracious to him.

Paul calls to mind God’s promise that Abraham was the father of many nations, which he heard in God’s presence, the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist (verse 17).

MacArthur says that Paul is referring to Isaac:

God gives him this marvelous promise and he believes. He trusts in God. And he’s not limited because he believes in God’s ability to create out of nothing. So if he doesn’t have a son, that’s no problem for his God because his God can make one, right? And later on, isn’t it interesting? When Isaac was born that God asked him to do what with Isaac? Kill him, take him up on the mountain Moriah, put him on an altar, run a knife through him, take his life, burn him up as an offering. And you know something? He did that, he marched him up the mountain; in fact Isaac even carried on his back the sticks that would have kindled his own fire. He got up on top of the mountain, put him down, lifted up the knife and was about to plunge it into his heart.

You say, “Well, how can a man do that?” Well, it’s simple because, you see, he not only believed in the God who could make things out of nothing, who gave him the son from no possible son, but he also believes in the God who can do what? Raise him from the dead. And you see, he was without question, he was confident that if Isaac were to die, then Isaac would be raised from the dead. Because in Hebrews 11 it says: “By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.” Why? “Accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead.” So, you see, the man’s faith was based upon the character of God, who could bring something out of nothing and bring back into existence what had ceased to exist. So he was not weak in faith.

Henry explains how extensive this covenant was:

God would contrive the promise in such a way as might make it most extensive, to comprehend all true believers, that circumcision and uncircumcision might break no squares; and for this (v. 17) he refers us to Gen 17 5, where the reason of the change of his name from Abram—a high father, to Abraham—the high father of a multitude, is thus rendered: For a father of many nations have I made thee; that is, all believers, both before and since the coming of Christ in the flesh, should take Abraham for their pattern, and call him father.

When God made that promise, Abraham didn’t have anything at that point, so he hoped against hope that God would make it happen, that he would become the father of many nations, so numerous shall your descendants be (verse 18).

Abraham did not weaken in faith when he considered his own ageing body, nearly 100 years old and close to death, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb (verse 19).

Keep in mind that, after the Flood, God shortened mankind’s lifespan considerably from 900 years to a little over 100.

MacArthur tells us more about the Abrahamic Covenant:

It was given to Abraham in chapter 12. It was repeated in chapter 15, it’s repeated in chapter 18, it’s repeated in chapter 22. And God said to Abraham, I want you to go out of this land of Ur of the Chaldeans and I want you to go to a land that I’ve planned to give you and I’m going to make of you a great nation and whoever blesses you will be blessed and whoever curses you will be cursed. And He said to him, I’m going to give you a seed like the sand of the sea and they’ll number like the stars of the heaven. And you see, at that time he and Sarah didn’t have any children at all, in fact she was barren. And they were already approaching 100 years old. And God gave a promise.

But Abraham saw beyond the physical posterity. He saw beyond having a son, Isaac, and Isaac having a son and Isaac’s sons having sons and multiplications of nations. He saw beyond being a father of many nations. He knew that there was in that promise a spiritual reality because he had heard the promise, “In thee shall all be blessed.” And so, he knew that God was talking about a spiritual promise and that’s why Hebrews 11:10 says he “looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” You see, he saw a spiritual reality. Oh, he saw a physical seed, he saw a physical element, but he knew out of that physical seed would come a spiritual fulfillment.

Now, the promise is described in a marvelous way in verse 13. It says the promise to him was that he would be the heir of the world. I mean, that’s a pretty…that’s a pretty magnanimous promise, isn’t it? To be the heir of the whole world. What an incredible statement. “Abraham, I promise you’ll inherit the world.” Now what is He saying? Well, what is in this massive kind of statement? Well, first of all, if we look at the promise back in Genesis we find the first element of the promise was that he would inherit the land of Canaan. Genesis 15:18 to 21 talks about that, that there was the promise of God that there would be this unique land given to him, that it would be his land, that it was the land of God’s covenant and God’s promise, and he would inherit that land. “The Lord made a covenant with Abram,” Genesis 15:18, “unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaims, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” It’s all yours. And, by the way, the book of Joshua tells us the story of him taking possession of that promise. Abraham’s descendants took the land under the direction of Joshua.

And then the promise also incorporated a nation, or a people. Not just a land but a people, a physical nation. In fact, nations, for out of Abraham came not only Israel but the Arab nations as well. In Genesis 13:16 it says, “I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth so that if a man can number the dust of the earth then shall thy seed also be numbered.” He gave him a seed. And Exodus shows us the realization of the seed, the birth of the Semitic peoples and their history.

And then thirdly, inherent in the promise was the blessing of the world. Not just the land and not just a people, even nations of people, but there would be spiritual blessing. Genesis 12:3 says: “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Now, here we come to a very important point. You’ve got a land, the land of Canaan. You’ve got a people, really the people of Israel, the covenant people. And then this huge statement about the whole world getting blessed. And he is even called, and if you look down in verse 17 of Romans 4, “the father of many nations.”

How is this? How could he be the father of many nations? How can he be the heir of the world? How can one man be so significantly related to so many? The answer comes in what I think is the fourth element of the covenant; the land, the nations, the blessing of the world, and fourthly, the Redeemer. I’m convinced without a shadow of doubt that in the promise given to Abraham, he saw beyond Isaac to a Redeemer. And the reason I’m convinced of that is because that is in fact what our Lord Jesus said verbatim in John 8:56: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day and he saw it and was glad.” Now I do not know how much he knew of it, but he saw the day of the Redeemer, he saw it. Maybe he saw it in the typology of the ram provided in the thicket when he would have needed to take the life of Isaac. I don’t know where all he saw it but he saw the Redeemer. And the reason, listen carefully, that Abraham could bless the world, as it were, and be the father of a world of people and inherit the world, as it were, is because there would come out of his loins a Redeemer who would redeem from all the nations and tongues and tribes and people by faith. And all those sons of faith would be the sons of Abraham.

And this, I think, is stated by Paul in Galatians 3:16. Look at it, a very important statement. And we’re going to be looking back at this third chapter, so you can stick something in there to find it readily in a moment. “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.” Now listen to this. “And when He said this,” when God made the promise, “He said not ‘and to seeds,’ (plural) as of many, but as of one and that seed is (Whom?) Christ.” Now when God made the promise to Abraham, He said the ultimate promised seed is not seeds, but Christ. So, the real seed of Abraham was Christ and it is in Christ that all the people are blessed.

Look at verse 29 of the chapter, Galatians. “If you be Christ’s then are you Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the Abrahamic promise.” Now the promise said that all the world will be blessed in you, Abraham. That could only be true because out of the loins of Abraham came the seed who is Christ and all who put their faith in Christ become one with Christ. 1 Corinthians 6:17: “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” So we are one with the seed and thus by faith we become the spiritual seed of Abraham.

Now listen, that wasn’t written for simple-minded folks. Paul tells us some very profound things. If you’re still in Galatians 3 you might notice verses 8 and 9 while we’re there. “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles through faith, preached before the gospel to Abraham saying, ‘In thee shall all nations be blessed.’ So then they who are of faith are blessed with the man of faith, Abraham.”

In other words, when it says “in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed” what does that mean? There’s the commentary. It means that when you put your faith in Christ, who is the seed of Abraham, in fact that’s what it says in the genealogy in Matthew 1, son of David, son of Abraham. If you put your faith in the son of Abraham, in the seed of Abraham, then you become a child of faith, and in that sense spiritually a son of Abraham, who is the model of faith for all the world.

Now listen, when you put your faith in Christ and are identified with the seed and you become an element of that seed joined to Jesus Christ, it’s one seed because we’re one in Christ. We then, along with Abraham (back to verse 13) inherit the world. We are the heirs of the world. I mean, it’s marvelous. All of us who are in Christ are one with Christ. We are therefore the seed of Abraham by faith, the true spiritual seed. And we are part of the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham which was to inherit the world and therefore we inherit the world. Now if you have trouble with that, remember Romans chapter 8, where the Lord says that you are heirs of God and joint heirs with whom? Jesus Christ. So, as heirs of God we inherit what God grants. As joint heirs with Christ, we inherit what God grants to Christ. And what does God grant to Christ? “I will give Him the kingdoms (Of what?) of the world.” So, in Christ we inherit the world.

No distrust made Abraham waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God (verse 20).

Abraham was fully convinced that God was able to do what He promised (verse 21).

Therefore, his faith was reckoned to him — by God — as righteousness (verse 22).

Henry tells us:

Though weak faith shall not be rejected, the bruised reed not broken, the smoking flax not quenched, yet strong faith shall be commended and honoured. The strength of his faith appeared in the victory it won over his fears. And hereby he gave glory to God; for, as unbelief dishonours God by making him a liar ( 1 John 5 10), so faith honours God by setting to its seal that he is true, John 3 33. Abraham’s faith gave God the glory of his wisdom, power, holiness, goodness, and especially of his faithfulness, resting upon the word that he had spoken. Among men we say, “He that trusts another, gives him credit, and honours him by taking his word;” thus Abraham gave glory to God by trusting him. We never hear our Lord Jesus commending any thing so much as great faith (Matt 8 10 and 15 28): therefore God gives honour to faith, great faith, because faith, great faith, gives honour to God. 5. He was fully persuaded that what God had promised he was able to perform, plerophoretheis—was carried on with the greatest confidence and assurance; it is a metaphor taken from ships that come into the harbour with full sail. Abraham saw the storms of doubts, and fears, and temptations likely to rise against the promise, upon which many a one would have shrunk back, and lain by for fairer days, and waited a smiling gale of sense and reason. But Abraham, having taken God for his pilot, and the promise for his card and compass, resolves to weather his point, and like a bold adventurer sets up all his sails, breaks through all the difficulties, regards neither winds nor clouds, but trusts to the strength of his bottom and the wisdom and faithfulness of his pilot, and bravely makes to the harbour, and comes home an unspeakable gainer. Such was his full persuasion, and it was built on the omnipotence of God: He was able. Our waverings rise mainly from our distrust of the divine power; and therefore to fix us it is requisite we believe not only that he is faithful, but that he is able, that hath promised. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness, v. 22. Because with such a confidence he ventured his all in the divine promise, God graciously accepted him, and not only answered, but out-did, his expectation. This way of glorifying God by a firm reliance on his bare promise was so very agreeable to God’s design, and so very conducive to his honour, that he graciously accepted it as a righteousness, and justified him, though there was not that in the thing itself which could merit such an acceptance. This shows why faith is chosen to be the prime condition of our justification, because it is a grace that of all others gives glory to God.

God’s reckoning of righteousness to Abraham holds true for us as well.

Paul says that the words, ‘it was reckoned to him’ were not meant for Abraham alone (verse 23) but for our sakes also; it will be reckoned to us who believe in Him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead (verse 24), who was handed over to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification (verse 25).

Henry explains:

… this particularly concerning Abraham was written for us also, to assure us what that righteousness is which God requireth and accepteth to our salvation,—for us also, that are man and vile, that come so far short of Abraham in privileges and performances, us Gentiles as well as the Jews, for the blessing of Abraham comes upon the Gentiles through Christ,—for us on whom the ends of the world are come, as well as for the patriarchs; for the grace of God is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. His application of it is but short. Only we may observe,

I. Our common privilege; it shall be imputed to us, that is, righteousness shall. The gospel way of justification is by an imputed righteousness, mellei logizesthai—it shall be imputed; he uses a future verb, to signify the continuation of this mercy in the church, that as it is the same now so it will be while God has a church in the world, and there are any of the children of men to be justified; for there is a fountain opened that is inexhaustible.

II. Our common duty, the condition of this privilege, and that is believing. The proper object of this believing is a divine revelation. The revelation to Abraham was concerning a Christ to come; the revelation to us is concerning a Christ already come, which difference in the revelation does not alter the case. Abraham believed the power of God in raising up an Isaac from the dead womb of Sarah; we are to believe the same power exerted in a higher instance, the resurrection of Christ from the dead. The resurrection of Isaac was in a figure (Heb 11 19); the resurrection of Christ was real. Now we are to believe on him that raised up Christ; not only believe his power, that he could do it, but depend upon his grace in raising up Christ as our surety; so he explains it, v. 25, where we have a brief account of the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection, which are the two main hinges on which the door of salvation turns. 1. He was delivered for our offences. God the Father delivered him, he delivered up himself as a sacrifice for sin. He died indeed as a malefactor, because he died for sin; but it was not his own sin, but the sins of the people. He died to make atonement for our sins, to expiate our guilt, to satisfy divine justice. 2. He was raised again for our justification, for the perfecting and completing of our justification. By the merit of his death he paid our debt, in his resurrection he took out our acquittance. When he was buried he lay a prisoner in execution for our debt, which as a surety he had undertaken to pay; on the third day an angel was sent to roll away the stone, and so to discharge the prisoner, which was the greatest assurance possible that divine justice was satisfied, the debt paid, or else he would never have released the prisoner: and therefore the apostle puts a special emphasis on Christ’s resurrection; it is Christ that died, yea, rather that has risen again, ch. 8 34. So that upon the whole matter it is very evident that we are not justified by the merit of our own works, but by a fiducial obediential dependence upon Jesus Christ and his righteousness, as the condition on our part of our right to impunity and salvation, which was the truth that Paul in this and the foregoing chapter had been fixing as the great spring and foundation of all our comfort.

MacArthur concludes on our two earliest faith heroes, Abraham and Noah, beginning with Abraham who had every confidence God would give him and Sarah a son:

It says in verse 19 that he was not discouraged by his own natural weakness. I mean, he knew he could make no contribution. It says in verse 19, “And he considered,” I think the better manuscript way to look at this, and there are divergent ones, some have the word “not” in it, some have the word “not” out, basically comes out the same either way. “He considered his own body now dead.” He looked at his own body and he said, “I’m not going to be able to make a contribution to this. I am 99. I have died as to procreative power. And Sarah,” who is mentioned in the rest of the verse, “never has been any help. So, between the two of us we cannot do this.”

You see, but he was not discouraged by his own natural weakness. He considered, katanoeō means to fix your mind on it, thought about it, he thought about the fact that he was now dead. That’s a perfect participle in the Greek and it means that he was in a state of deadness, he was never able to function again, and so, he fixed his mind on the reality that he was never able to produce this son himself. He was impotent.

Now, he could have easily reasoned like a lot of other folks would have reasoned and said, well, that’s it. I mean, God blew it. I had my moments. I mean, there was a time and now I’m old and impotent, the promise can’t be fulfilled. But that was not a problem to Abraham because he knew he had a God who could make out of nothing. And you don’t need an Abraham to create something out of nothing.

You know, I always think about Noah when I think about, I think about faith, I think about Abraham and Noah. I mean, I can imagine Noah … He built a boat in the middle of the desert and it took him 120 years to do it. And he kept telling people that the reason he was doing it was because it was going to rain. And of course, there had never been rain in the history of the world. It had never rained. There had never been rain. The earth was watered specially by the canopy that covered it prior to the flood when those things were broken up and the clouds burst forth with the rain. But it had never rained. There never was such a thing as rain. And here is a man who believed God that it would rain, that water would fall out of the sky and it had never happened. And that it would be enough water to float a boat the size of the Queen Mary, which would be filled up with all the animals, two of every kind, who would wonderfully cooperate, showing up, marching in, in single, double file.

Now I personally can imagine someone ordering the lumber; I can’t imagine still hammering on the stuff 120 years later. I mean, maybe in the euphoria of the original announcement you could get turned on but the long siege of 120 years would tend to sort of run you out of gas as far as the possibility of this, espel…especially with the incessant harassment of people who laughed and mocked at the whole idea. Here’s Noah building a boat for something which he himself can’t provide, rain; totally dependent on God.

Abraham is in the same situation. He has no personal capacity to make the promise happen. He is utterly impotent but he is not weak in faith and he does not get discouraged by his own inability.

There’s a fourth phrase that helps us understand Abraham’s faith. It says: “Neither was he, of course, discouraged by the deadness of Sarah’s womb.” Genesis 18:11 says that Sarah’s womb was dead and she was unable to produce a child. He couldn’t produce the seed and she couldn’t carry it in a fertilized egg, no artificial insemination, no surrogate mothering, no nothing, no hope. But that didn’t bother Abraham to the extent that it robbed him of his confidence. His faith was fixed.

There’s a fifth element of his faith. Look at verse 20: “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith.” Fifth principle, he did not vacillate in doubt, he did not vacillate in doubt. No vacillating, the word means “to stagger, or waver,” or vacillate. It’s the word, and some of you who know Greek, it’s the word krinō, which means “to judge,” with dia at the front of it, which has to do with two — to judge between two things. He didn’t flip-flop back and forth unable to make an opinion, solidify an option. He was strong in faith. Like the psalmist in Psalm 57:7, he could say, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed.” His eyes were filled with the vision of God and God could bring something out of nothing and God could raise the dead. And the deadness of Sarah’s womb was not a problem and his own impotence was not a problem. He believed God, strong in faith.

Now at this point, you begin to ask yourself, “Is this guy human? I mean, he’s not like us, is he? He doesn’t appear to be like us.” You see, we always consider all these human factors and we may be saying… I said this to myself honestly as I went through this: If this is the kind of faith that saves, who in the world can come up to this? I mean, who can say that he never wavers in faith against all human inability? Well, I certainly can’t say that. And neither can you. And I don’t think that’s what it intended to say here. Let me show you why. Go back to Genesis 17 and I want you to note something that’s very comforting, verse 15. “And God said unto Abraham, ‘As for Sarah, thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai but Sarah shall be her name.” It means princess. “And I will bless her and give thee a son also of her.” Now here comes God and he’s giving him this promise at the age of 99, “I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations” …

Ultimately:

All faith works through the struggle, but the kind of faith that saves is the kind that lands on the confidence side. You see, the ultimate end of Abraham’s struggle was that he was confident. Oh, there was a time when he…which he had to deal with the options and the opinions and he had to land, and when he landed he landed firmly. In fact, it was the struggle, I think, that strengthened his faith.

… Oh it was battered around but in the end it did not waver. You see, James puts it this way. In chapter 1, he says; “The trial of your faith brings ultimately perfection.” And ultimately you stop wavering and being double-minded. And so, he worked through the struggles, he worked through the difficulties; he worked through the famine and the pharaoh and the fear and all the other elements. He worked through even the folly of the thought that they could bring a child into the world. And when it was all worked through and the struggle was over, he was unwavering, strong in faith.

That is the lesson of how to develop strong faith in God. May we be often reminded of the examples of Abraham and Noah and put them into practice.

First Sunday in Lent — Year B — exegesis on the Epistle, 1 Peter 3:18-22, part 2

The First Sunday in Lent is February 18, 2024.

Readings for Year B can be found here. Note that the first reading from Genesis 9 is God’s covenant with Noah and his descendants regarding the rainbow, the sign that God would never again destroy the entire earth with a flood. Noah and his family’s escape appear in today’s Epistle.

The exegesis for the Gospel, Mark 1:9-15, can be found here.

The Epistle is as follows (emphases mine):

1 Peter 3:18-22

3:18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,

3:19 in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison

3:20 who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.

3:21 And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you–not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

3:22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur (as specified below).

Yesterday’s post covered verses 18 through 20, explaining Christ’s triumph on the Cross, including over Satan and his demons. It also gave an overview of the wickedness of Noah’s day, including the interbreeding between loose demons and women, creating a half-demonic set of humans. After Jesus died, His spirit remained alive and He descended to the pit to proclaim to the bound demons — those who had interbred with the women of Noah’s time — that He had triumphed over death and them.

MacArthur offers a summary, including a fact about the climate at that time. Until the Flood, the world had never experienced rain:

Galatians 2:15 Paul tells us the proclamation was that He had triumphed. That He had triumphed. Maybe there was a party going on with those spirits in hell because Jesus was dead. Maybe they thought they had defeated God and there would be no salvation and hell would be literally occupied by everyone. And Jesus showed up at the party and said, “That’s not the way it is.” He proclaimed His triumph over them …

Notice how Jesus’ work on the cross and through the resurrection ends our fear of death. Verse 20 in the middle Peter, talking about the demons who were incarcerated in the days of Noah, is also reminded that at the time of Noah there was “the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through the water.” Peter remembers how that incredible event happened when God drowned the millions of people in the world and saved only eight. God told them to build a boat, well, actually a barge, and to get inside, because something was going to happen that had never happened in the history of the world – rain. Not only rain, but the whole crust to the earth, the whole service to the earth was going to break up and massive vaults of water in the core of the earth were going to come out and flood the surface, as well as the water canopy around the earth inundating and flooding the earth in immeasurable deluge. God was going to drown the whole world. And He said, “But I’ll spare you eight. You get in the boat. The water will come down on top and the roof will protect you. It’ll come up … and the bottom of the boat will protect you and you’ll sail right through the middle of the judgment. And the rain will stop and the water will recede and you’ll walk out in a new world.” That’s what happened. That’s exactly what happened. Millions were dead, drowned in the flood, but one day Noah and his family walked out into a new world, having been literally taken through the flood in the safety of an ark.

Then Peter switches from the flood to baptism, saying that the flood prefigured baptism and now saves believers, not as a literal cleansing of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (verse 21).

Peter is talking about baptism as an internal commitment to righteousness and Christ, similar to the way that the Jewish circumcision was to be used as a commitment to a spiritual circumcision, doing away with sin.

Matthew Henry explains:

Noah’s salvation in the ark upon the water prefigured the salvation of all good Christians in the church by baptism; that temporal salvation by the ark was a type, the antitype whereunto is the eternal salvation of believers by baptism, to prevent mistakes about which the apostle,

I. Declares what he means by saving baptism; not the outward ceremony of washing with water, which, in itself, does no more than put away the filth of the flesh, but it is that baptism wherein there is a faithful answer or restipulation of a resolved good conscience, engaging to believe in, and be entirely devoted to, God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, renouncing at the same time the flesh, the world, and the devil. The baptismal covenant, made and kept, will certainly save us. Washing is the visible sign; this is the thing signified.

II. The apostle shows that the efficacy of baptism to salvation depends not upon the work done, but upon the resurrection of Christ, which supposes his death, and is the foundation of our faith and hope, to which we are rendered conformable by dying to sin, and rising again to holiness and newness of life. Learn, 1. The sacrament of baptism, rightly received, is a means and a pledge of salvation. Baptism now saveth us. God is pleased to convey his blessings to us in and by his ordinances, Acts 2 38; 22 16. 2. The external participation of baptism will save no man without an answerable good conscience and conversation. There must be the answer of a good conscience towards God.

John MacArthur has more:

… in verse 21 Peter writes, “And corresponding to that” – very like that – “baptism now saves you.” Now when you see the word baptism, you think of water baptism immediately, because that’s the common Christian concept. So he quickly says, “No, not the removal of dirt from the flesh.” I’m not talking about that. I’m not talking about a rite or a ritual. The word baptism means immersion, and it could be used metaphorically. You could be immersed in your studies, you could be immersed in anger, you could be immersed in happiness. There’re a lot of uses of the term. What he’s saying is there is an immersion. There is a being put into that saves you, not water, but an appeal to God for a good conscience. What’s that? Repentance. I’m tired of my accusations. I’m tired of my guilt. I’m tired of the burden of sin. I want my conscience cleansed. And you cry to God for, not an outward washing, but an inward cleansing, which is available through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In other words, you recognize Jesus died for you and He rose again, and that therein is the provision of salvation, and the sinner comes and says, “God, through the work of Christ, wash me on the inside.” And God, in His grace, places you into Christ and literally you go through judgment in Christ. The judgment of God falls on him. He’s the ark. It hits him from the top, it hits him from the bottom, but it never touches you. You literally go through the judgment of God in Christ like Noah’s family went through the flood. And in the end the judgment is over and you step out into eternal life. So death then is really simply the ark of Christ that transitions you from this world to the next. That’s why death has no fear. And so it is that at every point where we have to fear God Jesus comes to remove our fear. We fear God because of our sin. Jesus bears our sin away in satisfying the justice of God. We fear God because of the dread of hell. Jesus rescues us from hell and announces a triumph over it. We fear God because of death and the judgment. Jesus is our ark who takes us through the judgment into eternal life …

But only through Jesus Christ can that happen. He alone is the one who paid the price for sin once for all. No other price paid, and it’s applied to all who believe. He is the One who triumphed over the forces of hell and hell itself. He is the One who makes death a welcome transition and not a frightening event. And thus we say the sufferings of Christ are triumphant, not only for Him, but for all who trust Him.

MacArthur elaborates further on the ark, baptism and Christ triumphant:

Now imagine this, preaching for 120 years about the coming judgment of God and giving a massive object lesson about it as the ark was being built, and at the end of those 120 years having no converts outside your family.  But for those eight who believed, the ark was the means of their deliverance from judgment.  As long as they were in it, they were safe.  And you remember when the flood came the ark floated and those eight souls among all the human beings on the face of the earth were alone saved.  We might say that the ark carried them from a world of wickedness and iniquity into a brand new life.  In fact, they passed through judgment by being in that ark. They were not touched. They went through the judgment. The rain was above them and the flood was below them.  They were in the middle of the judgment but they were untouched in the safety of that ark. For Peter, that is a picture of salvation.

Notice verse 21, “And corresponding to that.” Stop right there.  He sees that as an analogy, corresponding to that, resembling that.  This is antitupon, an antitype, a pattern.  That term used in the New Testament basically has the idea of an earthly expression of a heavenly reality.  It is a symbol or a picture or a pattern or an analogy of some spiritual truth.  So in some way, the fact that eight people were in an ark and went through the whole judgment and yet were untouched is analogous to the Christian experience in salvation.

Now somebody will say, “Okay, what is the antitupon?  What is the antitype?  Is it the ark or is it the water?”  And I think the answer is it’s the whole thing. It’s the whole thing.  If you want to emphasize the water, you can since water is neuter and so is antitupon.  But the real idea here is the whole idea that just as these people in the ark went through the waters of judgment, so the believer is carried safely through judgment, the judgment of God.  And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you.  Now if were to change that word “baptism” and say “immersion now saves you,” we’d begin to move toward the meaning here.

Now let me say something at the outset.  I don’t think he’s talking about water baptism because water baptism doesn’t save you.  I don’t think he’s talking about water baptism symbolically.  I think he’s talking about immersion into an ark of safety that went through judgment.  Now follow the thought.  He is saying, just like Noah was placed with his sons and their wives in an ark of safety and they went through the judgment, they didn’t miss it, they didn’t really escape it, they were preserved in it, so you have been immersed in some kind of protective ark that has taken you through judgment.  They were put into the waters of judgment.  The waters of judgment fell down on the top of them but they were incarcerated in a haven of safety.  And he is saying we as believers are put into the great waters of judgment and we too are incarcerated in a haven of safety.

‘Protected’, ‘preserved’, as it were, from divine judgement.

MacArthur continues:

He’s talking about an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  You’ll notice you probably have some dashes in that sentence.  It should read like this if you leave out that qualifying statement in the middle, “and corresponding to that, baptism now saves you through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The other statements are qualifiers.  It is a baptism that saves you.  What baptism?  Baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ.  That’s the issue here.  As that flood was a furious judgment of God upon the earth in Genesis, as it killed everybody on the face of the globe and yet eight people lived through, though they were immersed in it they were immersed into an ark of safety.  So, the judgment of God came upon Jesus Christ, now follow this, the judgment came upon Jesus Christ and you went through that judgment in Him, but you survived, protected in the ark who is Christ, the ark of safety.  And you went into His death, burial, and out again in His resurrection.  That’s what he’s saying here.  He says I’m not talking about a water baptism either literally or metaphorically, it is not the removal of dirt from the flesh.  I’m talking about you, by faith, coming into union with Christ, undergoing the judgment of God that fell on Christ in His death and burial, and coming out the other side in the glory of His resurrection; thus you too have been carried through the judgment of God and out the other side by being incarcerated, as it were, in Christ, the ark of safety.

And the eight in Genesis left the world of sin and they came through a flood of judgment.  So you have left the world of sin and you came through a flood of judgment.  As the ark, in a sense, was a tomb and there was a certain kind of dying to the world as they entered it and sealed it shut, and there was a certain kind of resurrection, that day when it stopped on Mount Ararat and they opened the door and walked out. They walked out to a new life in a new world.  So, says Peter, is the majesty of the analogy, as you by faith entered into the ark of safety in Christ, you entered into a coffin of sorts because you died in Him and one day it was open and you burst out in His resurrection and you live a new life.  That’s the kind of immersion he’s talking about.  Yes, it is depicted in water baptism.  We understand that.  Peter is not particularly talking about that, that’s why he says explicitly, “not the removal of dirt from the flesh.”  Water baptism is another issue.  He is speaking about this wonderful immersion into Christ.  And Peter is certainly in wonderful harmony with Paul, isn’t he?  Romans 6, where Paul talks about being buried with Christ in His death and then rising in His resurrection to walk in newness of life, it’s the same idea.

Think of ‘appeal’ as a ‘pledge’:

Well, the word “appeal” is the word that is used as a technical term for making a contract.  It is a technical term for making a pledge, agreeing to certain conditions or demands of a covenant.  This is a very important statement.  Here it says that what places you into the ark of safety is a covenant or a pledge or a contract or an agreement to certain conditions in regard to God. That’s what he’s saying.

It is a confession of faith in desiring a covenant with God, an appeal to God for a good conscience.  Sinful men have only an evil conscience.  The point here is the sinner is sick of his evil, he’s sick of his sin.  He is sick of his accusing conscience.  He wants to be delivered from the burden of sin.  He wants to be delivered from the guilt of sin, from the crushing intimidating fearful anticipation of judgment.  He wants to have a good conscience.  He wants to experience what Hebrews 9:14 says, “The blood of Christ will cleanse your conscience.”  Hebrews 10:22 basically says the same thing. It says, “Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.”

What is he saying?  He is saying in verse 21, there is an immersion into Christ that saves you.  It isn’t an external ritual of washing.  What puts you into Christ is not a water baptism. What puts you into Christ is a pledge to God, an appeal to God for a clean conscience.  In other words, it’s a pleading to be forgiven for what?  For your sins.  It is repentance, that’s what it is.

What saves you?  Not water baptism, but immersion into the ark of safety, who is Christ, in whom you go through the death and burial and resurrection and the judgment of God falls but it falls on the ark and not on you.

What saves you?  Not some external ritual or external rite, but a heart longing to be delivered from the crushing burden of sin that plagues your evil conscience and wants to covenant with God to live an obedient life.  And it leads you through the judgment out the other side through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That celebrates, that completes the salvation triumph.

Henry gives us his perspective on infant baptism, saying there is no reason why a child should not be baptised, especially when Jewish circumcision is for eight-day-old boys:

Obj. Infants cannot make such an answer, and therefore ought not to be baptized.—Answer, the true circumcision was that of the heart and of the spirit (Rom 2 29), which children were no more capable of then than our infants are capable of making this answer now; yet they were allowed circumcision at eight days old. The infants of the Christian church therefore may be admitted to the ordinance with as much reason as the infants of the Jewish, unless they are barred from it by some express prohibition of Christ.

Continuing on from that appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Peter reinforces the point by adding that He has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities and powers made subject to Him (verse 22).

Henry explains:

The apostle, having mentioned the death and resurrection of Christ, proceeds to speak of his ascension, and sitting at the right hand of the Father, as a subject fit to be considered by these believers for their comfort in their suffering condition, v. 22. If the advancement of Christ was so glorious after his deep humiliation, let not his followers despair, but expect that after these short distresses they shall be advanced to transcendent joy and glory. Learn, 1. Jesus Christ, after he had finished his labours and his sufferings upon earth, ascended triumphantly into heaven, of which see Acts 1 9-11; Mark 16 19. He went to heaven to receive his own acquired crown and glory (John 17 5), to finish that part of his mediatorial work which could not be done on earth, and make intercession for his people, to demonstrate the fulness of his satisfaction, to take possession of heaven for his people, to prepare mansions for them, and to send down the Comforter, which was to be the first-fruits of his intercession, John 16 7. 2. Upon his ascension into heaven, Christ is enthroned at the right hand of the Father. His being said to sit there imports absolute rest and cessation from all further troubles and sufferings, and an advancement to the highest personal dignity and sovereign power. 3. Angels, authorities, and powers, are all made subject to Christ Jesus: all power in heaven and earth, to command, to give law, issue orders, and pronounce a final sentence, is committed to Jesus, God-man, which his enemies will find to their everlasting sorrow and confusion, but his servants to their eternal joy and satisfaction.

MacArthur says:

So verse 22 says, “After angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.”  I believe that looks back not only to the moment that He descended into the pit and declared His triumph and announced His victory, but to the fact that it was through the cross and the resurrection that all those spiritual beings called angels, authorities and powers, and those last two words are just different terms for angels, have been subjected to Him.  All ranks of spiritual beings must submit to Christ, He is preeminent.  It says in Ephesians 1, remember these words in verses 20 and 21, I’m sure you will, it says that Christ was raised from the dead, seated at God’s right hand in heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come, and He put all things in subjection under His feet.  It was through His suffering and the obedience of suffering that God highly exalted Him.  And every being is hupotass, lined up in rank beneath him, a military term.

So, it was through unjust suffering that Christ found the path of triumph.  It was through unjust suffering that Christ gained His great and glorious victory.  It was through unjust suffering that He triumphed in sin bearing, He triumphed over spirits, He triumphed in salvation and He triumphed as the Supreme Being at the right hand of God.

What is the point of this?  Peter is saying, “Look on your unjust suffering as the path of triumph.  Look on your unjust suffering as the path of victory.  It was for Christ, it will be for you.”

MacArthur concludes:

It may be that when you suffer unjustly, you too might have the opportunity, because of how you take that suffering, to lead someone to Christ.  It may be that when you suffer unjustly the Lord will give you great and glorious triumph over the demons with whom you wrestle.  It may be that when you suffer unjustly, you might become a source of safety for someone else who sees how you weather that storm. And it will be that should you suffer triumphantly, the Lord will exalt you and lift you up.  So look not away from the suffering, look through it to the triumph.

Now there’s an added perspective to keep in mind. How we handle suffering can encourage others to come to Christ. Marvellous!

Forbidden Bible Verses will appear tomorrow.

Forbidden Bible Verses — Genesis 3:22-24

The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Genesis 3:22-24

²² And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever.’ ²³ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ²⁴ After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side^[a] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

————————————————————————————————————————-

Last week’s post discussed Adam’s naming Eve the mother of all the living and God’s provision of animal skins for the couple to wear: the first sacrifice in the Bible, because an animal had to die. It was the first death mankind would experience.

That sacrifice was the first example of substitutionary atonement.

John MacArthur explains that there is an introduction to the doctrine of salvation in those verses as well as in this week’s. They introduce God as Saviour (emphases mine):

Now, as we approach these verses, the five verses that end this great chapter, I want to remind you that God is by nature a Savior of sinners. In fact, God bears that title. First Timothy chapter 1, He is called, “God our Savior.” Titus chapter 1, verses 3 and 4; Titus chapter 2; then again in Titus chapter 3, God is called God our Savior. First Timothy 4:10, “God is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.”

And when God came into the world in human form, Jesus Christ, He also is called our Savior. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And one of the things that is very clear in Scripture is that God has a disposition in His nature to save sinners, to save them from sin, to save them from the consequence of sin, to save them from the power of sin, to save them even from the presence of sin. This is not foreign to the nature of God, this is true to His nature.

And I’ve told you in the past, there is no other deity in the pantheon of human and demonic religions, there is no other deity that has ever been invented who is by nature a savior of sinners. This is the utter uniqueness of Christianity, that our God, the true and living God, the only God, is a Savior of sinners by nature.

… This is the first time in the Bible that God is presented as a Savior. Right after the fall, early in the chapter, following immediately upon the curse that comes in the middle of the chapter, God is introduced to us as a Savior. Here, in that amazing fullness that God can put in a few words, we find Him being introduced as the Savior. We find here the introduction of His plan of redemption. We find here the indication that He is bringing salvation to sinful people.

Now, all of the components of salvation are present in the text that I read, and I admit, they’re are not immediately present at the first reading. You’re probably wondering where I see those things. Well, I’ll tell you in a moment. But everything that is essential is here. From man’s side, there are essentially two things: faith and hope – faith and hope. Those are the two things that are necessary with regard to man’s side of salvation. We have to believe in the Lord to be saved.

We have to believe His Word, put our trust in what He has said and what He has promised, and then, having believed, we live in hope for something we have not yet seen or received. And so it is required that we be characterized by faith and hope. That’s on our side. On God’s side, two things are necessary – atonement and security – atonement and security. God has to provide a suitable atonement to cover our sin and then He has to hold onto us to keep us saved until we get to glory. So from man’s side, faith and hope, from God’s side, atonement and security, those are the essential elements of salvation.

That is the necessary mix in the plan of God, and you find all four of them in this text. The salvation of sinners, their deliverance from sin, their deliverance from death and hell has always been by faith and in hope and always been through divine atonement and security. Now, not all the fullness of those great truths is here, but the first glimpse of those truths is here. This is the first glimpse of what is progressively revealed in Scripture and perfected in the coming of Christ and the New Testament.

This is the hope element:

God had made one great promise, and the promise was that Satan would be at enmity with the woman and that her seed would engage in battle against his seed, and her seed would triumph by bruising Satan on the head and Satan would only be able to bruise her seed on the heel.

God promised, then, that the woman would have a child and that out of the loins of that woman would come one who would defeat Satan, literally crush Satan’s head. That is the first promise of a Savior.

Now, by now, Adam and Eve know that Satan is a liar. Satan said, “You’ll not surely die, God is hiding things from you, He’s not a good God, He didn’t tell you the truth. I’m the good one, I’m telling you the truth,” et cetera, et cetera. They, for the time, believed Satan, were then catapulted into a cursed environment. They were cursed themselves. They now know Satan lied and God told the truth. And God made one promise, “I’ll give that woman a seed. Out of that woman will come One who will destroy Satan, who will crush his head, destroy the enemy, destroy the one who brought sin into the human realm and give back paradise to the world.”

This is the faith element:

When Adam named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living, he was stating by that name that he believed God would fulfill His promise. As I said, at the time she wasn’t the mother of anybody. He was naming her Eve by faith. They had believed Satan and not God, but no longer. They now know Satan was a liar and God told the truth. Faith was planted in their hearts. They believed God and consequently he names her Eve, which means life, and she accepts the name.

Also, there is built into that penitence (or repentance). They were sorry that they had ever followed Satan. They were sorry they had ever turned to disobedience against God. They were sorry that they had ever fallen to that temptation. And there was remorse and there was certainly a deep sense of penitence. They both repented for their trust in Satan, who destroyed their paradise and destroyed their lives.

And so you see, then, in verse 20 by the name that Adam gives his to wife that he now believes God. Though the promise was death, he believes there will be life because God said there would be life out of her womb, life in the form of One who would come to destroy Satan. They now believe God. Salvation comes to those who believe God. Now, what did they have to believe? Anything and everything God said. God hadn’t said very much, He’d only given one promise, really, one great promise with regard to salvation and that is that Satan would be defeated, he would be destroyed, he would be destroyed by someone born of woman, and they believed that.

And as far as they could, then, they believed in the Savior who was to come. They believed that God would provide a savior, a deliverer, one who would overturn the fall, crush the serpent’s head, and bring back paradise. That was their part.

God provided atonement, which means covering, in the form of an animal sacrifice that provided skins to clothe Adam and Eve, because they now knew shame through their sin of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil:

We also saw that the first element on God’s part is atonement. It doesn’t do any good for a man to believe unless God provides a means for salvation. Man’s faith and repentance mean absolutely nothing without God’s provision for sin. And so you come to verse 21 and you see here in a beautiful picture God’s provision, “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them” …

Sin brought guilt. Sin brought shame. Sin brought all kinds of illicit feelings. And so they, feeling guilty, tried to cover themselves but that’s inadequate. No man can cover his own shame. No man can cover his own guilt, no woman can, either. And so God here in symbolic action says if you’re going to be covered, if your shame is going to be covered and your guilt is going to be covered, I’m going to have to do it. And here, I’m going to have to do it by killing something.

And who does He kill? Well, He kills an animal, obviously. Can’t take the skin of an animal without killing the animal. And here is the first time you have death in the Bible, first time in history. Up to this point, they were vegetarian. They only ate of the food of the ground. They didn’t eat any animals. There was no food chain in terms of animals eating other animals. The whole creation was vegetarian up to this point.

This is atonement. Why? God requires death for sin. Sin brings about death. The wages of sin is death … because God is by nature a savior, merciful, and gracious, He brings a substitute, slays the substitute and covers the sinner’s shame and guilt by the death of a substitute. His judgment, His justice, His wrath being satisfied by the death of the substitute.

… And that is exactly what the death of Jesus on the cross means. He is innocent, He is spotless, He is without blemish, He is perfect, He is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and yet God takes Him and puts Him on the cross. He, who knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21) became sin for us and He becomes our substitute.

Now we come to today’s verses and another of God’s provisions, security, although that might not be immediately evident.

The Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever‘ (verse 22).

MacArthur explains how God provided security for the couple:

God knows that now the man has the knowledge of good and evil experientially. Not in the way that God knows it … God knows evil outside of Himself. But in the sense of knowing good and evil inside. He knew what man did because he experienced it.

Man knows enough now to be in danger. He’s experienced good and he’s experienced evil. He doesn’t like evil. He doesn’t like it. And he would like to mitigate its circumstances, wouldn’t you? I mean, if you were Adam, you’d be immediately looking for some way to get out of the mess you’d gotten yourself into, right? You were feeling things you’d never felt before, you were dealing with attitudes and impulses and lusts and desires you’d never experienced before. You felt shame. You knew you were dying. You knew there was a moral, spiritual consequence as well as a physical consequence to what you had done, and you now understood the impact of that consequence.

And you would want to do anything you could to rectify that, to turn that around, to reverse that … You’d say to your wife, “You know, we’ve got to get back to that tree of life because if we can get to that tree of life, we won’t die. We just get back to that tree of life, we’ll be okay. You eat of that tree, you live forever. That’s a great – maybe that’s why it’s here, isn’t that great? We’ll just get back there to the tree of life” …

So verse 22 says, “The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now lest he stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever” – and the Hebrew never finishes the sentence. There’s an introductory clause but there’s no completing clause. It’s God just saying, “I know exactly what He’s going to do, he’s going to go right to the tree of life and he’s going to reach out and he’s going to say, ‘If I can just get that tree of life and eat it, I will live forever and I’ll mitigate all the consequences of my sin.’”

So the Lord God banished Adam from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken (verse 23).

At this point, we think that there’s no provision of security there. It’s a terrible state of affairs.

However, MacArthur explains how being banished from the Garden of Eden was better than living in it and eating from the tree of life. God provided security by banishing them and promising them a perfect life after death rather than an everlasting life in sin on earth:

Now, what this indicates, first of all, is that Eden existed for some time after the fall. It was still there. I mean it took a while for all that perfection to feel the effects of the fall. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was still there, the tree of life was still there. All the rest of the paradise of God was still there. The rivers that flowed through it were still there. It existed for some time.

We don’t know how long it existed. It would have been destroyed ultimately at the time of the flood, but it could have died off long before that. We don’t have any way to know that. But at this particular time after the fall, the tree of life was still there. And if they ate of it, they would live forever. Now, remember this, the eternal life in the tree of life is not in the botany of the tree. It’s not in the DNA of the tree. It’s not something in the chemical of the fruit. It is simply by divine decree that the tree would give life. It’s simply because that’s what God said it would do and, therefore, that’s what it would do.

You say, “Well, isn’t that a good thing? I mean wouldn’t it be great? They could just run over there and they could just eat and they would – and it would neutralize the effects of death and they would live forever.” Problem: They would live forever – listen to this – as wicked, depraved, fallen sinners. You see that? That’s not good. That’s not good. It’s tough enough to get through your forties and fifties and into your sixties and you get pretty sick of it, but to live as a fallen, wretched, wicked sinner forever, that is not a blessing. God has something much better. You know what He has? Just go die and I’ll raise you in a new kind of life without sin, then you’ll live forever. Better? Much better.

You know, eternal life as a fallen sinner, that’s what hell is – no hope of deliverance from decay, no hope of deliverance from wretchedness, in a condition where the worm never dies, the fire is never quenched, where you’re weeping and wailing forever and gnashing your teeth because there is never any end to your wretched wickedness. And if Adam and Eve had remained in the garden, the temptation to overpower death by eating would have been overwhelming, and they would have gone straight to that tree thinking they could neutralize the effects of death by eating from the tree of life, and they would have sentenced themselves to the most gruesome kind of living …

Now, God didn’t want them to do that, not in that condition. It would have been a just punishment. Yes, it would have been a just punishment if God had said, “Okay, have at it and sentence yourself to a hell of perpetual, eternal wretchedness.” But He wouldn’t do that. You know why? I believe He wouldn’t do that because they belonged to Him. It’s an affirmation that His atonement had been applied to them, even though Christ hadn’t, of course, yet died, but the effects of Christ’s atonement w[ere] applied to them upon the evidence of their faith in the promises of God.

And now they belong to God. God had applied the symbol of His covering in the skins that He made for them. And here is further evidence of their regeneration, further evidence of their justification, further evidence of their salvation, God prevents them from ever going to hell. He prevents them. “Better that you get out of the garden and never touch that tree and go ahead and die, and I will raise you again in a new kind of life, and that way you can live forever but not in wretchedness, in holy perfection.” That’s better. Instead of eternal sorrow, you can experience eternal joy. You get the point? …

This is a wonderful picture of security. We aren’t yet ready for His presence, but He prevents us from ever being damned. Do you understand that? We aren’t yet ready for entering into the Holy of Holies, we can’t go into His presence the way we are, but believe me, He will never let us fall.

“Now unto Him” – Jude 25 – “who is able to keep you from falling.” Psalm 97:10, “He preserves the souls of His saints.” “Great is His faithfulness,” Lamentations 3. Or if you like, Romans 8:31 – wow, that is the great passage on security, isn’t it? – “What shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus?” What? “Nothing.” That’s security. We are sealed unto the day of promise. John in his gospel (chapter 10, verses 28 and 29) records the promise of Jesus that every believer belongs to Christ and he is in the hand of Christ, kept by God, and “no one is able to pluck them out of my hand because my Father,” of course, “is greater than all.”

And one of the great doctrines of the Scripture is the doctrine of security. I mean look at it very simply, folks. We don’t have what it takes to save ourselves, and we certainly don’t have what it takes to keep ourselves saved. Do you understand that? The only way you will ever get to heaven is if God in grace saves you and God in grace keeps you. You would jettison your faith, you would plunge into sin, you would fall victim to Satan if it were left to you. He guards His own. John 17, He [Jesus] prays to the Father and He says, “I’ve kept those you’ve given me.”

After God drove the man out of the Garden of Eden, He placed on the east side — or the front — cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (verse 24).

MacArthur explains:

For however long that garden remained, the temptation would have been greater and greater in the mind of man to run back in there and try to sort of reverse the power of death by eating of the tree of life. That would have been a witless act could he have done it because all it would have done, as I said, was make him permanently wicked. So the Lord stationed cherubim there.

Wherever you see cherubim – this is the first time angels are mentioned in the Bible, a lot of firsts in this section. The first time angels are mentioned. But wherever you see cherubim, they’re always associated with the throne of God. They’re always around the throne of God, Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel 10, 2 Samuel 6:2, “The Lord of hosts dwells between the cherubim.” That’s why the cherubim were put on the Ark of the Covenant, a symbol of His presence. So they are the angels that protect the presence of God, they protect the glory of God, the throne of God.

And all that Adam could do was hope for the day when he could go into the throne of God, when he could go back into the presence of God, when he could go back to paradise and commune with God as he once did. Second Kings 19:15 says, “The Lord God of Israel dwells between the cherubim.” He wanted to go back to the presence of God and he hoped and he hoped and he hoped. When would that day come? When could we go in to the presence of God? The angels, these angels, cherubim, are guarding that Holy of Holies, they’re guarding that place of God’s presence. That’s the place that Adam and Eve wanted so much to be.

They couldn’t go there. They had to sweat and suffer and struggle and live with hope that someday – they couldn’t do it in their present condition but someday they would be able to enter in to God’s presence again.

It was a double protection, kind of interesting, in verse 24. The flaming sword also was there, turning every direction. In other words, no matter where you would go, the flaming sword was there. There was absolutely no access to God’s personal presence. You can’t enter into His presence, the fullness of His presence. Oh, of course, His Spirit is there, and we’ll see that later, and God is appearing from time to time to man. We see that in the early part of the Old Testament as well as later on, ultimately in Christ.

But you can’t get in to His presence because in this case, going back into the garden – end of verse 24 – would mean they would go right to the tree of life, and that would destroy them forever. He protects them. This is security, and He makes them live in hope. Even though they were believers, even though they had repented, even though they had been forgiven, even though they had been covered, they were still sentenced to live a life of suffering and sorrow and pain and death, so they had to live in hope.

That’s the way we live, isn’t it? We hope for heaven. We hope for the fullness of the presence of God. God sent them out and said, “I want you to feel the curse. I want you to feel the blast of sin. And I want you to feel that so hard that you begin to have a deep longing for heaven.”

The Keil & Delitzsch, the Hebrew commenta[ry], says, “Man must till the ground in which he will, after a short span, decay. In the soil which he turns over with his spade, he has before his very eyes his origin and his future. You will die, you will suffer and you will die. But that suffering and that death which will free him to enter the presence of God becomes the source of his hope.”

Why does God want us to live in hope? Because 1 John 3:3 says, “Hope purifies. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” This purifying hope is our anchor. In the words of Hebrews 6:19, “This hope is an anchor for the soul.”

Both our commentators say that what Adam and Eve probably missed the most was fellowship with God.

MacArthur says:

They knew that the garden was the place of fellowship with God. I think they wanted fellowship with God. I think, you know, that lapse when they plunged into rebellious unbelief and turned their affections and their trust toward Satan, that was over. They saw the truth of Satan, and now they were prepared to believe in God.

They were God’s now, and they had repented. And they had put their trust in God, and God had covered them. And they knew that God was true and Satan was a liar and a destroyer. And they wanted fellowship with God and they desired God’s presence and they wanted to see God’s glory, and the garden was the place where they had always known that.

God says, “You’re not suitable for my presence. Out. I accept your repentance, I accept your faith. I cover you with my atonement, but you are not suitable for my presence. I’m going to protect you from eternal hell. I’m going to secure you by throwing you out of the garden because you would do such danger to yourself and because you are not suitable for the fullness of my presence.” And that’s how it is with us, isn’t it? You believed and you repented and the atonement of Jesus Christ, the substitute on your behalf, provides a covering that cloaks you and righteousness covers your guilt and shame.

Matthew Henry says of Adam:

His acquaintance with God was lessened and lost, and that correspondence which had been settled between man and his Maker was interrupted and broken off. He was driven out, as one unworthy of this honour and incapable of this service. Thus he and all mankind, by the fall, forfeited and lost communion with God … Observe, then, that though our first parents were excluded from the privileges of their state of innocency, yet they were not abandoned to despair, God’s thoughts of love designing them for a second state of probation upon new terms.

… God revealed this to Adam, not to drive him to despair, but to oblige and quicken him to look for life and happiness in the promised seed, by whom the flaming sword is removed. God and his angels are reconciled to us, and a new and living way into the holiest is consecrated and laid open for us.

Next week Eve bears sons, and we begin the story of Cain and Abel.

Next time — Genesis 4:1-7

Prince William counters rumours about his future coronation and the Church of England

Last week, the media picked up on a story that suggested Prince William, a lax Anglican, was planning to cut his ties with the Church of England when he becomes king.

However, according to The Sunday Times from the weekend of January 20-21, 2024, ‘Kate works from bed as William goes full dad — and dispels Church rumours’ (emphases mine):

… The health drama [his wife’s as well as his father’s] comes as it can be revealed that William will not cut ties with the Church of England when he is King, and will uphold the centuries-old tradition of the monarch being the church’s “supreme governor”.

William is not a regular churchgoer and does not have the strong faith of the late Elizabeth II and King Charles, but he has no plans to change the sovereign’s unique role within the Anglican faith upon his accession, despite recent speculation he will look to sever ties with the church.

The reigning monarch holds the title Supreme Governor of the Church of England, a title taken by Henry VIII after his break with the Catholic church due to his divorce from Katherine of Aragon, a staunch Catholic, in order to marry Anne Boleyn.

Sources close to William have insisted “the conversation has never come up” and dismissed the suggestion that he is considering altering the monarch’s relationship with the church.

For William, it is family more than religion that is the key to his day-to-day life …

I was heartened to read that news.

British coronations are the only ones of a Western nature that are primarily religious ceremonies. They date back more than 1,000 years.

Of course, William is still young — 40 is the new 20 these days — and I pray that he comes to the faith. God blessed Him with a wonderful wife and charming children. Perhaps his family’s health issues will serve as a catalyst to believing that he is not self-sufficient, that there is a Supreme Being and that Jesus Christ is his Redeemer.

I wish both the Princess of Wales and the King full and speedy recoveries. I also wish Sarah Ferguson all the best in her battle with cancer. May God bless all three of them abundantly.

Second Sunday after Epiphany — Year B — exegesis on the Gospel, John 1:43-51

The Second Sunday after Epiphany is January 14, 2024.

Readings for Year B can be found here.

The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):

John 1:43-51

1:43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”

1:44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

1:45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

1:46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

1:47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”

1:48 Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

1:49 Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

1:50 Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.”

1:51 And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Year A’s Gospel reading for the Second Sunday after Epiphany is John 1:29-42, about which I wrote in 2023.

That passage describes the point at which Jesus was present during a small part of John the Baptist’s ministry. It was after John had baptised Him; we had Mark’s version of our Lord’s baptism last Sunday.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus returned the day after His baptism and the day after that.

John the Baptist insisted that Peter and Andrew follow Jesus:

1:35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples,

1:36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”

1:37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

1:38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?”

1:39 He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.

1:40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.

1:41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed).

1:42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

On the fourth day after His baptism, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said, ‘Follow me’ (verse 43).

John MacArthur says that John the Gospel writer was also present as a follower of Christ, although he did not name himself, which is characteristic of his Gospel:

So this is the third day in John’s chronology and that’s another indication that John is present because he’s so precise on the days, even down into verse 43, the next day. And he also makes the declaration in the end of verse 39 that it was the tenth hour [4 p.m.]. So he even remembers the time, which is good indication that John was the unnamed one there. So they follow Jesus as John the Baptist has instructed them at the end of verse 37.

MacArthur puts both passages from John 1 into context for us:

Verse 38, we pick it up. This is group one. “Jesus turned and saw them following, and said to them, ‘What do you seek?’”–“‘What do you seek?’” Now keep in mind that there are two of them here, down later we find one of them identified in verse 41, one of the two who heard John speak and followed Him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. The other one is unnamed, but again that’s a good indication that it’s John because he will not name himself …

So in verse 38 they’re following Jesus. Jesus turns and says, “What do you seek?” What’s your motivation? What do you want from Me? What are you looking for? They knew John the Baptist had identified Jesus as the Messiah. He had identified Jesus in the true biblical way as the Lamb of God rather than the reigning King. He was a king and they declared that at the end of this testimony. But initially He comes as a lamb; He comes as a sacrifice for sin. They have been listening to John’s message of sin and repentance, and mark it please, they are disciples of John, verse 35, “John was standing with both of them and they were his disciples.” And then verse 37, “The two disciples”–not disciples of Jesus, but of John the Baptist. So they had bought fully into John’s message of judgment and sin and repentance and you need salvation, and the Lamb of God has come …

Let’s look at group two. Verses 43 to 51 is the second group–“the next day.” This will be day four, “the next day He purposes to go into Galilee.” And when He goes to Galilee, which you could walk in a good portion of the day–probably less than twenty miles–it would be a rigorous walk, but if you started early you’d get there. And he found Philip and He said, “Follow Me.” It’s very likely that Peter and Andrew were with Jesus and more instruction and more interrogation went on all day as they traversed the countryside back to Galilee. So they go back to find friends.

Matthew Henry points out a peculiarity in the name Philip:

The name Philip is of Greek origin, and much used among the Gentiles, which some make an instance of the degeneracy of the Jewish church at this time, and their conformity to the nations; yet Christ changed not his name.

Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter (verse 44).

MacArthur says that Bethsaida was not a city in the modern sense. It was actually rather small:

Bethsaida is a small place, “house of fishing.” It’s a fishing village on the northeast tip of the Sea of Galilee. They were all from the same village. Later on, of course, we know Peter’s house was in Capernaum because that’s what we’re instructed in Mark chapter 1, verses 21 to 29. So he was born and raised with these other two guys, Philip and Nathanael, in the little village of Bethsaida and later moved to Capernaum where he had his house.

Henry gives us another detail about Bethsaida:

We are told that Philip was of Bethsaida, and Andrew and Peter were so too, v. 44. These eminent disciples received not honour from the place of their nativity, but reflected honour upon it. Bethsaida signifies the house of nets, because inhabited mostly by fishermen; thence Christ chose disciples, who were to be furnished with extraordinary gifts, and therefore needed not the ordinary advantages of learning. Bethsaida was a wicked place (Matt 11 21), yet even there was a remnant, according to the election of grace.

Jesus later cursed Bethsaida, hence Henry’s reference to Matthew 11:21:

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

Henry points out that the manner of our calling to Christ might differ one to the other, as it did with the Twelve:

Philip was called immediately by Christ himself, not as Andrew, who was directed to Christ by John, or Peter, who was invited by his brother. God has various methods of bringing his chosen ones home to himself. But, whatever means he uses, he is not tied to any. 1. Philip was called … Jesus findeth Philip. Christ sought us, and found us, before we made any enquiries after him.

We see an example of this as Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth’ (verse 45).

Henry says:

As Andrew before, so Philip here, having got some knowledge of Christ himself, rests not till he has made manifest the savour of that knowledge. Philip, though newly come to an acquaintance with Christ himself, yet steps aside to seek Nathanael. Note, When we have the fairest opportunities of getting good to our own souls, yet ever then we must seek opportunities of doing good to the souls of others, remembering the words of Christ, It is more blessed to give than to receive, Acts 20 35. O, saith Philip, we have found him of whom Moses and the prophets did write, Observe here, [1.] What a transport of joy Philip was in, upon this new acquaintance with Christ: “We have found him whom we have so often talked of, so long wished and waited for; at last, he is come he is come, and we have found him!” [2.] What an advantage it was to him that he was so well acquainted with the scriptures of the Old Testament, which prepared his mind for the reception of evangelical light, and made the entrance of it much the more easy: Him of whom Moses and the prophets did write. What was written entirely and from eternity in the book of the divine counsels was in part, at sundry times and in divers manners, copied out into the book of the divine revelations. Glorious things were written there concerning the Seed of the woman, the Seed of Abraham, Shiloh, the prophet like Moses, the Son of David, Emmanuel, the Man, the Branch, Messiah the Prince. Philip had studied these things, and was full of them, which made him readily welcome Christ.

MacArthur says that some conversation must have gone on between Philip and Nathanael:

… whatever happened between the time Philip followed and verse 45 must have been an amazing experience because in verse 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We…found Him of whom Moses and the Law and also the Prophets wrote–Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” It doesn’t even tell us the conversation, but the conclusion is enough, right? We have…first Andrew says we found the Messiah. Now Philip says, “We have found the one of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets”–the whole Old Testament—“wrote.” We have found Him. We found Him.

What was Jesus doing in these times? He was explaining to them how He was the Messiah. How He was the fulfillment of everything the Old Testament said. So here you have a second testimony. You have the testimony of Andrew, “We have found the Messiah,” based on a first-person eyewitness time with the Lord Jesus. You have the second first-person, objective eyewitness account of the testimony of Philip, who has spent time with Jesus and compared Him with the Law and the Prophets and declared that “we have found Him.” We have found Him. And amazingly, it is “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

MacArthur discusses the name Nathanael, which is also Bartholomew:

Nathanael becomes an important part of the followers of the Lord and ends up being an apostle. He is referred to most often as Bartholomew. Only John calls him Nathanael. Bartholomew would be kind of his family name, Bar–son of Tholomew, Tolmai–so he is Nathanael, son of Tolmai; that’s who he is. And by the way, he lived in another little village up there called Cana, Cana; another small village at the north end of the Sea of Galilee. And something very special is going to happen in Cana, in chapter 2, right? That’s where there’s a wedding and Jesus does His first miracle. The first sign, miraculous sign, is performed in the little village where Nathanael lived. The identification of Nathanael with Cana is made in John 21, verse 2.

Having heard Philip identify Jesus as the ‘son of Joseph from Nazareth’, Nathanael asks whether anything good can come out of Nazareth; Philip persuades him to ‘come and see’ (verse 46).

Nazareth had a bad reputation.

However, both our commentators point out the flaw in Philip’s description of Jesus. Jesus was brought up in Nazareth, however, He was born in Bethlehem, as was prophesied.

Henry says:

What passed between Philip and Nathanael, in which appears an observable mixture of pious zeal with weakness, such as is usually found in beginners …

Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? v. 46. Here, [1.] His caution was commendable, that he did not lightly assent to every thing that was said, but took it into examination; our rule is, Prove all things. But, [2.] His objection arose from Ignorance. If he meant that no good thing could come out of Nazareth it was owing to his ignorance of the divine grace, as if that were less affected to one place than another, or tied itself to men’s foolish and ill-natured observations. If he meant that the Messiah, that great good thing, could not come out of Nazareth, so far he was right (Moses, in the law, said that he should come out of Judah, and the prophets had assigned Bethlehem for the place of his nativity); but then he was ignorant of the matter of fact, that this Jesus was born at Bethlehem; so that the blunder Philip made, in calling him Jesus of Nazareth, occasioned this objection. Note, The mistakes of preachers often give rise to the prejudices of hearers.

MacArthur puts himself in Nathanael’s place upon hearing that Jesus was the son of Joseph from Nazareth:

… this is obscure; this is a nothing guy; this is nobody; this is a common man. This is a lot to swallow. We have found the Messiah; we have found the One prophesied in the Prophets and the Law of the Old Testament. And oh, by the way, He comes from Nazareth. That doesn’t seem to work. Maybe if they had given the city in which He was born, Bethlehem, because at least that’s a city of David; or maybe Jerusalem would be acceptable because that’s a place where everything that’s religious ceremonially happens. But Nazareth? And the son of a common man, Joseph? We’re not surprised then when Nathanael says in verse 46, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” That’s a little sort of civic rivalry there. We don’t know whether at the time Nathanael had much of a perspective, but he had inherited a disdain for Nazareth, and he didn’t have a lot to brag about–he came from Cana. Cana was a dinky little place, short walk from Nazareth. But I guess the people in Cana didn’t think much of Nazareth. So he says, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”

Henry and MacArthur discuss Philip’s persuasion in urging Nathanael to ‘come and see’.

Henry again says that persuasion without a lot of evidence is characteristic of a new believer:

[1.] It was his weakness that he could not give a satisfactory answer to it; yet it is the common case of young beginners in religion. We may know enough to satisfy ourselves, and yet not be able to say enough to silence the cavils of a subtle adversary. [2.] It was his wisdom and zeal that, when he could not answer the objection himself, he would have him go to one that could: Come and see. Let us not stand arguing here, and raising difficulties to ourselves which we cannot get over; let us go and converse with Christ himself, and these difficulties will all vanish presently. Note, It is folly to spend that time in doubtful disputation which might be better spent, and to much better purpose, in the exercises of piety and devotion. Come and see; not, Go and see, but, “Come, and I will go along with thee;” as Isa 2 3; Jer 1 5. From this parley between Philip and Nathanael, we may observe, First, That many people are kept from the ways of religion by the unreasonable prejudices they have conceived against religion, upon the account of some foreign circumstances which do not at all touch the merits of the case. Secondly, The best way to remove the prejudices they have entertained against religion is to prove themselves, and make trial of it. Let us not answer this matter before we hear it.

MacArthur points out that we have already seen this in our Lord’s response to Peter and Andrew:

1:38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?”

1:39 He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.

MacArthur says:

Philip said to him, “Come and see.” “Come and see.” Same as verse 39, “Come and you’ll see.” John is giving us the testimony of eyewitnesses–objective, first-person, firsthand, who met with Jesus, asked all their questions based on the Old Testament promises, and came to the conclusion that He is the Messiah, He is the Son of God, He is the King of Israel, He is the One prophesied. And Nathanael is told by Philip, “You come, you ask your questions.”

Nathanael was in for quite an encounter.

Upon seeing him, Jesus said (verse 47), ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’

That is an amazing compliment.

Henry explains how meaningful it is:

(1.) Our Lord Jesus bore a very honourable testimony to Nathanael’s integrity: Jesus saw him coming, and met him with favourable encouragement; he said of him to those about him, Nathanael himself being within hearing, Behold an Israelite indeed. Observe,

[1.] That he commended him; not to flatter him, or puff him up with a good conceit of himself, but perhaps because he knew him to be a modest man, if not a melancholy man, one that had hard and mean thoughts of himself, was ready to doubt his own sincerity; and Christ by this testimony put the matter out of doubt. Nathanael had, more than any of the candidates, objected against Christ; but Christ hereby showed that he excused it, and was not extreme to mark what he had said amiss, because he knew his heart was upright. He did not retort upon him, Can any good thing come out of Cana (ch. 21 2), an obscure town in Galilee? But kindly gives him this character, to encourage us to hope for acceptance with Christ, notwithstanding our weakness, and to teach us to speak honourably of those who without cause have spoken slightly of us, and to give them their due praise.

[2.] That he commended him for his integrity. First, Behold an Israelite indeed. It is Christ’s prerogative to know what men are indeed; we can but hope the best. The whole nation were Israelites in name, but all are not Israel that are of Israel (Rom 9 6); here, however, was an Israelite indeed. 1. A sincere follower of the good example of Israel, whose character it was that he was a plain man, in opposition to Esau’s character of a cunning man. He was a genuine son of honest Jacob, not only of his seed, but of his spirit. 2. A sincere professor of the faith of Israel; he was true to the religion he professed, and lived up to it: he was really as good as he seemed, and his practice was of a piece with his profession. He is the Jew that is one inwardly (Rom 2 29), so is he the Christian. Secondly, He is one in whom is no guile—that is the character of an Israelite indeed, a Christian indeed: no guile towards men; a man without trick or design; a man that one may trust; no guile towards God, that is, sincere in his repentance for sin; sincere in his covenanting with God; in whose spirit is no guile, Ps 32 2. He does not say without guilt, but without guile. Though in many things he is foolish and forgetful, yet in nothing false, nor wickedly departing from God: there is no allowed approved guilt in him; not painted, though he have his spots: “Behold this Israelite indeed.” 1. “Take notice of him, that you may learn his way, and do like him.” 2. “Admire him; behold, and wonder.“ The hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees had so leavened the Jewish church and nation, and their religion was so degenerated into formality or state-policy, that an Israelite indeed was a man wondered at, a miracle of divine grace, like Job, ch. 1 8.

MacArthur looks at the classical Greek used in the manuscript:

… verse 47, “Behold”–shocking, startling, stunning–“an Israelite indeed” [alethos, a true Israelite, a true Jew]. Paul says in Romans 2, a true Jew is one who is a Jew inwardly, a true believer in the true God, a saved man in Old Testament terms, a penitent believer in the true God in whom there is no deceit–no guile, no hypocrisy, no duplicity, no phoniness. Wow! This is rare in a nation of apostates, in a nation of hypocrites, in a nation of supposedly self-righteous people who exalt themselves. Here is an honest, true-hearted man, a genuine believer, a true believer, no hypocrisy–integrity, rare in Israel. I love the fact that the perfect Son of God, the sinless Son of God, the holy One could say of any man, “Here’s a true Israelite in whom there’s no deceit.”

Does that mean he was perfect? No, but he had been made acceptable to God by his faith. And he was the real thing. He was the real thing–alethos (“genuine,” “true”). What is happening here is Jesus is reading his spiritual condition supernaturally, supernaturally.

Nathanael was completely blown away.

He asked Jesus how He knew him, and Jesus replied, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you’ (verse 48).

Henry tells us of the modesty of Nathanael’s response — a question rather than an acknowledgement of our Lord’s compliment:

Here is Nathanael’s modesty, in that he was soon put out of countenance at the kind notice Christ was pleased to take of him: “Whence knowest thou me, me that am unworthy of thy cognizance? who am I, O Lord God?” 2 Sam 7 18. This was an evidence of his sincerity, that he did not catch at the praise he met with, but declined it.

Henry examines our Lord’s response to Nathanael:

Here is Christ’s further manifestation of himself to him: Before Philip called thee, I saw thee. First, He gives him to understand that he knew him, and so manifests his divinity. It is God’s prerogative infallibly to know all persons and all things; by this Christ proved himself to be God upon many occasions. It was prophesied concerning the Messiah that he should be of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, that is, in judging the sincerity and degree of the fear of God in others, and that he should not judge after the sight of his eyes, Isa 11 2, 3. Here he answers that prediction. See 2 Tim 2 19. Secondly, That before Philip called him he saw him under the fig-tree; this manifests a particular kindness for him. 1. His eye was towards him before Philip called him, which was the first time that ever Nathanael was acquainted with Christ. Christ has knowledge of us before we have any knowledge of him; see Isa 45 4; Gal 4 9. 2. His eye was upon him when he as under the fig-tree; this was a private token which nobody understood but Nathanael: “When thou wast retired under the fig-tree in thy garden, and thoughtest that no eye saw thee, I have then my eye upon thee, and saw that which was very acceptable.” It is most probable that Nathanael under the fig-tree was employed, as Isaac in the field, in meditation, and prayer, and communion with God. Perhaps then and there it was that he solemnly joined himself to the Lord in an inviolable covenant. Christ saw in secret, and by this public notice of it did in part reward him openly. Sitting under the fig-tree denotes quietness and composedness of spirit, which much befriend communion with God. See Mic 4 4; Zech 3 10. Nathanael here in was an Israelite indeed, that, like Israel, he wrestled with God alone (Gen 32 24), prayed not like the hypocrites, in the corners of the streets, but under the fig-tree.

By then, Nathanael must have been completely overwhelmed.

He replied (verse 49), ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’

Henry taps into what Nathanael must have been feeling at that moment:

Observe here, [1.] How firmly he believed with the heart. Though he had lately laboured under some prejudices concerning Christ, they had now all vanished. Note, The grace of God, in working faith, casts down imaginations. Now he asks no more, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? For he believes Jesus of Nazareth to be the chief good, and embraces him accordingly. [2.] How freely he confessed with the mouth. His confession is made in form of an adoration, directed to our Lord Jesus himself, which is a proper way of confessing our faith. First, He confesses Christ’s prophetical office, in calling him Rabbi, a title which the Jews commonly gave to their teachers. Christ is the great rabbi, at whose feet we must all be brought up. Secondly, He confesses his divine nature and mission, in calling him the Son of God (that Son of God spoken of Ps 2 7); though he had but a human form and aspect, yet having a divine knowledge, the knowledge of the heart, and of things distant and secret, Nathanael thence concludes him to be the Son of God. Thirdly, He confesses, “Thou art the king of Israel; that king of Israel whom we have been long waiting for.” If he be the Son of God, he is king of the Israel of God. Nathanael hereby proves himself an Israelite indeed that he so readily owns and submits to the king of Israel.

MacArthur explains the Jewish understanding of ‘the Son of God’:

Testimony is mounting. Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael–first-person, eyewitness accounts; we can tuck John in there even though he doesn’t refer to himself–“You are the Son of God.” That’s a Hebraism referring to being of the same nature; son of Belial is of the same nature as Satan. Son of God bears the same nature as God. That’s a Hebraism. John and James were called sons of thunder [Boanerges] because they bore the same nature as thunder–they were thunderous, outrageous kinds of people. So that was a Hebraism. What he’s saying is You have the same nature as God. In John 3, that wonderful, familiar 16 to 18 repeats the idea that Jesus is the Son of God–again and again and again and again. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son of God. Then it refers to the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God–and all the way through John’s gospel. That is to say that He bears the same nature as God; He is God the Son. “Rabbi, You are the Son of God.” You are deity, and “You are the King of Israel.” You are the Messiah, the Anointed One, the One who’s come to reign. Now the testimony is complete. We have found the Messiah, the One promised in Moses and the Prophets who is the Son of God, who is the King that was promised.

Jesus essentially told Nathanael that he hadn’t seen anything yet (verse 50): ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these’.

Henry gives us this analysis:

Christ hereupon raises the hopes and expectations of Nathanael to something further and greater than all this, v. 50, 51. Christ is very tender of young converts, and will encourage good beginnings, though weak, Matt 12 20.

[1.] He here signifies his acceptance, and (it should seem) his admiration, of the ready faith of Nathanael: Because I said, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou? He wonders that such a small indication of Christ’s divine knowledge should have such an effect; it was a sign that Nathanael’s heart was prepared beforehand, else the work had not been done so suddenly. Note, It is much for the honour of Christ and his grace, when the heart is surrendered to him at the first summons.

[2.] He promises him much greater helps for the confirmation and increase of his faith than he had had for the first production of it.

First, In general: “Thou shalt see greater things than these, stronger proofs of my being the Messiah;” the miracles of Christ, and his resurrection. Note, 1. To him that hath, and maketh good use of what he hath, more shall be given. 2. Those who truly believe the gospel will find its evidences grow upon them, and will see more and more cause to believe it. 3. Whatever discoveries Christ is pleased to make of himself to his people while they are here in this world, he hath still greater things than these to make known to them; a glory yet further to be revealed.

Jesus said to Nathanael — but probably for the others, too — that ‘Very truly, I tell you’, most emphatically, ‘you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’ (verse 51).

Henry explains the verse fully in all its nuances:

In particular: “Not thou only, but you, all you my disciples, whose faith this is intended for the confirmation of, you shall see heaven opened;“ this is more than telling Nathanael of his being under the fig-tree. This is introduced with a solemn preface, Verily, verily I say unto you, which commands both a fixed attention to what is said as very weighty, and a full assent to it as undoubtedly true: “I say it, whose word you may rely upon, amen, amen.” None used this word at the beginning of a sentence but Christ, though the Jews often used it at the close of a prayer, and sometimes doubled it. It is a solemn asseveration. Christ is called the Amen (Rev 3 14), and so some take it here, I the Amen, the Amen, say unto you. I the faithful witness. Note, The assurances we have of the glory to be revealed are built upon the word of Christ. Now see what it is that Christ assures them of: Hereafter, or within awhile, or ere long, or henceforth, ye shall see heaven opened.

a. It is a mean title that Christ here takes to himself: The Son of man; a title frequently applied to him in the gospel, but always by himself. Nathanael had called him the Son of God and king of Israel: he calls himself Son of man, (a.) To express his humility in the midst of the honours done him. (b.) To teach his humanity, which is to be believed as well as his divinity. (c.) To intimate his present state of humiliation, that Nathanael might not expect this king of Israel to appear in external pomp.

b. Yet they are great things which he here foretels: You shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. (a.) Some understand it literally, as pointing at some particular event. Either, [a.] There was some vision of Christ’s glory, in which this was exactly fulfilled, which Nathanael was an eye-witness of, as Peter, and James, and John were of his transfiguration. There were many things which Christ did, and those in the presence of his disciples, which were not written (ch. 20 30), and why not this? Or, [b.] It was fulfilled in the many ministrations of the angels to our Lord Jesus, especially that at his ascension, when heaven was opened to receive him, and the angels ascended and descended, to attend him and to do him honour, and this in the sight of the disciples. Christ’s ascension was the great proof of his mission, and much confirmed the faith of his disciples, ch. 6 62. Or, [c.] It may refer to Christ’s second coming, to judge the world, when the heavens shall be open, and every eye shall see him, and the angels of God shall ascend and descend about him, as attendants on him, every one employed; and a busy day it will be. See 2 Thess 1 10. (b.) Others take it figuratively, as speaking of a state or series of things to commence from henceforth; and so we may understand it, [a.] Of Christ’s miracles. Nathanael believed, because Christ, as the prophets of old, could tell him things secret; but what is this? Christ is now beginning a dispensation of miracles, much more great and strange than this, as if heaven were opened; and such a power shall be exerted by the Son of man as if the angels, which excel in strength, were continually attending his orders. Immediately after this, Christ began to work miracles, ch. 2 11. Or, [b.] Of his mediation, and that blessed intercourse which he hath settled between heaven and earth, which his disciples should be degrees be let into the mystery of. First, By Christ, as Mediator, they shall see heaven opened, that we may enter into the holiest by his blood (Heb 10 19, 20); heaven opened, that by faith we may look in, and at length may go in; may now behold the glory of the Lord, and hereafter enter into the joy of our Lord. And, Secondly, They shall see angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man. Through Christ we have communion with and benefit by the holy angels, and things in heaven and things on earth are reconciled and gathered together. Christ is to us as Jacob’s ladder (Gen 28 12), by whom angels continually ascend and descend for the good of the saints.

MacArthur also speaks of Jacob’s ladder, or staircase and considers what Jesus said to be a metaphor:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” What is that? Now remember, they knew Moses, the writings of Moses, the Pentateuch. They knew the Law. They knew the writings of the Old Testament. They knew the Messianic prophecies. They now know Jesus squares up with all of that. They know He’s the Son of God because He’s evidenced His deity. They’ve got the full picture. And they would have a wonderful familiarity with Genesis and the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis. And in the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis we read what is one of the most interesting of all the accounts in the lives of the patriarchs, and it had to do with Jacob. And you remember it.

Let me read a few verses of Genesis 28. Maybe we’ll start at verse 10, “Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. Came to a certain place, spent the night there, because the sun had set…took one of the stones of the place, put it under his head, lay down in that place”…a stone for a pillow…“had a dream. Behold, a ladder was set on the earth.” Actually a staircase would be better than a ladder, the Hebrew term. There was a staircase. The staircase started on the earth and the top reached to heaven “and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending.” He saw this staircase, the angels of God going up and down, “And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, you will spread out to the west, the east, the north, the south; in you and your descendants all the families of the earth will be blessed. Behold, I am with you, I will keep you wherever you go; I will bring you back to this land; I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’”

What an amazing dream. And what’s the dream about? God is saying, I am going to take you, you weary traveler, you weary pilgrim, I am going to take care of you, I am going to fulfill My promises to you and your people, your family. I am going to fulfill the Abrahamic promise. I’m going to develop your nation. I’m going to bless your nation. I’m going to bring salvation to your nation. I’m going to open up heaven and make sure the angels go back and forth to protect you and care for you and your people until that covenant is fulfilled. That’s what Genesis 28 is talking about. And Jesus borrows that here in the last verse of chapter 1 and says, “You’re going to see heaven opened and the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” You’re going to see heaven’s power unleashed in My ministry, that’s what He’s saying. Son of Man is a Messianic title from Daniel 7:13-14, Jesus used it about eighty times to refer to Himself. This is a graphic dream given to Jacob to assure him that heaven was paying attention to him and that God was going to make sure the angels fulfilled their role in being the means by which God keeps His protection on His people. And He says to Nathanael, “You’re going to see in a metaphoric sense, you’re going to see heaven open up and angels come and go in My ministry. I will do supernatural works, no doubt mediated in some ways by angels.”

MacArthur concluded with the way we are called to faith and to salvation:

Here’s a microcosm of how salvation works. There must be a seeking soul. There must be a seeking soul, verse 38. Jesus turns and sees Andrew and John and says, “What do you seek?” “What do you seek?” Verse 39, “They came and saw where He was staying…they stayed”–that’s more of that evidence of their seeking. Verse 45, Philip, “We have found Him,” again indicating that he was a seeker. “We have found Him.” “We have found Him.” Verse 47, Nathanael is coming to Him. Salvation requires a seeking sinner, a seeking soul. “If you seek Me with all your heart, you’ll find Me,” right? “Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened.” You know all of that.

Prompted by a sense of sinfulness, prompted by a heart of repentance, prompted by faith in the Scripture, the seeking soul comes. But salvation also requires a seeking Savior, and that’s illustrated here. It is Jesus who initiates things. Verse 38, “What do you seek?” Verse 39, “Come, and you will see.” Verse 43, “Jesus says to Philip, ‘Follow Me.’” Verse 47, “Jesus sees Nathanael coming to Him, and says, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there’s no deceit!’”

There’s no possibility for the sinner to be seeking unless the Savior is seeking. Jesus said, “You have not chosen Me, but”…What?…“I’ve chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bear forth fruit.”

But there’s another element, too. Salvation requires a seeking soul, a seeking Savior, and a seeking saint. What does that fit in? “How will they hear without a preacher?” “Faith comes by hearing the Word.”

So you have John the Baptist telling his disciples, verse 37, “Follow Jesus.” You have verse 40, Andrew; verse 41, finding his own brother and telling him we found the Messiah. And then in verse 42, bringing Peter to Jesus. And then you have Philip, verse 45, finding Nathanael to bring Nathanael to Jesus.

Here at the very start, as the Holy Spirit moves John, to lay out testimony to the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ, we see the elements of salvation. It requires a seeking sinner, a seeking Savior, and a seeking saint to bear the message.

May all reading this have a blessed Sunday.

Third Sunday of Advent, Year B — exegesis on the Epistle, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, part 1

The Third Sunday of Advent is December 17, 2023.

This particular day is also called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin word for ‘rejoice’ and it appears in the ancient Introit. In very traditional Catholic and Anglican churches, the priest often wears a rose-coloured garment instead of the purple one (photo at right courtesy of Clergy Confidential). In addition, the pink candle in the Advent Wreath is lit. Gaudete Sunday is Advent’s counterpart to Lent’s Laetare Sunday.

You can read more about Gaudete Sunday here, along with the readings.

The exegesis on the Gospel — John 1:6-8, 19-28 — is here.

The Epistle is as follows (emphases mine):

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

5:16 Rejoice always,

5:17 pray without ceasing,

5:18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

5:19 Do not quench the Spirit.

5:20 Do not despise the words of prophets,

5:21 but test everything; hold fast to what is good;

5:22 abstain from every form of evil.

5:23 May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

5:24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.

Commentary comes Matthew Henry and John MacArthur (as specified below).

It was nearly a year ago that I wrote about the verses preceding these — 1 Thessalonians 5:12-15 — for my Forbidden Bible Verses series.

This concluding chapter from 1 Thessalonians has to do with relationships that those most charitable Christians from Thessalonica were to cultivate with each other (verses 12-15) and with the Triune God (today’s verses).

John MacArthur delivered nine sermons in 1991 on this Epistle, verse by verse, so there will be more than one part to this exegesis.

In fact, because there is so much to explore, today’s instalment covers only verse 16.

Paul tells the Thessalonians to rejoice always (verse 16), a theme appropriate for Gaudete Sunday, which was, centuries ago, a break in Advent fasting, when the season began after the feast of St Martin on November 11.

Matthew Henry explains that the exhortation to rejoice is a spiritual one:

This must be understood of spiritual joy; for we must rejoice in our creature-comforts as if we rejoiced not, and must not expect to live many years, and rejoice in them all; but, if we do rejoice in God, we may do that evermore. In him our joy will be full; and it is our fault if we have not a continual feast. If we are sorrowful upon any worldly account, yet still we may always rejoice, 2 Cor 6 10. Note, A religious life is a pleasant life, it is a life of constant joy.

John MacArthur has much more detail on this verse, particularly when we think we have no need to rejoice:

He begins with those two brief words “rejoice always.”  The discussion of Christian joy is, of course, crucial, and essential to all of us who name the name of Jesus Christ.  Much can be said, much should be said, much has been said; but I want to begin our study today with a statement that might surprise you.  In fact, it may appear hard, if not impossible, to believe.  Then I want to tell you why that statement is true, and teach you its significance and its application.  Here is the statement:  “There is no event or circumstance that can occur in the life of any Christian that should diminish that Christian’s joy” …

In fact, let me go even further than that.  If there is an event or circumstance, apart from sin, that does diminish your joy, you have sinned – you have sinned.  Does that sound ridiculous, given the woes, and the pains, and the difficulties of life?  Nevertheless, no matter how it sounds, the command of Scripture is explicit, rejoice – how often?  Always …

Now, how can we so live?  How can we so live that we rejoice always?  How can we live in undiminished joy?  How can we transcend all events, and all circumstances, that occur so that nothing touches our joy?  That’s really what we’re after today in this study.  Let’s begin with the command itself, rejoice always; and make the note initially that this is not the only place that such a command is enjoined upon us.  Joy is discussed both in the Old and the New Testament, and there are numerous locations in Scripture where similar commands are given, not the least of which would be Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, rejoice.”  It’s almost as if he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always,” and then knows someone will say, “Except,” and so he says, “Again, I will say, rejoice.”

This rejoicing is a spiritual one and stands apart from times of sorrow, when believers gather together to empathise with the one suffering:

Isn’t there a time for weeping?  Yes, there is, but what Paul is writing about in Romans 12:15 is simply identifying with the experiences of human emotions being suffered by those around you, or endured, or enjoyed.  If people around you are happy, then be happy with them.  If people around you are sad, then share their sorrow in an empathetic, sympathetic way.  That’s simply an outward identification with normal human emotion, and we’re to share that.  But even when we are weeping, we still are not relieved from the responsibility to rejoice.

MacArthur gives us an interesting history of the word ‘rejoice’ in the early Church:

The word “rejoice” was used, certainly, by the early church.  You remember that out of the [Church] council came those who had been worthy to suffer for the cause of Christ, and they came saying that it was their privilege to have so suffered, and they were rejoicing over that.  There are a number of occasions in the book of Acts, not only that one in chapter 5, verse 41, but a number of other ones, where we see the incessant, unending, independent joy of the early church.  Paul and Silas, not being the least, were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, while locked in a stinking dungeon, with their limbs stretched as far as they could reach, and then slammed into stocks.  The agony of the stretching and the taut muscles cramping would be beyond description, and yet they were singing hymns and experiencing Christian joy. 

There are times when the word “rejoice” seems such a normal part of Christian vocabulary that we would assume they were very, very familiar with it.  Paul, in that very lovely, gracious benediction that closes out 2 Corinthians, says, “Finally, brethren, rejoice – rejoice.”  It is well possible that it was a greeting frequently passed among them.  Upon seeing each other, they would not only say “Grace and peace,” but they might as well say “Rejoice.”  In our Lord’s final time with the disciples, recorded in John 13 through 17, He mentions joy and full joy eight times.  It was part of his legacy; a joy transcendent, a joy beyond human emotion responding to positive circumstances.

MacArthur emphasises that this joy comes from a belief rather than an experience and why we are commanded to rejoice, which seems strange on the surface (‘Get happy — or else!’). However, once explained, it makes sense:

We’re not talking about a shallow, superficial, emotional response to positive circumstance.  We’re talking about not a natural joy, but a supernatural joy.  It is a joy at another level.  It’s a divine level.  That is why it says in Galatians 5, “The fruit of the Spirit is love” – what’s the second one – “joy.”  That is why in Romans 14 you have in verse 17 that marvelous statement that “the Kingdom is made up of joy in the Holy Spirit.”  It is a spiritual joy.  It is a Holy Spirit joy.  It is a supernatural joy.

So we are commanded to rejoice at all times, and then we are instructed that it is not natural, it is not normal, it is supernatural.  It is a ministry.  It is a gift.  It is a product.  It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.  Now, someone will immediately then say, “Well if it is not natural, and not normal, and doesn’t rise out of my own humanness, and I have to depend upon the Spirit of God to produce it, then why am I being commanded to rejoice?  If it’s the Spirit’s work, why is He commanding me to rejoice?”  And the answer is the same answer you have to give in all those aspects of Scripture which involved human volition.  Every command in the New Testament is a command toward holiness, which can only be produced by God; every command of the believer, is a command to holiness which can only be produced by God, and yet my will is involved in that.  And so while joy is a product of the Spirit of God, it is not bypassing my volition.  It is not bypassing my will.  The Holy Spirit gives this supernatural Christian joy, it is spiritual, it is supernatural, it is divine, it is a work of God in the inner man, yet I must exercise my will over the flesh for that Holy Spirit work to take place.  I must be involved.  It is a work of God, but not without my will.  The experience of Christian joy flows from God through the Spirit, and then it has to flow through me.

MacArthur gives us this definition of Christian joy:

So, first of all, we are commanded to unceasing joy.  Secondly, we acknowledge that it is not natural, it is supernatural, the work of the Spirit.  But thirdly, it demands the cooperation of my will.  Now, that should lead us to a definition.  What kind of joy are we talking about?  Now, if my will’s got to be involved in it, what is it?  The Holy Spirit certainly doesn’t need it defined, He knows, but I’m not sure I do.  So if I have to get my will activated in this process, what is the joy, by definition, that I’m looking for?

Now, listen very carefully – this is the heart of what I’m going to say – here’s the definition:  Christian joy is the emotion springing from the deep-down confidence of the Christian that God is in perfect control.  Let me say that much again.  Christian joy is the emotion springing from the deep-down confidence of the Christian that God is in perfect control of everything, and will bring from it our good in time, and our glory in eternity.  Let me say that again.  Christian joy is the emotion springing from the deep-down confidence of the Christian that God is in complete and perfect control of everything, and will bring from it our good in time, and our glory in eternity.  That’s Christian joy.

For those juggling the cost of living, paying rent or a mortgage and dealing with fraught relationships, this is not always easy. MacArthur gives us reasons why, despite all these difficulties, we should rejoice. Look beyond this world into the next:

I’ve got problems in my life, I’ve got difficulties, things aren’t going the way I want, I don’t have the job I want, I don’t have the circumstances I want, it’s not all the way I like it.  Why should I rejoice always?

Reason number one: as an act of appreciation for the character of God – as an act of appreciation for the character of God … 

In Psalm 71:23: “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to Thee, and my soul which Thou hast redeemed.”  When I think about what You’ve done for me and I start to praise You, I’m filled with joy.  In Psalm 89 and verse 16 – and we can’t, obviously, look at all of the possibilities: “In Thy name they rejoice all the day.”  I just love that.  What are they rejoicing in?  In Thy name.  What does he mean “Thy name”?  Thy character; because of who God is, because of what He’s done.  Isaiah 61:10 says He’s clothed us with the robes of righteousness.

In the New Testament, I cannot resist a reference to Luke 10:20: “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”  Is that marvelous?  God wrote your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundation of the world.  That’s because He’s a sovereign, gracious, loving, merciful, compassionate God – rejoice in that.  That’s the ground of your joy, the character of God – the character of God.  That’s where it all has to start.  In Nehemiah – one more verse – 8:10, it says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”  When you learn to [have] joy in who God is, you become strong.

Second, another reason for rejoicing always is as an act of appreciation for the work of Christ.  Not only as an act of appreciation for the character of God, but as an act of appreciation for the work of Christ.  Stop to realize what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for you, though you be utterly and completely unworthy, undeserving.  That is why the angel said in Luke 2:10, “Do not be afraid.  Behold, I bring you good news of great joy.”  What is it?  “A Savior.”  The Savior brings joy.  In John chapter 15 and verse 11, another text of Scripture, “These things I have spoken to you,” Jesus said, “that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full.”  Everything I say, everything I do is to produce joy for you – for you.

Paul, writing in that great fifth chapter of Romans, talks about the redemptive work of Christ, His atonement on the cross, and he says, “It is in this great work of Christ that we exalt, that we rejoice.”  In fact, in Philippians 3:3, Paul says that a Christian is one who worships in the Spirit of God and rejoices in Christ Jesus.  I don’t care what’s going on in your life.  I don’t care what your problems are.  I don’t care what the difficulties are.  You have an eternal salvation produced in the wonderful work of Jesus Christ and granted to you through the sovereign choice of God, and in those matters you can rejoice.  Listen to 1 Peter 1:8: “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.” Why?  “Because you have salvation,” he says in the next verse.

Thirdly, rejoice always, not only as an act of appreciation for the character of God, and the work of Christ, but as an act of appreciation for the ministry of the Spirit – as an act of appreciation for the ministry of the Spirit.  Back to Romans 14:17: “You have joy in the Holy Spirit.”  It is the Spirit of God who is producing love and joy.  “He is interceding for you constantly with groanings which cannot be uttered, so that your otherwise wayward prayers are brought to conform to the will of God,” Romans 8 says.  He is the one at work in you to make things produce divine purpose and goal.  The Spirit is the one who links you to Christ, and is the guarantee of your future inheritance.  He seals you, indwells you.  He fills you for service and power.  He enables you.  He gifts you.  Out of appreciation to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we should rejoice always.  Nothing can touch the character of God and diminish it.  Nothing can touch the work of Christ and diminish it.  Nothing can harm the work of the Spirit of God; it will accomplish its purpose.  The triune God is at work and that is plenty of reason for unceasing joy.

And now let me move in this little list from the workers, the Father, the Son and the Spirit, to the work they’re doing.  Here are some more reasons for joy.  Number four, as an act of appreciation for spiritual blessings – as an act of appreciation for spiritual blessings.  Stop to think about the fact that you, according to Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.  Stop to think that you have all things pertaining to life and godliness.  Stop to think that in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him.  Stop to think that you have become partakers of the divine nature.  Stop to think that my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus.  Stop to think that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.  There is no end to the continual flow of gracious blessing in your life, and that is reason enough for unceasing joy.

Number five, we ought to rejoice always as an act of appreciation for divine providence – as an act of appreciation for divine providence.  What is providence?  I’ve taught that before, I only remind you, providence is a term used to describe God’s ability to orchestrate the innumerable contingencies that exist in the universe, and make them all work together for your good in time and your glory in eternity.  God literally orchestrates every, every single piece of space, matter, time, force, and energy, so that it all congeals in a perfect plan and purpose.  Every thought, every word, every act by every being that exists, every natural, every supernatural thing, moves together to fit the perfect plan of God, even though from their own viewpoints, they are an innumerable number of independently acting agencies.  Simply stated, it’s summed up in these words: “All things work together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to His purpose,” Romans 8:28.  No matter what’s going on in your life, there ought to be unceasing thanks and joy over the divine providence, as God orchestrates everything for your good and eternal glory.  God, the God who is able to keep you from falling, who holds you fast.

Number six: we ought to have unceasing joy as an act of appreciation for the promise of future glory – as an act of appreciation for the promise of future glory, or if you want it simple, as an act of appreciation for heaven.  No matter what is going on in this life, we know this, that the one to whom we’ve committed our life is going to keep it until eternity.  He which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.  That which I’ve committed unto Him, He will keep.  The Apostle Paul had it so well stated by the Spirit of God when he was inspired to write about his own rejoicing.  He says, “I rejoice, I will rejoice.”  Why, Paul?  Simply, “for to me to live is Christ, to die is” – what – “gain.”  If I live on in the flesh, fine; if I go to glory, better; I rejoice because of the hope of future glory …

Number seven, as an act of appreciation for answered prayer – as an act of appreciation for answered prayer.  Do you take it as a little thing that Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in My name, I’ll do it”?  Is that a small thing?  Is it a small thing when Jesus promised the Spirit in John 16?  He promised the Spirit, and He said, “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, that your joy may be made full.”  What a prayer promise.  I’ll send my Spirit, and when my Spirit comes to dwell in you, and causes you to cry, “Abba, Father,” know this, that when you ask I will send what you ask, that your joy may be made full.  Do you appreciate answered prayer?  Do you appreciate the fact that when you cry out to God, He hears and answers your prayer, and shows you great and mighty things which you may not know?  No matter what’s going on in your life, unceasing joy is the fruit of one who appreciates answered prayer.  God doesn’t have to do that, He does it.  He answers your every prayer according to His perfect will, for your ultimate good in time, and your glory in eternity.

Number eight: another reason to rejoice unceasingly, as an act of appreciation for the Scripture – as an act of appreciation for the Scripture.  You ought to be so grateful for the guide that you have in the Word of God, for its resources, for its instruction.  That no matter what is taken away from you, as long as you have the Scripture; you have the most precious commodity.  “It is more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold; it is sweeter also than honey in the honeycomb,” Psalm 19 says.  And Psalm 119, the psalmist writes in verse 14, “I have rejoiced in the way of Thy testimonies as much as in all riches.”  I just rejoice in the Word, he’s saying.  In verse 111, “I have inherited Thy testimonies; forever they are the joy of my heart.”  Verse 162: “I rejoice at Thy Word as one who finds great spoil.”  Jeremiah 15:16, Jeremiah said, “Thy words were found, I did eat them; Thy word was in me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.”  And when Paul says, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly,” in Colossians 3:16, he says, “As the Word is richly in you, you will speak to yourselves in psalms and hymns,” you’ll sing, you’ll make melody.  There should be joy out of the appreciation of the food and the nourishment of the Word of God that feeds your soul, and is a compass and a guide to your life.

Two more – number nine: you should rejoice always as an act of appreciation for Christian fellowship – as an act of appreciation for Christian fellowship.  Are you grateful for the wonderful family that God has given you?  In 1 Thessalonians 3, our very book, verse 9, I love what Paul says: “What thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our God on your account?”  I don’t even know words to say how much joy there is in just knowing you, just sharing with you, just fellowshipping with you.  In 2 Timothy 1:4, Paul says to Timothy, “I long to see you even as I recall your tears, so that I may be filled with joy.”  Just being with you is joy, a source of joy.  A little letter to Philemon in verse 7, Paul says, “I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love.”  The love of the saints; a source of joy.  Second John 12, John says, “I have so many things to write to you, but I don’t want to do so with paper and ink.  I hope to come to you and speak face to face that your joy may be made full.”  There should be joy in Christian fellowship, unceasing, unending joy.  That fellowship can never be broken.

And lastly, number 10: why rejoice?  As an act of appreciation for gospel preaching – as an act of appreciation for gospel preaching; that’s so wonderful.  Paul in Philippians 1 says, “Christ is preached and I rejoice – I rejoice.”  In Acts 15, perhaps even more focused on the point we’re making, verse 3, “Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, Paul and Barnabas were passing through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to the all the brethren.”  Do you get joy out of that?  Or do you mope around in your self-focused world, and your little narcissistic navel-watching cult, sort of turned in on yourself, and just because it isn’t all well with you, you can’t rejoice, even though many are hearing the gospel, and repenting, and believing, and being converted?  That’s an act of appreciation for gospel preaching that leads to joy.

Should you rejoice always?  Absolutely.  Why?  In appreciation of the character of God, the work of Christ, the ministry of the Spirit; an act of appreciation for supernatural blessings, divine providence, future glory, answered prayer, the Scripture, Christian fellowship and gospel preaching.

Then MacArthur goes into what hinders our ability to rejoice. I have been there. I have been one of those whom MacArthur described in the preceding paragraph:

… do you mope around in your self-focused world, and your little narcissistic navel-watching cult, sort of turned in on yourself, and just because it isn’t all well with you, you can’t rejoice, even though many are hearing the gospel, and repenting, and believing, and being converted?

I was that person.

So, without further ado:

Third point I want to make: hindrances.  You say, “In the light of all of that, if I don’t have joy, what’s the problem?”  Well, you have some hindrances.  Now listen very carefully, ’cause I’m going to go through these rapidly, but I want you to hear me.  There are a number of hindrances.  Number one – if you’re not experiencing joy, I want you to check this inventory. 

Number one: false salvation – false salvation.  There are some people who have no joy because they have no true source of it.  They don’t have the Holy Spirit.  They aren’t converted.  They aren’t saved.  They’re in the church, they’re not saved.  You remember in Matthew 13:20 and 21 that the seed was sown in the soil that had the rock bed, the rocky soil?  And it says that “they received the Word with joy but it was very short-lived, and the first time a trial came, it was gone.”  There are some people who will muster up a human joy, but it won’t sustain itself where there’s no indwelling Holy Spirit to sustain it on a supernatural level.  And so the first trial that comes along just wipes it out.  Supernatural joy comes from the Spirit of God, who only indwells true believers.  False salvation, cheap grace, can’t produce Christian joy; it produces a false substitute that doesn’t last.

Second hindrance: Satan himself.  I believe Peter says it when he says, “Satan goes around as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”  There is a destruction there, and that destruction is the destruction of joy, and peace, and contentment.  Satan wants to come at you and tempt you in your trials to steal your joy.  That is why Paul says to the Corinthians, “There is no struggle you’re going to go through that is more than you can bear.”  But in the middle of that thing, you know, the power of God is available, but the difficulty comes because of the onslaught of the temptation of the enemy.  Satan wants to steal your joy.  So hindrances to joy, very simple: false salvation, which can’t produce any true joy, and Satan himself, who will come after you in the temptation in the midst of your trial that comes after your joy, so consider the source if you’re struggling at that point.

This third one was my weakness, despite a decade of religion classes from primary school through to university. What got me out of it? Studying the Bible:

Thirdly, a third hindrance is ignorance – ignorance.  Listen to it as simply as I can say it: bad doctrine steals joy.  Bad theology, an inadequate grasp of God’s sovereignty, an inadequate grasp of Christ’s perfect atonement, an inadequate understanding of the security of the believer, a failure to comprehend the ministry of the Holy Spirit, a failure to understand all spiritual blessings vouchsafed to us in Christ, a failure to comprehend the resource of prayer – any kind of bad theology fails to recognize the reasons for joy, and steals our joy.  That’s why John says when he writes his epistle, “My little children, these things I write unto you that your joy may be” – what – “full.”  I’m teaching you theology so you’ll have a foundation for joy.  If you don’t believe in the character of God that is consistently gracious, merciful, kind, and compassionate toward his own, you’ve got a problem, because you may wonder why bad things are happening to you, and you may think God is doing it because He’s inconsistent.  If you don’t believe God is sovereign and in control, you may think things are happening to you because God can’t help it.  That will take your joy.  If you don’t understand your security in Christ, you’re going to worry every time something comes along that you’ve lost your salvation, and that will rob your joy.  Bad theology will steal your joy – ignorance.

MacArthur continues:

Number four: unbelief – unbelief.  Unbelief is simply the failure to believe what you know.  You cannot be ignorant, but you can be unbelieving; it follows the previous one, to disbelieve the things that are true.  It’s one thing to be ignorant; you don’t know what’s true.  It’s something else not to believe what you know has been said to be true.  If you don’t believe, if you can’t generate by God’s power in your life, and by yielding to that power, the faith to believe, and put up the shield of faith, then all the fiery darts are going to hit you.  So if you don’t believe in the security of the believer, or you don’t believe in God’s sovereign and providential control of everything, and you don’t believe that eternal glory is established, and you don’t believe that God will never let you be tempted above that you’re able, and you don’t believe that all spiritual blessings are yours in Christ and you’re able to do all things in Him, if you don’t believe that, even though you know it says that, you’re going to have a problem.  You’re going to lose your joy.  That’s called doubt; doubt will destroy joy.

Five: ingratitude – ingratitude.  This is the attitude that never has enough.  If you’re an ungrateful person, you’re going to experience a loss of joy.  The person who never has enough, always expects more, always wants more, always demands more, give me more.  No matter what the Lord, does it’s never enough, no matter what they have, it’s never enough.  The Lord gives them a job, it’s not the right job.  The Lord gives them a partner for life, it’s not the right one.  No matter what the Lord does, it is never enough.  There’s no reverence, there’s no humility.  By the way, ingratitude is the ugly child of pride.  Ingratitude will kill your joy, because you’ll never have enough.  If you don’t learn to thank God for every little thing He does, for everything that He has given you, for every blessing you have, if you’re always saying, “More, more, more, more,” and you live in that utter discontent, it breeds ingratitude, and it steals joy.

That leads to number six: false expectations – false expectations.  This is the aberration, by the way, that Jesus has promised to make your life happy, rich, successful, healthy, and full of miracles.  That Jesus is just going to do tricks upon tricks for you, and deliver all kinds of fabulous, rich things.  That sets up people for a loss of joy when Jesus doesn’t deliver.  That’s why the prosperity gospel is so deadly, because it gives people false expectations that they’re all going to get healed of all their diseases; that Jesus is going to make them wealthy, that all these good things are going to happen, they’re never going to have problems.  Those false expectations will destroy your joy, because that isn’t how it’s going to be, folks.  Jesus had another plan.  Here is His plan: “In this world you will have trouble,” John 16:33.  You’ll have trouble, that’s a promise.  That’s a promise; you’ll have trouble – not wealth, trouble; not prosperity, trouble; not success, trouble.  “But I have overcome the world,” that’s the source of your joy.

Paul learned that.  Again, in Philippians chapter 4, he knows that, “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly,” he says.  “It’s easy for me.  I’ve learned to be content in whatever circumstance I’m in.  I rejoice greatly whatever is going on, if I’m wealthy or if I’m poor.”  But if you have false expectations of what Jesus is supposed to deliver, it will steal your joy.

Number seven – and this is the source of the last two – is just plain old pride – just pride.  Self-centeredness – if you’re just centered on yourself, you’re never going to be happy, because you know something?  Nothing is more miserable than just having to constantly be fooling with yourself; that’s a miserable relationship.  Self-centeredness, morbid self-analysis, self-analytical baggage that makes you focus on yourself, is deadly to joy.  That’s the major, major, one of the major faux pas in current contemporary counseling.  Psychological victimization and abuse therapy has people all turn inwardly, and they start to look at themselves, and get in touch with themselves, and they use the phrase “listen to yourself.  Listen to yourself.  Listen to yourself.”  And what you’re going to hear is a lot of baloney.  What you’re going to hear is deception, because your heart is deceitful.  What you’re going to hear is unrealistic guilt that can’t accept forgiveness.  What you’re going to hear is hatred and bitterness toward somebody else that you’re blaming for your problems.

Let me tell you something: no healthy person listens to himself.  Healthy people talk to themselves.  Healthy people talk to themselves, they don’t listen.  They say, “Self, quiet, here’s what the Bible says, get in line.”  I’ll tell you something else, that’s true in life.  Wimpy people listen to themselves, strong people talk to themselves.  They discipline themselves; they pull self in to line with truth.  Don’t be listening to yourself; what you’re going to hear will just mess you up.  You listen to the Word of God, and then you talk to yourself.  Pride.  Pride will just – all that introspection, that self-centeredness, will just destroy your joy.

Number eight: forgetfulness – forgetfulness.  “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” Psalm 103:2 says, “and forget none of His benefits.”  Forgetfulness will steal your joy.  One of the reasons that you keep that memory bank, one of the reasons that God doesn’t let you forget, is not just so you can remember your times tables, not so you can remember your phone numbers and your addresses.  One of the reasons God gave you a memory is so you can store up a cataloging of all of His benedictions.  You understand that?  And it’s good for you to go back and recite them, again, and again, and again.  Read how the Old Testament psalmist does that, over, and over, and over, and over, keeps reciting the catalog of blessing, which was a part of his own experience in redemptive history.  Calls to remember, calls to remember; even Jesus to the church in Revelation: “Remember from where you are fallen, Ephesus, and go back and do it the way you did it then, and knew the blessing of God.”

What is it that hinders joy?  What steals it?  False salvation, Satan, ignorance, unbelief, ingratitude, false expectations, pride, forgetfulness, number nine: prayerlessness.  This is the attitude, I’ll trust in my own resources, I don’t need prayer, I can figure it out.  That will take your joy when you fail continually.  Paul, again in Philippians 4, says, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again, I say rejoice.”  How can I do that?  “The Lord is near.  Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer, supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made.”  See, the source of his joy was prayer.  So what will steal your joy?  Prayerlessness – trusting in your own ingenuity, your own resources. 

And one last one, and listen very carefully – this is the climax and the conclusion.  Feelings – feelings will steal your joy.  Emotions – this is the major issue that hinders joy.  You get victimized by emotion.  This is a major problem.  People lack the discipline to operate their life on an understanding of divine truth, and thus they plunge in to the random, undisciplined sea of emotion.  And what they do is, they say, “Well, how can we rejoice when we don’t feel like it?”  You see, for them, joy is a feeling on top of a feeling, and if you have the feeling, then you can have another feeling called joy.  They say, “How can we control our feelings?  After all, your feelings are not controllable.”  That’s a lie right out of the pit.  Your feelings are.  They better be controllable. 

Thirty-two years on — 1991 to 2023 — and feelings are the bane of our existence, especially in the online world, of which we are a part. Increasingly, for some, their online feelings give way to offline actions which are malevolent, either in word or in deed. MacArthur gives us this advice:

How can we control our emotions?  How can we not be controlled by our feelings?  Let me give you some simple things to recognize.  First of all, recognize that God created us as rational beings, and our feelings are to be controlled by reason.  Your emotion is to be a responder to your mind, to reason.  We can’t all give in to our feelings.  We’d have absolute chaos.  There wouldn’t be any human relationship that would survive.  If every person did exactly what he felt like doing, and said exactly what he felt like saying, it would be the end of the society we know as humanity.  Can’t be led by your feelings, they can’t govern your life.  So sooner or later you’ve got to get your feelings under control, and what controls your feelings is what you know to be true.  And then we’re back to laying down the foundation of all those reasons to rejoice, right, in the character of God, the work of Christ, the ministry of the Spirit, and all that they provide.

By the way, the unregenerate people can’t control their feelings; they can’t.  They really can’t control.  Society will try to put some constraints and some controls on them, but as society loosens up the constraints and the controls, people begin to operate, and show more and more the inability to have the control of their feelings.  They have some social compunctions to do that, but they can’t genuinely control their feelings.  On the other hand, one of the purposes of God in salvation, one of the purposes of God in the new birth, was to restore your feelings to their God-intended role.  So as a Christian, we have a new nature, and now our feelings can be controlled by the will of God, which is given to us through the Word and the Spirit.  So now our emotions respond to what we know is true about God, Christ, the Spirit.  Our joy is not a result of feelings.  It’s a result of the knowledge of the truth.  I know this.  There is the deep-down confidence.  There is that base of truth, from which my joy springs.

In conclusion:

The joyful Christian thinks more of his Lord than he does his personal difficulties.  The joyful Christian thinks more of his spiritual riches in Christ than his poverty on earth.  The joyful Christian thinks more of his glorious eternal future than his present pain.  And when you live like that, the command “rejoice always” becomes possible; not only possible, desirable. 

To be continued tomorrow and in the days ahead.