Wisdom

The Prayer Book lectionary has moved me on to Proverbs, and a couple of things have struck me. These thoughts are not especially profound or original.

In chapter 1.20-33, we have Wisdom personified crying aloud in the streets, rebuking the simple ones, scoffers and fools (i.e. those who do not fear the Lord, see the contrast in 1.7), and calling them to turn, or, if you like, repent. Wisdom promises to pour out her spirit to the one who does, and make known her words. Those who don’t listen, will experience calamity, terror, distress and anguish and at that point it will be too late; they will face the consequences of their choice of action and be destroyed. In contrast, the one who listens to wisdom (and by implication acts on what he or she hears) will be at ease and will face no disaster.

Although Wisdom here is personified as a woman, it is quite clear we have in these verses the gospel in shadow form. When we come to the New Testament, everything comes into focus and we see the Word incarnate, Christ the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1.30, Colossians 2.3), who walked the streets and marketplaces of Palestine calling sinners to repent and listen to him. Christ pours out the Holy Spirit on those who do and he makes known his word to them (Acts 2.17). The Holy Spirit is, of course, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding (Isaiah 11.1-2). Those who reject Christ will face the consequences of their actions and experience God’s judgement, whereas those who listen to him and respond to him find security and know that no ultimate disaster will befall them, because Christ has been raised from the dead, as will those who belong to him. I wonder if this passages goes some way to explain why St. Matthew and St. Luke report Jesus using that curious phrase, when after describing the unbelieving response to the Son of Man, he says that ‘wisdom is justified by her deeds’ or ‘children’ (Matthew 11.19, Luke 7.35). The Son of Man is the Wisdom of God who is rejected by men, but is ultimately vindicated by what he does and achieves: his perfect life, atoning death and glorious resurrection, ransoming sinners for God.

Selling our birthright for a mess of pottage

John Stott writes in the introduction to his Canticles and Selected Psalms in the Prayer Book Commentaries series:

Christian worship would be almost inconceivable without singing. During the service of Morning Prayer, for instance, the average Anglican congregation sings at least seven times - three hymns, three canticles, and a psalm.

I have written elsewhere why I am an Anglican, but as a matter of personal testimony, it was the liturgy which reintroduced me to Anglicanism when I was seventeen or eighteen. After squash on a Wednesday afternoon, I got in a little before four o’clock, and one week I tuned in to Radio 3 and heard a broadcast of Choral Evensong. For the first time I heard the Psalms properly sung. I dug out an old Prayer Book from my mother’s wardrobe and followed along. And I just kept listening, week after week. When I came up to university, I went to an Anglican church where I discovered that the Church of England wasn’t entirely dead but that there were still evangelicals in it, and that they were the ones who stood in direct succession to the Reformers.

However, it is a lamentable fact that the evangelicals who insist most loudly that they are the true Anglicans theologically tend to be those who have strayed most of all from the great, profound, Biblical, Anglican liturgical heritage. All we are left with is a pick-and-mix approach to the Anglican liturgy: one week we might say the Lord’s Prayer, another week we might say the Apostles’ Creed. The closest we get to a canticle is occasionally singing “Tell out my soul” by Timothy Dudley-Smith. I would suggest that forsaking the liturgical inheritance which we have received from men like Thomas Cranmer is to our detriment. I have written repeatedly elsewhere about singing the Psalms in corporate worship, and so I want to focus on the canticles, specifically the Benedictus (Zechariah’s Song: Luke 1.68-79) , the Magnificat (Mary’s Song: Luke 1.46-55) and the Nunc Dimittis (Simeon’s Song: Luke 2.29-32).

Over the past couple of months, I have been following the pattern of the Book of Common Prayer in my devotional times. It has a lot to commend it - the BCP lectionary suggests a pair of Bible readings in the morning and evening, taking one through the Old Testament and Revelation once in a year, and the rest of the New Testament twice, and going through the Psalter once a month. The canticles occupy the place of songs of praise in response to God’s word. What has particularly struck me is how helpful the canticles are in developing a biblical theology: these Scriptural songs celebrate the pattern of God’s salvation seen in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, patterns which echo throughout the whole Bible. Reading, saying or singing the canticles regularly attunes one to these patterns which find their ultimate fulfilment in the Christ. I am sure there are more examples of this than there are grains of sand on the seashore, but here are some recent examples to illustrate my point.

In the Benedictus, we praise God for how ‘he has raised up a horn of salvation for us’ that ‘we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.’ At the beginning of the book of Judges, we read that ‘the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them’ (2.16) and ‘whenever the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies’ (2.18).

In the Magnificat, we read how God ‘he has filled the hungry with good things’, and in the story of Ruth, we learn that God has visited his people (also echoing Luke 1.68: ‘He has visited and redeemed his people) and provided food for them. We also sing “he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate” and in 1 Samuel, we see how God removes the kingship from Saul who rebels against his word, and instead chooses David, the youngest son of Jesse, the one who keeps the sheep, to be his anointed king. In the book of Esther, too, Mordecai’s elevation and Haman’s execution are more examples of God bringing down the mighty from their thrones and exalting those of humble estate, and although God is not directly mentioned in the book, the preservation of the Jews in the book as a whole makes the point that “He has helped his servant Israel in rememberance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever”, saving them from the hand of their enemies and showing them “the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant”.

The Nunc Dimittis beautifully ends the day, and can be a fitting response to readings such as Romans 3.21-26 as it was at Evensong a few months ago now. Simeon was able to depart in peace in the sense that he could die happily because he had seen the Lord’s Christ as he had been promised. We too may sing it at the end of the day in that we can sleep happily having seen God’s salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ if we’re Christian believers, with our sleep being both a picture of death, and also the time of greatest vulnerability where it is the knowledge of the salvation that we have in Christ which enables us to sleep peacefully, whatever may potentially befall us.

James B. Jordan’s words remind us of the significance of liturgy in enabling us to understand the Bible correctly:

Ancient and medieval literature abounds in numerical symbolism, large parallel structures, intricate chiastic devices, astral allusions, sweeping metaphors, typological parallels and symbolism in general… When the Psalms were at the center of the Church’s worship, Biblical symbolism was much better understood because the Psalter abounds in it… The traditional liturgies of the Church, being thoroughly grounded in Scripture, communicated Biblical symbolism… This has disappeared from the modern… Church, and the result is that it is much harder for us to read the Bible accurately. - Through New Eyes pp. 14-15

Uzziah and Adam

I went to the 10.00am service at church this morning (as the 11.30am service I normally attend was cancelled for the Love Oxford event, which as in previous years I did not attend since I am not comfortable with an event that seeks to proclaim unity in Christ between evangelicals and Romanists, and also those who proclaim a prosperity gospel). We had an excellent sermon on Uzziah from 2 Chronicles 26, where we saw how he prospered when he sought the Lord, but that there were two problems - the first was that he only seemed to seek the Lord in the days of one Zechariah, who instructed him and the second was the more obvious one of pride. There were three lessons for us, first the danger of spiritual isolation, with no-one to ask us the hard questions, secondly, the danger of the good times (it was when he became strong that he grew proud, and ceased to locate his strength in God), and thirdly, the danger of pride, thinking that we’re beyond God’s rules.

During the sermon, I noticed the following pattern: Uzziah had dominion over Israel and some of the Gentile nations, he guarded the land with fortifications and by equipping his army, and he worked the land, cutting out cisterns and employing farmers and vine-dressers “for he loved the soil”. But then his pride led him to unfaithful behaviour, which consisted in going where he shouldn’t and doing what he shouldn’t there - offering incense which only the priests were authorised to do. The consequence was physical disability - a skin disease - and then expulsion from the sanctuary and the house of the Lord.

The parallel with Adam is striking. Adam was to have dominion over the earth, keep the garden and work it, but then sinned by disobeying God’s command, taking the fruit from the tree that had been forbidden, and received God’s judgment, including the proclamation of physical death (’dust you are and to dust you shall return’) and followed by exclusion from the garden.

Uzziah, too, repeats Adam’s sin.

Isaiah 6 and the remnant

“And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump. - Isaiah 6.13

Isaiah is commissioned to preach a message which will harden the hearts of the people of Judah, who will be judged. (Isaiah 6.8-12). Nevertheless, there will be a faithful remnant, the “holy seed”. Jesus takes these words and applies them to his own ministry (Mark 4.10-12 and parallels), as does Paul (Acts 28.23-31). Now in applying these verses to ourselves, we have to be careful to pay attention to the context. One objection to postmillennialism I have encounted is the emphasis the Scriptures place on a remnant being saved, i.e. a small number, rather than the vast majority of the world. In these cases here, the audience of the preaching which hardens is the Jews. The consequence is judgment, in Isaiah’s day that would at the hands of the Babylonians in 596/587 BC, and in Jesus’ and Paul’s day, that would be at the hands of the Romans in AD 70. Nevertheless, a remnant is saved. In the text from Isaiah, the remnant is the faithful people of God, from which the Messiah would come. In the New Testament appropriations of that text, the remnant consists of the Messiah, who emerges from the remnant promised in Isaiah, and those Jews who are joined to him. But this has no bearing on the final proportion of the saved. Through Christ and his people, salvation then goes out to the whole world, as the gospel goes out and people respond in faith. And that is consistent with the hope of a vastly saved world. Now it remains to be said that we can apply texts like Isaiah 6, Mark 4 and Acts 28 typologically: like those situations, our preaching can have the effect of hardening people, for God is sovereign in salvation and it belongs to him alone to open ears and eyes and grant repentance. The judgments of Israel in 596/587 BC and AD 70 are anticipations of the future judgment of those whose ears and eyes in God’s sovereignty are not opened by the preaching of the gospel.

Ruth: Some Thoughts

We had a good sermon at church this Sabbath on Ruth 1. I think it’s a tough book to expound. We looked at the three main characters in chapter 1 in turn. Elimelech compromised, going to Moab, allowing his sons to marry outside the faith, and it ended in disaster (v. 5). Naomi suffered affliction, yet she expressed faith in the LORD, albeit confused faith: God’s hand does not go out against his people, which is clearly shown to us in the Lord Jesus. It’s all right to be honest about our feelings before God. Ruth showed kindness, reflecting the kindness of the God she has taken to be her God. Would that our congregation be characterised by the kind of kindness shown here. Being known for being welcoming and ’sound’ is not enough.

My Bible reading plan (the BCP lectionary) took me through Ruth at the beginning of this week, so I offer some thoughts.

First, we see the sorrows of covenant people. God’s people aren’t spared the problems of the culture around them (’in the days when the judges ruled’), nor are they spared want (’there was a famine in the land’) or bereavement (’the woman was left without her two sons and her husband’). It may feel as though God’s hand is against us.

Secondly, in the story of Ruth, we see the shape of God’s salvation in miniature. In Ruth 1.6, we read, “The LORD had visited his people.” The language of visitation is the same language used of the Exodus, and of Christ. ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. He has visited and redeemed his people,’ sings Zechariah in Luke 1, speaking of the deliverance of God’s people from the shadow of death by the forgiveness of their sins. There is a barley harvest (1.22): God delivers his people from famine and death. “He has filled the hungry with good things,” sings Mary, also in Luke 1, after she has received the promise of being the mother of the Christ, and Ruth certainly experiences that, e.g. Ruth 2.14. Ruth is the Gentile woman (her ancestry is repeatedly mentioned) who takes refuge in YHWH, who takes him to be her God, and his people to be her people (echoing the covenant refrain, ‘I will be your God and you shall be my people) and consequently, there is fellowship at the table of God’s people; she may eat bread and drink wine  with Boaz and his men. Similarly, the mystery in Paul’s letters is the inclusion of Gentiles in the promise of the gospel. (Ephesians 3.6). This is why Peter’s behaviour at Antioch is so scandalous (he was eating with Gentiles and then  separates from them) and leads Paul to rebuke him (Galatians 2.12). Jew and Gentile in Christ are welcome at the Lord’s Table, where they may eat bread and drink wine together and of course, they will feast in the New Creation together (Revelation 19). Naomi is concerned that her daughters-in-law find rest, protection, certainty and security for the future, which Ruth ultimately finds in being married to Boaz, (Ruth 3.1), and of course, Jesus, the descendant of Boaz, invites the weary to come to him and find rest (Matthew 11.28), the lifting of their burden of sin so that they may enjoy the security of life in the new creation, the Sabbath rest that yet remains for the people of God. God’s actions in the individual lives of these people are for the sake of Christ. We see that Obed, who is born to Ruth is David’s ancestor (Ruth 4.22), and thus God’s saving work in the life of Ruth is vital for Christ’s coming into the world. Living on the other side of Christ’s first coming, it is those who are in Christ who experience God’s salvation, for the sake of his work in the world.

Finally, we see some implications. Ruth is a model of faith, taking God to be our God and his people to be our God, which shows itself in commitment to God’s people. This story prepares us for the harsh realities of life often faced by God’s people, but it also offers hope for those whose faith is the same as that of Ruth, of ultimate salvation, of life in a world where we will neither hunger nor thirst anymore (Revelation 7.16). God’s work in the book of Ruth entails inclusion of the outsider, for all who take refuge in the Triune God are welcome at the table of his people. We must reflect the kind of welcome, the level of kindness, the liberal generosity, demonstrated for us here. Finally, Ruth offers us the chance to marvel afresh at God’s strange sovereignty in work in the way that he has to fulfil his purposes for the salvation of the world.

Jonah 1

I’ve started having Hebrew tutorials with a brother from church, and this week we looked at Jonah 1. There are a couple of things to notice. There’s a chiasm in Jonah 1.3 which is actually translated very well by the ESV:

A Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD
B He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board,
A’ to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD

In contrast with vv. 1 and 2, where the LORD speaks to Jonah and commands him to go to Nineveh, this little chiasm emphasises the rebelliousness of Jonah’s actions, going to Tarshish, going from the presence of the LORD.

The second thing worth noting is that there is a downward progression throughout the chapter. The ESV picks it up pretty well.

In verse 2 we read, ‘He went down to Joppa.’ Having found a ship, we are told that he ‘went on board’, literally, ‘He went down into it.’ Jonah goes down into the inner part of the ship, where he lays down and is fast asleep (literally, ‘he lay down fast asleep’) (v. 5). Later on, we find Jonah going down even further, into the sea and then into the great fish.

In Jonah, we see the pattern of death, later followed by resurrection when he is vomited up. The belly of the great fish is the belly of Sheol for him. The sinner who dies because he rebels against the Lord and refuses to carry out his commission to preach to the unbelieving nation is raised up from the grave. And this of course foreshadows the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who died, not for his own sin (for he had none) but for ours, and who was then raised up from the dead. “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” - Matthew 12.40.

Gideon and the Gospel

I’m reading through Judges at the moment, and the other day I came across the familiar story of Gideon. I was struck afresh by this story, particularly the striking ways in which it typifies the gospel.

In Judges 6.1-10, we learn that the people did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, so he gave them into the hand of Midian, an oppressive enemy, and the people are left in fear and want, for the Midianites and their friends devoured the produce of the land. Their particular crime we learn, when they cry out and he sends a prophet, was to fear the gods of the Amorites. Then the LORD comes to Gideon, whom he sends to deliver Israel from the hand of Midian, Gideon who is the least of his father’s house in the weakest clan (vv. 11-18). The LORD confirms his calling upon Gideon with a sign (vv. 19-24), and his mission from the LORD is to pull down the altars to Baal and Asherah and to construct an altar to the LORD. The LORD, through his servant, overthrows the false gods (vv. 25-27). When this is discovered, the people want to put him to death (vv. 28-32). The Midianites and their allies gather together against Israel, but Gideon is clothed with the Spirit and calls an army together (vv. 33-35). The LORD confirms to Gideon that he will save Israel with another sign, the sign of the fleece. “Putting out a fleece” often tends to be used in evangelical circles in the context of discerning God’s will. “If you want me to do X, then let Y happen”. But we’re not told whether or not to imitate this. If anything, putting out a fleece is a sign of Gideon’s lack of faith, having already received God’s word of promise and seen him perform a sign. But he’s not explicitly condemned. The point is that the LORD is confirming his servant with another sign (vv. 36-40). Gideon then leads out his army, but the LORD says there are too many and reduces the number to 300 “lest Israel boast saying, ‘My own hand has saved me’”. The LORD gives Midian in to the hands of Gideon and his men.

The situation Israel (whose calling was to be a new humanity, once again rightly related to God in his world) is in at the beginning of the chapter is the same as the situation of humanity after the Fall. The land is under a curse (Genesis 3.17-19) and because all humanity, not just Israel, ‘exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator’, God has handed us over to judgment, our dishonourable passions and impurity and all manner of unrighteousness, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife and deceit (Romans 1.18ff). Our world, like the Israel of Judges 6, is a world of fear and oppression and want, under the judgment of God. Yet Christ, the carpenter’s son from Nazareth is God’s appointed servant for the salvation of Israel and the world. He is attested to by God with many signs and wonders. He casts out demons, overthrowing the devil’s power. His actions cause people to want to kill him (e.g. Luke 4.28-29). By his death and resurrection, he saves us, dealing with the underlying problem that no one else could, bearing the punishment for sin, so that we can be forgiven and all who are opposed to God and his people are defeated, as they are robbed of all grounds of accusation and means of oppression: ‘”Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’ - 1 Corinthians 15.54-57. Christ’s ministry is the fulfilment of the pattern seen with Gideon: ‘God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God’ - 1 Corinthians 1.28-29.

Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

In the penultimate chapter of his book, The Word Became Fresh, Dale Ralph Davies rightly insists, “We must read Old Testament narrative with a theocentric focus.” Where we disagree is his addendum, in which he defends his view that although we should preach Christ from Old Testament texts, there is no reason why we must, from every text.

He makes the fair point that in Luke 24, Jesus is teaching that all parts of the Old Testament testify of Christ, not necessarily that every Old Testament passage or text does. But if Jesus Christ is the melodic line running through all the Scriptures, if the (Old Testament) Scriptures that bear witness about him (John 5.39) and if the sacred writings (again, the OT is primarily in view) are able to make us “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3.15), why in our preaching of the Old Testament (along with the rest of the Bible) would we not want to try and preach Christ from every text? In all our preaching, is not Christ to be our subject?

Moreover, I think Davis is wrong in his assessment that not every Old Testament text is about Christ. I think it is possible to preach Christ from every passage, without losing the riches of the texts as narratives in their own right. I have found Sinclair B Ferguson’s little booklet, which I picked up from the Cornhill Summer School a couple of summers ago a great help in this regard (It may be downloaded for free HERE).

Preaching Christ from the Old Testament, he says, should be instinctive, not formulaic - we don’t just do our work on exegesis of the text, put it through a machine so that out pops a sermon on Christ. Nevertheless, he gives us four principles to start us off.

1. The relationship between promise and fulfilment (e.g. Genesis 3.15 and much of the rest of the Bible after that; the Quad Promise can be seen as an elaboration of this)
2. The relationship between type and antitype (in, for example the sacrificial system, as well as in pattern repetition between events in Old Testament history and events in the life of Christ)
3. The relationship between the covenant and Christ (both covenant and gospel follow the principle that imperatives are always rooted in the indicatives of God’s grace, the covenant at Sinai in its weakness pointed forward to a greater and fuller deliverance and a better consummation, and the covenant principle of blessing and cursing points us forward to the eternal consequences of acceptance or rejection of the gospel)
4. Proleptic participation and subsequent realisation (Old Testament saints were justified by grace through faith in the Saviour, and they are sanctified as saints who live since the coming of Christ are - their lives are shaped around the form of Christ’s death and resurrection.

I agree with Ferguson’s conclusion:

“If these principles hold good, then it must be possible along different lines, sometimes using one, sometimes using a combination, to move from any point in the Old Testament into the backbone of redemptive history which leads ultimately to Christ its fulfilment and consummation. In this way, the context and destination for all our preaching will be Jesus Christ himself, Saviour and Lord.”

Preaching from the Old Testament

 

Perhaps the book with the naffest title in history is The Word Became Fresh by Dale Ralph Davis (Christian Focus, ISBN 184550192-6). This is a short book (154 pages) on how to preach from Old Testament narrative texts. There are plenty of detailed books on the subject (such as He Gave Us Stories by Richard Pratt - see posts HERE and HERE - to which Davis himself refers) but this is a quick and easy to read collection of pointers on how to interpret and apply Old Testament narrative nexts. If you have listened to Davis’s talks for the Proc. Trust on handling OT narrative (available as the CD The Liberating Lord), then much of the material will be very familiar. Davis succeeds in removing the interpretation of Old Testament narrative from the realm of priest-craft to which it has been consigned by much scholarship so that its riches can again benefit the church.

After exhorting us to pray, he gives us five questions we should ask of a text:

• Why (what is the writer’s intention?)
• Where (what is its literary and historical context?)
• How (what is the structure of the passage?)
• What (what is the content of the passage?)
• So what (application of the passage).

He points us to features in biblical narrative of which we should have an awareness:

• Eavesdropping (when the reader has knowledge the characters don’t)
• Selectivity (what the writer includes and what he omits)
• Sarcasm
• Imagination (extensive descriptions to build up a picture and give an impression)
• Surprise
• Emphasis (repetition)
• Intensity (passages in which a lot of information is packed densely)
• Tension

He highlights the importance of Biblical theology in OT interpretation, namely the “Quad Promise” of Genesis 12 and following, consisting of a people, protection/presence, a programme (of blessing for the nations) and a place. He also advises the consideration of the message and structure of large sections of narrative.

In appropriating or applying texts, he warns against immediately identifying with all the heroes of passages and claiming too much for oneself from narratives. He offers a number of handles that can help with application:

• Procedural - analysing what the characters are doing
• Conceptual - changing the way we think
• Situational - analysing what a character is facing
• Judicial - looking at the biblical writer’s appraisal of a character or event
• Doxological - responding with praise to God

Davis gives ample examples from Old Testamant narrative to demonstrate the points he is making, culminating in the final chapter with a suggested exposition of Exodus 1-2. There is much rich material to help out with a vast number of passages.

At £9.99, this book is a little over-priced for its size and content, but is well worth a read and is as profitable for the pulpit as the prie-dieu.

Zion

This is neither profound nor original, but I am in the process of preparing a sermon on Psalm 48 and I have been doing some thinking on the whole subject of Zion. Most if not all of what is written below will feature in the (somewhat extended) introduction before I expound the text itself (your thoughts on that arrangement are welcome):

The significance of Zion in the Bible lies in the fact that it is the place upon which God set his name and where God dwells amongst human beings. Of course, God is present everywhere, but it is in Zion, in the temple, where his presence focused, where he is present in a special way that he not present anywhere else. Jerusalem the place where human beings could draw near to God and meet with him because the temple was where sacrifice was offered and God’s right and settled anger against human rebellion against him is turned away because the substitute dies in the place of the one for whom it is offered. So in Bible terms one cannot find Jerusalem or Zion on a map, not any more. One can find where it was, but one cannot find where it is. In the Old Testament, under the Old Covenant, before the coming of Jesus, one could. Zion was a physical city with walls and houses and streets and the temple with an altar on which animal sacrifices were offered. But it was a shadow, pointing forward to a more substantial reality which was to come. So in New Testament, in the letter to Hebrews, we are told that the Old Testament believers were looking forward to ‘the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God’, ‘a better country, a heavenly one’. In the Lord Jesus Christ, that reality has now come. He sums up in himself all that the temple in Jerusalem foreshadowed in Old Covenant. He described himself as “one greater than the temple”. On the cross he is the place where human beings can draw near to God because it was there that God poured out his wrath on himself in the person of his Son, who suffered and died in the place of all his people. So where is Jerusalem, Zion to be found now? Where Jesus Christ now is, in heaven, where he ascended after was raised from the dead. All those who are trusting in Jesus Christ, who have sought refuge in him as their Saviour, are members of that heavenly city. Paul writes in Galatians that the Jerusalem above is our mother. Hebrews 12.22-24 says this:

“You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of
the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to
the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new
coveannt, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of
Abel.” (ESV)

An expression of this heavenly Zion is found in the local church (the people not building), those who gather in Christ’s name and where he is present by his Spirit in word and sacrament. This heavenly Zion will one day come down out out of heaven from God (Revelation 21.2) and it will be ‘the joy of all the earth’ as the nations of the world find blessing there (Is. 2.2 cf Rev. 21.24).

Joshua 5 and 6

The author of this article is a scary-looking man, but I like his biblical theology.

http://www.beginningwithmoses.org/briefings/joshua5.htm

The Skull-Crushing Seed

We like.

I suppose the tension could not be relieved until Calvary

One of my devoted readers (who (pl.)* are becoming worryingly numerous!) all but told me to update my ‘blog, so here’s the latest post…

THIS is superb. When Dick Lucas dies (which I hope, entirely selfishly, will not be for a very long time yet), assuming the Lord Jesus does not return first, I think Christopher Ash would get my vote as the best preacher in the country. His grasp of Biblical Theology is superb, he is not afraid to confront mistakes but does so gently, his delivery is passionate but without histrionics, his humour is subtle, and his exegesis and application are very sharp. Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ for his gift to the church of pastor-teachers.

* One of the deficiencies of the modern English language is the dearth of inflection (I think that is the correct word). It is simply not possible to distinguish between the singular and plural of the relative pronoun (among other things). Greek and Latin are better in this regard.