The Last Days. The Days Between Christ’s Advents

Hebrews 1

In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Acts 2

Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh

In the New Testament, the Last Days were inaugurated by Christ’s First Advent and will be consummated by Christ’s Second Advent. We, now, all live in these Last Days.

“The expression is found in the LXX [the Greek translation of the OT], where it not infrequently refers…to the days of the Messiah….in Jesus the new age, the Messianic Age, has appeared…”–The Expositor’s Bible Commentary

Too often, unknowing Christians relegate these to the future or think that only now have we entered them, as for example, when interpreting Paul’s words to Timothy:

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good,…–2 Timothy 3

But Paul was describing his own day, as the concluding line shows:

“Have nothing to do with these people.” v.5

“I and the Father are one.”

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.–Deuteronomy

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall 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.”

The Jews again picked up stones to stone him.–John 10

Deuteronomy, Chapter Six (verses 4-9), presents the first section of the “Shema” which means simply, listen; take heed; hear and do.

Birgir Gerhardsson stated that we “can almost be sure that Jesus and his disciples started and ended the day with this” [The whole of the Shema].

This practice is “firmly rooted in his time.”

Jews of his day recited this twice a day.

The Shema was “always in Jesus’ mind throughout his whole life.”

F. F. Bruce: “The previous occasion of his enemies’ trying to stone him in the temple precincts was when he made the declaration, ‘Before Abraham was born, I am’ (John 8:58, 59). The claim implicit in that declaration was similar to that made more expressly in the words, ‘I and the Father are one.’”

Baptism for the Dead?

29 Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead?

—1 Corinthians 15

Paul begins (Ch. 15, read it) by reminding those in Corinth of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and of the testimony of many witnesses to the Resurrection. The primary context of verse 29 (above) begins at 15:12.

“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?”

The Apostle proceeds to expose the fallacy of such a belief and the consequences of it:

“If Christ is not raised your faith is futile, you are still in your sins.” v. 17

[Apparently some in Greek Corinth held unto a Greek dualistic conception of immortality that negated resurrection. Remember, in Acts 17, the men of Athens laughed at the idea of Christ’s resurrection.]

Paul concludes his appeal to their reason, and then abruptly asks the question above, in verse 29.

The theological problem with this puzzling verse has prompted a myriad of solutions. No where else in Scripture or in the Church is such a practice noted. Bromiley’s solution (ISBE) suggests, “What is the value of baptism unto death, or of the death signified in baptism, if there is no resurrection?”

Gordon Fee (NICNT) notes that were not this verse such a problem, no one would have come up with such alternative meanings. The plain sense of the text is that “they” (who?) are being baptized for those who are “dead.”

Note that Paul does not address his readers, as in verse 17, “you.” He points his Corinthian readers to, what for us is an unknown, “they.”

But in shifting gears, Paul abruptly switches from an appeal to their reason to an ad hominem argument, a la Fee.

An ad hominem can be a “strategy of using [someone’s] own beliefs…against them, while not agreeing with the validity of those beliefs…”

As for this practice of baptism for the dead, we do not know who or whom; why or how. Fee concludes, “finally we must admit that we do not know.”

What we do know is that this obscure practice “lies totally outside the NT understanding both of salvation and of baptism.”

ISBE–The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

NICNT–The New International Commentary on the New Testament

Augustine, On Genesis

In the beginning, God…

Augustine, Genesis, I.19.39

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, . . . and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.

If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learned from experience and the light of reason?

Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions” [1 Timothy 1:7]. (All emphases, mine)

John Calvin, in the 16th Century, made many wise comments on Genesis:

“He who would learn astronomy…let him go elsewhere….”

 ”Moses wrote in a popular style things which without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand; but astronomers investigate with great labor whatever the sagacity of the human mind can comprehend. Nevertheless, this study is not to be reprobated, nor this science to be condemned, because some frantic persons are wont boldly to reject whatever is unknown to them. For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God.”

See, also, In The Beginning

Armageddon And the Book of Revelation

 

The Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath

Chapter 16: Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”

…Then I saw three impure spirits…They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.

15 “Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.”

16 Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

17 The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!”

Revelation in Context

The ‘Battle of Armageddon’ is one of the most misrepresented verses in the Bible by memory verse Christians who harden their hearts against reading God’s word in context.

• Seven is the number of completeness. This completes God’s wrath at the end of time, just as seven days completed God’s creation.

• It follows Christ’s Return. “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war….And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations” Rev. 19
• ‘It is clearly the eschatological “battle of on the great day of
  God Almighty” (vs. 14). –Geo. Eldon Ladd, Revelation
• An eschatological battle, not a human battle. The armies are destroyed by “the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth” 19:21
• “The ultimate reality is the Lord’s return. This is the event which is the focus of the expectation of the saints.” –Ladd

 

Contrast with Off-The-Wall Interpretation of Ray Comfort

“While no respected biblical scholars have named the nations [in Rev. 16:16] they do agree that certain nations will come together against Israel in one climatic end-time battle called Armageddon.”

If any scholar has made such an interpretation, it is not Bible scholarship, but eisegesis—reading his own preconceived notions into the text (think Left Behind).

Chick-fil-A And the Lord’s Day: Rare Light in the Darkness

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. Exodus 20

Remembering in a Forgetful World

Chick-fil-A keeps its doors closed on Sundays so that its employees have a day of rest and are able, if they wish, to go to church. Years ago, a lonely voice in Christianity Today, noted the complaint of a friend of hers who had to work on Sunday: ‘I have to work to serve all these Christians who are busy buying after church.’

The ubiquitous Sabbath-breaking of our own day is nothing new. During the revival that swept England, John Wesley noted a rare exception: “I suppose three such towns are scarce to be found again…There is no cursing, no Sabbath-breaking…”

He exhorted Christians, “Spend this day as thou hopest to spend that day which shall never end.”

On the Ten Commandments, Martin Luther told parents, “Exhort your household to learn them word for word, that they should obey God…For if you teach and urge your families things will go forward.”

The president of a denomination began his sermon at our local church with an offer of a ten dollar bill to any child who could cite the Ten Commandments in any order or form. As he put it back in his billfold he lamented that he had never been able to give it away in any church where he had preached.

Most Christians not only cannot cite the Ten Commandments in any order or form, we seem to be left with only eight or less these days.  [Original essay on Teaching Children Ten Commandments–‘Your Child’s Endangered Heart’]

In A Word to a Sabbath-Breaker, Wesley wrote, “Never more disappoint the design of his love, either by worldly business or idle diversions….You have lived many years in folly and sin; now, live one day unto the Lord.”

[Please learn to share these posts. They do little good hidden in the corner.]

Remarkable Maundy Thursday!

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. –John 13:34, 35.

“Maundy” refers to the Latin text of verse 34, mandatum, from which we get the word mandate—an authoritative command.

In the Liturgy, it refers to the foot washing ceremony, the example which Jesus set for us before the new command.

The Gospel of John, which does not mention the institution of the Lord’s Supper, repeats this new mandatum three times! Peter refers to it three times in his First Epistle; First John references it five times, it being one of the tests he gives to discern true Christians. Paul refers directly to ‘love one another’ in four of his letters.

An amazing feature of our American culture stares us in the face—many Christians do not even know that in the New Testament, (link)“one another” refers exclusively to our fellow believers.

In John, Holy Week begins with the anointing of Jesus’ feet by Mary along with her wiping them with her hair. And Jesus’ last physical act, before the events of the arrest and trial, consists of his washing his disciples’ feet.

Then follows the new commandment.

“The new thing appears to be the mutual affection that Christians have for one another on account of Christ’s great love for them.”–Leon Morris, NICNT

“The standard of love which the disciples are to have for one another is that which their Lord has lavished on them.”–F. F. Bruce, John

In the early church, Tertullian remarked that pagans noted, “See how they love one another.”

Tennyson penned these lines:

Love your enemies, bless your haters, said the

greatest of the great;

Christian love among the churches, look’d the

twin of heathen hate.

Peter wrote:

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,…

 

For More on Christian Confusion, see: Love, Prayer, and Forgiveness: When Basics Become Heresies  (linked)

“…an excellent piece…one that many Christians need to hear”–R.C. Sproul

[Anniversary–This blog began during Holy Week, seven years ago]

Where are the disciples?

^“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you…”–Matt. 28

We must first be a disciple before we can make a disciple. 

Disciple: a learner; a follower and student of a teacher; …actively imitating both the life and teaching of the master.

Back to the Word vs. ‘What this Verse Means to Me’ (link)  Read and Learn

Obedience is the key to all doors… –C.S. Lewis

The Resurrection: Hope and Consequences

Here in Romania, on the second day of celebrating the Resurrection, our pastor’s text from Luke 24 concerned two perplexed disciples on the Road to Emmaus. Their state of mind is best summed up in their words, “We had hoped…”

In their encounter with the resurrected Jesus, that dashed hope blooms as he breaks bread with them and they recognize him. Rushing back to Jerusalem, they find the other disciples also rejoicing. The worst moment in their lives, the Crucifixion, has now been transformed into the most hope filled day of their lives. “The Lord has risen indeed.”

Hope abounds and persists. Years later Peter wrote, “3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,…” (1 Peter 1).

Our hope is rooted in, and confirmed by, the Resurrection. But the Resurrection also has consequences. As Paul told those who worshiped other gods,

“Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” Acts 17

And the responsibility for conveying that message is given to us. “Ye will be my witnesses.”

It’s a PARABLE ! Part Two

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. 23 Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. 26 The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ 27 Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. . . . –Matthew 18

Part One (link) sought to show how our American minds can be derailed by details: “How do we account for this huge debt?” But the “shock and awe” of 10,000 Talents in Jesus’ day serves to grab the attention of Jesus’ listeners.

If we stay on track with this parable, we come to the clear lesson at the end: “We are in no position to repay our debt to God or to ever be able to work off that debt. We can only beg for mercy. And in the face of our outlandish debt which has been forgiven, it is equally outlandish that we servants should spurn God’s mercy by demanding the full payment of a pittance owed to us by any fellow servants as we close our ears to their pleas for forgiveness.”*

In our day when self-centered therapeutic forgiveness bumps Christ-centered Biblical forgiveness off of the tracks, we need to clearly look at the context.

Leading up to this parable, Jesus teaches about sin and forgiveness. Verse 15, “If your brother sins against you,go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother…”

This prompts Peter’s question in verse 21, ‘Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”’

Which leads into this parable of the unforgiving servant.

A parallel teaching in Luke 17 brings clarity to what we, in our day, often miss about Jesus’ instruction:

Verse 3f, “So watch what you do!If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. 4 If he sins against you seven times in one day, and each time he comes to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

It is this plea for mercy, the repentance, that is often left out of this picture by confused Christians in our depraved world. As Jesus clearly teaches, repentance precedes forgiveness, both ours before God, and our brother’s before us.

And whether seven times or seventy times, the forgiveness is unlimited, BUT not unconditional. Jesus: “…if he repents.” (If he does not, we are commanded to take additional steps to regain our brother.)

Also, take note that Jesus is teaching about relationships between ‘brothers,’ between fellow Christians. When it comes to enemies, Jesus never says anything about forgiveness. He says to love them. And that love may lead to their repentance.

This topic of forgiveness has become more confused among many Christians than today’s confusion about love. 

We need Christian disciples (i.e. learners) who will go back to the Bible and be taught the basics, and then disciple others. For a fuller discussion of this topic which focuses on the Text and draws on the best of key evangelical resources, see “Forgiveness and Repentance,” Chapter Three of: 

(link to reviews,  details, kindle, nook, etc., ebook $3) “…an excellent piece…one that many Christians need to hear”–R.C. Sproul 

 

Here is a Sermon on the text by R. C. Sproul. He sets the example for preaching in context. (It was a letter from R. C. Sproul that encouraged me to expand on the theme of love becoming heresy which prompted the writing of this book.)